The bitter words that revealed years of unexpressed pain stunned Samantha. “Sweetie, you know that’s not so.”
“It is so,” Emily insisted. “I heard her once, you know. She was telling a friend that she’d applied for this dream job, but then found out she was pregnant with me. The same thing had happened before, when she and Dad were first married. She’d just started working and then she got pregnant with you, so she’d quit to be a full-time mother.”
Samantha tried to absorb this news, or rather the implication it apparently held for her sister. Though she knew she’d been a bit of a surprise to her parents, she’d never given it another thought. And she couldn’t understand why what Emily had overheard had caused this rift between her and Emily. “Okay, I knew both pregnancies were unexpected, but what does that have to do with you and me?”
“She never resented you for ruining her life,” Emily said, her tone accusatory. “But she did resent me. I could hear it in her voice that day. Oh, she tried not to let it show, but I knew the truth.”
“And you twisted that around to be my fault?” Samantha said, trying to follow the logic.
“Not your fault,” Emily contradicted, looking slightly sheepish. “I know they were Mom’s feelings.”
“But you couldn’t blame her, especially after she’d died, so you started taking it out on me,” Samantha concluded. “Oh, sweetie, the last thing Mom would ever want would be for the two of us to be at odds over which of us she loved more. I wish you’d said something about this years ago. Maybe we could have put it to rest.”
“How?” Emily asked with a sniff. “It was what it was. And Mom’s not here to deny it or explain it. Not that she could.”
Grateful that the outside deck at Castle’s was deserted, Samantha started to reach for Emily’s windblown hair to smooth it back from her face, then hesitated. She doubted her sister would appreciate the gesture just now.
“I wish Mom were here now, too, but you’re going to have to listen to me, instead. Gabi was still young, but I was old enough to remember the look on Mom’s face when she told us she was expecting you. She was over the moon, Em. She really was.”
Emily still looked skeptical. “Then why did she sound so disappointed about that job?”
“I can’t say for sure, since I didn’t hear her, but I do believe if she’d been thinking about going to work, it was only because she didn’t think another pregnancy was in the cards. She wanted the distraction of a job, not the fulfillment. Grandmother told me once that Mom was cut out for motherhood and that it was lucky for us that she was, since Dad was so caught up in his work.”
Emily looked as if she was struggling to accept the truth of Samantha’s words, but it was plain she was wasn’t there yet.
“I know that doesn’t match your perceptions, but you can ask Grandmother,” Samantha told her gently. “She knew exactly how thrilled Mom was about having you.” She grinned. “In fact, if anyone should have been jealous of losing Mom’s affections, it should have been me or Gabi. Once you came along, you became the center of her universe. She doted on you.”
“She did not,” Emily denied, though she looked intrigued by the possibility.
“Did, too,” Samantha retorted. “To make up for the attention Mom was giving you, I retreated into a world of make-believe, which is probably what led me to acting. Gabi became obsessed with trying to win Dad’s attention, and we both know how that turned out.”
“Seriously?”
“Think about it. You know it’s true.”
“Why didn’t I see any of that back then?” Emily asked.
“Because you were the youngest. And you were the princess. That’s heady stuff.”
“Are you saying I was self-absorbed?” Emily asked, instantly defensive.
“No, I’m just saying that your role in the family was defined for you by Mom, just the way mine was or Gabi’s. We each had a different experience growing up, even though we were in the exact same household.”
Emily’s expression turned thoughtful. “I heard Grandmother say something like that once. She said every sibling grows up in a different family. I had no idea what she meant.”
“And now?”
“After what you’ve just said, I think maybe I do.”
“Can we put this behind us?” Samantha pleaded. “Can you accept that I am genuinely thrilled for you and Boone, that I want to be in your wedding and that nothing is going to drive me away?”
“Not even the meddling?” Emily asked, the sparkle slowly coming back to her eyes.
“Well, you might not want to push your luck with that,” Samantha warned. “I’m feeling pretty mellow and tolerant right this second, but it might not last if you decide to test it.”
Emily nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
It wasn’t the airtight commitment Samantha had been hoping for, but it was a start. And with less than two weeks until the wedding and a mountain of details to attend to, perhaps the meddling would land on the bottom of Emily’s list.
* * *
“You don’t look so hot,” Debra said when Ethan arrived at the clinic. “Late night?”
He frowned at the personal question, though he knew it wasn’t in his bubbly young receptionist’s DNA to censor herself. “Busy morning,” he countered tightly. “What’s the schedule look like here?”
“Two drop-in patients waiting, more appointments on the books and your afternoon with the kids. Greg called in. He said he’d be here before you take off.”
Ethan nodded distractedly as he glanced through his messages. “Give me five minutes and have Pam send in the first patient,” he said just as he noticed that one of the pink slips had a message from Marty Gray indicating that Cass wouldn’t be coming on this afternoon’s hike with the rest of the kids in his positive self-image group. “Hold that. I need to call Marty back. I’ll let
