Chapter 6 – THE CHRISTMAS NOBODY REMEMBERED CORRECTLY

Bianca’s hand tightened around her coffee cup.

“That doesn’t prove I wrote anything.”

Anna looked at her steadily.

“I didn’t say it did.”

“You’re looking at me as though you’ve already decided.”

“I’m asking why someone described a Christmas Eve gathering I never attended.”

Marco placed the notice between them.

“Anna was at the library?”

“Yes,” Anna answered. “We were packing holiday food baskets and children’s books. I stayed until almost eleven.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She gave him a weary look.

“I did try to tell you.”

“When?”

“Christmas morning. I left you a message.”

Marco frowned.

“I never got one.”

“I know. You called me the day after Easter and said Bianca thought I wasn’t ready to talk.”

He rubbed his forehead.

“I left messages too.”

“On my old number.”

He looked up.

“I didn’t know you’d changed it.”

“I told Bianca when I moved.”

The small details were beginning to form a much uglier picture.

Not one dramatic lie.

Dozens of ordinary opportunities for two people to reach each other, quietly redirected until both believed the other had stopped trying.

Bianca put down her cup.

“You’re making me responsible for every missed conversation in this family.”

Marco looked at her.

“No. I’m responsible for believing you without checking.”

Anna’s eyes shifted toward him.

He continued.

“I should have driven to her apartment. I should have called the school. I should have asked somebody who actually knew how she was doing.”

“Marco,” Bianca said, “you were frightened. You remember what she was like before.”

He nodded.

“I do.”

Anna looked down.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

Marco turned to his sister.

“Annie, listen to me.”

She shook her head.

“No. I need to say this.”

He fell silent.

“When I was drinking, I made everybody suspicious. If I missed a call, you thought I was drunk. If I came late, you checked my breath. I understood why.”

Her voice remained calm, but tears were gathering in her eyes.

“I hated it, but I understood.”

She rubbed her thumb across the bronze coin.

“After I got sober, I kept waiting for that to change.”

Marco looked devastated.

“It did change.”

“Not enough.”

He couldn’t deny it.

Anna took a careful breath.

“I’ve spent ten years showing up. I paid back what I owed. I finished school. I got a job. I helped Mom when she was sick.”

She glanced at the old recipe tin.

“And one woman tells you I’ve had a drink, and suddenly I’m twenty-four again.”

Marco bowed his head.

There was a long silence.

Then he said, “You’re right.”

Anna looked surprised.

He continued.

“I wanted to believe I knew how to protect you. The truth is, when Bianca told me you were drinking again, I panicked.”

His voice grew rough.

“I remembered the night I found you unconscious on Mom’s bathroom floor. I remembered wondering if you were breathing.”

Anna’s eyes filled.

“I remember waking up.”

“I was afraid of seeing you like that again.”

She nodded.

“But you can’t keep treating me as though that night is still happening.”

Marco looked at her.

“No. I can’t.”

It was the first honest conversation they’d had all evening that didn’t involve Bianca defending herself.

I quietly began gathering the empty cups.

Bianca watched them from the end of the table.

Her expression was difficult to read.

There was anger there, certainly.

But also something else.

The look of someone watching a place she’d fought hard to occupy being given back to somebody she couldn’t compete with.

“Do you know what it’s like?” she asked suddenly.

Marco looked up.

“To spend years building something with a man, only to discover there’s a part of his life you’ll never be allowed into?”

Anna frowned.

“I never kept you out.”

Bianca laughed without humor.

“You didn’t have to. Your name was in every decision. Every holiday. Every conversation about the past.”

Marco answered quietly.

“She’s my sister.”

“And I’m supposed to become your wife.”

“Those things aren’t in competition.”

“They are when one person can make your whole world stop.”

Anna stared at her.

“You’ve spent months making sure he believed I was drinking because you were afraid I’d need him?”

Bianca’s expression hardened.

“You’ve never had to wonder whether someone would choose you.”

Anna looked genuinely stunned.

Then she said, “I spent years wondering if anyone would.”

Bianca turned away.

No one spoke for a while.

Finally, Marco moved the folder aside.

“There is something I need to tell you, Annie.”

His sister looked at him cautiously.

“About the house?”

“Yes.”

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and removed a narrow blue envelope.

It was old enough that the corners had become slightly worn.

He placed it in front of her.

“I’ve been carrying this around for weeks.”

Anna didn’t touch it.

“What is it?”

“A letter I wrote to you.”

“Why didn’t you send it?”

He looked toward Bianca.

“Because I was told you weren’t well enough to deal with property decisions.”

Bianca looked at the envelope.

For a moment, something like alarm crossed her face.

Anna opened it.

Inside was a handwritten note.

I watched her eyes move across the page.

Then she looked at her brother.

“Marco.”

He smiled sadly.

“Mom left us the house together. You know that.”

She nodded.

“I’ve paid the bills because I could afford to. But it’s always belonged to both of us.”

Anna read further.

Her hand rose to her mouth.

“I wanted to have the roof finished and the legal paperwork prepared before your anniversary,” he said. “I thought we could celebrate at the house.”

She looked at him.

“Celebrate what?”

“Ten years.”

His voice softened.

“And I wanted to give you something.”

Anna stared at the letter.

He continued.

“I was planning to transfer my half of Hawthorne Street into your name.”

Bianca stood abruptly.

“Marco, we discussed that.”

He looked at her.

“No. I told you what I intended to do. You asked me to delay it because Anna supposedly wasn’t well.”

Anna unfolded the last page.

It wasn’t a deed. It was a note from Marco explaining what he hoped the house could become.

A place Anna could use however she wished.

A place that would always be hers.

She looked up, crying quietly.

“You were going to give me Mom’s house?”

Marco nodded.

“I wanted you to have a place nobody could tell you to leave.”

Anna looked toward the property authorization on the table.

Then toward Bianca.

I saw the moment she understood something terrible.

If Marco gave her his half, she would own the entire property.

And Bianca’s proposed authorization would put decisions about it into someone else’s hands.

Anna slowly stood.

“Bianca, did you know he was planning to give me the house when you asked me to sign those papers?”

Bianca didn’t answer.

Anna took one step closer.

“Because if you did, you weren’t trying to protect my brother’s property.”

Her voice shook.

“You were trying to take mine.”

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