“I didn’t tell her anything. I wanted to ask you first.”
That was Lucas. Always careful, always considerate.
Unlike our aunt, who had spent the last eight years reminding me of everything I wasn’t.
“She’ll come anyway,” I said. “She always does.”
I remembered the first year after the accident that killed our parents.
“She’ll come anyway,”
She’d showed up at our tiny apartment and looked around like she was inspecting a crime scene.
Lucas had been coloring at the kitchen table, oblivious.
“You really think you can raise a child on this salary?” she’d said. “Be honest with yourself.”
I had been twenty-six. Grieving. Terrified.
And she had known exactly where to cut.
“Be honest with yourself.”
“You know what she’s going to say,” I told Lucas now, drying my hands. “She’s going to comment on the furniture. On my job. On whether you got into a real college.”
“I did get into a real college.”
