“What did you do after I went to college?” A flare of guilt rises in Sal’s chest. She feels bad for leaving Lacey. She doesn’t know why. She just does.
“After Mom died, and you moved here, Dad remarried.” Lacey sips her wine and smirks. “The Witch Woman is what we call her.”
“Our stepmother?”
“Yeah. We hate her.” With a great gasp, Lacey claps a hand across her mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t tell you what to think. Or stress you out. Oh my God.”
Sal emits a slight laugh. “It’s okay, Lacey.”
“No, it isn’t.” Tears spring to her eyes, and she clutches at Sal’s hand. “I missed you so much, Sal. I didn’t know what I’d do without you.” A thrash of her blond head. “Don’t you worry. You got me through everything else. I’ll get you through this.”
It’s a strong vow, one that has Sal wondering at the reason. But either way, she’s grateful.
She gives her sister a pat on the hand. “What’s your favorite memory of us?” she asks in an attempt to dry Lacey’s tears.
Only Lacey looks resistant, her green eyes wary.
“Please,” Sal urges. “It’ll help me know who I am.”
A beat. “High school graduation,” Lacey says. “You smuggled a megaphone in and cheered the entire time I walked across the stage. You were escorted out but said it was worth it.”
“Sounds like it was.” Sal smiles faintly, saddened by the loss of the memory. “I wish I remembered that.”
“Me too.” Lacey adjusts her napkin. “But enough about that. How are you doing?”
“It’s all so strange,” Sal admits.
“So you really can’t remember anything?”
“I don’t think so,” Sal says, taking a sip of her wine. It’s delicious. Icy and crisp like apples. Warming her insides, loosening her tongue. “Small things maybe. Like dreaming of the plane crash. Feeling like I knew Seth when I met him.” She smiles when Lacey wrinkles her nose in distaste. “But everything—and everyone—else is jumbled. Like puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit me yet.”
“Will it come back?”
“Maybe,” Sal admits. “The doctors aren’t sure.”
She pauses. She looks at her sister close, her mind going back to this morning. The tension in the kitchen. Luke with his arms crossed, Lacey’s eyes pinning him with her daggerlike stare. “Is there anything I should remember?”
Lacey opens her mouth.
A chirp sounds from Sal’s purse. She ducks her head to check her phone. Luke. She smiles at the text he’s sent: Everything okay?
Sal writes back: All good. At lunch.
Technically, the proper way to engage with Lacey is a taser.
Sal smothers a laugh with her fingertips.
And finds herself missing Luke. The way he was with her this morning—protective, strong, kind. Their banter, their conversation that came so natural. She’s drawn to him, which gives her hope. Like maybe he feels the same way about her.
“What about me and Luke?” Sal asks when she glances back up. Lacey’s pouring more wine. Maybe her sister can shed some light on the mystery that is her husband.
Lacey stares at her wineglass with narrowed eyes. “What about you and Luke?” Her voice is stoic—icy.
This time it’s Sal’s turn to frown. “The way you’re talking ... you don’t like him?”
Lacey sighs. “I like him fine, Sal.”
“Then ...” A flush of her cheeks as the question dies on her lips. She doesn’t know what the words will mean to her, only that she yearns to make sense of their familiar connection. “Do I love him?”