The Sisters We Were by Wendy Willis Baldwin

Author:Wendy Willis Baldwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

By Sunday evening, Ruby is the one bringing hot tea to Pearl. All day, they avoided one another by busying themselves trying to spiff up opposite ends of the house; this was their silent but very productive way of conceding some mutual accountability for the current state of their respective unfortunate circumstances. Sweaty and spent, Pearl is doing one final Swiffer over the hardwood floors in the living room when Ruby emerges from the kitchen to extend an olive branch.

“Here, made you some tea,” she says, swapping the cup for the Swiffer.

“Thanks,” Pearl says, somewhat surprised.

“Look,” Ruby says, walking toward the hall closet to put away the mop. “I owe you a huge apology for lobbing that teacup at you and breaking the mirror. I promise I’ll replace it first thing tomorrow. Why don’t we take a break and sit down for a little while,” she adds, motioning toward the sofas.

“Okay, I’ll take a break from all this cleaning and scrubbing and join you on the sofa, but only if you don’t accuse me of being a couch potato.”

“Deal.” Ruby kicks off her sneakers and plops down on the faded love seat. “It does feel good to take a load off.” She motions for Pearl to do the same, and her younger sister lowers herself onto the sofa opposite the love seat.

Together, they scan the results of their labor, both feeling an unexpected sense of satisfaction.

“I admit, the house looks way better than it did this morning,” Pearl says, propping her swollen bare feet up on the coffee table.

“Yep,” Ruby says.

“So is now a good time for me to ask what really happened with the flying dog poop video?”

Ruby closes her eyes and sighs.

“I don’t know,” she says finally.

“You don’t know what happened or you don’t know if this is a good time for me to ask?”

“I mean I don’t know why I lost my mind the way I did and threw dog poop at that guy.”

“Well, it wasn’t like some kind of random assault, right? You didn’t just suddenly start flinging shit at that guy for no reason, right? So, like, what was the run-up to all that?”

“Well.” Ruby sits up straighter, becoming thoughtful. “I run the Katy Trail all the time, if not daily at least every other day,” she says. “The signs are posted everywhere, and they all say the same thing: Pick up after your dog. But for a few weeks, that same guy decided he was going to be the exception to that rule, and he kept letting his big mutt take these gigantic dumps right in the middle of the path. In the mornings, when it’s still dark outside, poop is hard to see, and I had already stepped in it a few times before. Anyway, I mentioned it to him the other times, tried pointing at the sign, lifted up the bottom of my shoe, the whole bit. He didn’t care. But when it happened again, I just lost it. And as you know, we can’t exactly go around losing it in public.

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