MY SISTER DOESN’T BAT an eye when I mention the ranch. She just keeps looking at her laptop, curled up on the couch. “That sounds nice,” she says. “A week? That will be fun.”
“It doesn’t cost anything,” I say.
She snorts. “Well, that’s good, because we couldn’t spare it, anyway.” Her eyes flick across the screen.
“What are you looking at that’s so interesting?” I ask tentatively, moving around the couch.
She snaps the lid shut. “Nothing.” Picks at her cuticles.
I take a deep breath, just like Walrus Jackson said to when we wanted to talk about something we needed.
“I was hoping that maybe, when I get back, maybe we could talk about calling Da— Dustin.” My heart’s beating so loud I can barely hear my voice. “I feel like it’s really important to me, to talk to him.”
My sister keeps her eyes on her nails. Scrape, scrape, pick, pick.
“He’s the only parent I have left.” I pause. “I mean, you still have a mom, at least.”
Shayna keeps looking at her nails. Scrape, scrape, purple polish drifting to the floor. “Yes and no,” she says mildly. “I wouldn’t say we were ever besties, but she’s not speaking to me right now. Because I’m here. Helping you. I’m a traitor.”
Her voice trembles.
I don’t know what to say.
The girl-bug says, Don’t cry!
My sister looks up at me. Her eyes are bright. “But you know what? Fine,” she says. “It’s fine.”
“For reals?”
“Yeah,” she says. “For reals. But it might not turn out the way you want. I just want you to know that. But okay.”
“I’m not trying to take him from you—”
She stands up abruptly, the laptop sliding off her legs. “It’s fine. It is what it is.”
Clipped, done. That’s her way, I guess.
She slides a scrunchie down her wrist and pulls up her hair.“I’m gonna go for a walk. Your turn to make dinner?”
Softly, I say, “It’s always my turn to make dinner.”
She chucks me under the chin before turning toward the front door. “You do it so well!”
She leaves.
I look down at her laptop.
I look at the door.
I open the laptop, tap.
The window pops up. Beautiful Boise! A winter wonderland. Resort jobs, benefits, natural wonders. I click on another tab. She has like twelve up.
Come to Maine! Discover your Maine thing.
Make Minnesota your destination, ya, you betcha!
All the tabs, different towns, cities. Everywhere but Mesa Luna.
I close the laptop.
I think she wants to move, I text Cake.
But Cake doesn’t answer, because she’s in New York, enjoying the sights with her family on vacation before music camp in Massachusetts. She left the day after the dance.
She’s probably at a play or a concert. It’s three hours later, there.
I go into the bedroom.
“I think she wants to move,” I tell my Boxes of Mom. “This is the only place we’ve ever been.”
No answer.
I’m getting used to that by now.