“‘—sorry you’re upset,’” Hannah finished, in near-perfect synch with her sister. “Yeah. I’m well acquainted with your noble act by now. You might want to change it up a little. You know, for variety.”
Amanda closed her eyes and pressed the dangling gold crucifix on her collarbone. This, Hannah knew all too well, was the standard Amanda retreat whenever her mothersome bother and sisterical hyster became too much for her. Give me strength, O Lord. Give me strength.
The lights in the lobby suddenly faltered for three seconds, an erratic flicker that stopped all chatter. Hannah furrowed her brow at the sputtering laptop in the ticket booth.
Amanda checked her watch and vented a somber breath at the exit. “He should be out front by now. I better go.”
“Fine. Say hi for me.”
“Yup.”
The sisters spent a long, hot moment avoiding each other’s gazes before Amanda turned around and pushed through the swinging glass doors.
Hannah leaned against the wall, muttering soft curses as she gently thumped her skull. Between all her regrets and frustrations, she found the space to wonder why a battery-powered laptop would flicker with the overhead lights. She pushed the concern to the back of her mind, in the dark little vault where strange things went.
—
Seventeen years had passed since the madness on the Massachusetts Turnpike. The Givens never spoke a public word about the bizarre circumstances of their rescue. With each passing year, a welcome fog grew over their collective memories, until the family embraced the cover story as the one true account. They saw the truck teetering. They fled before it fell. That was just how it happened. End of subject.
Eight years after the incident, death came for Robert a second time and won. His cancer and passing had shattered Amanda in ways even her mother couldn’t divine. She spent her final summer at home like an apparition and then disappeared to college, coming home once a year with thoughtful gifts, a practiced smile, and at least one major change to her state of being. First she found God. Then Hippocrates. Then a credible shade of red. And finally, during her brief stint at medical school, she found Dr. Derek Ambridge, who was eleven years her senior. From there, the arc of her life went into gentle downgrade.
Hannah, meanwhile, had cratered early. A spectacular nervous breakdown at age thirteen ended both her and her mother’s resolve to turn her into a child star. After a year of therapy, she landed comfortably on the civilian teenage track, where she became lost in a routine tsunami of highs and lows, LOLs and whoas, breakups, makeups, and adolescent shake-ups. Upon graduation, she went west to San Diego State, where she dyed her hair black and experimented with all-new mistakes. On the upside, she rediscovered her theatrical ambitions. She stayed in town after college, found an office job, and began the slow process of rebuilding her résumé.
Six months ago, fate reunited the sisters when Derek accepted a partnership at a private oncology practice in Chula Vista, California, nine miles south of San Diego. For Melanie, the move was a golden opportunity for her daughters to finally connect.
“I want you to see Amanda as often as you can,” she ordered Hannah. “Because she’s going to leave that guy sooner or later and she’ll be the one who moves away.”
Though Hannah promised to try, she’d only met with Amanda three times in the last half year. Their first two encounters had been brisk and cordial and as tender as a tax form. No doubt their mother would be even less pleased with how the Great Sisters Given fared tonight.
—
With a thorny glower, Amanda emerged from the theater onto J Street, where her hybrid chariot awaited. Cigarette smoke rose from the driver’s side.
Amanda slung herself into the passenger seat. Her husband tensely tapped ashes out his window.
“In case you’re keeping score, I lost five IQ points tonight. Plus my faith in man.”
“I know,” Amanda sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Derek was two years shy of forty. Though nature stayed kind to his boyish good looks, he regarded his impending middle age like a Stage 3 carcinoma. He worked out every day, ate raw vegetables for lunch, and overtook the medicine cabinet with pricey creams and cleansers. Nicotine was his last remaining vice. He was never happier to have it.
“If you love me, hon, you won’t make me go to her next musical.”
“I don’t even know if I’ll go,” Amanda admitted with a hot blush of shame.
“What’s the matter? You two have a fight?”
“Yeah. I tried to tell her she was good tonight and somehow she took it as a personal attack.”
“Well, you always said she was a minefield.”
“I know, but there’s something else behind it. I think she resents me for moving out here. Like I’m crashing the nice little world she built for herself.”
Derek jerked a weary shrug. “I’m sure you gals will work it out.”
He propped the cigarette in his mouth and merged into traffic. Two blocks passed in dreary silence.
“I’ll say this for your sister, she’s got quite a set of pipes on her. Quite a set of everything. Jesus.”