I discovered the picture of Chris and Lance in New York in my pocket and inspected it. It was taken early in our separation. The background was hatched with monkey bars, blurry children running, a chain-link fence with a solid wall of red brick behind it. The ground was beige concrete. Lance was fully grown, looking away from the camera. Chris was still a boy, and very much a man. His shirt was tight in the arms, his pants were short, and he crouched next to a knapsack that had seen better days.

I flipped the picture. He’d handwritten the date and a note.

---

“I missed you too.”

What had I been doing when this picture was taken?

Against the back wall of the hall closet, I kept a stack of photo albums. I kneeled on the floor and fingered the spines, plucking out one of the middle. Hunched in front of the closet and opened it in the middle.

My world had red brick in the background too. The factory closed. Daddy had given notice two weeks before, and the workers had set up a “locked doors party” onsite, celebrating what they couldn’t control. It had seemed like a bump in the road back then. Something to have a few beers and eat barbecue over.

I put the picture of Chris and Lance in that timeframe.

Downstairs, something shattered. I hurried to the kitchen to find Harper cleaning up a broken glass in bare feet.

“Are you all right?” I pushed her away, taking the broom and dustpan. Her hair was greasy, her eyes were puffy, and her lips were bitten red.

“I’ll get over it.” She hoisted herself onto the counter and got a new glass from the rack. She filled it, sniffling.

My sister didn’t cry. I did all the crying for the family. Harper worked, studied, followed her curiosity down rabbit holes. Her spirit had been crushed. Something beautiful had been destroyed. I jammed the broom into the corners and edges of the kitchen as if I wanted to beat the glass out of them. My rage had its own mind, running my blood faster and hotter, contracting my muscles into tight, sinewy braids.

“Where is he?” I asked, slapping the edge of the dustpan into the trash. The glass tinkled in.

“He went back to California,” she said into her glass before she finished it, looking out the window. “It’s over. I have things to do now.” She put the glass on the counter and saw me for the first time since I walked in. She put her hands up as if warding me off. “Whoa, Cath. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.”

“I’ve never seen you look like that.”

“Like I could kill him?”

“Yeah.”

“I will. I’ll fly to California and find him and rip him apart.” I wasn’t going to kill him. I wasn’t going to shred him. But I wanted to, and I could get close enough by saying it. “Look at you. You’ve been crying.”

“You cry all the time.”

What a sad, sad accusation.

“It’s a tension release. You’re crying over Taylor leaving, and I’m going to kill him.”

She picked her glass up again and filled it. “It’s not his fault. I broke up with him.”

“Why? You liked him.”

She took a long drink. “I love him.” Her face scrunched as if she was ready to cry all over again. “But he was ready to give everything up for me, and I can’t live with that. I can’t live with holding him back.”

She broke down in tears, slipping off the counter and into my arms. I took her glass and put it safely on the counter while holding her. My beautiful, genius sister. The one who was supposed to go anywhere and do anything, she felt unworthy enough to be unhappy rather than bring someone else down.

“You wouldn’t have, Harper. That’s…” The idea was absurd, ridiculous, unjust. I kissed her head as it shook against my shoulder. “Are you wiping your nose on my shirt?”

She nodded against me. “I have to do laundry anyway.”

I gave her a paper towel. She took it and stepped into another hug. I stroked her hair and leaned against the counter while she sniffled in my arms.

“Can I tell you something you don’t want to hear?” I asked.

“No.”

“You need to finish college, Harper. Not to make yourself worthy, because you’re the best woman I know. But because you need to be the person you were meant to become. I did it here. You can’t. The world needs you to do that.”

She leaned away from me, leaving me with an empty, cold place where her sadness had been. She honked into the paper towel and folded it in half so she could blow her nose again.

“The world needs you too,” she said, sniffing and wiping the sides of her nose.

“Maybe.” Outside, a car pulled down the driveway. “But you need to think about college again.”

“I will.”

We both looked out the window. Reggie’s Chevy was driving so slowly into the garbage cans that they tipped but didn’t fall before he stopped the car.

“What is he doing?” Harper asked.

I looked at the clock. It was only ten minutes after noon. “I think he’s been drinking.”

I went out the side door before Harper could reply.

Reggie got out, letting the door open so hard it bounced halfway closed again as he came toward me like a man barreling into a bar fight.

“Reggie!”

He put his hands on my face and his mouth on mine. He tasted like beer and desperation, and when I pushed him away, he grabbed me tightly so I couldn’t get away.

The klonk was preceded by a whiff of wind and followed by Reggie’s grunt. He was off me, and Harper stood a foot away with the top of a metal garbage can in her hands. Reggie had been thrown against the side of the house, bleeding from the head.

“Jesus!”

“Don’t you do that, Reginald,” Harper shouted. “I’m mad enough to take you out, drunk or not.”

Reggie’s response was a series of sharp ahs and moans. He stumbled trying to get up. “Why’d you do that?”

“If I gotta tell you…” Harper wielded her garbage can cover like a knight carried a shield.

“I was just trying to…” He took his bloody hand away from his skin. “Jesus.”

“I’ll get you some ice,” I said, still tasting his beer on my tongue.

“It’s bleeding!”

“And a towel.”

“Catherine, you know I didn’t mean anything by it, right?”

He came toward me, but Harper got her backswing ready, turning the shield into a weapon.

“You’re drunk.” I started for the side door.

“You want his money, don’t you? You think he can take care of you.”

I didn’t have to answer him. I didn’t owe him an explanation of my feelings or actions.

“Sit down, Reggie.” Harper swung a plastic chair behind him. “Before I give you a concussion, sit.”

He ignored her. “He can’t. You know he lost all his money right? He’s got nothing.”

I felt a few things at once.

I was sad for Chris. I knew how hard he’d worked.

But it didn’t reduce my attraction to him. It increased it.

Why?

Why would it even matter?

Leaving the side door behind, I stood in front of Reggie and pushed him gently into the chair Harper was holding still.

“Reginald, I’m sorry you feel rejected. I know it hurts. I hate that you’re hurt and I hate that I hurt you, but I don’t hate it enough to lie to you. Don’t kiss me again. Ever. Drunk or sober. Ever. I’m going to call Johnny to bring you home.”

I stomped into the house, and Harper was right behind.

Before the door closed behind her, Reggie shouted, “You’re a whore, Catherine Barrington. A fucking whore!”

“Oh, fuck this,” Harper started back out, but I grabbed her arm.

“Leave him be.” I closed the door and locked it. “He’ll regret it when he sobers up whether you concuss him or not.” Picking up the wall phone, I dialed Johnny and Pat’s house.

“He did, you know,” she said while the phone rang.

“He did what?”

“Chris’s hedge fund lost a bunch of money. Something like seventy-three point four six percent of its value.”

“I don’t care.”

“I mean, guys like that are never totally broke. He probably has a billion hidden away.”

“Still don’t care.”

“Hello?” Johnny’s voice came over the phone.

“Hey, Johnny, are you on shift this afternoon? Reggie needs to get picked up and poured into bed.”

Johnny agreed to fetch him. I hung up and prepared an ice pack.

Someone was going to deeply regret kissing me, and I wasn’t sure who.