The Good Sister by Wendy Corsi Staub Read Free Book Online

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    Not that Emma’s even allowed to chew gum with her braces on.
    Not that she cares.
    That her daughters are extreme opposites used to give Jen pleasure. “They balance each other out,” she’d say when they were younger, “and opposites attract, right?”
    Right. That was back in the good old days when Carley and Emma were so close that they walked around holding hands, completely of their own accord. Strangers would smile and say, “Awww . . .”
    Now that the girls are both teenagers, opposites most certainly don’t attract; they repel. When they’re actually speaking to each other, they’re arguing.
    Jen can’t help but think this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. She and her four older sisters didn’t always get along perfectly, but at least they all had similar personalities and temperaments and grew up to be good friends. Whenever they actually see each other—which isn’t as often as anyone would like since Jen is the only one still living in western New York—conversations are laced with laughs and the camaraderie of women who view the world from similar perspectives.
    She can’t imagine that ever happening with Carley and Emma, given their extreme personalities. If they could just find a happy medium once in a while, life would be so much . . . well, happier.
    Happy. When was the last time Carley was happy?
    Yesterday , Jen reminds herself. Yesterday she almost smiled, for a moment there . . .
    Yes, because when Carley came home yesterday, Jen greeted her not with questions about school, but with a funny account of the fat, persistent squirrel who’d invaded the backyard birdfeeder, only to be repeatedly chased off by a tiny, bossy bird. Jen embellished the story into a Disney-esque romp—anything to see her daughter’s face light up the way it used to.
    Carley’s always been passionate about anything having to do with nature, particularly animals. Jen will never forget the pure pleasure—or resulting heartache—of surprising her on a long-ago birthday with a tiny white kitten. When she and Thad decided on the gift, they had no idea yet that Emma was asthmatic with a fierce allergy to cat fur. All fur, actually, and feathers, too.
    The kitten—whom Carley had named Cutie Pie—had to go.
    “Why can’t she go?” Carley had sobbed, cradling the purring ball of fluff and glaring at Emma, whose eyes were equally swollen and teary, courtesy of said fluff.
    In the end, Cutie Pie went to live a few miles away with Jen’s sister Bennie and her family. Carley took solace in being able to visit any time she wanted—until Bennie’s husband was transferred to California. She didn’t return the cat—Emma was still allergic—but she did give the Archers her piano.
    “Consolation prize?” Jen asked wryly.
    “Maybe your girls can learn to play it. My kids were never interested and I didn’t want to force lessons on them the way Mom did on us.”
    “But we actually liked piano lessons, remember?”
    “Not really. We just liked Marie Bush,” Bennie pointed out, and Jen smiled, recalling the vivacious teacher who would come to the Bonafacio house on Wednesdays and teach one sister after another to play scales and eventually Beethoven.
    Jen accepted the cast-off upright from her sister, and Cutie Pie moved to the West Coast. Following an extended mourning period, Carley survived the loss and started piano lessons. She hasn’t mentioned the cat in a long time now, though she remains affectionate toward furry creatures.
    Predictably, Jen’s rogue squirrel story yesterday was rewarded with—well, not a smile, exactly. But at least there was a fleeting spark of interest in her daughter’s big brown eyes.
    Bent on seeing an actual grin today, or maybe even getting a laugh, Jen was hoping to find a new anecdote to share. But woodland creatures were nowhere to be found in the backyard, thanks to the monsoonlike weather so typical of early springtime in western New York.
    As the