“Tempting, but no,” she says as her phone buzzes and she pulls it out. Reading the screen through squinted eyes, she smiles.

“What is it?” Christopher asks.

“Katerina’s just texted.” Maureen pockets her phone. “She’s here!”

Christopher blinks at her, shocked. “When were you planning on telling me Kate’s home?”

Maureen winks at me, then turns back to Christopher. “Honestly, Christopher, I wasn’t sure, considering I value my sanity. I have a lot on my plate lately, young man, and the last thing I need is to suffer through another one of those spats you and Kate have.”

He gapes at her.

“All right, I’m off to the birdies’ apartment and no riffraff allowed, so don’t even think of following.” She opens the side door off the kitchen and waves goodbye to me. “Toodle-oo!”

After the door slams shut, I turn toward Christopher. “Is she always like that?”

“What?” he says, watching her go. “A menace?”

For the first time in weeks, I almost smile. “I was going to say a bit of a charmer.” A bittersweet pang knifes through my chest. “No mystery where Bea got it.”

“Just wait until you meet Kate,” he mutters darkly. “Then you’ll know who got her menacing streak.”

I watch Maureen through the door’s windowpane, crossing the lawn to her home, until she disappears inside. Her words echo in my head: It’s the things that went unsaid, rather than the things we did say, that have hurt the most.

“Christopher, you don’t happen to have a pen and piece of paper, do you?”

· THIRTY-SEVEN ·

Bea

A loud bang on the front door of the apartment jars me awake. I glance up and read the digital clock next to my bed. It’s disgustingly early.

The door rattles with more bangs again. Knowing Jules is a light sleeper and how badly she’s been sleeping, I stumble out of bed, then run down the hall, hoping to stop the noise before it wakes her up. I try to dodge the coffee table but stub my toe, biting my lip to stifle a cry of pain.

Hobbling, I make it to the door and wrench it open, about to have a few choice words with whoever thought it was cute to show up at my door at seven thirty in the morning. But instead my mouth falls open. “Kate?”

“Finally. Here, this was wedged in the door.” My younger sister slaps an envelope to my chest, then breezes past me, massive suitcase clunking behind her. It wobbles dangerously, missing a wheel, as she drags it with one hand.

That’s when I realize her right arm is tucked tight to her front. In a sling.

“What happened?” I ask. “Why are you here?”

Kate drops her suitcase with a loud thunk and heads straight for the kitchen.