Chapter 8: What Vanessa Said to Nora's Face
She arrived at two o'clock.
She looked tired.
She was wearing less makeup than usual, and she had her hair pulled back, which she almost never did.
She stood on the front step with her hands in her jacket pockets and waited for me to open the door wider.
"She's in the living room," I said.
Vanessa nodded.
She didn't try to hug me.
I led her in and then I stepped back.
This was not my conversation.
Nora was sitting on the couch with her feet tucked under her.
She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt.
She watched Vanessa come in and she didn't stand up.
Vanessa sat down in the chair across from her.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Vanessa said, "I've been thinking about what to say since yesterday."
"Okay," Nora said.
"I've been trying to figure out how to explain what I was doing.
Why I said the things I said." She paused.
"And I realized I keep wanting to explain it in a way that makes me look less bad.
And every time I do that, I'm doing the same thing again."
Nora waited.
"So I'm going to say the thing without the explanation." Vanessa's voice was careful and quiet.
"What I said to you — at the mall, at the wedding, at Grandma's birthday, at dinner — was wrong.
Not misunderstood.
Not taken the wrong way.
Wrong.
I told you your body was something other people shouldn't have to see.
I said it over and over, in different ways, and I made sure your mother wasn't there when I did it." She stopped.
"That was cruel.
And I'm sorry."
The room was very still.
"Why?" Nora said.
Vanessa looked at her.
"Why did I do it?"
"Yes."
A long pause.
"I don't have a good answer," Vanessa said.
"I've been sitting with that question and the honest answer is — I think I was uncomfortable.
With the way people looked at you.
With the attention it drew.
And instead of dealing with my own discomfort, I put it on you." She shook her head slightly.
"That's not an excuse.
I'm not saying it to make you feel sorry for me.
I'm saying it because you asked and you deserve a real answer, not a performance."
Nora looked at her for a long moment.
"You made me believe I was a problem," Nora said.
"For three years.
I wore cardigans in July.
I stood at the back of rooms.
I almost didn't walk onto that beach." Her voice was steady.
"Do you understand what that cost me?"
"Yes," Vanessa said.
"I think I'm starting to."
"I don't want an explanation," Nora said.
"I don't need to understand why you did it.
I just needed to hear you say that it was wrong without trying to take it back."
Vanessa nodded.
"I'm not ready to be close with you," Nora said.
"I don't know if I ever will be.
But I needed to hear that."
"That's fair," Vanessa said.
Her voice was rough at the edges.
"And I need you to delete the cropped photo."
Vanessa took out her phone.
She opened the app.
She deleted the post while Nora watched.
"Done," she said.
Nora looked at the phone, then back at Vanessa.
"Thank you."
They sat in silence for a moment.
Not comfortable silence — but not hostile either.
Something in between.
Something that had room in it.
Then Vanessa stood up.
"I'm going to get some help," she said.
"I've been saying things like that my whole life — to you, to other people.
I don't want to keep doing it." She paused at the edge of the room.
"I know that doesn't fix anything.
I just wanted you to know."
Nora didn't answer right away.
Then she said, "Good."
Just that.
One word.
Vanessa left.
I walked her to the door.
On the step she turned to me, and for a moment she looked like my sister again — not the performance of her, the actual person underneath.
"I'm sorry to you too," she said.
"For what it's worth."
"It's worth something," I said.
"Not everything.
But something."
She walked to her car.
I watched her go.
When I came back inside, Noah was sitting next to Nora on the couch.
He had appeared from somewhere in the house, silently, the way he always did when something important was happening.
"How do you feel?" he asked her.
Nora thought about it.
"Like I put something down," she said.
"Something I didn't know I was still carrying."
May you like
Noah leaned his head against her shoulder.
She let him.
