After a moment, she says, “Are you okay?”
I balk. “Libby, I’m not the one who passed out and nearly cracked her skull on an old-timey cash register.”
Her teeth sink into her lip. “You’re mad.” She wrings her hands in her lap. “That I didn’t tell you this happened before.”
“I’m . . . confused.”
Her eyes dart furtively toward mine. “I’m confused why you didn’t tell me you had a chance at an editing job.”
“It was years ago,” I say. “On the bottom rung, and the pay was shit. It wasn’t all about you. There were a lot of reasons to stay at the agency.”
She looks at me with watery sapphire eyes, a wrinkle between her brows. “You should’ve told me.”
“I should have,” I agree quietly. “And you should’ve told me about all this.”
Libby heaves a sigh. “No one knew except Brendan. And he wanted me to tell you, but I knew it would freak you out. And it’s super common. I mean, my doctor was pretty sure everything would be fine. I didn’t want to burden you.”
I reach for her hand. “Libby, you’re not a burden. You’re it. You come first.” I add lightly, “Even before my career. And my Peloton.”
Huffing, she pulls her hand from mine. “Do you know what kind of guilt that comes with, Sissy? Knowing you’ll drop everything to manage my life? That you’d give up on your dream job to—to mother me? It makes me feel . . . incapable.”
“I just want to be there for you,” I reason.
“I shouldn’t always come first, Nora,” she says softly. “And neither should your clients.”
“Fine,” I say. “From now on my bagel guy comes first, but you’re a close second.”
“I’m being serious. Mom expected too much from you.”
“What does Mom have to do with this?” I say.
“Everything.” Before I can argue, Libby continues, “I’m not saying I blame her—she was in an impossible situation and she did a fairly amazing job with us. But that doesn’t change the fact that sometimes, she forgot whose job it was to take care of us.”
“Lib, what are—”
“You’re not my dad,” she says.
“Since when has that been on the table?”
She huffs again, grabbing my hands. “She treated you like her partner, Nora. She treated you like you were—like it was your job to take care of me. And I let you, after she died, but you’re still doing it. And it’s too much. For both of us.”
“That’s not true,” I say.
“It is,” she replies. “I have my own daughters now, and let me fucking tell you, Nora, there are days I get into the shower and sob into a loofah because I’m so overwhelmed, and maybe keeping it hidden from them isn’t the answer either, but I can’t imagine putting my worries on Tala or Bea like Mom did to us. Especially you.
“She had it really hard, but she was our only parent, and there were times she forgot that. There were times she treated you like you were an adult.”
An icy pang lances through me. Guilt or hurt or run-of-the-mill homesickness for Mom, or all of it braided into one icicle right through my heart, burning like only cold can.
Like the most precious thing—the only precious thing—in my life has frozen over so deeply that there are spiderwebs of ice veining through me.
“I wanted to help,” I say. “I wanted to take care of you.”
“I know.” She lifts my hands between hers, holding them against her heart. “You always do, and I love you for that. But I don’t want you to be Mom—and I definitely don’t want you to be my dad. When I tell you something’s going on, sometimes I just want you to be my sister and say, That sucks. Instead of trying to fix it.”
The distance between us. The trip, the list, the secrets. I’ve seen all of these as little challenges to overcome, or maybe tests to prove I can be the sister Libby wants, but Charlie is right. All she really wants is a sister. Nothing more, nothing less.
“It’s hard for me,” I admit. “I hate feeling like I can’t protect you.”
“I know. But . . .” Her eyes close, and when they open again, she struggles to keep her voice from splintering, our hands trembling in a tightly gripped mass between us. “You can’t. And I need to know I can be okay without you.
“When we lost Mom, I was gutted, but I was never scared about how we’d get by. I knew you’d make sure we did, and—Sissy, I appreciate it more than I could ever put into words.”
“You could try,” I joke quietly. “Maybe get me a card or something.”
She laughs tearily, pulls one hand free to swipe at her eyes. “At some point, I have to know I can do things on my own. Not with Brendan’s help, not with yours. And you need to make room in your life for other things, other people to matter.”
I swallow hard. “No one will ever matter like you do, Lib.”
“No one will ever matter like you do either,” she whispers. “Other than my bagel guy.”
I wrap my arms around her neck and drag her into a hug. “Please tell me the next time you find out you have an illness or vitamin deficiency,” I say into her wispy pink-blond hair. “Even if all I’m allowed to do is say, That sucks. And then ship six cartons of supplements to your house.”
“Deal.” She draws back, her smile shifting into a wince. “There’s something else you should know.”
Here it is, I think, what she’s been keeping from me.
She takes a deep breath.
“I eat meat.”
My instant reaction is to jump off the bed like she’s just told me she personally slaughtered a baby cow here moments ago and drank blood straight from its veins.
“I know!” she cries through her hands. “It started when I was pregnant with Tala! Because of the anemia. And, frankly, this bizarre and constant craving for Whoppers.”
“Ew!” I say.
“I stopped as soon as she was born!” Libby says. “But then I started again when I found out about Number Three, and I didn’t think a couple weeks off would make a difference for my levels, but I wasn’t being conscientious enough about filling in the gaps. So. Whoops! Or . . . whops?”
“I can’t believe you tricked me into being a vegetarian, for a decade, then caved for a Whopper!”
“How dare you,” she says. “Whoppers are amazing.”
“Okay, you’re getting too good at lying.”
She guffaws. “Okay, not amazing, but the heart wants what it wants.”
“Your heart needs therapy.”
“Can we get some on the way home?” She pushes off the bed. “Whoppers, not therapy.”
“Whoppers? Plural?”
“They have veggie burgers, you know,” she says. “And we’re already so close to Asheville, and there’s a BK there.”
I stare at her. “So not only did you just call it ‘BK’ without a hint of irony, but you’re telling me you checked where the nearest one is.”
“My sister taught me to be prepared. I scouted it out when Sally and I went to hang fliers for the Blue Moon Ball.”
“That’s not ‘prepared,’?” I say. “It’s disturbed.” At her laugh, I cave. “Whoppers it is.”
* * *
“Are you sure you’re up for this?”
Libby gives me a look. “Congratulations. You went a full twelve hours.”
“Right,” I say. “You’re in charge of yourself. Who even cares if you’re up for it? Not me.”
She grins and jogs her huge purple purse. “I’ve got beef jerky in here, and almonds, and one of those peanut butter dipping cup things. Plus I’ll be with Gertie and Sally and Amaya. You go get those edits done so you can take time off next week and party.” Her phone buzzes, and she checks it. “Gertie’s here. Looks like it might rain—want us to drop you at the bookstore?”
Charlie agreed to take over Sally’s shift so she could focus on next weekend’s ball, which means we’ll be hammering out the final notes in the shop. We’d planned to finish reading pages last night, but that was shot to hell when Libby passed out, so we’ll be finishing our reads today too.