For a few minutes, Hannah and I just sat. Before this year, I’d never included Hannah in a girls’ night. Carol and Wanda; Jessica and Ashley, my high school friends who’d also stayed on the Cape, sure. Beth was automatically included in everything social I did, plus the nights when it was just the two of us. I’d had Jenn from the bakery over for a dessert-a-thon last winter when Brad was in “Boston.” Three of the Smith sisters, Beth and I had a loosely scheduled book club that met here every once in a while.
But not my sister. She only came over for family events, and I was only invited to her place for the same. We’d never gone out just us two. We were pleasant, we loved each other more or less and we gave each other presents on birthdays and Christmas.
It would be nice to be—and have—a different kind of sister.
“So,” I said, “how are you doing about Beatrice and Mom?”
Hannah looked at the fire. “I’m doing badly,” she said. “I feel like an eight-year-old.” She glanced at me sharply, then grimaced. Eight had been my age when she and my mom had left. I let it go.
“What does doing badly look like?” I was good at asking these questions, given my career （and my ex-husband’s, I supposed）。
She sighed. “I’ve cried more in the last few weeks than I have in the last two decades. I keep asking Beatrice why she can’t stay, or move to Boston or New York. Total guilt trip. It’s not working.” She paused and looked at me. “I guess you know how that feels. This is karma, biting me on the ass.”
“Oh, Han,” I said. “I . . . It’s not that. You did what you had to do back then.”
“And now Beatrice is doing what she has to do and I’m out the best friend I ever had, the best parent. My role model and mentor. All those things. I put all my eggs in the Beatrice basket, and I’m paying the price.” She glanced at me, her eyes wet. “I understand if this is extremely satisfying for you to hear.”
She took a napkin and wiped her eyes. I went over to sit with her. Put my arm around her shoulders, but since she was ten inches taller than I was, it was awkward. Like most things between us. No. I didn’t want that to be the case anymore. I slid my arm down and linked it with hers. “It’s not satisfying, Hannah. I’m sad for you.”
“I’m forty-six years old,” she said. “I did this to you when you were eight. Eight! I’m so sorry, Lillie. I never let myself think about how bad it would be because I . . . I didn’t want to know.”
That was true. Then again, she’d been horribly bullied, and I hadn’t even known. What if she’d decided to kill herself, like too many teenagers had? What then, huh? I was abruptly glad she’d had Beatrice. “You know what? Let’s blame Mom. She ruined my life by taking you, and now she’s ruining yours by driving Beatrice away. Honestly, I can’t believe Beatrice lasted as long as she did. She’s a saint.”
“Amen.”
Maybe it was the wine, or the coziness of the night, but I felt some talking coming on. “I was so jealous of the three of you,” I said. “I didn’t want to live there, and I couldn’t do that to Dad, but every time I went over, you were this merry little band of women, making all this great food and speaking in French. Like it was this constant party that I was missing. And then you learned how to dress and had your signature shade of lipstick and got all glamorous.”
Hannah snorted. “Listen. That was all smoke and mirrors, Lils. I mean, it was better for me because of Beatrice, and because I was in a different school district. Suddenly, I was a lot cooler, living with an interracial lesbian couple in an amazing house on Commercial Street. But Mom and Beatrice fought all the time.”
“What? They always seemed so . . . obnoxiously happy.”
“Yeah, right,” Hannah huffed. “It seemed like every day, one of them was yelling at the other, or Mom was giving us the silent treatment while Beatrice overcompensated. They also drank way too much. By the end of the first month there, I knew how to cook a huge pot of French onion soup so we could have it on hand. Remède contre la gueule de bois. Their hangover cure.”
“They got drunk and fought? My God! I mean, I knew they could put away a few cocktails and wine, but . . .”
“More than a few.” She glanced at me. “I mean, yes, I had Beatrice to be a mother to me, or at least a cool aunt, but I was still with Mom, and you know how she is. The insults that trick you by seeming like compliments until you find out she’s slicing you up. The nit-picking, the perpetual disappointment, the sheer boredom of being a mother. I never wanted kids, and I think that’s the reason why. She made it seem awful, and I was sure I’d screw it up.”