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I was proud of her. And grateful I brought the shimmery black dress or I’d be ringing in the new year in this fancy place in jeans. But now that the dress was before me, I hesitated. I’d pulled it out of a box in my closet at home. It was filled with all the things I couldn’t bear to part with when I sold Joe’s and my house in Queens when I moved to Rochester with Steve. I’d rented the house out during the year I lived with Mom and Dad, and had kept a bunch of stuff in the basement— all the things I was too emotional to manage in the raw weeks after Joe’s death. I’d gotten rid of all of it, except the things in that box. I’d bought this dress on a whim, for New Year’s, actually, before discovering I was pregnant for the first time. But I’d never worn it, except once, to try it on. When I’d shown Steve, his eyes had gone wide and he’d suggested I never wear it out of the house. Maybe that was the beginning of the end.

Maybe I wouldn’t wear it for Steve, but I would now, dammit.

It was a simple thing made with a lot of Lycra; it had a scoop neck and hemline just above my knee. But there was some kind of metallic thread spun through it, and it glimmered under the light. I certainly wasn’t quite as lithe as I was when I first tried it on in the store years ago, but the Lycra gave it a good amount of give, and I think it actually looked good with the couple of extra pounds I’d put on since then.

“Good lord,” Reese said when she saw me. “You look spectacular!”

I turned to look at my sister. She was wearing a long, silky green dress with a deep vee. The fabric flowed all the way down to her ankles, clinging to her body the whole way.

“Same for you!” I said, and I meant it. She looked stunning. She’d done her hair so that it fell softly down her back, and the sparkling earrings she wore lit up her whole face.

“I’m so proud of you,” I said, feeling a knot in my throat.

“What for?”

“For embracing this trip. For living the life you want. Everything. And I’m grateful to you too, for always being there for me. Even moving to Jewel Lakes for me.”

“I didn’t move there for you,” she said, waving a hand.

She was lying.

“You know, I want you to know that you don’t need to stay there for me. I’m a big girl, and I can survive without my big sister watching out for me.”

She smiled. “I love where I live, and I love being close to you. Maybe one day I’ll move, but I doubt it. Not now anyway.”

A surge of sadness hit me then. “What if I have to leave, Reese? I’m shutting down the blog, and the firefighting money is only going to last so long.”

“You said you’re getting a job?”

“I will, but only one that fits with our life. I need to be around for the girls. I’ve been distracted for so long.”

During the break, I’d put my phone away. It had been eye-opening. While my mind kept wanting to veer back to what had cracked open and fallen apart between me and Will, the time with the girls had been everything. I was going to try to find something part-time in Jewel Lakes, but I knew I’d have to consider other options, too.

“I still think you should have used the photos you took of Will,” she said.

I laughed, though there was no humor in it. “Yeah, maybe that would have been the smart thing to do. But it didn’t feel right.”

What I didn’t say was after Will left, I’d gone through the photos I’d taken of him that morning with my heart feeling like a lead weight. He looked so handsome and so devastatingly sad, it would have been like posting the pages of his personal diary for my readers to see.

I didn’t want them to have that. I’d already given them too much of myself, they couldn’t have him.

“Anyway. Our reservation is in a few minutes,” I said, blinking to keep the tears from falling. I was wearing mascara for the first time in years, and the last thing I needed was to smear it all over my face.

Reese embraced me in a tight squeeze. “I love you, Mich. And I’m proud of you too.”

When she pulled away, there were tears in both our eyes anyway. I laughed, thumbing them away.

“But first,” she said, “we toast.”

She pulled out the champagne, pouring us two very full glasses.

“To love,” she said.

When I raised an eyebrow, she said, “Of all kinds. This one is for sisters.”

We clinked glasses and I felt, for the first time in a long time, like I was going to be okay.

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