“Okay,” I said.
Fern opened the book. Her voice was quiet at first, shaky. But as she read, something in her steadied.
She wasn’t just filling time. She was building a bridge. And for a while, the IV drip felt less like a countdown and more like a passage.
5
That evening, after we got home, I threw up twice. Fern sat on the bathroom floor with her back against the tub, holding a glass of water like it was an offering. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.
Fern’s eyes were hard. “Stop apologizing.”
I wiped my mouth with a towel. “You didn’t sign up for this,” I said.
Fern’s gaze snapped to mine. “Yes,” she said. The word startled me.
“Yes,” she repeated. “I did. The minute I got in my car and drove four hours.
I didn’t know what I was driving into, but I knew I was coming. That was me signing up.”
I stared at her. Fern’s mouth trembled.
“I’m not saying it’s easy,” she said. “I’m saying… don’t treat me like I’m fragile either.”
The echo hit me. My brother’s line.
My parents’ assumption. And now Fern—my sister, who had been treated like the world’s smallest afterthought—was telling me she deserved to be taken seriously. “Okay,” I said quietly.
Fern nodded once. Then she leaned forward and pressed the cold glass into my hand. “Drink,” she ordered.
I drank. After a while, my stomach eased. Fern helped me to the couch.
She tucked a blanket around my legs the way she used to tuck my doll under a quilt when we were little. “You want the TV?” she asked. “No,” I said.
“Just… sit.”
Fern sat. We stayed like that in the dim light. The house was quiet.
Outside, a car passed. A dog barked once. Fern’s hand rested on the cushion between us.
Not touching. But close. When I finally spoke, my voice came out rough.
“Do you remember the night Dad taught Calvin to drive?” I asked. Fern’s brow creased. “Yeah.”
“They gave him the keys like it was a ceremony,” I said.
Fern’s mouth tightened. “And you got… a lecture about responsibility.”
Fern stared at the wall. “You didn’t deserve that,” she said.
Neither did she. But I didn’t say it. Because there are some truths you can only handle one at a time.
6
My parents came again a week later. Not together. My father came alone.
He pulled into the driveway in his old sedan, got out slower than I remembered, and stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, surveying the house like he was looking at an old photograph. Fern watched from the living room window. I opened the door.
“Dad,” I said. He nodded. “Bea.”
His eyes flicked past me, into the house.
“Fern here?” he asked. “She is,” I replied. He nodded again, but his jaw tightened.
“I brought something,” he said. He held up a small toolbox. “A hinge,” he explained.
“Your front door’s been squeaking. I noticed last time.”
I blinked. It wasn’t an apology.
It wasn’t even a conversation. It was an action. I stepped aside.
“Come in,” I said. Dad walked in, set the toolbox down by the door, and immediately crouched, inspecting the hinge. Fern hovered in the hallway, unsure.
“Hi, Mr. Carter,” she said. Dad looked up.
“Fern,” he said. He didn’t smile. But he didn’t ignore her either.
That was progress. Dad worked on the hinge in silence. The sound of the screwdriver turning was oddly comforting.
When he finished, he stood and tested the door. No squeak. “There,” he said.
“Thank you,” I replied. Dad wiped his hands on his jeans. He looked at me.
“You look… tired,” he said. “I am,” I admitted. He nodded.
His gaze drifted to Fern. “You staying long?” he asked her. Fern’s shoulders stiffened.
“As long as Bea needs,” she said. Dad’s mouth tightened. He looked back at me.
“Your mother’s upset,” he said. He hesitated. “She thinks you’re… making a statement,” he said.
“I am,” I said. Dad’s eyebrows lifted. “What statement?”
“That I’m done pretending love doesn’t require effort,” I said.
Dad flinched like the words hit a nerve. Fern looked away. Dad cleared his throat.
“I didn’t know you needed us like that,” he said. I stared at him. He nodded, slow.
“I know,” he said. Silence filled the space. Then Dad’s voice softened.
