“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. It’s just... do you want to do that?”
“Why is that suddenly what everyone is asking me? No one has ever cared so much about what I do with my life.”
“That’s not true,” Zilla said with her fierceness. “It’s just been a while since you had a choice.”
“Do you think I can’t do it?”
“I think you can do whatever you want, but you’ve been making decisions based on the opinions of other people for a while now. You should get to decide for yourself.”
How politely everyone said it. It was like we were all speaking code.
“It’s nice to have something to do,” I said. “To be useful.”
“You could be useful in a million ways,” Zilla said. “Not just in the ways she allows you to be.”
“She being Caroline?”
Zilla shrugged.
What would it be like, I wondered, to live like Zilla. To not see or not care about all the strings that attached us to other people. All the ways our actions had consequences and those consequences had consequences. To do whatever I wanted was not an option I’d ever had.
“You’ve never liked her,” I said.
“I never liked how much you liked her. She isn’t our mom.”
“I know that. But she helped us when—”
Zilla turned to face me, the fire flickering in her eyes. “Did she though? She’s richer than god, but instead of, I don’t know, loaning you money for school. Loaning me money for Belhaven. Instead of—”
I tried. I really did try not to scoff, but a sound came out of my throat anyway.
“She married you off.” She spat the words at me.
“That’s not true,” I said. “And you can’t be angry because she didn’t just give us money. We had no right to expect that.”
“She married you off,” Zilla said again. Each word a bullet, and I tried not to flinch. “To a guy who hurt you. And she knew he was doing it, didn’t she?”
I felt myself go still. The lie too slow to my lips.
“I knew it,” she said and stood up. “She knew and let me guess... She sent you back to him? Tell me, Poppy. How exactly did she help you?”
“She helped you!” I cried, getting to my feet.
Yes. Of course, I’d wondered when Caroline suggested it, why I had to marry the senator. Why she couldn’t help me get a job. Or yes, even loan us the money. But those weren’t solutions to the problem of Belhaven and the banks.
“Don’t,” Zilla said. “Don’t do that. Don’t hide behind me. She manipulated you.”
“Manipulated?” I cried. “You’re safe. I’m safe. We’re... fucking rich, Zilla.”
“Don’t pretend like you care about the money.”
“Don’t pretend like the money doesn’t help us!”
Maybe it was the reflection of the fire, but my sister’s eyes were wild. “The money. This—” she looked over my head at the house behind me, “—it’s a fucking jail. And you know it. She put you in jail.”
“Why? Why would she do that? Do you hear yourself, Zilla?”