Page 3 of The Ruling Class
I climbed up on the front porch, flung open the door, and let it slam behind me when I’d stepped inside. There was a time when slamming a door would have drawn my grandfather’s attention. He would have called me a heathen, threatened to scalp me, and sent me back out onto the porch to “try again.”
Not anymore.
Ivy’s been asking questions.I escaped to the second floor but couldn’t get away from the certainty bubbling up inside me.She knows.
“Enjoy your shower,” Ivy called after me. “Then we’ll talk.”
She was like a broken record. And sheknew. I’d tried so hard to keep this secret, to take care of my grandfather, to do this one thing for the man who’d done everything for me, and now …
I wasn’t sure exactly what Ivy did in Washington. I didn’t know for a fact that she still lived there. I couldn’t have told you if she was single or dating someone—she might have even been married. What Ididknow—what I was trying very hardnotto know—was that if Ivy had deigned to fly out to Montana and grace the ranch with her presence, she’d done so for a reason.
My sister was a mover, a shaker, a problem solver—and right now, the problem she’d set her sights on solving wasme.
CHAPTER 3
I gave myself three minutes to shower. I couldn’t afford to leave Ivy alone with Gramps for longer than that. I shouldn’t have left them alone at all, but I needed a moment. I needed to think.
I hadn’t seen Ivy in nearly three years. She used to make it out to the ranch every few months. The last time she’d come to visit, she’d asked me if I wanted to move to DC and live with her. At thirteen, I’d worshipped the ground my sister walked on. I’d said yes. We’d had plans. And then she’d left. Without any explanation. Without taking me with her.
Without saying good-bye.
She hadn’t been back since.If I can convince her that Gramps and I are okay, she’ll leave again.That should have been comforting. It should have been my glimmer of hope.
I wasn’t thirteen anymore. It shouldn’t have hurt.
I tossed on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt and towel-dried my devil-may-care, too-thick hair. Ivy and I were bookend brunettes,my hair a shade too light to be considered black and my sister’s a fraction too dark to be blond.
She met me at the bottom of the stairs. “You ready to talk?” Her voice sounded like mine. She spoke faster, but the pitch was the same.
I felt a familiar rush of anger. “Did you ever think that maybe I don’t want to talk to you?”
Ivy’s mask of pleasantness faltered, just for a second. “I got that general sense when you didn’t return my last three phone calls,” she said softly.
Christmas. My birthday. Ivy’s birthday. My sister called home exactly three times a year. I’d stopped picking up at approximately the same time that my grandfather had started forgetting little things like keys and names and turning off the stove.
Gramps.I willed myself to concentrate on what mattered here.There’s a situation. It’s my job to get it under control. I rounded the corner into the kitchen, unsure of what I would find.
“’Bout time, Bear.” My grandfather greeted me with a ruffle of my hair and a cuff to the shoulder.
He knows me. Relief washed over my body.Bearhad been his nickname for me for as long as I could remember.
“Look who’s finally come to visit,” Gramps said, nodding toward Ivy. His voice was gruff, but his hazel eyes were sparkling.
This is good, I thought.I can work with this.I’d been covering for my grandfather’s lapses for the past year. More frequently now than a year ago.
More frequently now than a month ago.
But if today was a good day, Ivy didn’t have to know that. If there was one thing experience had taught me, it was that she wouldn’t stick around to find out.
“I know, Gramps,” I said, taking a seat at the rickety wooden table that had been falling apart in my grandfather’s kitchen for longer than I’d been alive. “I can’t believe we actually merited an in-person Ivy checkup.”
My sister’s dark brown eyes locked on to mine.
“Ivy? Who’s Ivy?” My grandfather gave Ivy a conspiratorial grin before turning back to me. “You got an imaginary friend there, Bear?”
My heart skipped a beat. I could do this. Ihadto do this. For Gramps.
“I don’t know,” I replied, my fingers digging into the underside of my chair. “Is ‘imaginary friend’ what they’re calling perpetually absent siblings these days?”
