The Sister Season by Jennifer Scott Page A

was why she’d called him, after all, wasn’t it? A part of her had known he would undersell the story, and after her phone call with Dusty and her conversation with Claire, that was exactly what she needed—someone to tell her that everything would be okay. That it wasn’t a big deal. That Eli’s threat was normal behavior and she could relax.
    So she closed her eyes and leaned into the phone, into Tai’s words. Let the fire lick her cheeks and hold her up.
    “You want me to talk to him?” Tai said, though she could hear weariness in his voice and papers rattling in the background.
    “No. He’s taking a nap. We’ve got some sort of dinner thing to go to this evening, so I’m letting him rest.”
    “How does he seem to you?”
    She gnawed at her thumb again. “He’s . . . you know, we’re here for a funeral . . . and Dusty called him, which he didn’t like.”
    “So, petulant as always.”
    “I suppose so.”
    “See? Nothing to worry about. He’s acting like himself.”
    “I suppose so.”
    There was more rattling of papers, and what Julia recognized as the scraping of Tai’s desk drawer sliding open and then shut again. She heard a jingle of car keys. “You sure you don’t want me to come down?”
    For one maddening minute, Julia wanted more than anything to say yes. Her mouth even opened, her lips ready to form the word. But she knew she couldn’t bring Tai into this already heated situation. Tai’s aloofness would only bring more awkwardness to the dinner table. And he had his work. He needed to do his work. If she stood between him and his work, his mood would be more than aloof. It would be agitated and snippy too. And, really, what could he do here?
    “I’m positive. Stay there. Get lots done. We’ll be okay. We’ve got a few days. Maybe I’ll teach him to skate down at the creek or take some hikes with him or something.”
    “See? That’s the winning spirit. Show him you’ve got things under control. Let him know these kinds of threats won’t work, that life goes on.” The jangling car keys got louder. “I’ve got to get, then, before Art leaves for the night. As you know, willing grad student helpers are only willing until the parties start.”
    “Yeah, of course.” Julia said, purposely lightening her voice. Making herself sound bright and cheery. So stupid. Why was it never okay for her to lose face? Was she that much like Maya? “Love you.”
    “Yeah, love you too, Doc.”
    And he was gone.
    Julia stood and twisted her back one way and then the other, feeling her skin stretch tight with heat. In some ways, she felt, she had it all. More than either of her sisters. Why was she wallowing like a spoiled child?
    She gazed at the tree for a long moment, taking in her elongated reflection on a blue ornament. She saw no misery there. She only saw . . . herself.
    “And a shitload of tinsel,” she said aloud, and pulled down two big handfuls before heading to the bedroom, where she could lie down for a few minutes alongside her son before dinner.

Seven
    S harp’s had been around forever. Julia remembered it from her childhood, back when the city was more of an energetic town and there were precious few restaurants to be had. Not that her family frequented restaurants anyway. This deep in the country, you ate the food from your own land. Vegetables, grown and canned, pickled, boiled into preserves, frozen. Cattle, butchered and stored in town in a smelly meat locker. Fish pulled from the pond behind the tree line. Even honey harvested from the white beehive boxes that lined the perimeter of the soy field.
    Julia was married before she’d tasted her first commercially canned green bean, her first jar of store-bought jelly, her first carton of ice cream bought from a supermarket. It had taken a long time to get used to the texture of preserved foods, the taste of the can.
    But on the few occasions that the family had gone out, it was almost always to Sharp’s. Robert had