Page 80 of That Birthday in Barbados
“Cat.”
She hears the sound of her own warbled voice and knows she has managed to utter the name out loud. And then her sister is sobbing, the sound both broken and joyful. That is the moment she realizes she has crossed the threshold between the dark and the light.
Chapter Forty-seven
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
? Mark Twain
Catherine
THE THING ABOUT second chances is knowing what to do with them if they’re given to you.
In the hours following Nicole’s awakening, I watch my parents cry with relief even as I realize their joy is tangled up with the same thorny questions encumbering my own. Will Nicole be the same as she was before the coma? Will she feel the same despair that led her to make the choice she made? Can I drown my own feelings of betrayal with the gratitude I feel to have her back?
The only question I can answer for myself is the last one. That is the only one I have any control over at all. As I stand at the foot of my sister’s bed, watching my mom hold her hand and speak to her in a soft voice, I decide once and for all that I will put the past behind me. Completely. Irrevocably. I don’t want to be the person who chooses not to do that. Who chooses bitterness as the pill I swallow each day.
Dr. Lewis has told us only time will reveal the damage caused by Nicole’s overdose. Only time will tell how fully she will recover.
Three days pass before Nicole speaks more than a word or two. I’ve found it hard to know what to say and have let my mom and dad be the reason I stand back and say little. But finally the time comes when I’m left alone with my sister. She has been moved to a room that is a step down from ICU, and we are allowed to visit as long as we like. Mom and Dad have gone downstairs to get something to eat, and I’m sitting next to Nicole’s bed, watching her sleep.
When she opens her eyes, tears seep from the corners, and I realize she hasn’t been asleep at all.
“I don’t deserve to have you here,” she says in a voice that sounds like a rusty replica of hers.
I reach for her hand, clasp it between my own. I lean forward until my forehead is resting on our joined hands. I try to speak but the words stick in my throat. When I finally lift my head, Nicole is staring at me, her eyes filled with a remorse that twists my heart. “I’m so sorry, Cat.”
“I know,” I say.
“I wish I could redo all of it.”
“There’s plenty I wish I could redo,” I say. “I shut you out. I’m so sorry for that.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“I blame me.”
“Catherine, you’re not the one who did wrong.”
“I closed my heart to you. That’s wrong.”
Fresh tears slide down Nicole’s face. “Next to mom and dad, there’s no one who matters more to me. I don’t know how I could hurt you the way I did.”
A canyon of silence hangs between us.
“Why did you?”
The question is out before I can stop myself from asking. I’m immediately filled with remorse and wish I could take it back.
“I’ve asked myself so many times,” Nicole says in a barely audible voice. “The only answer I have is that I’ve always wanted to be you. You’ve always been the better version of me.”
I sit back in my chair, shocked by what my sister has just said. “Nicole. That’s not true.”
“It is true,” she says, sadness tinging the words. “It’s not an excuse. Nothing excuses what I did. If I’m honest though, maybe I thought it would be nice to be wanted by someone the way Connor always wanted you. I think I believed if he wanted me as much as he wanted you, that would mean I was as good as you.”
“Nicole.”
My voice cracks in half, and I swallow back the sob pushing its way up from my throat.
