“Of course you do. So do I.” He smiled, kissed her lightly. “Peas in a pod. Did you go to see her to talk or to fight?”

“I’m a lawyer,” she tossed back. “I went to talk, and then she…”

His gaze held hers, patiently. Love for him tangled up with guilt. “That’s not true. It was when I left home, but by the time I got to the island, to CiCi’s, I was furious. I started it. I started it. Oh God, Harry, I’m a terrible person.”

“Don’t say that about the woman I love.” He gathered her up for a minute, loving her as much for her flaws as for her perfection. Just loving her. “Sit for a minute, sweets. I’m going to cancel our lunch plans.” And the showing, he thought.

“I forgot. I forgot all about it.”

“We’ll reschedule. Then I’m going to pour us both some wine, and you’re going to talk this through with me. We’ll figure it out, sweets.”

“I love you, Harry. I really love you.” She clung to him, a port in a storm. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Right back at you.”

“I want it to be all her fault. I want to stay mad at her. It’s easier.”

“I’m looking at your beautiful face, and those tears. So I don’t think it’s easier.”

*

CiCi set up her easel on the patio. Summer would fade before she knew it, so she counted every day of it as precious. She wouldn’t paint the view, but would continue to work on the study from one of Simone’s photos.

The woman in the red hat—the wide, flat brim over a face lined with time and sun—perusing a bin of tomatoes at a street fair, with the wizened old man in the stall smiling at her.

In her version the tomatoes became magic eggs, bold as jewels, and the bird perched on the striped awning a winged dragon.

She’d played with the tones, the feel, the message for a week. Just as Simone had spent the week in focused, meticulous repair of the bust.

CiCi wished them both blessings on their work, lit a candle for each of them, and began to mix paints.

She called out a “Come in!” at the ring of her doorbell. She rarely locked the door—and this was one good reason. Whoever came calling could just come in rather than making her stop and go answer.

“I’m out here.”

“CiCi.”

Unsure whether to be relieved or wary at the sound of Natalie’s voice, CiCi set aside her paints, turned.

The girl looked penitent, she decided. And full of nerves with her hand gripping the boy CiCi thought of as Handsome Harry.

“Since you’ve always been a rule-follower, I’m going to believe you’ve decided to take responsibility, and figured out how to make amends.”

“I’m taking responsibility. I’m going to try to make amends. I don’t know if I can, but I want to try. I’m so ashamed, CiCi, for what I said that day, for what I did. There are a lot of things I need to say to Simone, and I hope she’ll listen. But I need to tell you I knew how much that piece meant to you. I knew it represented a bond between you and Simone. I broke it because I don’t share that bond. And that’s unforgivable.”

“I decide what I can forgive.”

“I think making amends to you starts with trying to make them to Simone. To try to do that, I have to say things to her.”

“Then you should do that. She’s up in her studio.”

With a nod, Natalie released Harry’s hand. “You’ve never been anything but wonderful to me, and I’m ashamed of what I said to you. You’ve never once let me down, ever, even when I deserved it.”

“Long walk for her,” CiCi murmured when Natalie went inside.

“Yeah, it is. We interrupted your work. I can wait out—”

“Don’t be silly. I can’t work wondering if I’ll hear screaming, shouting, and cursing. Let’s have a beer.”

“I could use one.”

CiCi stepped up to the doorway, reached up to pat his cheek. “You’re good for her, Harry. I wasn’t sure of it, but you’re good for her.”

“I love her.”

“Love’s the glue. Use it right, it can fix most anything.”

*

Simone used glue, metal pins, sandpaper, paints. After a week of intense work, she began to believe she could bring Tish back. She could bring the life back into the face.

She heard the footsteps as she pushed back to study the morning’s progress.

“Come see. I think … I think maybe.”

Then she looked up, saw Natalie. Slowly, she got to her feet. “You’re not welcome here.”

