When We Were Sisters. Emilie Richards

celebrity photographer Max Filstein—an internship Cecilia had arranged for me—Max had given me some sage advice. In between critical tirades he’d admitted I had talent, yes, but he had insisted I should never focus it on my sister. Because even though I had a gift for exposing souls, when it came to Cecilia, I was clueless.

      Max still calls regularly and rants about the way I’m wasting the skills he taught me. These days I take photos of my flowers and shrubs for gardening magazines, and sometimes I do photo shoots for local families or school fund-raisers. Once I opened an envelope to find magazine photos of my old roses torn to shreds with Max’s business card nestled among them.

      “I think enough time has passed that I can do this and do it well,” I said, hoping it was true.

      “How long is she talking about? A week? Two?”

      “Live filming begins in a little more than three weeks and goes through January. Maybe a bit into February.”

      He made a noise low in his throat, as if to say, you’re kidding.

      “There will be times when I can fly home to visit. Thanksgiving for sure, and I told Cecilia we’re going to the Czech Republic to be with your parents for Christmas. I told her those ten days are nonnegotiable.”

      I hoped Kris would see I was already thinking of him. His father, Gus, was teaching for a year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, a triumphant return after years of exile. It would be the family trip of a lifetime.

      “Don’t you think that whether you’ll go to Prague is kind of beside the point, Robin?” Now he was unable to hide the anger in his voice. “In the meantime you’re talking about leaving the kids and me at home taking care of things for months while you trail your sister all over the country or wherever the hell you’ll be going.”

      I was sorry Cecilia’s offer had come up now. I should have presented the whole thing with more tact, and I should have considered it carefully for more reasons than I was willing to go into with Kris. But I’d lashed out at him earlier, and this is what I got. Of course no matter how I phrased it, I was dropping a bombshell.

      “I haven’t decided yet.” I hoped that would delay the discussion, but it was not to be.

      “Then please decide not to go, okay? It was hard enough handling things while you were in the hospital.”

      Suddenly he wasn’t the only angry person in our bed. “Really? I’m so sorry I inconvenienced you. Maybe I should have stopped the car that plowed into us with my superpowers. Or maybe I shouldn’t have gone to dinner at all, considering that I had to beg poor Michael to babysit because you had something more important to do.”

      He stared at me, and I stared right back.

      “Let’s face it,” I went on. “Everything is more important than spending time with your kids, Kris. Everything except me and what I need. You wonder why Nik is surly? Maybe it’s because he’s beginning to realize he won’t have a father to guide him through the difficult waters ahead. While you’re at it, take a look at your daughter. Girls develop so much faster these days, and when it comes to men, Pet will need help figuring out how to separate the wheat from the chaff. She’ll need a role model. And what kind of role model is a man who’s too busy to spend time with her?”

      “Is that what this is about? You’re trying to force me to be a hands-on father? You couldn’t just ask?”

      “I have asked until I’m blue in the face. But believe it or not, this decision is mostly about me. I willingly gave up my career when we had Nik. But I never said that would be permanent. Now I have an amazing opportunity—”

      “To photograph Cecilia’s life—”

      “It was my life, too! Cecilia’s life and mine intersected for years, remember? She says she needs to go back and confront her demons. I’m not sure I don’t, as well. This life with you and the kids isn’t the only one I’ve had. And even if I can’t remember the accident, I bet that life was flashing in front of my eyes as the SUV got closer.”

      Regret transformed his face. For a moment he looked more like the man I married, the one who wasn’t too busy for conversations like this. “I’m sorry for everything that happened. More than you apparently believe. I’m so grateful we didn’t lose you. But my childhood wasn’t all milk and cookies, either. We didn’t know what a leftover was. Some months my family had to choose between electricity or heat. So you know why I work as hard as I do. I want us to be secure, not to worry about whether the kids will get scholarships to a good school, not to worry whether Pet can afford a nice wedding if she wants one.”

      “Right now Pet needs a father, not a husband.”

      “You’re determined not to understand, aren’t you?”

      “I do understand. But you can’t see what your determination not to be like your father is doing to us. Gus is an idealist, an artist, a dreamer, and when you were growing up he didn’t always worry about paying your gas bill. But he was there for you, Kris. He adores you. Cecilia was there for me, and not only don’t I want our children to grow up with an empty space where their father ought to be, I want to do this for my sister. I want to be there for her.”

      If he was moved, this time he didn’t show it. “You said you haven’t decided.”

      “That’s what I said.” I hesitated before I shook my head. “But I want to do this. I need to. If I decide to go ahead I won’t simply walk out on you. I’ll find help, and I’ll come home whenever I can. I’ll call and text and email, and the kids will always know I’m there when they need me.”

      “What good will that do if you’re a thousand miles away? They’re too young to be here alone.”

      “I can hire somebody to be here when the kids come home from school. I’ll make sure she cleans and has dinner on the table by the time you get home to eat with them, too. But I need to do this. The night of the accident? Everybody at dinner had moved on with their lives, and they were all so excited, even if they were feeling overburdened. And me? I had nothing to contribute except the name of Nik’s orthodontist.”

      “You could have dropped Cecilia’s name. That always gets attention.”

      I just stared at him.

      “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly before he rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling instead of me. “But you just don’t have a clue what this will do to my career. The only reason I’ve been able to get where I am is that I work harder than anybody else.”

      “At the expense of your family.”

      “For my family!”

      “No.” I turned away and flipped off the bedside lamp. “I need a good night’s sleep. I couldn’t get one in the hospital.”

      “You’ve pretty well guaranteed that neither of us will get one tonight.”

      I heard him get up and leave our bedroom. I wondered where he planned to sleep, but I didn’t get up to look for him, to try to smooth things over so he would come back to bed. This couldn’t be smoothed over. Because even though I hadn’t said it in so many words, I had made my decision.

      I fell asleep thinking not of Kris or Cecilia, but of Talya. My friend had been so excited about her new job, with so much to talk about. What would I talk about if our monthly neighborhood dinners reconvened?

      My trip into the past with Cecilia, or my impending divorce?

7

      Cecilia

      I have four homes. That’s excessive, I know, but I figure I’m making up for all the ones I never had growing up. Real estate and art are the only investments that make sense to me, and I love to watch run-down properties come back to life under my loving care, along with the talent of architects and designers. But I never give any design professional carte blanche.