I motioned toward the front door with my head, and Caroline followed them. She could handle that one.
I had other things on my plate, namely paying my bills.
TEN MINUTES LATER I was sitting on the end of the bed, thinking about miracles. My dad always believed in them. Adam certainly did. And me? I did to an extent, I suppose. But, while a lot of great things had happened to me in my life, I wasn’t sure that any of them would qualify as a miracle. I mean, miracle is a pretty big word, something that defies logic, that defies explanation, something that you seemingly willed into being. But that was the only, single explanation for what was happening now.
I just kept staring at $0.00 due. How was that possible? After years of feeling sick every month, of making minimum payments and watching the overall balance climb higher and higher, of being terrified Adam—or anyone, for that matter—might find out this terrible secret that, while, on the outside, I appeared to be this wonderful steward of our family’s money, in reality, I was nothing more than a fraud, I had been given a clean slate.
I heard Caroline’s voice. “You’re going to burn a hole through it.”
She sat down beside me, and I clutched the paper to my chest so she couldn’t see. “Is that your credit card bill?” she asked.
I wanted to lie. I was so embarrassed about my spending habits and how it had been nearly impossible for me to support our family on our salary. But she was my sister. Maybe there shouldn’t be big secrets between sisters. Besides, this was Caroline. I could tell her now, or she would pull it out of me later.
I looked at her in amazement. “It’s gone,” I said, still totally mystified, looking at the zeroes again and praying it wasn’t a glitch in the computer system.
“Your credit card is gone?”
“No. My balance.”
She looked at me like I was dense. “Well, yeah, it’s gone,” she said. “I paid it.”
I could feel my eyes widen. “You paid my credit card bill?”
She nodded. “Somebody had to pay your bills while you were in a coma in here.” She paused. “And, no offense, but how in the hell did you ever, ever think you were going to pay it?”
I threw my arms around her neck with so much force that I nearly knocked us both off the bed. I could feel the tears in my throat. “I will pay you back. I promise,” I said. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“Sloane, what were you thinking?”
I shrugged, ashamed. “I don’t know. It’s what I do to keep the boys from feeling sad their dad is gone. I buy them stuff they don’t need and I can’t afford.” I sighed. “I always assumed we were going to get the money Dad had left us, and it would be fine. Then I couldn’t stop, and the bill kept getting higher. And I would save up a little to pay it down, and then something would happen and we’d need the money . . .” I trailed off, envying my sister’s life. She didn’t have these worries. She had an endless amount of money at her disposal. I couldn’t imagine what that felt like, how freeing it must be to know that, no matter what, you were going to be OK. You could pay your way out of whatever mess you spent yourself into.
We didn’t have that luxury. I didn’t want to wound Adam’s pride, but I needed that security. I needed to know that if something happened, I wouldn’t have to go running to my mom or sister. I could in an emergency, of course, but a run-up credit card bill didn’t feel like an “emergency” per se. I needed a job.
Caroline took my hand. “I totally get that, Sloane, but they don’t care about all that stuff.”
I nodded, tears gathering in my eyes. “The worst part is that it felt like every month I was lying to Adam. I was living in fear that he would get to the mailbox before I did, open my credit card bill, and see what I had done.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, patted my leg, and said, “It’s all cleaned up now. Don’t worry. But don’t do it again.”
I shook my head. “Car, I’m paying you back.”
I couldn’t begin to imagine where I would get that kind of money, but I would. Little by little, I would pay my sister back the debt I owed.
She shook her head. “No, Sloane. I don’t want you to. I had put something aside for a rainy day, and this was a rainy day.” She cleared her throat. “So now you will owe me and, trust me, I will cash in the favor in a big way.”
I threw my arms around her neck again. “Whatever you want, Caroline. Honestly. Anything.”
She raised her eyebrow, and I realized I shouldn’t have offered that. But I felt free, like I was running through an open field of daisies. And now the credit card would be used solely for emergencies, just like Adam and I had always intended.
Part of me felt bad for not paying my sister back, but I also knew it was completely fruitless to argue with her. It always had been. Even when we were kids.
Even about the big things.
In the fifth grade, when we were studying genetics, I became obsessed with the idea that my father didn’t give me any of my DNA—and I desperately wanted to know who had. Where were my brown eyes from? The dimple in my chin? Was my biological father good at math like I was? I had gone to my parents, but they told me that Caroline and I had to agree about whether to find out who our biological father was since we had the same donor. I thought that would be simple. Why wouldn’t Caroline want to know
