The Good Wife(4)
Sarah tried to give her the envelope but Brianna wouldn’t take it.
“How long is the silent treatment going to last?” Brianna asked, her naturally husky voice sharp with exasperation and mockery.
Sarah looked down her nose at her sister. Brianna might be older, but she was tiny, barely reaching Sarah’s shoulder. “I have nothing to say to you, Bree.”
“You’re being such a drama queen.”
“Go away. I’m sure there is someone in the house you can torment.”
“This is stupid. You do know that, Sarah?”
“Of course it’s stupid to you. You were the one who was there with Mom. And you were the one who got to say good-bye.”
“Mom needed to go. She was in pain.”
A thick knot filled Sarah’s throat. She swallowed hard, but it just grew bigger. “Please just go away.”
Brianna’s delicate features tightened. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Sarah. Wasn’t trying to hurt any of you. I was just focused solely on Mom that night, wanting what was best for her—”
“Death?”
“She was dying.”
“And you hurried it along.”
“What?” Brianna’s voice spiked, echoing too loudly in the period living room, momentarily silencing all other conversation.
Sarah saw the Martins, Hughes, and Keegans—all friends of her parents—glance at her and Brianna before quickly looking away.
Brianna leaned toward Sarah and dropped her voice. “You make me sound like Dr. Kevorkian!”
“If the shoe fits . . . ?”
“All I did was hold her hand, and tell her how much she was loved—”
“And what a good job she’d done, a great job, but she’d fulfilled her responsibilities, and now she was free to go.” Sarah blinked, clearing her vision, furious, so furious. “And she did.”
“She needed to go. She was hurting.”
“I get that. But you should have called us. You should have given us a chance to say good-bye, too.” Her voice broke. “At the very least, you should have called Dad. You owed it to Dad . . . to all of us.”
Brianna jerked her chin up. “She couldn’t have gone, not with us all around the bed, hanging on to her for dear life.”
“You don’t know that. We will never know that—”
“Get over yourself!”
“Myself? Myself?” Sarah clapped a hand to her forehead and laughed. “You’re the one who lives on the other side of the world, only flying in for the big moments, and then only on Mom and Dad’s dime—”
“I have never taken their money,” Brianna snapped, folding bony arms across her thin chest. She’d returned from Africa two weeks ago emaciated, her slender frame downright skeletal. Everyone had been alarmed, and no one more so than Mom. There had been endless discussion about Bree’s health, behind Bree’s back: Did she have cancer? Was she dying? What had happened to her in the Congo?—even as Brianna insisted she was fine. “Nor have I ever asked for financial support, not even to go to college, unlike you, who had them pay for your undergraduate education, as well as law school.”
“I didn’t go, but they’d hoped I’d go, and they wanted to do it for me. They were proud of me—”
“Let’s just hope you don’t ever need a real job—”
“I have a job, Bree. I’m a wife and a mother—” She broke off, silenced by the pressure of her brother’s hand bearing down on her shoulder.
“What’s the matter with you two?” he demanded curtly, his broad shoulders rigid inside his black suit jacket. “Everyone can hear you. Dad can hear you. I bet even Mom can hear you.”
Brianna managed a tight-lipped apology and walked away, leaving Tommy with Sarah.
He glanced toward Brianna, who was rounding the living room corner to disappear into the entry hall, and watched her a moment before turning to Sarah. “What’s going on? You and Bree are usually thick as thieves.”
“Not anymore.”
He frowned. “Have you been drinking?”
She flushed. Was it that obvious? So annoying. “I just had a glass. But I need to eat. Haven’t eaten today.”
“Then don’t drink anymore.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.” He glowered down at her, his expression bemused. “So when did Bree stop being your favorite sister?”
Sarah groaned inwardly, wanting Advil. Three of them and a huge glass of water might help the pounding in her head. “I hope you don’t say that sort of thing in front of Meg or Kit. It’d hurt their feelings.”