“So you didn’t run away with your driver because you were madly in love?” I ask one more time, just to clarify.

“No, Lizzie. Absolutely not.”

I let the phone drop from my hand, and it thumps softly against the bed.

I can faintly hear her calling my name, mildly annoyed, and then the call cuts off and there’s silence in that hotel room like I’ve never heard before. I feel absolutely hollow.

I’m not sure how to process this news, the last piece of straw liable to break the camel’s back. Up until this moment, I was proud of myself for what I did. My family was between a rock and a hard place, and I was their last hope. I thought I was playing the hero, but in fact, I was playing the fool. My sister would have never done what I did today. She would never have sacrificed herself. Maybe that makes her selfish, or maybe it just makes her smart. Either way, I feel sick.

I roll off the bed and go into the hotel’s small bathroom to splash water on my face. I glance up at myself in the mirror, taking in the dark circles under my eyes. I didn’t sleep much last night, and it shows in my appearance. I brush back my dark brown hair and then, still annoyed with it, I twist it around my hand and loop it up into a ballerina bun. Better, but only marginally. From my green eyes to my achingly high cheekbones, I look just like my mom, a person I can’t stand to think about right now.

I turn away from the mirror and spot my suitcases on the floor. The one with my art supplies is what I’m after. I tear into it, yanking on the zipper until I can flip it open and spill the contents out around me.

I pilfer through the mess, gathering what supplies I need so I can set up shop on the table in the corner. All the while, I try to convince myself that what I did today isn’t that big of a deal. My day-to-day life will not change. My hopes and dreams for myself don’t have to disappear. Sure, legally I’m married, but who cares?

I open my box of pastels, blowing off some of the residual dust and surveying the short stubs, trying to determine how much more use I can get out of them before I need to purchase a new set. I like to order them straight from a boutique company called La Maison du Pastel in Paris, and it’s incredibly expensive to ship them over to the States. I could find cheaper pastels at any art supply store in New York City, but I prefer working with natural handmade pastels from a company that’s been around since the 1700s. Every great impressionist from Degas to Renoir used pastels from La Maison du Pastel, so I do too.

I reach for the newspaper I picked up on my way home from the courthouse and then dump it out onto the bed. I toss aside sections that bore me until I land on business and smile, knowing the story about booming stock markets will be the perfect backdrop to the ethereal dancers I plan to overlay on top of it. My pastels are extremely pigmented, so I’m careful as I press them down onto the newspaper. I don’t want the drawing completely opaque. I want to see the newsprint through the color so the two worlds collide. My hands move fast. Over the years, I’ve trained them well. One hand draws with the pastels, and the other turns the paper, smudges the pigments, brushes away the dust.