The Night Sister

Sometimes it was nearly impossible to remember him as being the same boy who’d followed the girls around that long-ago summer, a gangly kid, all arms and legs, with shaggy hair and pockets full of bugs. The boy who once wrote Amy love poems in secret code. Now and then she caught a glimpse of him in a boyish smirk, a shrug that made him look twelve again.

“It’s so good to see you,” she said, and he gave her a stiff hug. He smelled like spicy aftershave and cigarette smoke. “But where’s Margot?”

“Couldn’t make it,” Jason said, and looked away, his jaw tense. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get you home. We’ll talk in the car.”

Jason took charge of the small suitcase, and Piper struggled to keep up as he led her through the airport to the parking garage.

They climbed into an old Ford Ranger pickup and rode with the windows rolled up, no AC. The sun beat down through the windshield and the cab was stuffy and hot, but Jason seemed oblivious; he didn’t even break a sweat. In spite of the heat, and the apparent lack of shock absorbers or much of a suspension system, Piper was grateful he’d come in his own vehicle and hadn’t picked her up in a police cruiser. Did London even have police cruisers? She couldn’t recall.

Piper didn’t get home much. Margot usually came to her in L.A., thrilled to get away from their hometown for a week or two, to do all the touristy things: the tar pits, the Chinese Theatre, the Santa Monica Pier. She loved to study the architecture—Piper was continually amazed by her sister’s love for all things Art Deco, which couldn’t be more different from the old mills, farmhouses, and granite sheds of Vermont that Margot had dedicated her life to saving and preserving.

Jason rarely came to California with Margot—too hard to get time off from the force, he said. Piper was always relieved when Jason didn’t join Margot. It wasn’t that she disliked him, but she never felt entirely comfortable around him, always felt she had to be on her best behavior, had to prove her place as the wise older sister. God knew that Jason had grown up with a different Piper, the big sister who did wild things, got Margot in trouble again and again, whether bringing her to her first keg party or introducing her to pot.

The worst of it was, when the girls were in high school, Piper had thought Margot’s dating Jason was basically the stupidest idea she’d ever heard. Even told her, “You know, with him you’ll always be second best. The consolation prize. He’s been in love with Amy his whole life, and you’ll never be able to change that.”

She cringed now at the thought of saying something so cruel (even if it was absolutely true) to her own sister. Piper had no idea what, if anything, Jason knew about her unwanted relationship advice—but Piper knew, and that was bad enough.

Jason drove out of the airport parking garage and paid the attendant. His hands gripped the wheel tightly, his gold wedding band glinting in the sunlight coming through the windshield. He stayed silent.

Piper began to worry.

“Jason,” she said at last, “is Margot all right?”

He kept his eyes on the road. “She fainted this morning. I brought her in to the doctor, and they said her blood pressure is too high—it could be dangerous for her and the baby. She’s got something called pre-eclampsia. He’s ordered bed rest until she delivers. And depending on how she’s doing, he might decide to induce her early.” He delivered the news in his cop voice—no sign of emotion: Just the facts, ma’am.

“But she’s okay?” Piper asked, her own voice squeaky and panicked.

“As long as she rests, listens to the doctor. We’re only two weeks away from the due date, so hopefully it won’t be much longer.”

Margot was one of those people who hated to sit still and always had at least five projects going at once. Being confined to bed must feel like a prison sentence.