“For me.”
Her answer came quickly.
It surprised all of us.
Maybe even Denise.
She looked at Ethan.
“You were easier to love from far away.”
Silence.
She shook her head.
“That came out terribly.”
“No,” Ethan said. “It came out accurately.”
Denise’s eyes filled.
“I could send presents. I could tell people about you. I could be proud of you without confronting the fact that I hadn’t earned a place beside you.”
I had never heard my sister speak about herself that way.
Not once.
She continued.
“And then Jonathan asked me what kind of relationship we had.”
Jonathan spoke for the first time.
“She told me Joanna was raising you.”
I looked at Denise.
“From the beginning?”
He nodded.
“She never told me otherwise.”
That surprised me more than I wanted it to.
Denise had posted photographs online that made strangers assume she was far more involved than she was.
