The Sometime Sister Read online

  The Sometime Sister

  Katherine Nichols

  © Copyright Katherine Nichols 2021

  Black Rose Writing | Texas

  © 2021 by Katherine Nichols

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-690-6

  PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

  Thank you so much for reading one of our Women’s Fiction novels.

  If you enjoyed the experience, please check out our recommendation for your next great read!

  City in a Forest by Ginger Pinholster

  Finalist for a Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award

  “Ginger Pinholster, a master of significant detail, weaves her struggling characters’ pasts, present, and futures into a breathtaking, beautiful novel in City in a Forest.

  –IndieReader Approved

  To my husband and our children, Laura, Kate, and Nick. Without them, I would never have understood family and forgiveness.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Recommended Reading

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Note from the Author

  BRW Info

  Chapter 1

  When my sister Stella and I were speaking, we joked about our mother’s “absolutely must be dealt with immediately emergencies.” These disasters, as she called them, included a neighbor who had been stealing her copies of Southern Living, a careless bank teller, and a rude grocery boy. Whether it was two in the afternoon or in the morning, she had to address the latest injustice as soon as it crossed her mind.

  “Just silence it, Gracie,” Stella would urge after I’d been up half the night talking Mom off the ledge. But both she and my mother knew I was not the turn-off-the-phone type.

  When it rang at 5:00 am on December second, I didn’t bother to check caller ID. Before I had the chance to ask if she had any idea what time it was, she began crying.

  “Grace, oh God, Grace. Your sister never got on the plane. She promised she was coming home, but she never got on the plane.”

  “Mom, please. Slow down. You know Stella. I’m sure she changed her mind and forgot to tell you.”

  She had believed her younger daughter was coming home for the past three years, ever since she and her husband, Ben Wilcott, had to leave the country. He fled to avoid the imminent likelihood of serious jail time resulting from involvement in a suburban drug ring. And she went with him. They settled in Montañita, a city in Ecuador well-known among expatriates fleeing the US in search of a spot with beautiful beaches and a generous extradition policy. Thanks to his illegal activities, he had enough cash to finance a lengthy stay. But Mom had never accepted that her baby had gone willingly. She insisted he had forced her to go and was holding her hostage. Any minute Stella would break free and return. I didn’t share her belief.

  “Not this time.” She blew her nose. “Stella was terrified. She said she couldn’t take it any longer and would be on the next plane in time for Christmas. She booked a flight but didn’t get on it. Her cell goes straight to voicemail. I must have left a dozen messages. Please, Grace. Please believe me. She was telling the truth. You know Ben. Don’t tell me you aren’t afraid he did something terrible to her.”

  My mother had a point. I did know Ben better than anyone else because we’d been two weeks from our wedding day when he ran away with my little sister.

  . . . . .

  After trying for at least thirty minutes to convince Mom we should wait before giving in to panic, I agreed to come to her house for further discussion. I refused her demand to jump out of bed and meet her before sunrise, insisting ten would be soon enough.

  I hoped I might squeeze in another hour or two of sleep. Instead, I lay there worrying about my sister.

  Many of my memories of life before Stella were like catching fireflies on warm summer nights. If you planned it just right, you could scoop them into a Mason jar before they blinked off and disappeared.

  Their golden flashes illuminated the memory of my grandmother sitting beside me, reading about a boy who thought he could fly. She dissolved, leaving only the harsh staccato voices of my parents. They faded away, and my cousin Lesroy popped into view, spinning round and round until he collapsed into a giggling heap on the kitchen floor.

  Some nights I caught so many fireflies my jar sent a magic stream of light across the backyard. But I hated seeing those desperate little bugs careening against each other in a fear I could almost smell, so I unscrewed the lid, gasping for air myself as they tumbled toward freedom.

  Stella’s entrance a few months after my fifth birthday shoved those memories aside. Lonely in the way of an only child with warring parents, I prayed for a little sister for years. My grandmother was the one person who always took me seriously, the one who kept all my secrets. When I told her of my sister-wish, she laughed.

  “Honey, you better be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”

  When Stella arrived, looking like a tiny rosebud in her pink blanket, I danced with joy. I made it my mission to protect and serve her. Her will was my will. And from the beginning, she was more than comfortable in her role as princess. For her, the crown wasn’t the least bit heavy.

  She grew into a confident beauty. With her heart-shaped face, wispy blonde hair, and turquoise eyes, she was aware of th
e effect she had on people and wielded her power with total composure. Other than typical adolescent meltdowns, I could only recall one time when she hadn’t been in complete control of her emotions.

