True Colors

He didn’t understand, really, that she didn’t just love him. She lived for him. He was still the addiction she couldn’t shake.

“You’re zoning out again,” Aurora said, taking a french fry from Vivi Ann’s plate. “Hot sex this morning?”

Vivi Ann laughed, and rubbed her swollen belly. “You were the one who told me that passion faded.”

“Yeah, well. Then you met Tattoo Boy.”

“I can’t believe how much I love him. You know that, right?”

“The surprising thing is how much he seems to love you. He watches you like a hawk. Sometimes I think he can’t stand to be away from you.”

Vivi Ann heard the wistfulness in her sister’s voice, and realized how familiar that tone had become. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Richard. What’s wrong?”

Aurora’s well-made-up face crumpled at that. “I thought I was hiding it.”

“That must be lonely.”

Aurora’s eyes filled with tears. “I like him. And he likes me. Maybe that’s okay, enough. But I’ve seen what you and Dallas have and now I don’t know. Should I just . . . walk through life? And there are the kids to think about. I don’t want them to grow up like we did, with this hole in the family where someone should be.”

Vivi Ann reached across the table and laid her hand on top of Aurora’s. “Everyone thinks Winona’s the smart one of us, but it’s you, Aurora. You . . . see things, you pay attention. You’ll make the right choice.”

“Maybe I don’t want to choose.”

Vivi Ann knew all too well how seductive that idea was. “Not doing anything is a choice, too. Not a good one. Trust me. Winona’s still pissed at me for hurting Luke. And she’s right. It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been purposely cruel.”

“No one can hold a grudge like Winona, that’s for sure.”

“Sometimes I think she hates me.”

“Believe me, Vivi, the person Winona hates is herself. She’s spent her whole life trying to get blood from a stone and because she doesn’t know how to give up, she can’t stop. She keeps waiting for something from Dad that she’ll never get.”

“That’s because she needs words, and he can’t do that.”

Aurora sighed. “Vivi, you have a different dad than I do, that’s all I can say. To you, he’s like one of those horses you rescue.”

“He is like that, Aurora. He loves us.”

“If he does, Vivi, it’s a pathetic, watered-down version, and God help any of us if we ever need him to show it.”

“I saw him cry once,” Vivi Ann said. It was a memory she’d never been able to share before.

“Dad?”

“That last night, when Mom’s hospital bed was in the living room and we slept in sleeping bags on the floor.”

Aurora’s smile was unsteady. “She wanted us with her.”

Vivi Ann nodded. “I woke up in the middle of the night and saw Dad sitting by her bed. Mom said, ‘Take care of my garden, Henry. Love them, for me,’ and he wiped his eyes.”

My garden. The fragile moment bound them; they were Bean and Sprout again, a pair of little girls sitting at the kitchen table with their mom, making seashell-encrusted Kleenex boxes for the bathroom.

“What did you say to Dad?”

“Nothing. I pretended not to be awake. And when I woke up again, she was gone.”