Hank just shrugged.
Jimmy stopped chewing and—miracle of miracles—put his sandwich back on the plate. “Wait. Do you think that’s why Cheyenne showed up? Because of the trust?”
My eyes widened. Damn. That wasn’t like Jimmy at all. Normally, he gave people the benefit of the doubt, and whether he remembered her or not, Cheyenne was family.
Hank looked down at his plate for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Thought crossed my mind.”
Protective anger burned in my belly and I felt like telling them both they needed to get their heads out of their ass, but I held myself back. Even though Hank was older than I was and technically should’ve remembered Cheyenne as a kid better than I did, it was also true that he hadn’t been as close with her as I had. She and I had been a matched set. She was my shadow, not his.
Mama used to smile at us and say that we were like sunshine and blue skies, you never saw one without the other and it never failed to bring a smile to your face when you did.
So, because they didn’t have that special connection, I might have to be patient. That wasn’t my strong suit.
I took a deep breath to make sure my voice would be even before I spoke. It didn’t really work. “So, genius, your big theory is that she up and left the lap of luxury to come down here for…what? The off chance that there’s some trust fund? And so what if that is the case? She’s just as much Mama’s child as we are. She’s blood.”
Jimmy, to his credit, looked rightly sheepish. “Well, damn. When you put it that way. I just don’t know why she only came here after Pop was gone. I mean, she’s how old?”
“Twenty-five.” I did my best not to sound as defensive as I felt.
“Why wait seven years after you turn eighteen to come and find your family?”
Hank grunted. “How do you know she was living in the lap of luxury?”
My jaw clenched and I had to work not to let my fists follow its lead. “Did you see her shoes? Her bag? The diamond tennis bracelet she had on?” Growing up in a tourist town that was visited by all sorts, I’d learned to spot who had real money and who was pretending they’d had it from an early age. “Those things alone are worth more than this house is.”
Hank exhaled loudly through his nose. “I’d feel better if I knew why she was really here.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Maybe to see her brothers? To get to know us again?”
“Then why’d she leave in the first place?” Hank growled.
“Are you serious right now, Hank? She was five years old! She had no choice. Our grandparents dragged her out, kickin’ and screamin’. If anything, we should be wondering why we never heard from them, not her.”
Jimmy turned a puzzled gaze on me. “What do you mean, kickin’ and screamin’?”
“Are there a lot of ways to interpret that?”
Hank jumped back in. “Pop told me she wanted to go. That she practically begged to, as a matter of fact. He said that she didn’t want to live here after Mama was gone.”
At that, I let the protective rage I’d tried to suppress earlier have full control. “Are you fucking kidding me? Well, I tell you what, there’s a reason he never tried to shovel that horseshit around me. Because I was there and I would’ve told it the way it really happened.”
I filled them in on a play by play of the events of Mama’s funeral reception, and by the end of it, they seemed a lot softer toward Cheyenne.
“Okay,” Jimmy took in a deep breath. “But I still have one question, how in the hell did you guys never tell me about her?”
I glanced at Hank, whose expression was as unreadable as it always was.
I shook my head, knowing that it was up to me. “I don’t know. I guess at first I was dealing with losing Mama, and then, the years passed and I don’t know… I never forgot her but, I just didn’t think about her.” I wished I had a better explanation, or at least a better way to explain the one I did have.
“I gotta admit, it’s sort of a mindfuck finding out that we have a sister.” Jimmy sighed and shook his head. “And why didn’t Pops ever say anything? Why didn’t he ever try to get her back?”
I had a few ideas, but none of them were charitable, and I had no desire to speak ill of the dead, so I kept them to myself.
“I don’t know why he did or didn’t do anything.” Hank said, resignation filling his voice.
Jimmy still looked confused and I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty. That guilt was amplified by the fact that he hadn’t touched the second sandwich that Hank slid in front of him.
Since I was the one that was there that day and remembered the scene, I tried to explain his actions as best I could. “Pop was a good man in a lot of ways, but he was a weak man. Too weak to face the fact that his rich in-laws, who never liked him much, all but snatched his daughter away from him, and he was powerless to stop it. He would never have admitted that to us.”