The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (leveled readers txt) 📗

The tiny, ponytailed girl filed away at my toenails and I closed my eyes, drifting into thoughts of Guy. How he held me at night, one arm wound around my waist, the other cradling the top of my head. How he remembered the way I liked my coffee – three sugars, light on the cream. How he always stopped his work to turn his face and kiss me, even when I interrupted him. How he never pressured me with questions about my past.

I supposed that having such an overbearing father had made him a more sensitive man. One who waited patiently for the right moment to intervene, who never bullied or dominated, who truly listened and never feigned interest.

A warm glow of happiness spread through me and I must’ve drifted off into a half sleep, dreaming of Guy’s lean body silhouetted against our sunlit window, stretching his arms upwards to yawn, his back arched and his head thrown back. Only the dull rasp of the pumice on my heel kept me hovering at the edge of consciousness. Aware enough to hear a sudden wave of giggling. Squinting through lowered eyelashes I spied a knot of girls crowding into the empty spa. Most likely a bachelorette party, I thought, judging by the high intensity shrieks, giggles and chatter. They settled down on the opposite side of the salon and soon the plinking of text messages and the fractured music of YouTube videos accompanied their nonstop babble. My neck muscles tensed up again, the calming effects of the foot massage wasted.

“You wait five minutes for drying,” said the girl and I blinked my eyes open to view my freshly painted tangerine toenails. I thanked her, glanced over at the girls and did a double take. Carla sat in the center of a group of girls at least five to ten years older than her. Her hair was cut, styled and expensively streaked, her face barely recognizable with its mask of thick makeup. The hoodie and jeans were gone. In their place a tight, pink top and designer jeans. I recognized them as mid-priced clothes. Not H&M or Forever 21. I sat forward and tried to catch her eye, but she caught one glance, then turned her head and body away so her back was all I could see. She wanted nothing to do with me or what I represented. I ached to rush over and confront her, but I feared she was already lost. Gone. Moved on.

I felt a rushing in my head that forced me up and out of the chair. I’d been through this with Birdie. Had the same helpless feeling that she was slipping away from me. I threw on my shoes, oblivious to the protests of the tiny manicurist who kept repeating Careful, don’t wreck the polish.

I flung on my jacket, grabbed my purse and packages, then shoved a few twenties at the receptionist who arched her brows at the sizeable tip and tried to offer me change and a receipt, but I was gone. Out the door where I almost mowed down the guy standing directly outside, leaning against the window talking into his phone.

“So sorry,” I gasped. He looked straight through me with eyes that were cool and green against his coffee-colored skin. His full lips curved sweetly. It was a mouth made more kissable by the small mole at the left corner of his upper lip. And the way he kept glancing back into the spa, I was absolutely certain he was waiting for Carla and her friends. That he was the person who’d paid for the beauty treatment.

But something deeper was stirring inside me. I already knew this man. Birdie knew him. Somehow, somewhere, we’d met him in that messed up time fifteen years ago.

He put down his phone, stared at me, then shrugged. “Got a problem?” he grunted. I shook my head and pulled my coat around my shoulders, then ran off in the direction of the parking lot.

18

I had my first row with Guy a week after Gord and Nancy’s do.

I knew his perfect husband act would eventually crumble. It was simply a matter of finding the right trigger to set the destruction in motion. To start the rot that revealed the cracks in his perfect façade.

It was inevitable. So much so I was almost willing it to happen. Then I’d be alone again. Back in my hard little shell. Immune to all hurtful feelings. Protected from human contact. Comfortable in my isolation.

Familiar territory for me.

It started off as most married spats do – with an innocent question on my part. At least it seemed innocuous to me.

It was a sunny Sunday morning. Beyond the window, blue spring skies were dotted with patchy white clouds. A half-empty pot of coffee sat on the bedside table and croissant crumbs littered the duvet. We were sprawled out reading the papers. I’d just finished reading an article about foster kids living in unsupervised hotels and had lingered over the paragraph that described an entire family of siblings, aged two to fifteen, forced to live in a grungy motel room rather than split the group up between foster homes.

The Carla incident was still making me irritable and edgy. Maybe she was shacking up in one of those places. I felt the stirrings of anger. How many kids were living in dives like that? As far as I could tell, way too many. Nothing had changed in a system that was already broken when I passed through it.

Birdie and I saw our share of grimy motel rooms after the Donna fiasco. That was one reason I hated traveling. I had no idea why anyone would choose to pay big money to sleep on mattresses that thousands of random strangers had slept, dribbled and screwed on. And just because you choose an expensive hotel doesn’t make it any better. Rich people sweat and screw just the