Chapter 21 - SORREL AND TILDA
I met my sister separately.
Years after court.
Coffee shop.
Public.
No children.
She looked older.
So did I.
First thing she said:
“You still slap people?”
I almost laughed.
“No.”
“Good.”
“Still forge principals?”
She actually smiled.
“Also no.”
Dark humor.
Dangerous.
Necessary sometimes.
Then silence.
“I hated you,” she said.
“When?”
“Most of our twenties.”
“Why?”
“You left Dad.”
“I moved out.”
“You stopped needing him.”
That was what she meant.
Tilda stayed in our father’s orbit.
Business dinners.
Trust paperwork.
Approval.
When he died, she inherited responsibility and treated it like proof she had won.
Then Eamon was born.
Another branch.
Another family.
More money not under her emotional control.
“I thought if I managed everything well enough, Dad’s choices would make sense.”
“They didn’t?”
“He gave us both resources.”
“Yes.”
“He loved us differently.”
“Yes.”
“He was unfair sometimes.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t that destroy you?”
I thought.
“It did some damage.”
She looked surprised.
“I just left the room more often.”
That was the difference.
Not superiority.
Practice.
Tilda had stayed inside every system until she forgot doors existed.
May you like
We did not reconcile that afternoon.
We began becoming sisters who could occasionally talk without pretending history was gone.
