“I heard you.”
Linda looked at him as if his admission had broken an agreement neither of them had spoken aloud.
For the first time that morning, Emily seemed less like a bride controlling a schedule and more like my little sister when she realized an adult was not going to fix something for her.
She looked at our mother.
“Mom, say something.”
Linda opened her mouth.
What came out was soft.
“Emily was under a lot of pressure.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
There it was.
The sentence I had heard in a hundred different forms since childhood.
Emily was tired.
Emily was overwhelmed.
Emily was younger.
Emily did not mean it like that.
Emily needed everyone to calm down.
Daniel heard something else.
“Pressure made her ashamed of her sister?”
Linda immediately shook her head.
“No. Of course not.”
“Then why didn’t either of you stop her?”
My father stared at the floor.
