The Sister-in-Law by Pamela Crane (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📕

Except I sensed a foulness that filled me with fear.

She waved the topic away, then waved the waitress over. The woman was Princess Di, ever decorous. ‘Let’s not talk about such dark things. How about dessert?’

‘I thought it was inappropriate to have dessert for breakfast.’

She chuckled. ‘Well, you’re already drinking sweet tea, so why not?’

‘Mom.’ My urgency held a force that crushed her smile. ‘If I end up in jail, promise me you’ll help Lane take care of the kids. I’m terrified about what’s going to happen.’

‘Honey.’ She grabbed my hands in a surprisingly fierce, wrinkled grip, as if her words weren’t enough to hold me. ‘You’ve always been the strong one. Even more so than your brother. You will get through this, your kids will be fine, and no matter what happens,’ she squeezed my hands for emphasis, ‘I will take care of my family. You have my word.’

‘Thank you, Mom.’ Despite all our differences, Mom knew how to fight, knew how to get back up, and she had taught me that same resilience. ‘Speaking of Lane, I wanted to talk to you about him.’

‘What’s going on with your brother? Is everything okay?’

‘Not really, no. You know how I suspected something wasn’t right with Candace?’

Of course she did. We were of like mind when it came to Candy.

‘Well, it turns out I was right. She’s on the run from an ex-husband named Noah, and the baby she’s carrying is his, not Lane’s.’

‘No!’ Mom puffed, covering her gaping mouth with her hand. Blue veins coursed between the jutting knuckles. ‘Are we living in some kind of soap opera? Where did you hear all this?’

‘She told me.’

‘Does Lane know?’

‘Yes, she told him and they had a big fight about it and he left. But this morning they’re all lovey-dovey, so I guess he forgave her.’

‘But … why? Why would he want to yoke himself to a liar? Or to a child that isn’t his?’

‘I don’t know, but there’s more. She lied about her name too. She’s using some alias that she found in an obituary. Honestly, Mom, I don’t know what’s true anymore. And I don’t trust her not to hurt Lane. He’s in love, and we all know how irrational love can be.’

Love had caused me to stay with a husband who was cheating on me. It had caused my mother to suffer the continuous neglect of my father. Mom and I both knew just how treacherous love was. We sat across from each other, her brown eyes burrowing into me, flickering with a dark mischief that sparked the hairs on the back of my neck.

‘I’ll tell you what I know about love. Love is a dangerous weapon, and it robs us blind. It makes us weak because when we’re in love, we live in glass houses where everything feels open and shiny and clean. But all it takes is a tiny crack and the whole house shatters.’

‘So how do we crack Candace’s glass house?’ I asked.

‘All you have to do is find the right stone and throw it.’

Chapter 24

Candace

Life with you is a risky, exciting game where we’re both winning.

I don’t particularly like kids. As a child I never cradled baby dolls while pretending to be a mother. As a teenager I never took babysitting jobs. In fact, children downright annoyed me. My own, however, the arms and legs poking around inside of me like a tiny alien, I already adored. It’s an unexplainable connection when you have something so precious growing inside you, a love so deep and pure it’s beyond words. Harper’s children, on the other hand, I found not just unlikable, but downright evil.

Thirty minutes into it I regretted my offer to watch Elise and Jackson while Harper joined Monica for brunch. I didn’t let it show that the lack of an invitation hurt. I was Monica’s daughter-in-law, after all. And let’s not forget that my darling sister-in-law stabbed me in the back with her betrayal, so an apology meal would have been appreciated. The sharp prick of my humiliation was that I had actually thought Harper and I had made the shift into friendship. Sisterhood. Instead, I swallowed my embarrassment, smiled, and nodded as Harper left me instructions for handling lunch for her kids, reminding me three times before walking out the door that they weren’t to vegetate in front of the television all afternoon.

Of course, these rules didn’t apply to Harper, as I caught her children spending many an afternoon comatose in front of their various screens. Yet I was required to entertain the brats, unpaid, mind you, which had turned into the fiasco I was dealing with now.

I had suggested playing the game of Life to kill some time. I didn’t expect it to turn into Risk or Battleship. The kids couldn’t go a minute without fighting. A half-empty bowl of popcorn sat on the corner of the coffee table, with red Solo cups of Dr. Pepper – which the kids also weren’t allowed, but I had sworn them to secrecy – in front of each of us. Jackson and I sat on the sofa, and Elise knelt on the floor. The game board was open in the middle of the table. We had spent a solid forty-five minutes playing, and we hadn’t even completed the career-choosing opening of the game! Every occupation card one of them complained about, every salary card the other contested. If ever anyone needed a hefty dose of birth control, these two kids incentivized it in the flesh.

‘It’s not fair that Jackson gets the higher salary when he’s got a crappier job,’ Elise whined, tossing her salary card on the floor where she had dropped a mound of popcorn kernels.

‘I hate this game,’ Jackson grumbled, throwing himself back against the sofa. ‘It’s not like life is really like this.’

I had a foreboding feeling we weren’t playing a game anymore.

Shifting closer to him, I rested my hand on his bony shoulder in a wooden