Chapter 9: The Conversation I'd Been Avoiding
Three weeks passed.
Daniel met with Robert and, according to Andrew, said very little.
He didn't argue.
He didn't make excuses.
He signed a repayment agreement for the thirty-eight thousand dollars — structured over eighteen months — and left without staying for dinner.
Robert called Andrew that evening and said simply: *It's done.
Give it time.*
Andrew gave it time.
I gave Kayla time.
Her texts came every few days.
Short ones.
*Hope you're well.
No pressure.* Once: *I made Mom's lemon cake.
Thought of you.* I read them all.
I didn't reply to any of them.
I wasn't ready, and I wasn't going to pretend I was.
Then one Tuesday morning, three weeks and two days after she'd sat on her suitcase on my sidewalk, I called her.
She picked up on the first ring.
"Hi," she said.
Just that.
"Hi." I sat down at the kitchen table.
"Are you free this week?"
A pause.
"Yes.
Whenever you want."
"Thursday.
There's a café on Meridian Street.
Do you know it?"
"I'll find it."
"Eleven o'clock."
"I'll be there," she said.
And then, carefully: "Thank you for calling."
I didn't say *of course* or *it's fine* or any of the things that would have made it easier than it was.
"Thursday," I said, and hung up.
She was there when I arrived.
She'd gotten there early — I could tell by the way she was sitting, too still, hands around a mug she'd already half-finished.
She stood up when she saw me and then seemed to think better of it and sat back down.
I sat across from her.
The waitress came and I ordered coffee and we waited until she left.
Then Kayla looked at me and said: "I don't want to make excuses."
"Good," I said.
"Because I don't want to hear any."
She nodded.
"Tell me the truth," I said.
"Not the version where Daniel manipulated you and you were just trying to help.
The real version."
She looked at her mug for a moment.
Then she looked up.
"I was jealous," she said.
"Not of Andrew.
Of you." She said it plainly, like she'd been rehearsing the plainness of it.
"You have a good marriage and a good house and a life that looks the way I always thought mine would look by now.
And when Daniel told me Andrew might be hiding money from you, I wanted it to be true." She paused.
"I wanted there to be a crack.
Because if there was a crack in your life, then mine not working out wasn't just about me."
I looked at her.
"That's the most honest thing you've said to me in years," I said.
Her eyes filled.
"I know."
"You went through my filing cabinet."
"Yes."
"You went through our private documents."
"Yes."
"And you kept coming downstairs in that towel after I asked you twice to stop."
"Yes." Her voice was very quiet.
"I kept telling myself it was harmless.
That I was just — staying in character, I suppose.
So you wouldn't suspect what I was actually doing." She stopped.
"That's not an excuse.
It's just what I told myself."
I wrapped my hands around my coffee cup.
"Did you find anything?" I asked.
Not because I didn't know the answer.
Because I needed to hear her say it.
"Nothing," she said.
"Not a single thing.
Andrew's finances are completely clean.
Everything is exactly what it looks like." She paused.
"I think I knew by day three that Daniel had lied to me.
But I'd already come.
I'd already done things I couldn't undo.
So I just — kept going.
And felt worse every day."
"Why didn't you leave?"
"Because leaving meant admitting it.
And I didn't know how to admit it to you." She looked at me.
"I still don't, really.
I'm just doing it anyway because there's no other way through."
I looked at my sister.
She was thirty-one years old and she looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep, and I had known her face my entire life, and I was still angry with her, and I also knew — sitting there across that café table — that I was not going to lose her over this.
Not because what she'd done was acceptable.
But because she was here.
She had come.
She had said the true thing instead of the easy thing, and she was sitting with the weight of it without asking me to take it from her.
"I'm not ready to say it's okay," I said.
"I'm not asking you to."
"It's going to take time."
"I know."
"And if you ever —" I stopped.
"If you ever do anything like this again.
To me, to Andrew, to anyone I love.
That's it.
Do you understand?"
"Yes," she said.
"I understand."
I picked up my coffee.
She picked up hers.
Outside the café window, the street was doing its ordinary Tuesday things — people walking, a bus pulling away, a woman trying to fold a stroller with one hand while holding a toddler with the other.
"How's the room?" I asked.
Kayla blinked.
"It's small.
The radiator makes a noise.
But the landlady is kind and there's a garden I can use."
"Are you working?"
"I have an interview Friday.
Admin role, not glamorous, but it's something."
"Good."
We sat in the kind of quiet that isn't empty — the kind that has things in it, old things and new things and things that haven't been named yet.
"I missed you," Kayla said.
"Even before all this.
I'd been missing you for a while."
I looked at her.
"I know," I said.
"Me too."
It wasn't forgiveness, exactly.
Not yet.
But it was a door left open, and we both knew it, and neither of us moved to close it.
May you like
That was enough.
For now, it was enough.
