It was a lovely house. Sunny and classic, homey and elegant. Not my style, but really pretty. I should tell my mother that. She’d like hearing it.

My room had been remade into the guest room before I’d even graduated from college, and that was fine, too. Still, it was a little strange . . . nothing of me remained anymore. The horse figurines I collected in middle school had been given away, the bulletin board that had been plastered with pictures of my high school friends (and Noah) gone. The room was painted pale yellow now; when it was mine, two walls had been black, two purple. Couldn’t fault Mom there.

I lay back on the bed. Ah, there was something familiar. The ceiling. That fuzzy-looking paint they used to use. I’d always liked that—it looked like a snowfield, and when I was little, I’d imagine tiny people crossing it, upside-down nomads huddling down for the night, coming to sleep under my pillow if it got too cold.

One time when I was about nine, I’d been really, really sick with strep throat, the bane of my elementary school years. This time was extra fierce, though. My throat had hurt so much I had to drool into a towel, completely unable to talk, let alone swallow medicine. I was limp with dehydration, and the doctor told me to push fluids when I couldn’t even swallow spit, or I’d have to get IV hydration.

Mom made me a vanilla milkshake and told me to drink it down. “It’ll numb your throat, and you have to drink something, or you’ll end up in the hospital.” I glared at her, sulky and sick, wishing she was more sympathetic, more worried and less . . . resigned. Maybe I should go to the hospital. Then everyone would feel sorry for me.

“Drink, Sadie.” Her voice had been firm, and she was right; the milkshake was so cold, it took the hurt away. When I had finished, she told me there were two raw eggs in there as well as my antibiotics and Motrin, masked by the taste of the extra vanilla extract she’d added. Then she tucked me in and pulled the shades, and I remembered falling asleep to the sounds of the other kids walking home from school and my mother in the kitchen.

I knew I’d never have the same relationship Juliet had with our mom. Truth was, I didn’t really deserve it. I had been Daddy’s girl from the start. But she’d always taken care of me just the same. She always knew what to do, even if she . . . no. She always knew what to do. Full stop. It was time for Barb Frost to get some respect from her younger child.