“Well, Gillian, you know how your sister is. He probably thought…”

She lets the sentence hang, because of course I know what she means. Abigail’s the impulsive one. Erratic. Unpredictable.

Selfish, my brain adds: you forgot selfish.

“I didn’t think she did this kind of thing anymore,” I say limply. It’s true, my sister has changed over the years—she’s one of the wealthy wives of Westchester now, not some wayward kid—but apparently, she hasn’t changed quite as much as we thought.

“I know,” Mom sighs. I shake my head.

“Have you tried calling her?”

“Well, of course we’ve tried calling her,” Mom says. “Dennis has been calling her the whole time. I tried her just before I phoned you.”

“I’ll call her now,” I say, even though if she hasn’t picked up for Mom or Dennis, there’s no way she’s picking up for me.

She’d have picked up for Dad, an unhelpful inner voice says. No doubt it’s true. But Dad isn’t around anymore to untangle my older sister’s chaos.

Across the kitchen, Dinah’s still frowning at me, looking concerned.

“I’ll call you back, Mom.”

I hang up.

“Is this about your sister?” Dinah says, all agog.

“Who else.” I shake my head and explain what little I know to Dinah as I scroll through my recent calls for Abigail’s number. It gives me an uncomfortable feeling, seeing how very far down the list it is. We haven’t really been close for years, to be honest, and things have only been worse since Dad died. Abigail did stop by on a kind of surprise visit a couple of months ago, though, which in itself was a bit odd. Westchester’s more than a two-hour drive from Birch Bend so it’s hardly the kind of visit you make on impulse, and I basically spent the forty-five minutes of her visit waiting for her to tell me why she had come, until she got back in the car and drove away again with me none the wiser. It was around the week of Dad’s anniversary, so at the time I put it down to that. Now, though, I wonder if there was more going on beneath the surface.

Dinah glances at me as I wait, the dial tone whirring against my ear. I think back to what Mom said about this note my sister apparently left. “Somewhere she needed to be”? Where could she possibly need to be—a woman who hasn’t had a job since her ten-year-old son was born and who so far as I know barely even goes to the grocery store anymore, now that she has everything delivered?

One more ring and the call times out.

I slump onto the stool beside Dinah.