A Million Reasons Why

by Jessica Strawser

  Then again, so had their families, as innocently baffled by the whole circumstance as their children had been. That had been a commonality, too: having someone external to blame.

  Sela and Caroline talked their way from the hot tubs to the firepits and back, until their growling stomachs called them away. At the least touristy pub they could find, they sat at a high-top and ordered salads and waters, Caroline matching her sister’s order without comment. Later, Sela laughed so hard she fell off her stool—stone-cold sober. On the walk back, they took off their shoes, climbed into a fountain, and took selfies with the centerpiece: a bear wearing a hat. At a wishing well, they collected coins from the crumb-lined bottoms of their purses and threw in every last one. In the tackiest of a string of tacky gift shops, they bought matching flannel pajama pants dotted with cartoonish waterfalls and pine trees.

  But the real magic of the night was not in the movie montage, the photo booth strip feeling of it all, the nostalgic carousel ride of emotions and memories and mirrors. It was in realizing that everything else had fallen away. Not just the mental checklist for tomorrow’s show but the confusing dynamics of the months before. The scares and reveals that rocked Caroline’s reality, and the lonely hardships that made up Sela’s, and the daily go-go-go that persisted through it all. The lot of it didn’t merely fade: It vanished.

  For those short, long hours, the world consisted of two sisters. They might have been anywhere, doing anything. What mattered was that they were together.

  28

  Sela

  When was the last time she’d made a new friend? Not an acquaintance, but a real friend. The kind you’d tell embarrassing things to, text when something reminded you of her, send a card just because. Leave with a smile that stayed on your face for hours, days.

  The kind you feel like you’ve known for years.

  No, that wasn’t quite it.

  The kind you wish you’d known for years.

  Long after Caroline said good night and closed the bedroom door, Sela lay awake, curled on the pullout couch, listening to the start and stop of the air temperature control and trying to sustain the simple giddiness of the night’s good mood. If only she could help but think of how life might have been different if she’d known Caroline all along. If their mothers had worked things out, clued their father in, or if Caroline had landed the job in Brevard and crossed Sela’s path some unsuspecting way. Even without knowing their connection, they’d have liked each other, Sela felt sure. How could they not, when they liked each other now in spite of so many inconvenient reasons not to?

  If Caroline had been in her life back when she and Doug and Leigh were living it up around town, oblivious to how short-lived those carefree days would be …

  If Caroline had been in her life when she’d gotten pregnant with Brody …

  When she’d gotten sick …

  When she’d given birth, too soon …

  When she’d lost Doug and Ecca and very nearly Leigh …

  It was hard to believe Sela would have fared anything but better with a sister at her side.

  Where she could have been, if not for Ecca and Hannah.

  The more Sela looked back on these fresh hours alone with her sister, the happier she was to have had them. But the angrier she was to have only just had them. The ticking clock of her kidneys was already counting their time down; she could feel it in her lower back, burning for attention.

  Nothing about this was fair. Not Caroline being better off not knowing the things she did not know, or Ecca no longer being here to explain herself, or Hannah subsequently being off the hook. And definitely not Sela having to hold on to their mothers’ secret through the push and pull of her sickness and pain, unable to ignore the intrusion of so many questions closing in, pressing down.

  She’d brought along the selenite from Leigh, feeling silly but also sentimental—it practically has your name in it. She dangled her arm off the mattress now and slid it inside the suitcase open on the floor, feeling between the folded clothes until the crystal’s cool surface was in her grasp.

  It focuses positive energy, Leigh had said.

  Sela squeezed tighter and willed the selenite to strengthen her grip on the good feelings that had prevailed all night. To convert the resentment she was battling now into resolve.

  They still had a whole day left together. Tomorrow, she’d work while Caroline did. She didn’t have the energy she’d once have had to drive into these mountains, which were not quite like her own—more exposed, somehow, and scarred in large swaths from fires years ago. She could find a view, though, create something inspired by them, by this. Something showing peaks at a distance and the unexpected beauty hidden in the valleys between them. When she was done for the day, Caroline would be, too. They’d stay up late, maybe even all night.

