True Colors

“We arrested him, Vivi,” Al said. “Murder. You’d best find him a lawyer.”

Aurora swore beneath her breath. “Great time to piss off Winona.”

On the way home, Winona came up with one stinging comeback after another: Of course you know about love. If I’d gone slumming like you, I could have gotten laid, too. Or: He doesn’t love you. Why can’t you get that through your head? Oh, wait. I know the answer: you’re blond. Or: If that’s love, I’d rather have the swine flu.

At her house, she yanked the door open and went inside. The Christmas decorations were still up: the brightly festooned Douglas fir in the corner, the reindeer and sleigh on the coffee table, the ridiculously hopeful mistletoe hanging from the archway between rooms. She wrenched the mistletoe down and shoved it in the trash can, and then sat down in her window seat, staring out at the rain falling on the bare trees. From here, she could see people walking through town; they were probably doing some after-holiday shopping or coming home from church, as if this were a normal winter day.

But it wasn’t normal, might never be normal again.

With a sigh, she went into the kitchen and found a quart of ice cream in the freezer. Taking it back to the sunroom, she sat down, eating and thinking. With every passing moment, she felt her resolve harden: she would not let Dallas Raintree destroy this family. Vivi Ann’s passion for him had already cost them all too much. And now there was the Grey name to consider, too. Already people were saying that they’d been fools to let him into their home.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but it was long enough that the weather changed. The rain stopped and a hesitant sun peeked through the bank of gray clouds.

She heard a knock at the door, but didn’t answer. There was no one she wanted to talk to right now.

A moment later, Vivi Ann walked into the sunroom. Already, Winona could see changes in her sister: the panic lurking at the edges of her mouth, the desperation in her green eyes, the knotting together of her hands.

“You caught me,” Winona said, taking another spoonful. “I’m stress-eating.”

“You didn’t answer, so I came in.”

“I didn’t want to see anyone. I especially didn’t want to see you.”

Vivi Ann moved into the room, took a seat opposite her.

“I’m sorry, Pea,” she said quietly; Winona knew she was using the old nickname as a kind of shorthand reminder of all that they were to each other. Sure, they fought and said things they didn’t mean, but they were sisters. In the end, what mattered were not the breaks in the chain, but the links.

Winona took another bite. “How do you think Mom knew what we’d look like when she gave us those nicknames?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the bean, right? How did she know I’d be the round, fat pea?”

“They were just the veggies that grew in her garden, Win. That’s what she saw, what she wanted: us growing up together.”

“You were too young to know what she wanted.” Winona put the empty ice-cream container on the floor at her feet, with the spoon handle sticking up inside of it.

“I know she wanted us to stick together when times got tough.”

“Says the girl who just threw me out.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Of course you are. They arrested him, didn’t they?”

Vivi Ann nodded.

“And you just realized that he needs a lawyer, so here you are.”

Vivi Ann leaned forward. “It doesn’t matter that he failed the polygraph, right?”

“He failed a polygraph?”

“Yeah, but even I know that’s not admissible.”

“They might not be admissible, but they’re reliable. And he failed.”

“He’s innocent,” Vivi Ann said stubbornly.