The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [8]
“I don’t know about better. But I’d hoped you’d be at least a little happy for me.”
She looked up at him, his eyes sad and wounded, and she crumbled a little. “I am. I’m sorry. But it’s so big. . . . It’s such a huge change from what we were planning.”
“We always knew we’d have to consider it, love. My position here is only temporary, you know that.”
“But I thought maybe . . .” Rose didn’t want to say what she had thought. She’d just assumed that he would give up this fancy academic jet-setting and find something nearby, something where she wouldn’t have to go anywhere. Where she wouldn’t have to change at all. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Oh, Rose, I’m sorry, too. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Let’s just enjoy being together for a bit.”
He came over to her and put his arms around her and kissed her, and that did only a little to soothe the ache inside where her heart had been bruised. So that was it. He wouldn’t stay, and she wouldn’t—couldn’t—go. It was ridiculous to even think about it.
His hands were in her hair, slowly pulling the pins out and letting it fall down her back the way he liked it, stroking the tresses the way she liked it, the gentle pull against her scalp so soothing. She wasn’t paying attention. Bean and Cordy were sitting on her shoulders, whispering in her ears like a cartoon devil and angel. Or two devils, really. “You could go if you wanted to, Rosie,” our youngest sister said. “Just pick up and go. It’s not so hard. I do it all the time.”
“What are you afraid of?” Bean mocked. “Don’t want to leave your glamorous life behind?”
Okay, so it wasn’t a glamorous life. But it was important. She was important. We needed her. Didn’t we?
Bean and Cordy didn’t answer. Bean was adjusting her horns, and Cordy was chasing her own forked tail. You need me, Rose thought fiercely. They turned away.
“Hush,” Jonathan said, as though he could hear the busy spinning of Rose’s thoughts, and he kissed her, and we fell off her shoulders as though we’d been physically brushed aside.
ACT II
Setting: Interior, the Golden Dragon, a small Chinese restaurant a few towns over, famed more for its convenience than its cuisine. Also the site of an infamous embarrassment for Bean, aged eight, in which she devoured a sweet and sour pork entrée all by herself and then regurgitated the entire thing tidily into the mouth of a fake dragon hidden behind a plant, certain it would never be found there.
Characters: Rose, Jonathan, our father, our mother.
They sat around the table, the four of them, sharing dishes and companionable chatter. Tea steamed in tiny cups, and Rose was fumbling with her chopsticks, envying Jonathan’s easy grace with the infernal things.
“We have something to tell you,” our father said, clearing his throat.
Rose looked up quickly, warily. This was the sort of announcement that had preceded the game-changing births of both Bean and Cordy. Whatever the news was, it wasn’t bound to be good.
Our father cleared his throat again, but it was our mother who spoke, leaping in, tearing off the conversational Band-Aid. “I have breast cancer,” she said.
The ice in Rose’s throat grew solid, and she grabbed for her still-scalding cup of tea, taking a long swallow, letting the liquid burn away the freeze inside her, leaving a bubble on her tongue she would feel every time she spoke for the next few days. There was silence. The few other diners in the restaurant kept eating, oblivious.
“Mom,