  Wherever they were headed on this visit, they were only halfway there.

  At that thought, at last, she drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  Sela became vaguely aware of the shower running, and the fan, and of Caroline shuffling about, getting ready. It was early, but Sela didn’t mind. The soundtrack of not being alone.

  Nicer still when a knock at the door proved to be a breakfast cart.

  Sela struggled to pull herself to sitting—always stiffest in the morning—as she watched her sister tip room service, then wheel in far too many silver domes for one person.

  “Morning!” Caroline looked ready for showtime, in a smart navy midi-dress with her hair pulled back. Sela tugged self-consciously at the old T-shirt she’d slept in, though she caught her sister smiling at her bottoms—the ones they’d bought last night. “Peace offering, for waking you so early. I didn’t know what you could have, so this is kind of a buffet.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I wanted to. I even have a few minutes to sit down and eat it. Which means it’s officially easier to run a trade show than my own household.”

  Sela laughed and went to freshen up.

  But when she returned, Caroline hadn’t touched the food. Instead, she sat hunched at their little round table, staring guiltily at her phone. “My kids want a good-morning video call,” she said, not looking up, her tone full of apology and something else. Regret? “It’s our ritual, when I’m away. I can’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me.…”

  “Don’t let me stop you.” Sela missed Brody, too. Hear their voice, lay eyes on them, every chance you get, she might have said earnestly. But it felt like overkill.

  “I—I didn’t mention you’d be here.”

  She could almost hear the click of her mind’s lens sharpening focus. “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry if that sounds bad. It’s more about them than you. Not the kids, but Walt, my parents. They’re not sold on this yet and I … didn’t have the energy.”

  Wow. When was the last time anyone had the nerve to complain of energy loss to Sela?

  Still, she’d said yet.

  “Go ahead, I’ll keep quiet. Or—would you rather I leave?”

  “Stay, of course. I only—you know how it is.” Mother to mother. Sela nodded. “It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Take all the time you want.”

  Sela picked at the fruit while she listened to Caroline chatting with her kids. Or, rather, to the kids talking over each other to fill their mom in.

  “Daddy let us take sandwiches for dinner to the playground, and there was a raccoon in the trash can!” Lucy, comically horrified.

  “I went to throw our trash away, and I told them I saw it in there.” Riley, pointed but cool. “They didn’t believe me.”

  “I thought you were joking!”

  “Well, if you’d believed me, you wouldn’t have opened it again.”

  “I had to throw my juice box away.” This was clearly not the sisters’ first go at this exchange.

  “It jumped out!” Owen, finally getting a word in, clapping his hands in delight.

  “It knocked the whole tra
sh can over.” Lucy again, not untraumatized. “I thought it was trying to get me!”

  “It was trying to get away.” Riley laughed. “But oh my gosh, the trash was the grossest thing I ever smelled in my life.”

  “It made a big crash!” Owen had clearly not been grossed out at all.

  In the excitement, they didn’t ask their mom about her own night. Sela was glad she didn’t have to actually hear her sister lie, though she couldn’t put her finger on why it mattered. So she and Caroline were apparently on a tryst of sorts. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been sneaking around last night anyway.

  But the whole other day left suddenly felt more like only one day left. Then what?

  When Caroline hung up, they ate in silence for a while. Waiting for the weirdness to fade.

  “I don’t miss their squabbling,” Caroline said finally, good-naturedly. “But they seem to think I do.”

  “Do you think they realize yet, how lucky they are to have each other?”

  “Their parents are two only children who won’t let them forget it.” Caroline was still half-smiling when she caught herself, fork halfway to her mouth. It clattered to her plate. “Grew up as only children, I mean,” she said. “God, Sela, I’m sorry.”

