"I know." Maybe not emotionally, but intelligently, sure. "I just remember how quickly starting college went from exciting and fun to an ever-building mountain of debt and horror. Not that you're going to go into debt, but you know what I mean."
"Right, so, the fun and exciting part was when you tried to run away to Japan and met Neil, right?" She wiggled an eyebrow.
"How did you—"
"You wrote a book, dummy. Mom and Renee and Susan all read it." She shrugged. "I wanted to know about you, too."
It hurt my heart that I hadn't known my half-sisters while we were growing up. Susan was just a couple of years younger than me. I hadn't met Renee yet. But Molly was my favorite, and I would have loved to have seen her at Olivia's age.
"Well, you know me, now.” That would have to be enough. “And no running away for sexy adventures. In fact, no sexy adventures at all. Trust me. College is hard enough without dating sucking up all your time.”
Molly gave me a profoundly skeptical look. “Right, I should wait until I establish my career, then ruin it by having sexy adventures with my boss.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re on track to become my second favorite sister, you know.”
When we approached the house, Molly recognized it immediately from her earlier internet recon. “Finally! Doesn’t it bug you living so far from the city?”
“Truth be told, no. Call me after a semester with no stars or darkness or silence.” I waited for the soft jolt of our landing and unbuckled my seatbelt. “I didn’t realize how much I missed the quiet until I moved out here.”
Not that our house was exceptionally peaceful. Security was waiting for us with two electric golf carts—one for us to ride in, one for the pilot to toss Molly’s luggage on—and we heard yelling the moment we crested the hill.
One of the disadvantages of not speaking Arabic was that I couldn’t often tell whose side to be on when Amal and El-Mudad fought. I’d tried to learn on my own from an app, but El-Mudad had quickly pointed out that there were so many differences in dialect, I’d be better off taking lessons from him. The problem was, he wasn’t a very dedicated teacher. I only knew the words for my best body parts and the things he wanted me to do with them.
I heard at least one of those words fly angrily out of Amal’s mouth as the two of them shouted full-volume beside her car, in front of the house. Glancing over at Molly, I realized that she was now in the deeply uncomfortable position of watching another teenager fight with her dad. Not exactly the welcome I’d hoped for.
“Hey there!” I called out, willing my jaw to stay unclenched. “Look who’s here!”
El-Mudad and Amal abruptly cut off their shouting match. He looked ashamed, Amal, sullen.
“Molly,” he said with a resigned smile. “I’m sorry you saw this. It isn’t a regular occurrence, I promise.”
Liar, I thought with a quirk of my lips. They fought like two wolverines tied together. “Amal, this is my sister, Molly.”
She nodded to Molly. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Molly answered back.
The start of a beautiful friendship, I was sure. Disheartened, I hopped down from the cart and thanked the driver.
“Amal, didn’t you and Rashida pick out Molly’s room for her stay?” El-Mudad tried—and failed—to sound pleasant enough that everyone would forget the huge argument we’d just interrupted. “Maybe you could show her to it and give her a tour of the house?”
“I would, but I have so much homework,” Amal said pointedly. “And my dad is strict.”
She stalked into the house, leaving El-Mudad to call after her. When she didn’t answer, he turned back to us. “Again, I apologize.”
“I fight with my mom all the time,” Molly excused him. “We didn’t for a while because I could have died, but now that I’m not going to, we’re back in it.”
I hoped they hadn’t fought about anything having to do with this trip. The last thing I wanted was to drive a wedge between Sasha and me.
“Come on,” I said with an encouraging smile. “Let me give you a tour of the house. And you can meet Rashida and Olivia.”
“What about my stuff?” Molly asked, pointing to the second cart headed our way.
“We have housekeeping staff that will take it to your room,” El-Mudad explained.
Her gaze cut to me. “Okay, so, you live in a hotel.”
“We live…” I searched my mind for some kind of justification. “...in the manner to which my husbands are accustomed.”
“That sounded like a Brontë character’s dialogue,” Molly pointed out.
I grimaced. “Let’s just show you around, okay?”
We entered through the front door, and Molly looked straight up. The octagonal space rose the house’s full two stories. Windows gently illuminated it with golden light from the late afternoon sun.