Chapter 10 - MY SISTER’S REAL REASON
Natalie agreed to meet me again.
This time she did not begin with Mark.
She began with us.
“When Dad left, you became everybody’s favorite adult.”
“That isn’t true.”
“It is.”
“I was sixteen.”
“You became useful. I became the problem.”
I wanted to argue.
Then I remembered.
When Natalie got suspended at fourteen, I called her dramatic.
When she changed colleges, I told our mother she would never finish anything.
When she borrowed money, I made spreadsheets she never asked for.
I had confused helping with judging.
Natalie remembered every instance.
Mark noticed.
He began praising exactly what I criticized.
Her instinct.
Her style.
Her ability to read rooms.
Her willingness to take risks.
She fell in love partly because he made her feel like the sister who finally won.
That was the ugly emotional center.
Not sex.
Comparison.
“Did you want him because he was mine?” I asked.
She cried.
“At first, maybe.”
The honesty hurt more than denial.
“And Ethan?”
“I never planned to love Ethan.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
“Then why print the short packet?”
Her hands shook.
“Because Mark said if Ethan didn’t sign, Pacific Vista would collapse. He said your money would be gone. Marigold would be exposed. Employees would lose jobs. He said one signature could fix everything.”
“And you believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
That phrase belonged in every betrayal.
She wanted to because it preserved her business, affair, engagement, and image of herself as someone who had only made temporary mistakes.
“What did Mark promise you after Ethan invested?”
Natalie stared at the table.
“That he would leave you.”
There it was.
Mark intended to use Ethan’s money to repair the accounts.
Then divorce me.
Natalie thought they would eventually be together.
“Did he ever put that promise in writing?”
“No.”
I almost laughed, but it was too cruel.
My sister helped a professional investment manager create fake invoices and deceive her fiancé.
Yet the one promise she trusted most had no document.
Mark understood contracts.
He made sure his promise to Natalie had none.
She covered her face.
“I destroyed everything.”
“No.”
She looked up.
“You helped destroy things. That’s different.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because if you call yourself the whole disaster, you get to avoid naming each choice.”
She stared at me.
I had learned that lesson about myself too.
Natalie agreed to provide full financial cooperation.
She also agreed not to contact Ethan unless he initiated it.
Before leaving, she asked one question.
“Do you think Mark ever loved me?”
I answered the only way I could.
May you like
“I think he loved what you were willing to do for him.”
She cried harder at that than anything else.