  “I knew what you meant. That’s—well, it’s why I asked.” She should have chosen a better segue. Any other segue. But the raccoon was out of the trash can, so to speak.

  Caroline folded her cloth napkin into progressively smaller triangles, working her way up to something. Or, rather, down to it.

  “Do you ever think about whether my mom knew you existed?” she blurted out.

  Sela blinked.

  “I mean, by all accounts, she and your mom were really close. They’d stayed in touch long-distance before. How could such a good friend fall off the face of the planet and you never hear or even sense where or why?”

  “I don’t know,” Sela mumbled. Not mentioning the emails to Caroline was one thing. But she hadn’t prepared to jump over and around them.

  “I keep coming back to this. My dad seems able to forgive either way. But it doesn’t sit well with me. Because if she did know, and maybe even helped make sure my dad didn’t? It’s not just him she kept you from. It’s me.”

  It should have been comforting, to hear her own feelings in Caroline’s words. But instead, she felt her own anger and wishes and doubts—everything she’d been fighting to suppress since the day she’d booted up Ecca’s old desktop—rising up to meet them.

  “Does it bother you?” Caroline persisted. She looked so earnest, Sela didn’t know whether to hug her or upend the room service cart in her lap. “That there’s a chance she knew?”

  Did it bother her? As if Caroline were the only one perceptive enough to try to connect the dots? As if Sela cared only about the future, even if she might barely have one?

  “No chance about it,” she snapped. “Hannah knew, all right.”

  Caroline’s face fell, more disappointed than surprised. But then, curiosity took over. “How are you so sure?”

  Don’t do this, she told herself. Especially not now. This was only a quick breakfast—meant to be a treat. Caroline could have easily sneaked out without disturbing her, but instead, she’d ordered for two and stayed. Any minute, she had to dash off, start her workday. And they still had tonight to talk.

  Only, they weren’t supposed to be talking about this at all.

  “Just for the reasons you said.”

  But Caroline was squinting at her, seeing more than Sela wanted her to.

  Seeing her.

  “You know something. You saw something?”

  “I’m just agreeing with you. Speculating.”

  “Please.” Caroline drew up in her chair. So flat-ironed where Sela was finger-combed, so powdered and polished where Sela was blotchy and rough. All Sela could think was that Caroline was so much more ready to face the world and so much less aware of how unfaceable it could be. “Be straight with me. I need to know that you of all people will be.”

  Of all people? Why? Why her?

  “Especially after the way our last visit ended.”

  Ah.

  But what was that way, exactly? With the truth, and the rejection of everything it might lead to? Which one of them had the visit ended worse for?

  Sela jumped to her feet, tipping her chair backward onto the kitchenette tile with a clatter. Her chest heaved with the effort as she stood looking down at her sister, watching her breathe so much easier.

  “I know,” she wheezed, “because your mother said so.”

  29

  Caroline

  Caroline must have read the printout of the email ten times, start to finish, before she dared lift her eyes to meet Sela’s. Sela had folded the bed back into the couch and sat there now, chin on hands, staring into the silence between them.

  “You say you didn’t plan to tell me about this, and yet you have it with you.” Caroline didn’t tame the accusation. Her fury was too hot to hold, and the only person in scorching distance was Sela.

  I can’t even bring myself to type your name, Mom had written, but here we are.

  “I had to print it. I didn’t know if that ancient computer would ever boot up again.”

  “But you have it with you.”

  “I didn’t know if you might’ve found the same, or something else … if there was a chance that’s why you asked me here.” The don’t-kill-the-messenger approach. It might have worked, had the messenger not been operating independently. “I stuck it in my bag in case you brought it up, not because I planned to.”

  Caroline didn’t want to believe that the email was real, that what it said was true. But she recognized Mom’s voice—so sure she was right, so polite in her hostility.

  There’s never been anything you could do that would help set things right between us. Until now.

  As if she were right there whispering the whole thing.

  “Is this a copy? Can I keep this?”