  Over three years had passed since that afternoon, but the memory still made my stomach lurch. Ben and I had a meeting that evening to finalize details about our reception. My last client canceled, so I decided to drop by his place and surprise him. We’d been so busy with work and the planning, we hadn’t had much alone time, and he’d become a little distant. I attributed his moodiness to wedding jitters.

  Rather than knock to announce my presence, I used my key to enter the expensive downtown condo where we would live until we found the perfect house. One of the area’s most popular decorators furnished the place, but it was too masculine and impersonal for my taste.

  I dropped my purse on the heavy mahogany table in the foyer and called for Ben. He didn’t respond. Music drifted from the bedroom. The door was ajar, but I tapped on it, stepped inside, and heard water running.

  Ben complained I lacked spontaneity and a spirit of adventure in bed. He wanted me to initiate sex more, to be more passionate. I checked my watch and discovered we had almost two hours before our meeting. Plenty of time to be spontaneous.

  I slipped my sweater over my head and wriggled out of my pants, humming along to a Taylor Swift song in the background. A glance in the full-length mirror revealed my mismatched underwear, but he wasn’t going to see them, so who cared? I unhooked my bra and tossed it onto the bed, then stepped out of my panties.

  The bathroom door was closed but knocking politely didn’t fit with the take-charge image I planned to project, so I turned the knob and entered the steamy room. A thick sheet of fog covered the rain-glass custom shower, but I could see the silhouette of my fiancé under the water spray.

  I tiptoed closer and saw him standing with his head tilted, shampoo cascading in frothy rivulets over his shoulders. I placed my hand on the tile wall and was about to commit when I noticed something was off. In addition to the sudsy trails now making their way to the small of his back, two hands clutched his well-toned ass. For a moment, I remained immobile, unable to process the scene in front of me. Then I glimpsed strands of smooth blonde hair and a pair of tan arms. I called her name. She peeked out from behind him, her face distorted by the steady stream of water.

  Stumbling back, I caught myself on the edge of the gigantic bowl-shaped tub. I felt as if I should apologize for putting us all in such an awkward situation. After racing from the room, I grabbed my pants and hopped on one foot while pulling them up. I maneuvered my sweater over my head and snatched my undergarments from the bed just as Ben came barreling through the door with a towel wrapped around him.

  “Grace! Wait. It’s not what it looks like.”

  I didn’t bother to ask what else it could be. In an instant I had become a cliche: a woman scorned. The added indignity of having my own sister betray me contributed a touch of originality to the humiliation.

  Chapter 2

  I don’t know how, but I got home without taking out an innocent bystander and found Lesroy waiting for me. Stella had called to tell him I was upset and requested he check on me. I never asked my cousin if he’d known about Stella and Ben.

  And now? Well, now it was obvious my distraught mother expected me to set aside my painful memories and join her in finding out why my sister hadn’t been on that plane. It was clear I wouldn’t be going back to sleep, so I flung off my grandmother’s quilt and dragged myself to the shower.

  The hot water cleared my mind enough that I realized before leaving for Mom’s, I needed to do my own research. First, I double-checked with the airlines to see if what she had told me about Stella’s supposed homecoming was accurate. It was true she had booked her seat and had failed to show.

  Next, I logged onto Facebook and found my sister’s page. As angry as I’d been at her, I never got around to unfriending her. Silly, I know, but I couldn’t make myself click on that most final of social media options. I blocked her posts before she left the country but never cut the online cord.

  As usual, her shining face stunned me. I tried to shut out the images from that devastating day and its aftermath. But her choice of profile picture made it difficult. It was a photo of us taken at my engagement party.

  In typical Stella fashion, her long wavy hair shimmered with blonde highlights and cascaded over her bare, bronzed shoulders. The only jewelry she wore was the locket Gran gave her on her sixteenth birthday. It was identical to mine. The gold ovals had an antique finish engraved with our initials. Inside were pictures of the two of us. One was of me with Stella on my lap when I’m about ten and she’s five. In the other, we’re a few years older and standing in an embrace, heads turned to beam at the camera.

  Gran would stare at them and say, “You girls are so beautiful, you make my heart hurt.”

  In most of Stella’s pictures, her face glowed with her wide-lipped smile, one custom designed for anyone lucky enough to be caught in its path. But in her profile picture, it’s her eyes that made it hard to turn away. They were the same startling color of the Aegean Sea where Ben and I had planned to spend our honeymoon.

