“Um, no, thanks. Maybe you’ve had enough for tonight?”
“Hmmm,” I say, as if I’m really thinking about it. “No. No, I don’t think so. I think I’m going to drink this one and then another one and then we’ll see.”
“Jez.” The way she says my name sometimes makes me question who’s the older sibling of us two. She’s grown up a lot in the last few months. First coming into her own after her own drama and then dealing with my accident. It can’t have been easy for her seeing me, in a hundred broken pieces in that hospital bed, asleep for weeks.
But she handled it with more grace than I could’ve had the tables been turned. I would’ve torn up L. A. on a rampage.
And what good would it have done?
Nothing but assuaged my own guilt, my own ego, that I hadn’t been able to take care of my own baby sister. I guess it’s a good thing that she’s wiser than me. And as it turns out, much kinder.
“Give me the bottle,” she says, holding out her hand, and I take one last sip, before handing it to her.
She lifts it to her mouth and takes a drink, her eyes crinkling as the liquid burn down her throat.
“Now we’re both drunk. Happy?”
“You had one drink,” I roll my eyes.
“You know I’m a cheap drunk. It’s partly why Marius loves me. That and I’m very bendy,” she wiggles her eyebrows and I make pretend to stick my finger down my throat and retch.
“Please, too much information. I think of you guys sitting up in bed in flannel pajamas and playing scrabble.”
“Naked scrabble, maybe.”
“Dear God,” I say, eyes pointed up to the ceiling. “You’ve put me through a lot in the last few months, but this, this is easily the worst of it,”
She giggles softly and nudges me with her elbow, making more room for herself on the bed next to me.
“Ugh, when are you going back to Romania already?”
“When I think that you’re ready for me to go.” She doesn’t pull her punches, my sister. And I’m glad for that. She’s had a hard time, it’s good to see her feel comfortable in her own skin. I just wish she’d do it far away from me.
“Well, now’s a good time. I can call you an Uber. I’ll even pay.”
She pokes her tongue out at me, and suddenly she’s six years old again and I’m telling her off for not putting on her shoes. It really was just us for a lot of our childhood once were alone. Our grandparents couldn’t have taken better care of us, but our music lessons and private schooling cost a lot, and they had to work more than they should’ve at their age.
Just another way our parents’ car accident changed the course of everyone’s life.
“I heard you’re working on a new piece. Marius says it’s so good, it’s going to be the title of the next album.”
“Don’t listen to what that Dung Beetle Breath says,” I say.
“Hey, that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about.”
“Hey, that’s one of my best friends you’re boning,” I shoot back at her. “And I’ve known him longer than you.”
“Yeah, but you know he’s right. He knows good music when he hears it.”
I roll my eyes, but I have to agree with her. And the new song is good.
It’s not finished and I’m not sure how it’s going to end up, but it’s good.
And I’m proud of it.
“What about… other stuff? Non-musical stuff?” she asks, trying to keep her voice light, like I won’t notice she’s prying into my life.
“Mind your own business, Anca.” It’s the same response I give whenever she tries to make me talk.
“No. Not today. It’s time. Tell me what’s going on in your head.”
“Nothing. There’s nothing going on in my head.”
I get a hard elbow poked into my side. “Yes, there is. Tell me about her.”
“Ow! Do it again and I’m telling Dennis,” I warn her. “And by the way, I especially don’t think about her.”
“What a load of absolute bull elephant shit.”
“That’s a helluva lot of shit.”
“Exactly,” she glowers at me.
“What do you want me to say, Anca? That I spend every day not knowing if I want to kiss her or kill her? That I can’t believe I finally fell in fucking love and it was with someone like her? That I don’t know how or why I wake up every morning, because I know when I do, she’s not going to be here? That I’m still so disgusted by her that I can’t even say her name? But if I could, if I could turn back time, I would get in that car instead of her, knowing that it would hit someone? Because I would rather it was me than her. Because I can live with my own shame, But I can’t live with someone I’m ashamed of. That I miss her more than I missed playing the cello? And that I’d chop off both my arms if it meant things could be different?”
Anca sighs. “Yes. I want you to say all those things. And more, if you have it.”
I shrug, “No, I don’t have anything, Anca. Just you and the band.”
“Only because you chose to walk away.”
“Are you kidding me?” I bellow at her. “You, of all people, you’re judging ME for walking away from her?”
“No, I’m not judging you. You are.”
“The hell I am.”
“You are, I hear it in everything you’re saying. The conflict. Make up your fucking mind. Do you love her or do you hate her?”
“Both.”
“No. You don’t. You just think you should hate her.”
“She got in a car drunk, Anca. And she hit me.”
She stands up abruptly and waves her finger in my face. “Oh, I know, I saw. I saw the blood, the tubes, the casts. Heard the doctors frantic, asking each other what to do, all while the fucking paparazzi were blocking the entrance ways for the exclusive scoop that you were dead. It’s a pint of my blood coursing through your veins right now. So, yeah, I bloody hell know, so don’t you tell me I don’t know what happened to you.”
“Mom and Dad…”
“Died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. Yeah, I know that, too. I was four years old and couldn’t understand why my mom, my hero, never came back for me. Tell me something, I don’t know.”
She sits down, drawing in a long breath.
“Anca, I can’t just forget.”
“No one’s telling you. But the grudge, that’s for you to decide whether you can let it go or not. I’ve had a good life. Haven’t you?”
“The absolute best.” I tell her. Meaning every word. “I… I just don’t know I could ever forgive her.”
“You know the answer, you just said it.”
“That’s not what love is, Anca.”
My little sister looks at me, as if I’m an absolute idiot. “It’s exactly what it is. And for what it’s worth. I forgive her. I saw how happy she made you, so I forgive her. It’s your choice.”