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Will and Luke exchange a look.

“Fine,” I say tightly. “I may worry about her sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I can just limit her. She’s her own person. What am I supposed to do? Tell her she can’t be my campaign manager because I’m too worried she’s overloading herself again? I’m sure she’d receive that really well.”

“That’s true,” Luke agrees. “She probably wouldn’t receive that well at all.”

“Exactly,” I exhale in relief. I’m not wrong on this.

“In which case, I suppose you could always just not run for attorney general,” he says in a musing tone.

“I’m sorry?” I say, my relief shoved out by incredulity.

“I said, you could just not run for attorney general,” Luke repeats. “If you’re not running then she can’t be your campaign manager. Which would solve the whole ‘Is Jill going to end upoverloading herself again?’ issue. I’m not saying that’s what you have to do,” he adds hastily, seeing my expression, “but perhaps it should be an option.” Next to him Will nods in agreement.

“Yeah,” I choke out, “maybe so.” Not. “Unfortunately, I already agreed to run.”

“Oh. I hadn’t realized that was a binding thing,” Luke hums.

“Look,” I say slowly, “I get what you’re saying, but Jillwantsme to run for attorney general. It’s the answer to the ‘what’s next’ question we’ve been asking ourselves for the last year. So, we’ll figure the rest out together. Anyway, our kids are older now. They need her less. It’ll be fine.”

“Okay then,” Luke agrees. “Sorry to press.” Next to him Will opens his mouth to say something, but then appears to think better of it, shutting his mouth instead. We’ve reached the front desk and the three of us wait our turn in silence for a minute, until Will says–

“So, what do you guys think of the Cardinals chances of making it to the playoffs this season?”

The three of us easily segue into a discussion about our state’s baseball team. On the surface everything seems fine, as if I’ve let our charged conversation go, but inside I’m a mess of frustration and uncertainty. When the desk worker summons me forward with a simple “Next,” I hurry forward eagerly, glad for a bit of respite from the weight of their presence pressing down on me.

I greet the desk clerk with a smile, but beneath the surface my emotions are a storm of uncertainty, frustration, and perhaps most of all—betrayal. Because if Jill didn’t want me to run for attorney general how could she tell her sisters but not me?

Chapter 10

Jill

“Sohaveyoutoldhim?” Hannah demands as soon as our husbands are out of earshot.

“Told him what?” I ask innocently, adjusting the hem of my shirt.

Hannah rolls her eyes. “Don’t play coy, Jill. You know exactly what I meant.”

I sigh, my eyes drifting to the hat on her head. The hat that matches Brooke’s hat, but not mine. Whatever. Obviously Hannah and Brooke were always going to be closer than me and Hannah or me and Brooke. They’re only two-and-a-half years apart, meanwhile I’m a whole kindergartner older than Brooke and a whole second-grader older than Hannah. That’s a lot of life. There was a time when Hannah went away to California that I thought maybe Brooke and I had a shot at having the closest sister relationship, but then Hannah came back. At which point I thought perhaps I could claim the closest relationship with Hannah–she did live in my guest house at the time, after all. But then the two of them up and married best friends and startedhaving kids at the same time and the gap between the intimacy levels I have with each of them compared to the one they have with each other widened.

It’s fine, though. I’m used to it by now. And really, I’m still close to both of them. Lots of people even say to me that they’re jealous of the intimate relationship I have with my sisters. So it’s fine that their relationship is even intimater. Incidentally, that’s not even a word, but sometimes words need to be made up to really bring a point home.

Although it really bothers me to not be grammatically correct even in my own head…so I’ll restate: it’s fine that they have a more intimate relationship with each other than they do with me.

Fine.

“I’m going to tell him, okay?” I tell them. “It’s been a whirlwind couple of days just trying to get here.”

“And we’re so glad youarehere,” Brooke says.

“Because now we can pester you in person about telling Max how you really feel,” Hannah adds with a wag of her eyebrows.

“Very funny,” I reply dryly. I turn to survey the room, looking for a subject change. “So this place is amazing. I feel like I just walked into a Mary-Kate and Ashley movie.”

Brooke and Hannah give me blank looks.

“Oh right, you two never watched “How the West Was Fun,” did you?” I laugh even though I once again managed to put myself in a separate category with regards to my sisters. That movie was before their time. “You know, two spunky twin girls work to save a beloved ranch from developers?”

They still look blank.