“I know. I’m asking for five minutes. Please. There’s nothing … Oh God! You fixed it.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Natalie stopped her rush forward to the worktable, gripped her hands behind her back. “There’s nothing you can say to me I don’t deserve. Being sorry, ashamed, disgusted with myself isn’t enough. Knowing you’ve fixed what I tried to ruin doesn’t let me off the hook.”

“She isn’t fixed.”

“But it—she … She’s so beautiful, Simone. I resented that, resented what you can create out of freaking mud. I’m ashamed of that, I can’t even explain how ashamed. I didn’t tell you about the engagement, the party, because I didn’t want you to come. I told myself you wouldn’t anyway. It wouldn’t matter to you. I was only going to have you in the wedding party because people would think poorly of me otherwise. I let myself think and feel terrible things about you.”

“Why?”

“You left me. It felt like you left me. After the mall—” She broke off when Simone’s face went blank, when she turned away. “Like that. You wouldn’t talk about it with me.”

“I talked about it in therapy. I talked about it to the police. Over and over.”

“You wouldn’t talk to me, and I needed my big sister. I was so scared. I’d wake up screaming, but you—”

“I had nightmares, Nat. Cold sweats, gasping for air. No screams, so Mom didn’t rush in, but I had nightmares.”

Staring, Natalie brushed tears from her cheek. “You never said.”

“I didn’t want to talk about it then. I don’t want to talk about it now. I put it away.”

“You put me away.”

“Oh, bullshit.” Simone whirled back. “Bullshit.”

“It’s not. It doesn’t feel like bullshit, Simone, not to me. Before, you included me. It was you and Mi and Tish, but you included me. They were my friends, too. After, you shut me out. It was just you and Mi.”

“Jesus Christ! Tish died. Mi was in the hospital for weeks.”

“I know, I know. I was fourteen, Sim. Please, God. Have some pity. I thought she was dead. When I dragged Mom behind that counter, I thought she was dead. I thought you were dead. Then you weren’t, and I kept dreaming you were. Everybody but me. Tish was my friend, too. And Mi. And all I saw was me being replaced as a sister. I know how stupid and selfish that sounds. The two of you came here when Mi got out of the hospital. To CiCi. And all I could think was Why did they leave me behind?”

“She needed me, and I needed—”

Natalie hadn’t been hurt, Simone thought. But of course, she had. Of course she had.

“I didn’t think,” Simone managed. “I didn’t think of it as leaving you out or behind. I just needed to get away from it. The reporters, the police, the talk, the looks. I was sixteen, Natalie. And broken inside.”

“It was always Mi after that. You had each other. I was broken, too.”

“I’m sorry.” Simone dropped back on her stool, rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see it. Maybe I didn’t want to see it. You had Mom and Dad, CiCi, friends of your own. You got so involved in school, in projects.”

“It helped me stop thinking. It helped stop the nightmares. But I wanted you, Simone. I was too mad to tell you. Not mad,” she corrected. “More sorry for myself. Then you went to New York, to college. With Mi. You started dying your hair weird colors, wearing clothes Mom just hated. So I hated them, too. I wanted my sister back, but I wanted you back the way I wanted you. You weren’t the way I wanted you, or I thought you should be. Then you sort of were, and … I didn’t like you.”

Finally, Natalie sat, let out a breath that ended with a baffled laugh. “I just realized that. I didn’t like the Simone who wore business suits and dated that—what was his name?”

“Gerald Worth, the freaking Fourth.”

“Oh yeah.” Natalie sniffled. “He was kind of a jerk, but he didn’t mean to be. I didn’t like you that way, or the other way because you weren’t the big sister I had before the world changed for us. Then you dropped out of college and went back to New York, then you went off to Italy, and I didn’t know who the hell you were. You hardly came home.”

“The welcome wasn’t exactly warm there.”

“You don’t put much effort into it, either.”

“Maybe not,” Simone replied. “Maybe not.”

“Everything I said last week, I felt. I believed. I was wrong, but I felt it, sincerely. I was wrong to expect you to, I don’t know, freeze in place from before, when we all changed that night. I was so, so wrong to say those things to CiCi, who’s the most loving and amazing person in the world, and I’ll never stop being ashamed of that.”