When We Were Sisters by Emilie Richards

brag about my wife. “That’s how we met back in 2000, during the Gore-Bush election recount. She was there as a freelancer taking photos. One of them made its way to U.S. News & World Report . She’s had others in Time, People .” That last, of course, was a photo spread of Cecilia.
    â€œYou have young children.” It wasn’t a question.
    â€œNot that young. Ten and twelve. I may be working from home a bit more than usual in the next few months, but we’re hiring the housekeeper to take up the slack.”
    â€œSlack doesn’t begin to cover it, Kris. If I was lucky I saw my children on weekends. Then, by the time they hit puberty, they weren’t around on weekends anymore. Now I have grandchildren I rarely see.” He paused, looked wistful just long enough, and then grinned. “Truth is, I never did like little kids all that much.”
    I laughed, because whether he liked kids or not, the story, like all Buff’s stories, was purely for effect, one of his friendly little object lessons. They worked especially well in a courtroom.
    â€œI need you for that call,” he said, getting back to business. “And you need to be there for your own reasons.”
    â€œI’ll call Robin and let her know.”
    He clapped me on the back. “Good man.”
    In my office I loosened my tie, a Father’s Day gift last summer from Pet and Nik. If you look closely you see that the pattern is actually hands clasped, dozens in each row, but from a distance it looks like just another geometric exercise. Last week Robin told me the tie is like life. You have to examine both carefully to see how closely woven we humans are, but the truth is always right there if we look for it.
    Robin isn’t particularly philosophical, or at least she wasn’t. Nothing is quite the way it used to be before she began the slow crawl toward her fortieth birthday. How much of that was a factor in her decision to follow Cecilia around the country? How much was Talya’s death or her own brush with it? I guess it hardly matters.
    I dialed our home phone and let it ring repeatedly. If she was in the garden it might take her a few moments to get to her feet and inside, find where she’d left it and answer. I was about to try her cell, even though she rarely remembers to carry it, when she picked up.
    â€œKris? Are you in the car?”
    That was becoming as common a salutation as “hello.”
    â€œI wish. I got caught just as I was walking out. I doubt I’ll get out of here in the next hour. Can you go ahead without me? I’ll just have to trust your judgment on who to hire.”
    She ignored that. “I just hung up with your mother.”
    I put the phone on speaker and my head in my hands. “I was going to tell you about that tonight.”
    â€œYou canceled the trip to Prague? Without talking to me first?”
    â€œI wanted to make sure I could actually get most of our money back before I told you. By the time I talked to somebody at the airlines it didn’t make sense to do anything but cancel. The rep was willing to bend a few rules and help us, and I wasn’t sure the next one would be so accomodating.”
    â€œIda says you have to prepare for a trial? She’s very unhappy. She called me to see if there was anything I could do.” Robin gave a humorless laugh. “That was the only funny part of the call.”
    I let that pass. “If everything goes well maybe we can get over there in the spring for a few days.”
    â€œBut Lucie’s whole family will be there at Christmas . Last week your mother emailed a list of places she and your father want to take us while we’re all together, places your family came from, elderly relatives we’ll only meet this once. This means everything to them, especially Gus. He’s seventy-two, and he needs you to see him as a success, Kris. He left everything behind when he fled,