Every time Amy elaborated on her supposedly simple ‘it’s handled’, on ‘minor slip ups’, or just about anything about this, she added new details, raised new questions, painted a fuller and scarier picture. One where I wasn’t sure she was being entirely forthright, especially when I stood in this long greenhouse, staring down its length at my ex-sister, and that image was a picture framed by my mom on my right, my dad sitting at the aisle to the left, Marquis and Chris near Amy.

None of those people looked like they felt it was ‘handled’.

I looked away from that scene. I didn’t want to get carried away.

No ear-pull from Sveta. She just looked horrified.

I wasn’t horrified, I decided. I realized I had a pressure on my chest like someone was sitting on it, but it wasn’t horror. A person didn’t feel horror if a steamroller was left to inch forward while unwitting people sat in its path, and they later heard those people had died.

Amy was looking at her dad, who’d said something quiet. She nodded, unsmiling.

I spoke, which cut Marquis off, “When you say it’s handled, tell me, Amy, well first, start by looking me in the eyes.”

She looked up, locking her eyes to my hard stare.

“Tell me, while looking me in the eye, that you can fix her. No slip-ups, no minor ‘coloring outside the line’ casualties, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”

“I’m pretty sure I can,” she said, her eyes meeting mine, but even from a distance, I could see them moving by fractions, her gaze moving from one of my eyes to the other.

Even now, I could be reasonably certain when she was telling the truth. I could tell when she was confident and not confident, and I knew the patterns she could fall into, at least when she got into arguments.

“I believe you,” I said. Amy smiled and I looked away.

“I’m happy we were able to talk,” Amy said, a haunting voice from the far end of the greenhouse patio. I didn’t look at her, instead staring out at the storm beyond.

“We’re not okay, Amy. We’ll probably never be okay.”

“I’m still glad we could talk. Open lines of communication.”

I continued to look away, to ignore her, because the alternative was that I’d open my line of communication, and tell her exactly how I felt, and I was pretty sure the only people who needed that were me and her alone. For everyone else, it would spell disaster.

“Are you sure?” Sveta asked.

I folded my arms, shifting my footing, as I leaned back against the window. I exhaled slowly, trying to control my breathing. “Yeah.”