“She told me you and Pete were taking the other bedroom.”
Krista turned toward Nancy.
“She said you offered.”
The air changed.
I looked at my sister.
“I didn’t.”
Krista closed her eyes briefly.
“Okay.”
Nancy immediately stepped forward.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want everyone standing around discussing every sentence. Jocelyn is exhausted. Everybody is emotional.”
“No one is confused about what I said,” I replied.
“I am trying to keep this family together.”
“You can start by not moving into my house.”
“You are being incredibly cold.”
That word still hurt.
Cold had always been one of Nancy’s favorites.
Cold.
Ungrateful.
Difficult.
The words appeared whenever I became inconvenient.
This time, I didn’t argue with the label.
Nancy waited for me to defend myself.
I didn’t.
“Family doesn’t need a formal invitation,” she said.
“To come over for dinner? Maybe not. To move into somebody’s house? Yes.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
Her eyes filled with frustration.
Then she looked at Clara.
“One day she’s going to grow up,” Nancy said. “One day Clara will grow up. One day you’ll be standing outside a door that used to open for you, and maybe then you’ll understand what you’re doing to me.”
I looked down at my daughter’s head.
Her dark hair was barely visible above the edge of the wrap.
I knew exactly what I wanted for that future.
I wanted Clara to have a door she could close.
I wanted to be the kind of mother who knocked.
I wanted her to become an adult without believing independence was something she had done to me.
I wanted her to invite me because she wanted me there.
Victor set his coffee cup on the side table.
“Nancy,” he said.
She looked at him.
“She owns this house. You don’t. That’s the end of it.”
He didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
The facts were embarrassingly simple.
The house belonged to me.
I had said no.
Everything else was an argument about whether my no should count.
Gil finally came through the doorway.
He looked at Nancy, then at the boxes outside.
“Maybe we should head home.”
She turned sharply. “We just got here.”
“I know.”
“The kids are here.”
“I know.”
“We brought everything.”
Gil glanced toward the truck.
“We can put it back.”
For once, Nancy let him put a hand lightly on her arm.
She looked less angry than she had a minute earlier.
More disoriented.
She had arrived with the day already arranged in her head.
By lunch, the boxes would be inside.