“I thought… if we stayed out of your way… you’d be fine,” he said. “That’s not staying out of my way,” I replied. “That’s leaving.”
Dad looked down at his hands.
It wasn’t enough. But it was real. “I’m glad you came,” she said.
Dad looked at her. For a moment, his eyes did something unfamiliar. They considered her.
“You always were a good girl,” he said. Fern’s face went still. I saw the sentence land wrong.
Good girl. The label they used when she made herself small. Fern swallowed.
“I’m not a girl anymore,” she said. Dad blinked. Then, awkwardly, he nodded.
“You’re right,” he said. He picked up his toolbox. “I should go,” he said.
At the door, he paused. “Bea,” he said. “Yeah?”
“If you need something,” he said, and the words seemed to struggle to get past his pride, “call me.”
I held his gaze.
“I did,” I said. Dad’s face tightened. “I know,” he whispered.
Then he left. Fern sat down hard on the couch after the door closed. “I feel like I’m twelve again,” she said.
I sat beside her. “I feel like I’m forty,” I replied. Fern’s laugh was bitter.
“Same thing,” she murmured. 7
My mother did not come quietly. She called.
Three times. Then she left a voicemail that sounded like a thinly wrapped threat. “Beatrice,” she said, using my full name like it was a weapon.
“We need to talk. You are making choices you will regret.”
Fern listened to it once and went pale. “She sounds like she’s going to show up,” Fern said.
“She might,” I replied. Fern wrung her hands. “I don’t want a scene,” she whispered.
“I don’t either,” I said. “But if she comes, we handle it.”
Fern looked at me. “How?”
I thought about it.
The Navy had taught me a lot. How to stand in wind. How to keep my face calm.
How to make decisions when my insides were shaking. But it had not taught me how to be a daughter in a family that preferred silence over truth. “We do what we’ve been doing,” I told her.
“We stay steady.”
Fern nodded, but her eyes were glassy. “Bea,” she said, voice small, “what if she says I’m taking advantage of you?”
I turned to her. “Then she’ll be wrong,” I said.
Fern’s mouth opened. “I know,” I added, “because I know you.”
Fern’s throat worked. No one had ever spoken about her like that.
Not with certainty. Not with pride. Not without a ‘but’ attached.
Fern looked down at her hands. “I don’t know what to do with that,” she admitted. “Let it sit,” I said.
“You don’t have to perform gratitude. You just have to be here.”
Then she whispered, “Okay.”
It sounded like she was practicing trust. 8
My mother arrived on a Saturday.
Of course she did. Weekends were when she liked to stage family. She pulled into the driveway in a car that had been washed too recently, stepped out with her purse on her arm like she was going to church, and walked up the porch with the kind of posture that dared the world to contradict her.
I opened the door before she knocked. “Mom,” I said. She looked me up and down.
Her eyes lingered on my cheekbones, the slight hollowness the treatments had carved. “You look awful,” she said. Fern, in the hallway behind me, made a small sound.
My mother’s gaze snapped to her. “Oh,” she said, like Fern was a stain she’d noticed too late. “You’re still here.”
Fern’s face stayed polite.
My mother stepped inside without being invited. She smelled like perfume and resentment. “We need to talk,” she said.
I nodded. “Okay.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Alone,” she added.
Fern stiffened. My mother blinked. “No,” I repeated.
“Fern stays.”
My mother’s lips pressed together. “Beatrice,” she said, slow, like she was speaking to someone difficult, “this is between you and me.”
“No,” I said again. “It’s between you and reality.”
My mother’s eyes flashed.
“Excuse me?” she snapped. I gestured toward the living room. “We can sit,” I said.
My mother followed, taking the chair with the straightest back, the one that looked most like a throne. Fern sat on the couch. My mother stared at the two of us like we’d formed a conspiracy.
“Your father told me you signed papers,” she said. “I did,” I replied. “You are leaving your house to your sister,” she said, voice
