My mother, Diane, tolerated Noah’s constant presence with an amused smile.
My father, Richard, rarely looked up from his newspaper when Noah entered.
Child Care
But Gracie always waited beside the front window for the sound of his bicycle tires.
By the time I was seventeen, my feelings toward Noah had shifted.
I never told him.
I barely admitted it to myself.
Instead, I imagined a future while brushing my hair or finishing homework at the kitchen table.
Noah and me.
Gracie living nearby.
The three of us remaining connected exactly as we had always been.
I convinced myself Noah imagined it too.
He stayed on our porch long after sunset.
He always knew when I was pretending not to be upset.
Sometimes our eyes met after Gracie said something funny, and it felt as though we shared a language that belonged only to us.
I waited for him to say something.
He never did.
The Velvet Box
Then, one Sunday when I was twenty-two, Noah arrived carrying a small velvet box.
My heart rose so quickly that I became dizzy.
He stood on the porch wearing a blue shirt.
Nervous.
Pale.
For one impossible second, I thought every secret hope I had carried since seventeen was about to come true.
“Can I talk to Gracie?” he asked.
I stared at him.
“Gracie?”
“Is she in the garden?”
I stepped aside.
From the kitchen window, I watched Noah walk between the tomato plants.
Gracie was wearing gardening gloves and talking to the flowers as though she expected them to respond.
Noah knelt.
He opened the velvet box.
Gracie’s hands flew to her mouth.
Then she began nodding so hard her curls bounced around her face.
I stayed behind the kitchen curtain until they came inside.
That night, I cried into my pillow so no one would hear.
And the thoughts running through my mind made me ashamed.
Noah could not really find Gracie more attractive than me.
Maybe he felt sorry for her.
Maybe he wanted everyone to think he was unusually kind.
Maybe there was another reason.
Money.
Approval.
Some strange desire to become part of our family without marrying me.
Family
I hated myself for thinking those things about my own sister.
But I could not stop.
“You’ll Be My Maid of Honor”
The next morning, Gracie entered my bedroom carrying her laptop.
