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By Root 1386 0

to hoist his books under his arm. His hand, broad and dusted with gold hair, spread easily over the span of the covers, and Bean stared at it while she concocted an answer. She hadn’t been to church in years, other than when she came home for Christmas, which hadn’t been often. Our parents had wanted us to believe, but they had also taught us, outside of church, to question nearly everything. It has never made a great deal of sense that our father, a man who spends his days analyzing the most finite syllables contained in one book, should so easily accept the even less believable tenets of another. And this is part of the reason why the mystery of faith has escaped all of us, and why Bean—why none of us—had ever bothered to make even a pretense of making church a regular part of our adult lives.

But it’s not like she had any other pressing engagements, right?

“What the hell,” she said. “I mean, yes.” Aidan looked at her oddly for a moment while she blushed again—twice in only a few minutes, a record—and then he smiled and said goodbye, heading out the doors into the sunshine.

“Would you like to check anything out today?” Mrs. Landrige asked, settling back down into the repetitive stamp, stamp, stamp of making due date cards.

“No thank you,” Bean said. “I have to meet my sister.”

At least we made good excuses for each other.

The next night, Rose was sitting on her bed, watching dust motes dance in the air while she dialed Jonathan’s number. “Right on time,” Jonathan said, picking up the phone an ocean away.

Rose and Jonathan had a scheduled once-a-week phone call. Not very romantic, Cordy might say.

Practical, Rose would reply.

“I miss you,” she said, sighing at the sound of his voice. She walked over and closed the door to her room. These conversations always seemed both too much and too little—how could she be sure that he wasn’t doing something else while they talked? How could she be sure that he really was happy to talk to her? The distance was both amplified and removed over the wire.

“I miss you, too, love. How are you?”

“Okay. Bean’s home.”

“The prodigal sister returns? It must be nice to have her around.”

Rose whuffed out a breath of annoyance. Jonathan didn’t understand us. His family was huge and boisterous and loving—six siblings, now multiplied exponentially by marriages and children. Visiting his parents’ house at Christmas had felt like being surrounded by a litter of overly enthusiastic puppies. “Not really. She doesn’t do much. Just lies around and reads. She’s no help with Mom.”

“How long is she staying?”

“That’s the funny thing. She quit her job. Moved all her stuff home. Like she’s staying forever.”

“That is funny.” Jonathan and Bean had met at Thanksgiving, and had, oddly, hit it off. Rose had felt a little sick at the prospect of introducing our most femme fatale sister to him, but Bean had been perfectly appropriate, entertaining him with spot-on New York accents and cursing an amusing blue streak through card games they played ’til the wee hours of the morning. “I’d always thought she’d be a city girl forever.”

“Me, too,” Rose said. “I think something’s wrong, actually, but she won’t say anything to me. I tried to bring it up and she bit my head off.”

“Give her time. If something really is wrong, if it’s enough to send her away from there forever, it’s probably pretty bad.”

“But I could help,” Rose said plaintively.

Jonathan laughed. “That’s my little Miss Fix-It. Never met a problem she couldn’t lick.”

“Don’t tease. I’d like to help, if she’d let me. She offered to go with me to buy a wedding dress.”

“Take her up on it. You hate shopping, she loves it. Perfect.”

Rose looked out the window. Our father and Bean were sitting on the chairs on the back porch, reading side by side. “Am I going to need it?”

“A wedding dress? Of course you are. Unless you’ve got something to tell me.”

“No, it’s not me. I just thought . . . I don’t know, I don’t feel right about this whole thing. What if you meet someone there? What if you decide you don’t miss me at all? What if you don’t want