God’s sake, Alana, I’m not twelve.”
No, you just act like it sometimes. “I know. But the house is half mine, I think it’s understandable I’d want to—”
“I think it’s understandable that you should trust your own sister.”
“Uh…” Based on what? “What is so bad about me visiting?”
Her red alert got redder. She’d just tossed the idea out there, hadn’t really thought it through. Moving was plenty stressful enough, all her plans were in place, she hated to delay. But with Melanie objecting…
“It’s just… you shouldn’t…we shouldn’t have to go through this.”
“I’d like to meet him.”
“Oh, um, well…”
Alana dropped her head into her hands. This was not good. If Melanie didn’t want Alana to meet Sawyer, that was proof positive he was more bad news, and Alana needed to get up to Wauwatosa as soon as possible to protect her childhood home and to prevent her sister from screwing up her life exactly the way she always did. Exactly the way their mother had.
IN THE LAST RAYS of twilight traveling north on I94, the familiar skyline of Milwaukee came into view, unimposing compared to the majestic sprawl of downtown Chicago, but home. Alana got a lump in her throat and wished for her boxed-up camera to take a picture she could frame on her wall in Orlando.
She changed lanes, enjoying the light traffic after her years in bumper-to-bumper Chicago and lowered the window a few inches to breathe warm, summery air. Florida would be sweltering at this time of year. What’s more, July was bang in the middle of hurricane season. Two already this year had narrowly avoided the state, another, Cynthia, was forming in the Atlantic.
Alana had called Gran and Grandad to let them know of her change in plans, making it sound like, Hurray, Melanie found a great guy and Alana couldn’t wait to meet him! She’d added a white lie about needing a few items from the house in case her grandparents got suspicious, knowing Melanie as they did. How many boyfriends had they needed to extract from Melanie’s life or steer her around since she hit puberty? They had good practice after raising Alana and Melanie’s mom, but still. They shouldn’t need to deal with those worries anymore.
Gran had sounded tired, but brushed off questions about her recovery from the fall, saying she was fine. Of course. A building could tip over onto her head and she’d insist no one should be concerned.
Route I94, to Route 41, then west on Lloyd toward Wauwatosa—the city nestled right up to Milwaukee’s west side—bumping over the filled potholes pockmarking the street. At 62nd Street, she turned left into The Highlands, a beautiful neighborhood of curving streets graced by elegant old houses. Her grandparents had bought the two-story stone house on Betsy Ross Place in the 1940s when they were first married. Until they moved to Florida six years earlier when Alana graduated from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, there they’d stayed.
Right on Washington Circle, left on Betsy Ross, third driveway on the right. Alana pulled in and peered apprehensively up at the house in the near darkness. No lights on. No cars in the driveway. She hadn’t told Melanie she’d decided to come. Sneaky, maybe, but the fight on the phone earlier that afternoon would only have gotten uglier.
She stepped from her Prius, inhaling the fresh warm air, and stretched before she got out her suitcase, drinking in the sight of familiar leafy elms and oaks, beautifully manicured lawns, colorfully landscaped yards, stately grand houses lining the shady streets. The garage turned out to be as empty of Melanie’s Civic as the driveway, but a beat-up Chevy sat on the street in front of their house—Sawyer’s car? Alana grimaced. She hadn’t thought about what she’d do if Melanie wasn’t home and he was. That could get awkward, especially if she took an instant dislike to him as she did to ninety-eight percent of Melanie’s men—the other two percent took a day or two. With luck, Melanie had stopped for a quick drink after work and wasn’t on one of her all-night party binges.
Up the front walk to the white-columned portico, her suitcase bumping up the steps, Alana let herself in with the key she hadn’t managed to make herself surrender and stood in the hallway, smelling the familiar smells, emotions swirling in her chest. Happiness to be there mixed with funny pangs of knowing she’d be so far away for so long.
On the wall to her left hung the pictures she’d taken on Mom’s last sporadic visit, four years earlier on the occasion of Melanie’s graduation from UWM, before Mom took off again, presumably for good this time. In her favorite—their picnic on Lake Michigan’s Bradford Beach—she’d caught Gran and Grandad, Melanie and Mom in an impromptu group hug, arms around each other, smiling broadly, hair blowing in the wind—except Grandad’s because he no longer had any.
Mom—or Tricia, as she wanted her daughters to call her now that they were grown, which they both refused to do—still called on or around their birthdays, still promised to visit “really soon,” still sent haphazard thinking-of-you cards and occasional gifts—crystals and bulky, colorful jewelry, books on spiritual healing—that had nothing to do with who they had become.
“Mel?” Alana wandered into the kitchen, glanced around and made a face. Cleaning was not Melanie’s forte, though the place wasn’t as bad as Alana had found it on her few other visits over the past six years.
She crossed to the refrigerator, a side-by-side beauty that the deliverymen had barely gotten through the kitchen door. Inside…yuck. Classic Mel. A few take-out containers, condiments, a rind of Parmesan cheese, one egg, half a lemon, pale celery, a shriveled apple and about two dozen beers.
Mmm, mmm, good.
An hour later, she’d gone to the supermarket, come back, eaten a slice of very good pre-cooked tenderloin with veggies and fruit from the salad bar, cleaned up after herself and settled into the living room with a book from Grandad’s library, which she and Melanie hadn’t been able to get rid of.
At eleven, head pounding from tension, Alana closed a book on Charles Lindbergh she wasn’t really reading and stood. Odds were good she wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while but she didn’t want to wait down here anymore. Melanie could easily stay out until two or three. Alana needed her eight hours every night or she turned into a daytime zombie. Sleep to Melanie seemed more like a careless luxury.
Could they be any less alike? Alana’s dark to Melanie’s light, Alana’s lifelong struggle against adding pounds to Melanie’s effortlessly slender figure, Alana’s practicality and love of order to Melanie’s sloppy impulsiveness. They only had her mother’s word they had the same father.
So. Alana sighed and started up the curving wooden steps to the second floor, lugging her overnight bag. She’d wanted to get this confrontation—or, optimistically, this meeting—over with so she wouldn’t have to think about it all night long. Good thing she’d brought sleeping pills, a new, stronger prescription the doctor said should help her relax on nights when she knew drifting off would take chemical help. Tonight was definitely one of those nights.
Upstairs, she pushed open the familiar door to her room and stopped dead. Melanie had removed all her personal items. Her stuffed animals from high school, her gymnastic awards, her ceramic animals bought with childhood allowance from a tiny, now-defunct store on Vliet Street, her floral bedspread and curtains, all gone.
Alana stalked to Melanie’s room, which still looked exactly the same as always, except that the bed was actually made. Betty Boop clock and phone, clothes strewn