  Sela nodded, and without hesitation, Caroline crumpled the paper between her fists, slamming it onto the table with a bang. Both women startled at the noise.

  “What my mom wanted, your mother made happen. She could have said no!”

  You don’t want her, or Fred, or least of all me down there any more than I do.

  “She wanted to say no. There were other replies she didn’t send, asking Hannah to reconsider—but in the end, Ecca felt she owed her.”

  Stop groveling, for pity’s sake, move on, ease your conscience.

  “Yeah, for sleeping with my dad!”

  Sela looked like a church lady who’d stumbled into Coyote Ugly and couldn’t find the exit fast enough. As if she’d never imagined anyone could speak such ill of her precious Ecca.

  Mine will be a bit heavier for this, but I guess that’s the way it goes.

  A bit heavier. A bit. Meanwhile, the weight of what she’d done had nearly crushed Caroline to death.

  “You want me to apologize for something she did before I was born?” Sela’s words shook, even as the volume grew to match Caroline’s. “Something that brought me into this world? Believe me, there are plenty of days I wish she hadn’t. If I could take it back for her, I would.”

  The hard stop had the impact of an openhanded slap or a cold glass of water to the face. The constant replay of her mother’s hurtful words came to a halt, and she could see it now: Sela’s pain, reflecting her own.

  Only worse.

  “Don’t say that, Sela, God. I’m sorry. I’d never want that.” What a horrible thing to even begin to think—had she honestly thought Caroline would imply that? “No one would ever want that. Think of Brody.”

  Sela smiled sadly. “I’m always thinking of Brody.”

  Caroline sighed, sounding too much like Mom for her own liking. “You swear you just found this? You didn’t know before you first contacted me?”

  Sela shook her head. “I didn’t know what to look for, until you told me they’d been frien
ds and dropped your mom’s name. I’d been home a week before it occurred to me to look.”

  “Kind of takes a minute to sink in.”

  “Yeah.”

  They’d returned to a baseline calm, but it felt desolate now. “Listen, I was just—I never expected this. From them, I mean. I shouldn’t have reacted that way. And the worst thing is, I have to go. Like, right now.” How in the hell was she supposed to run a trade show in the mental wreckage of this blowup?

  “I know you do. I’m sorry this came out this way.” Sela sighed heavily, rubbing her temples. “I hate that this keeps happening.”

  “Me too,” Caroline said. “Please, don’t go. Tonight, we can talk more when we have the time. I promise to be more rational.”

  “You have every right to be irrational,” Sela said. Just not at me, she did not say.

  But Caroline should have said it for her. Because when the day finished its torturous crawl—the auctions settled and the exhibits closed and the attendees headed home happy—she returned to find her room quiet, the living room tidied, and Sela’s bags gone. Caroline stood there, forcing herself to breathe it in, wondering when was the last time she’d felt so lonely.

  She knew exactly when. It was when Keaton had gone. And when she thought too hard about him still.

  The table was cleared of their breakfast, and in its place was a strange white crystal of some sort and a handwritten note. Caroline lifted the paper shakily, unsure if she was more afraid of what it wouldn’t say or of what it did.

  Dear Caroline,

  Your family doesn’t know I was here, and maybe there’s good reason for that. Maybe I shouldn’t be. Maybe our mothers were right to keep us apart, even if we’re equally right to find it unforgivable. My friends want too much to come of our relationship, and your family wants nothing to come of it, and here we are stuck in between. There’s nothing wrong with a game of tug-of-war, but no one wants to be the rope. Eventually, we’d fray.

  This stone was a gift from Leigh—it’s called selenite, which she said reminded her of me. It’s supposed to reset your aura. I’m not sure if it’s powerful enough to replace the awful picture I left you with earlier, but the least I can do is try, and hope it works better for you than it has for me. If that’s too woo-woo for you, give it to Lucy, tell her it’s a unicorn horn. We could all use a little more of the kind of magic we don’t question.