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“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
That wasn’t unusual. Since Claire had hit her teenage years, her relationship with her mom had grown strained. I knew a big part of it was because Rachel pushed Claire too hard. Rachel wanted her daughter to go to college so Claire could have opportunities Rachel never did. Her motivation was pure, but Claire didn’t understand. No one could really understand the way we’d grown up and how it had affected us.
“Do you want me to go check on her for you?”
Rachel shook her head. “There’s nothing to be done. Nothing to say that will bring him back.” More tears coursed down her wet face.
“You’re right,” I said. “There aren’t any words. But there’s love. I can share that with her like I did with you. If that’s okay.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Right.” I nodded approvingly. “I’ll make you that tea first, and a little something to eat.”
“I can’t eat.”
“You will,” I said sternly, falling back into the authoritative older-sister role naturally. “You need to keep up your strength. Your daughter needs you.”
“All right, Addy.”
I got Rachel squared away, finding the things I needed in her big kitchen without too much delay. Then I went up the sweeping staircase and knocked on the closed door to Claire’s room.
“Hey, Claire,” I said loudly with my hand on the knob. “It’s Aunt Addy. Can I come in?”
“Go away.” She sounded as hoarse from crying as her mother.
“I can’t go away. I love you. I’m sad, and I need a hug. Will you give me one?”
The door opened.
Claire was so pretty. She had blond hair and delicate features like her mom, but the soft, expressive brown eyes magnified behind the lenses of her glasses were her dad’s.
Sadness gripped my heart as I looked at her. Her bright inner light was out. She was as devastated as her mom. Even youth couldn’t weather a blow like this without crumpling.
I held out my arms, and she threw herself into them just like her mom had.
“Oh, baby.” I wrapped her up tight. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Claire didn’t speak. She just shook, sobbing silently. Eventually, like with her mother, the shaking subsided.
Love broke me free all those years ago from Martin, but now I realized it could also break you when it was lost.
Right then and there, I determined that it was going to be my job to make sure that didn’t happen. Rachel and Claire had each other. They weren’t alone. I hoped I would eventually be able to get them to a place where they could see that.
Addy
Hope disappointed me as I’d grown accustomed to it doing.
Without Daniel as a bridge between them, Rachel and Claire didn’t grow closer, and after the funeral, additional problems came to light.
The second mortgage Daniel had taken out to cover an expensive remodel of their home left Rachel with a mountain of debt and no way to pay for it without any life insurance or savings. Everything she’d previously owned was sold at auction, including her house, leaving her and Claire with nothing. With no income, their only alternative was to come live with me in my apartment.
The only place for them was the last place I wanted for either of them. Southside broke hope. It didn’t rebuild it.
I picked up Rachel and Claire the day after the auction. My sister was silent in the passenger seat beside me, and my niece sat stiff in the back seat, her brow as pinched as her mother’s. As I drove, I tried to think of something comforting to say, noticing the tension within the silence growing deeper the further into Southside I went. Going from Lakeside to Southside was a drastic change.
“I love you both,” I said while idling at a stoplight. I glanced at Rachel and started to look at Claire, but shouting on the street drew my attention.
“Did that shopkeeper just get robbed?” Claire asked, her eyes wide.
