The Day Rate My Sister Charged

Todd

Sunday afternoon Luke went over to Krista’s. He did not tell me he was going. He just said he needed to run into town for some welding rod, and he was gone two hours.

When he came back, he sat down at the kitchen table across from me.

“I talked to Todd,” he said.

“Luke.”

“I didn’t say a word about the money,” he said. “We sat in his garage and drank a pop. I told him our shop needs a second-shift man to run the press brake and do fit-up. Nineteen years on a line, he can run anything. I told him to come see Mike on Monday.”

“Did he say he would?”

“He said yes before I was done talking,” Luke said. “He about shook my arm off.”

I looked at my husband, his big hands around a cup of coffee, his thumb with the burn scar.

“Did you see Krista?” I asked.

“Just for a second,” he said. “She came out to the garage to bring us pop. She didn’t say anything. But she looked at me like she wanted to.”

Monday

Monday morning, I woke up at four, the same as the week before. Luke had to be at the shop at seven. He had already told me he would stay home until somebody came, and he would lose the morning if he had to.

I lay there in the dark. I did not let myself hope.

At 5:58, there was a knock on the back door.

Luke got up and went out to the kitchen in his socks. I heard the door. I heard him say, “Morning, Krista.” I heard her say, “Morning, Luke,” and then I heard her say something else, quiet, and then he laughed a little.

She came down the hall and stood in the bedroom doorway. Black vest. Wet hair. Travel mug.

“Before you say anything,” she said, “I’m not on the clock.”

“Krista.”

“I’m not,” she said. “Don’t you put one dollar on that table tonight or I’ll walk out and you’ll have to get your own socks on.”

She came in and sat down on the edge of the bed beside me, in the dark, the way she used to sit on my bed when I was little and had a bad dream.

“Todd starts at Luke’s shop Wednesday,” she said. “Second shift. He’s so happy he can’t sit still.”

“I’m glad,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Whitney,” she said. “I’m sorry for the text. I’m sorry I made Luke feel like a customer. I’m sorry I let my own sister think I was keeping her children for money. I wasn’t. Not really. I just couldn’t tell the difference anymore between scared and greedy.”

“I know,” I said.

“I’d have kept them for nothing,” she said. “I want you to know that. Even scared. If you had asked me straight out, I’d have done it for nothing.”

“I know,” I said again. “I should’ve just called you, instead of all that with the money.”

“No,” she said. “You were right to do it the way you did. If you’d called me, I’d have argued. I couldn’t argue with a stack of twenties and you sitting there in that sling.”

Then she got up and said, “Come on. You smell like a hospital,” and she got behind me and lifted under my good arm, and we went to the bathroom together.