“Mom wanted a lot of things.” Maya’s voice was quiet, which made it worse. “She wanted you to call more. She wanted Jamie to forgive Dad before he died. She wanted me to go to law school and stop being her nurse. But we don’t always get what we want, do we?”
On the surface, the occasion was simple: the sale of the lake house. Their mother, Eleanor, had died six months earlier, and the will was unambiguous. Sell. Split the proceeds. Move on.
Lena opened her mouth—to say she lived three states away, to say she had work, to say something—and then closed it.
Lena, who had spent forty years building armor out of achievement, suddenly saw it for what it was: a thin, brittle thing. She looked at her sister—the circles under her eyes, the way she held her own elbows like she was bracing for impact—and felt something crack.
“It’s smaller than I remembered,” she said when her brother Jamie walked in. She didn’t mention the banister.
And then, at the sharp edge of it, Jamie said something none of them would forget.
“You didn’t,” Maya whispered.
“She loved you best, Maya. We all know it. But you know what? That wasn’t a gift. It was a cage. And you’re still in it.”
“I should have come home,” Lena said. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just true.