  I’m barely five feet five, but I seemed to tower over her. My light brown curls, elaborately fluffed and sprayed, were an unfortunate styling choice influenced by my mother, who insisted I do something different with myself.

  “It’s your engagement party, Grace. You can’t wear your hair like that, all straight and ordinary.” So instead of ordinary, I looked like a show poodle.

  Stella and I inherited high cheekbones and straight noses from our grandmother. On my sister, the overall impression was soft, inviting. On me, it was stern, even though I smiled almost as brightly as she did. But there was a tightness around my eyes—eyes the same silvery gray as Gran’s—as I glanced beyond the photographer to where Ben stood with an expression of wonder on his face. His mouth was open, and his gaze screamed of desire. Only he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at my sister.

  Immediately after the photographer took the photo, Ben grabbed my hand and led me to the dance floor, making it easy to tell myself I was imagining things.

  I shook my head and focused on her list of friends. The number was staggering, over fifteen hundred. Everywhere I looked were pictures of Stella, many with Ben staring at her adoringly. But no one posts candid shots of an unadoring lover. And there’s no time to snap a photo just as someone has his hands around your neck or to catch that special moment when you’re shoved down a flight of stairs.

  I knew firsthand he could turn ugly when angry. He had never directed his fury at me, but I’d seen him slam a tennis racket onto the ground and stomp it over and over. I was there when he threw a chair through the glass door after learning his boss had passed him over for a promotion at the law firm.

  So, when Mom told me he was knocking Stella around and asked me to talk her into leaving him, I had no doubt he was hurting her. I just didn’t care. Or worse, deep down in my blackened heart, I enjoyed it. If she’d left my future husband alone, she wouldn’t be getting her hair yanked or her face slapped.

  It was much later I realized if she hadn’t stolen Ben, I might have been the one lying on the floor, dazed and wondering what I’d done wrong.

  I told Mom if my sister wanted help, she could call me. But she never did. And I never called her.

  Shiny faces sped by as I scrolled through until I found her: Alisha Beaumont, our former neighbor and Stella’s best friend from high school. Only now she was Alisha Beaumont Simmons. Her profile said she graduated from the University of Georgia a year after Stella dropped out. She lived in Atlanta with a husband and a fluffy white Persian cat.

  If anyone knew what was going on with my
sister, it would be Alisha. I found her phone number online. Before dialing, I checked the time and was shocked. It felt like days since my conversation with Mom but was only a little after seven. Too early to call someone from the past but not too early to reach out to Lesroy.

  He answered on the first ring. “Grace, thank God. I just got off the phone with your mother. I’m grabbing some coffee and heading right over.”

  He and I experienced a rough patch after Stella and Ben left town. When I refused to talk to her, she called our cousin. Like most people, he’d never been able to say no to my sister, so when she begged him to intervene with me on her behalf, he did. Devastated by his betrayal, I avoided him. If I hated her, he was supposed to hate her. I didn’t cut him off, but I was cool toward him for months. He wouldn’t accept my cold shoulder, though. He kept showing up at my door with wine and chocolate and old movies until I took him back.

  Gran passed her love of the classics to us. She was crazy about dead or aging starlets. She named Aunt Rita after Rita Hayworth, Mom after Marilyn Monroe. My mother inherited her obsession and named me Grace Kelly Burnette. As for my sister, Mom had been more direct. Her very name meant of the stars. But our grandmother insisted she needed a proper name, so she became Stella Vivien Burnette.

  The doorbell rang a few minutes past eight, and I heard the deadbolt click.

  “Yoo-hoo! Are you decent?” Lesroy called as I stood to greet him. “Doesn’t matter. I’m coming in anyway.”

  My cousin was a year older but always seemed younger. He was an elf-like child with bright blue eyes and curly hair that his dad insisted on mowing into a buzz cut so his son wouldn’t be a “sissy.”

  Lesroy was so much a part of my life I can’t remember being without him. He never walked into a room; he twirled or tap-danced or spun into it. Together we designed elaborate castles constructed of discarded items we gathered throughout the neighborhood. A dilapidated dresser with a broken mirror became the Evil Queen’s prophetic looking glass. A rickety ladder led to Rapunzel’s tower. We collected smooth stones from the creek behind my house and turned them into an army of trolls who guarded us when we took impromptu naps on blankets piled inside our palace.