Three weeks later, Hannah packed up her side of our room, hugged me and, with an excitement that felt like acid on an open wound, skipped out to our mother’s SUV. “See you this weekend!” she called, and closed the car door on my childhood.
We never got it back, that sisterly bond. I think I was too young to forgive her, and as I got older, I stopped wanting to. Hannah did indeed love Beatrice, our glamorous stepmother. She learned how to dress, wear a “signature” lipstick, speak French. By the end of high school, she was unrecognizable to me, this imposingly tall, fashionable girl with an awesome haircut. And even though she returned from Bates College, she never really returned to me. The best I could say is that she loved my son. Otherwise, we had never—not once—spent any voluntary time just the two of us in the past thirty-three years. Which is a very long time.
So it was as much a surprise to me as it was to her when I climbed her porch steps, knocked on her antique oak-and-glass front door and asked to come in.
“Hey!” she said, rightfully surprised. She glanced at my scrubs and nurse’s clogs. She herself was wearing a gray silk top and darker gray pants with snakeskin flats. “Just coming from work? Or going to?”
“From. So . . . Brad is leaving me for another woman.”
Her eyes went comically wide. “Come in,” she said.
I had been to my sister’s workplace before—she had it open for the Christmas stroll each year and served mulled wine and French cookies, and sure, I stopped in. I didn’t hate her, after all. We just had nothing in common as adults.
Her office was lovely—a front parlor where she met with her brides and grooms, the bookcases filled with glossy coffee-table books on floral design and wedding dresses, wedding cakes, wedding cultures. Her office overlooked the flower-filled courtyard in the back. Her assistant, Manuel, had a large, beautiful desk in the parlor and would greet people as they came in, make them tea or coffee or pour them champagne. So I heard. I’d never had a reason to visit her aside from the Christmas stroll, and I had never been invited over as a solo guest.
“Have a seat,” she said. “Can I get you some water? Coffee or tea?”
“How about wine?” I suggested.
“I have that, too. One minute, please.”
There was a silver vase on the coffee table, filled with creamy pink roses, white hydrangeas and bright pink ranunculus. Stunning. I sighed and looked around, hearing her fuss in the kitchen.
Hannah always treated me this way—like a pleasant acquaintance. We didn’t talk about anything personal. To be fair, I’d given her the cold shoulder those six years she lived with Mom and Beatrice, or guilt-tripped her by sobbing and begging her to move back home. After she went to college, the window seemed to close on any chance of friendship. Later, we didn’t even seem to think about it—me busy with a new baby, marriage and home, her completely occupied with her business of excess.
But as she often said, if she didn’t do it, someone else would, and these weddings were a great infusion of money into the local economy. Which was true. Beth and the Ice House often catered Hannah’s weddings and made a hefty profit. Her clients kept at least two florists in business, and the package stores adored her, bending over backward to get her guests the high-end stuff they demanded. She recommended local photographers, seamstresses, bakeries, chocolatiers, hotels. So Hannah was loved in the community, same as I was. Just in a very different way.
And then there was how we looked, dressed, decorated our homes. Hannah and I looked nothing alike. I was five foot three; she was six foot one. My clothing style was comfort based; hers was dress to kill. She knew how to put on makeup like a pro, and her straight black hair changed every few years, from bob to pixie to shaggy to sleek. My hair came down to my shoulders, was frizzy most days, curly some, and in a bun or ponytail most of the time.
Hannah was not conventionally attractive—she had a big nose and small eyes and her mouth was low on her face—but she was definitely elegant. Kind of an “Amy Winehouse in her better days” look. Strong boned. If she was Amy Winehouse, I was more of Carey Mulligan’s less attractive sister—girl-next-door prettiness. Cute little nose, big eyes, chubby cheeks. All our lives, people had asked Hannah and me and our parents if one of us was adopted. Hannah was and always had been single （and may have been asexual or even gay, but if she ever had a lover, I had never met him/her/them）。 I had slept with only one man and zero women. A pity, now that I despised my husband.