He nodded. He didn’t say anything else.
I walked across the backyard, past the long table and the sunflowers and the white paper lanterns, past Tom’s parents standing frozen by the grill, past Aunt Deb with her hand on her heart,
past my cousin Danny with his beer.
Past my mother.
She reached out and grabbed my arm as I went by.
“Jenna,” she said. “Honey. Wait. Let’s all calm down. Let’s not do anything we’ll regret. She’s your sister. Family is family. We can talk about this. You know how Rachel is—”
I stopped. I looked down at her hand on my arm.
“Mom,” I said. “If you say that’s just Rachel one more time, I will walk out of this backyard and you won’t see your grandchildren until Christmas.”
She let go of my arm.
I kept walking.
My father was sitting in the driver’s seat of my car in Rachel’s driveway. The engine was running. Sophie and Ben were buckled into their car seats in the back.
