Love and Sorrow (Small Town Secrets Book 5), стр. 78
Or that I was going through another shitty breakup.
Instead, I was going to focus on the positive—or on keeping my mouth shut entirely. Thus far, it had been working well.
Fortunately, Megan drove the conversation in the kitchen while dicing tomatoes for the salad my mother had us preparing together. She talked about her Ladies’ Bible Group and then her work on the PTO and her husband’s job, and I hoped I appeared to be paying attention. I was trying to figure out when would be a good time to ask if my family could watch the kids tonight and instead considering taking the easy way out by just bringing them with me to work.
When mom came over to the table and started tossing lettuce leaves into the large bowl on the table, she said, “It sounds like you’re keeping busy, Meg.”
My sister nodded, smiling widely. There was no mistaking we were sisters—our hair was the same shade of brown, our faces the identical shape, especially our chins and noses. The only genetic difference was my sister had ice-blue eyes. Her hair was styled into a pristine bob and her makeup was lightly applied—except for the cherry-red lipstick she wore to match her blouse. What I noticed most, though, were the gold crosses hanging on her neck and dangling from her ears, a symbol of who she was—and her words also reflected it. “Yes, but it’s a good busy. I love everything I’m doing. I can give back to God, and I can help Petey at school without taking away from the girls. It’s wonderful. Perfect even.”
I wondered then if my sister or even my parents compared our lives. I was single while Megan was going on almost a decade of married bliss. And while this baby growing inside me would make three, meaning the number of children we had would match, each of my kids had a different father. I didn’t go to church and questioned if I even believed any of that shit anymore, while Meg was the exact opposite. And, sure, I could say I was involved with my daughter’s school, but certainly not in the way Meg was involved with her son’s. My life? Pure fucking chaos. Meg’s was idyllic.
But then I let it all wash over me. If Megan and I could trade lives, would I want to? Hell, no. Messy or not, I wanted my own life. At least it felt fucking real. I’d earned my scars. And I might have wanted a little peace, but I sure as shit didn’t want some phony fairy tale.
Did I hate my sister? No way. I had no grudge against her. I only wanted my family to stop silently judging me all the goddamned time.
Pulling me out of my self-reflection, Megan asked, “So what have you been up to lately? Are you still going to school?”
I fought to get my head in the right space. “Yeah, I am. I’m probably about halfway done after this semester.”
“So, what—another year or two?”
“Something like that.”
“What’s your major?”
“I’m not sure yet. It doesn’t help that I’ve enjoyed every subject in school so far. Actually, that’s not true. I hate math.”
“Who doesn’t?”
Justin. But I wasn’t going to think about him right now.
“Yeah. So I’m gravitating toward a couple of different areas, but I need to talk with an advisor.” I wasn’t going to address the fact that I was doing poorly in all my classes this semester and hadn’t as yet registered for spring classes.
But that was my own shit, and I wasn’t about to address any of my failures right now.
We were quiet for a minute as I tried to think of a good question to ask my sister—but she’d already given such a rundown of her life earlier that I wasn’t sure where to go. Before I could take that defensive maneuver, she pelted me with another question. “How are the kids doing?”
And fuck me. All that did was remind me that I’d missed my kids’ parent-teacher conferences. Add to it that subject touched closely on what had been going on with Sarah…and I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about that. So I simply said, “Doing okay, all things considered.”
My mother, of course, had other ideas. “How’s Sarah’s therapy going?”
Goddammit. There was that knot again, like a brick in my gut. I kept my eyes on the knife in my hand while focusing on keeping my voice steady and calm. “Going well, I think.”
But that answer didn’t cut my sister off at the pass.
“Wait. What happened? Why is she in therapy?”
Now that Megan had asked, I might as well talk about it. All the kids were off playing, Sarah included, so I didn’t have to worry about them overhearing something they shouldn’t. “You remember her behavior at Easter? It escalated in school, especially this fall, so we started taking her to counseling.” Wondering if I should say more, I placed some cucumber slices into the bowl my mother handed me. “We didn’t find out until then that her fifth grade teacher had been sexually abusing her.”
“Oh, no. How did you find out?”
“Through the psychotherapy. The psychologist managed to get it out of Sarah.”
Megan put down her knife and touched my arm. “You must be consumed with guilt.”
“You have no idea.”
My mother interjected. “But you said the therapy’s continuing to help?”
“It really is. I’m so grateful for her psychologist. But you’re right, Meg. I do feel guilty, like I’m the worst mother in the world. And I feel so powerless. Her teacher skipped town, so they can’t even bring him to trial. All I can do is continue taking her to her sessions. They have a warrant out for his arrest, but I doubt they’ll ever find him. I just…” I let out a breath of air and fought back tears. It was too much today.
“I’m so sorry. If there’s anything—”
I