Seeking Carolina. Terri-Lynne Defino

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СКАЧАТЬ Johanna got out of bed and padded across the hall to Nina’s room. She did not knock, but opened the door as quietly as she could, peeking around the edge to see her beautiful sister asleep on her pillow. Alabaster skin ethereal in the moonlight, her blond hair braided to keep it from tangling, Nina looked like a princess in a fairytale, deep in enchanted slumber.

      “Come in and close the door, Jo.”

      She jumped but was able to stop herself from squealing. Darkness beckoned, and the familiar comfort of Nina. Johanna slipped into the room, closed the door softly behind her, and snuggled into the blankets beside her sister.

      “How did you know it was me?”

      “You’ve been sneaking into my bed since you were a baby. Who else would it be?”

      “It’s so cold in here. Why is your window open?”

      “Because I like the fresh air. I don’t get much of it in the City. Hush, now.” Nina took her into her arms. “Go to sleep.”

      “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”

      “Because you had a bad dream. Because there is a monster in your closet. Because you wet the bed. What does it matter? Come on. I’m tired.”

      “Okay.”

      Johanna cuddled in close. Even as teenagers, she and Nina sought one another’s comfort, just as they had when they were very small, and frightened, and too often left alone. Days and days alone in the buttercream-yellow house, with only a bucket of water, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter to sustain them.

      “It was really sweet, what you did for Julietta.”

      Johanna picked up her head. “He’s adorable, isn’t he? All that messy hair. And his accent is sexy as hell.”

      “He is apparently brilliant, too. They are perfect for one another. Julietta needs a man as intelligent as she is.”

      “And a man who understands what it is to be…different.”

      “That too.”

      Nina turned onto her side so they were face to face. For all her talk of going back to sleep, her sister’s eyes were wide and glittering.

      “And what about you, my little sister?”

      “What about me?”

      Nina waggled her eyebrows. “Charlie? He’s still got it bad for you.”

      “Oh, stop.” She tried to turn over but Nina pulled her back.

      “Okay, we won’t talk about Charlie. How about Emma and Mike?”

      Johanna giggled like the girl she had once been. “This is so bad. Gossiping like old ladies at the laundromat.”

      “It’s only bad if our intentions are mean-spirited, which they aren’t. I’m worried about them.”

      “You think there’s a danger of them splitting up?”

      “That’s been a danger for a while now.”

      “Really? Why? What’s gone wrong?”

      “This time?” Nina bit her lip. “Mike had a vasectomy without telling her. She’s devastated.”

      “What? How do you know?”

      “She told me when we were all here at Thanksgiving.”

      The twirling of Johanna’s stomach hit a sudden stop. She lowered her gaze, unable to meet Nina’s. “I should have come home. I wanted to, but it’s such a busy time at the bakery and—”

      “Jo.” A finger under her chin, a slight tap. The familiarity of this gesture released the tears always too ready to fall. Johanna looked up and Nina smiled. “You couldn’t have known it would be Gram’s last.”

      “It has been eight years. I’m a horrible granddaughter, after all she did for me. For us.”

      “Gram understood, and so do I. Coming back here is a huge effort for me. If not for Gunner, I might not come home at all. It’s why Emma stayed. Leaving means to risk never coming back.”

      “We had a happy life here.” Johanna said. “Why is it so hard?”

      “Because we had a happy life here without them.”

      Johanna was not as certain. Yes, it felt like betrayal, and happiness did not banish the ghosts that had followed them to Bitterly, but there were other factors, at least for her.

      “What about Julietta then?” Johanna asked. “She seems content to stay here forever.”

      “Because for her, familiarity is necessary. Bitterly is what she knows.”

      “Do you think she remembers?”

      “The accident?”

      “That, and Mom and Dad.”

      “Do you?”

      “Of course.”

      “Then why wouldn’t she? You were younger when you last saw them.”

      “I guess you’re right.”

      Johanna thought back. She had been almost four when the house in New Hampshire burned. Julietta had been just over when they cut her from the car wreck that killed their father. Johanna still remembered Gram leaving her and Nina with Poppy, returning to Bitterly with the little sisters she didn’t know she had, and news none of them wanted. Johan was dead. Carolina had vanished again. Emmaline was six, skinny, and always scared of the government men coming to get her in the night. Their grandparents assured her again and again, it was Johan’s illness that kept them always running from a non-existent government conspiracy. Their father had loved them, and so did their mother, even though…

      After a time, Emma forgot about the government men, or at least came to believe they were indeed a figment of Johan’s paranoia. Julietta had come to them a banged up, but mostly cheerful child. Johanna always hoped it meant she hadn’t been scarred by the life she’d been living, or by the accident that changed everything.

      “When she was little, I’d hear her crying in her sleep.” Nina’s trembling whisper broke.

      Johanna resisted the urge to touch her sister’s face, to wipe away the tears she would not let fall. “I never heard her.”

      “Her bed was, is still, right here.” She tapped the wall above their heads. “It wasn’t every night or anything, and it got less and less as the years went by, but over Thanksgiving, I heard her. Gunner did too.”

      “Really?”

      “I used to go in and calm her. It usually worked. Once in a while, it didn’t.”

      “You never told me.”

      “What is there to tell, really? Julietta had nightmares. We all СКАЧАТЬ