The Sister Who Stayed Alive

Brielle took the phone, but she couldn't type.

Ana sat beside her.

"She knows you're here. She's waiting."

Brielle managed two words.

I'm coming.

The reply appeared before she could hand the phone back.

I'll be there.

That night she returned to her own apartment because she needed to pack, though she put almost nothing into the new overnight bag Matteo had brought her.

He had held it out in the parking lot without ceremony.

"Your old one lost a fight."

"Against three men. It did pretty well."

"Then keep it for sentimental reasons. Use this one for your things."

She had accepted. It felt different now, accepting something she needed from someone who had stopped pretending he didn't want to give it.

In the morning, they flew to Minneapolis. Celia had coordinated the meeting with Mara directly. No one surprised her at her workplace. She asked to meet in a quiet room at the hospital after her shift, with a colleague nearby.

Brielle understood the caution. She hated the reason for it.

In the corridor, she stopped outside a pale wooden door.

Matteo stood beside her.

"I can wait here."

She nodded.

"Don't go far."

"I won't."

She opened the door.

A woman in navy scrubs stood beside the window. Her hair was shorter, curling just below her jaw. She had a thin scar near her chin that Brielle didn't remember.

Everything else was wrong too: the years, the room, the impossible fact of her standing there.

Then the woman pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling.

Mara had always done that before she cried.

"Bree?"

Brielle crossed the room so quickly she hit the corner of a chair.

Mara caught her. They collided awkwardly, Brielle's bandaged hand trapped between them, and neither let go.

"You're here," Brielle said into her sister's shoulder.

"I am. I'm here."

Mara smelled of soap and coffee. She was warm. Her arm was trembling around Brielle's back.

For eleven years, Brielle had been afraid of forgetting her voice. Now Mara was saying her name, again and again, as though she needed to hear herself permitted to use it.

They sank onto the sofa together.

Mara held Brielle's face between her hands.

"You grew up."

Brielle laughed and cried at once.

"So did you."

"What happened to your hand?"

"That's a long story."

"You always say that when you've done something dangerous."

The old familiarity broke something open. Brielle bent forward, and Mara pulled her back into her arms.

Later, when the first impossible minutes had passed, the harder questions remained.

"Why didn't you come back?" Brielle asked.

Mara stared at their joined hands.

"At first I thought they would send you after me. Then I thought they'd use me to get to you. Dad came looking. Vale found the place where Margaret was helping me."

"Vale?"

"Thomas Vale. He told me I had stolen papers that belonged to dangerous people. He knew where you went to school. He showed me a picture of you getting off the bus."

Brielle went cold.

Mara continued in a careful, uneven voice.

"Margaret moved me. I changed my name. I wrote the letters. Later I went back to Ashland, but the building had new tenants. I called Mom once from a borrowed phone. Dad answered. He said you didn't want to hear from me."

"He lied."

"I know that now. I didn't quite believe him then, but I believed enough to be afraid."

"And after he died?"

Mara nodded as if she had expected the question and dreaded it anyway.

"I searched. I paid someone who found an old address for Brielle Bell, but you had moved. I checked online. I sent a letter to a woman who turned out to be someone else. And then I stopped trying for a while."

She looked up, tears running silently down her face.

"I could tell you I was protecting you the whole time. I wasn't. Some of the time I was just terrified you'd built a life where I was the person who abandoned you. I was getting through school and working nights, and once a month I'd tell myself I would find you when I could afford to do it properly."

Brielle could feel the years between them, crowded with ordinary days neither had witnessed.

"I needed you," she said.

"I know."

"I was angry. Sometimes I hated you for leaving. Then I'd hate myself because I thought you might be dead."

Mara's mouth shook.

"You can be angry now. I'll still be here."

That was the answer Brielle had needed more than an explanation.

She leaned against her sister.

"I heard you that night. I stayed in my room."

Mara turned sharply.

"Dad said he'd put you in the car too if you came out. I was trying to keep him in the room with me. I thought if you stayed quiet, he might leave you alone."

Brielle shook her head.

"I should have called someone."

"Maybe. I should have done a hundred things differently. We were scared of him, Bree. He made sure we were."

Mara put her hand against Brielle's cheek.

"I didn't spend those years thinking you failed me. I spent them missing you."

Brielle closed her eyes.

For the first time, the bedroom door in her memory had someone on the other side who could tell her what had happened.

They talked until Mara's colleague brought them sandwiches. Brielle picked the tomatoes out of hers, and her sister laughed so hard she had to put her food down.

When Matteo knocked, Mara was holding Brielle's good hand in both of hers.

He remained in the doorway until Brielle beckoned him in.

Mara looked from his face to the way Brielle unconsciously moved closer when he sat beside her.

"Moretti," she said.

He nodded.

"I understand why that's a difficult name to hear."

"Your mother tried to help me."

"She's sorry she didn't do more."

Mara studied him.

"Brielle says you're letting people examine the old company records."

"Yes."

"Then they should know what Vale said at the farm. He was there when Daniel left. He told me nobody would believe a thief, especially after my father agreed to say the money was missing."

Brielle sat very still.

Mara looked at her.

"I can tell someone officially. I don't want him doing this to anyone else."

Matteo took out his phone, then paused.

"Celia can arrange it whenever you're ready."

Mara drew a breath.

"Tomorrow," she said. "Tonight I want dinner with my sister."

For the first time in eleven years, they had tomorrow to plan.