My younger sister.
Seven years younger than me.
Growing up, I was the responsible one.
Good grades.
Marriage.
House.
Children.
Claire was always the fun one.
The beautiful one.
Parties.
Musicians.
City life.
No children.
She had joked before that kids were a trap.
Then during the last year, she started coming over constantly.
Sunday dinner.
Soccer games.
Random Tuesday nights.
She said she was lonely.
I was happy.
I thought maybe we were finally becoming close in the way sisters were supposed to be.
She and Daniel often sat together on the back deck talking while I cleaned the kitchen and bathed the boys.
Once I even told her,
“I’m glad you two get along.”
She smiled.
“You’re lucky, Jen. He’s great.”
She answered my call on the second ring.
Bright.
Cheerful.
“Hey, Jen!”
“How long?”
Silence.
Then:
“Oh.”
“How long, Claire?”
“Daniel told you.”
“He says six months.”
She exhaled.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
No answer.
“At Christmas? Mom’s birthday? When exactly were you planning to mention you were sleeping with my husband?”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
I gripped the phone.
“You sat at my table. Ate my food. Went to my sons’ soccer games. You sat outside drinking wine with Daniel while I gave your nephews baths.”
“Love is love.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Then Claire told me they were meant to be together.
She said Daniel had chosen her.
And finally, she admitted something deeper.
She had spent her whole life resenting me.
The grades.
The marriage.
The house.
The boys.
The way our parents constantly compared her to me.
“I was always the one who didn’t have what you had.”
“So you took my husband?”
“I didn’t take him.”
Her voice hardened.
“He chose me.”
I could have said a hundred cruel things.
I didn’t.
I hung up.
That night, sitting in the dark beside Daniel’s empty side of the bed, I realized something.
He had physically left that evening.
But emotionally, he had already been gone for months.
The divorce took four months.
The days became paperwork.
Custody forms.
Financial documents.
College funds.
Mortgage information.
Seven lunches every morning.
Seven names written on seven paper bags.
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