My sympathy for Marisa had waned seconds after the double doors to the emergency’s waiting room opened and the surgeon, still wearing his scrubs, came to speak to me. I’d learned Marisa would be fine, that the swelling on her brain had been reduced, and she’d be her old self eventually. But I’d also discovered that my supposedly sober sister likely had drugs in her system. Tests might not pick them up after so many hours, but the paramedics who’d brought her here thought she was high. What other reason would she have for going more than forty miles an hour through a small city neighborhood south of the Church Hill district? Jesus.

Marisa had sworn she’d been sober for a year. She’d dutifully attended her meetings, collected her chips, and been building a real life. And then just like that, she’d screwed up. But that was the way it went with alcoholics, wasn’t it?

The counselors had said missteps were a constant and present danger and families needed to help the addict. I had done my share of hoisting my baby sister back up on the wagon, and I was officially tired of it. But I rallied and rode to the rescue again.

And yet here I sat in this damn birthday party, wearing a Good Witch hat, pretending that everything was all right. Which it was, essentially. But Marisa’s shit always hung over our heads, the proverbial sword of Damocles clinging by a thread. My little lost Dorothy.

A hand rubbed over my thigh, and I turned toward David. He was staring at me, clearly sensing that stress brewed behind my smile. He could read me so well.

“I can see into your mind, you know?” he said.

That smile. It always got me. “Can you?”

“I can. And just for the record, this is a great party,” he whispered. “Terrific job.”

A warmth spread through me as I gazed at him. We’d known each other for just a couple of months, but there was a connection I’d never shared with anyone else. “Thank you.”

He winked, reached for his beer. “Your sister looks happy.”

I stared across the round table at Marisa in deep conversation with Kurt. She was wearing the new camera strap he’d given her. It should have been Clare sitting next to him. “She does.”

I’d been at a loss as to how to handle the party. Celebrating Marisa’s birth reminded everyone that there had been another sister, Clare, who’d died at age sixteen. God, thirteen years since that runner had found Clare’s body by the river. Thirteen years of Marisa spiraling and struggling. Thirteen years of dealing with my own guilt and loss. Clare and Marisa had been identical twins, bonded before birth, but Clare had been my sister, too. That fact got lost more often than not.