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“What are the odds that we get through this without a fight breaking out?” Sabrina asked as their car ground up the long driveway.
The towers of Chloé’s country estate rose ahead of them. When someone like Chloé Bourgeois chose to isolate herself from the world, she did not do it by half.
Zoé parked the car, switched off the headlights, and smiled tightly. “The odds are fantastic if you don’t let her bait you.”
“You know what she—”
“Yes,” Zoé interrupted. “I know exactly what she did. But now she’s a sad, lonely adult, and she’s actually the least toxic member of my family.” She took Sabrina’s hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “One night, Bri. That’s all I’m asking. If Chloé can’t behave, we won’t be back next year. Okay?”
Sabrina squeezed Zoé’s hands. “Okay,” she said.
Chloé answered the door herself. “I have to,” she explained. “It’s this or retaining household help. The cleaning staff comes in biweekly, but otherwise I’m alone here.” She made eye contact with Sabrina for the first time. “Sabrina. You look… good.”
“I am,” said Sabrina flatly. “Where’s your kitchen? We brought a few side dishes.”
It was strange, Zoé thought. Talking with Chloé was almost easy these days, and almost familiar. They seemed to have grown more and more alike as they aged. Zoé wasn’t a misanthropic recluse, but she absolutely understood the impulse.
As Chloé led them to the kitchen, where the turkey she had prepared for the main course was still in the oven, they kept up a light conversation about current events, television, and books they had recently read. For a woman who never left her estate in another country, Chloé was surprisingly well-informed about Parisian celebrity gossip.
“It pays to have connections,” she said smugly after asking Sabrina a particularly astute question about Ivan and Mylene’s upcoming wedding. Their engagement wasn’t set to be publicly announced for another week.
“The colors are cream and rose, I believe,” Sabrina answered. “Rose is planning it, so she’d know better than me. I’m just their managing attorney.”
Ivan and Mylene had opened up a law firm together right out of university. In addition to their regular clients, they did pro-bono legal work for refugees and the occasional environmental advocacy group. And Sabrina’s deftly organized paperwork and well-maintained contact list kept the entire operation running.
“Not the colors I’d have chosen, with Mylene’s complexion,” said Chloé. She bent over to squint at the turkey through the window in the oven door. “But what do I know?”
Zoé and Sabrina exchanged glances. With her eyes alone, Zoé promised to shower Sabrina with kisses in the hotel room that night if she ignored Chloé’s bait.
“Adrien sends his love,” said Zoé. She’d almost forgotten. “His oldest kid’s about to turn six.”
“Already?” said Chloé vaguely. The mention of Adrien seemed to have taken the wind out of her sails. Zoé wasn’t sure what to make of it. “He must have a fantastic therapist. I can’t imagine… reproducing, with what I’ve been through.”
“He gave me her card for you, actually,” said Zoé, rummaging through her purse. “She takes telehealth appointments.”
Chloé stuffed the card into her pocket without looking at it. “Wonderful.”
Zoé hesitated. “And… I think Adrien would appreciate a phone call. He worries about you.”
“I’m sure.” Chloé slotted on a pair of oven mitts, pulled the turkey out of the oven, and, in a practiced motion, checked it with a meat thermometer. “There. Perfect or dry, we’ll see which.”
Zoé tried to act as if Chloé cooking was something she saw every day, but her sister saw her expression.
“A live-in cook would try to talk to me,” she said. “So I learned to do it myself.”
The turkey certainly smelled good. Zoé searched for something polite to say.
Sabrina saved her. “Is this the spice mix your butler used to use? It smells the same.”
Chloé favored Sabrina with an uncharacteristically shy smile. “It is. I… wrote to him. After everything that went down with our mother, I kind of wanted to thank him for being the closest thing I had to a healthy role model. Even if I didn’t pay attention to him well enough as a kid. I was surprised when he wrote back.”
Sabrina transferred the asparagus she and Zoé had brought into one of Chloé’s serving dishes. “Could you give me his address, actually? He did a lot for me over the years.”
“Yeah,” said Chloé. “I think he’d like to hear from you.”
Zoé didn’t miss the way Chloé and Sabrina looked at each other. It was as if they were both rediscovering something precious, something that could just as easily have been lost forever. She smiled.
“Is that everything?” Zoé asked. “What can I carry?”
“The pie,” said Chloé after a moment’s thought. “It’s in the fridge. The green bowl on the shelf above it is the whipped cream, if you want to try to juggle.”
“You made a pie?” Sabrina sounded suitably impressed.
“It’s blueberry,” said Chloé. She bit her lip. “I remembered how much you like them.”
Zoé gasped when she saw the pie. It was topped with a pastry lattice and tiny roses that had to have been difficult to shape. “Chloé…”
“Don’t praise me until you’ve tried it,” said Chloé as she led the procession to the dining room. “For all you know, it tastes utterly disgusting.”
Sabrina turned to exchange grins with Zoé. Chloé wasn’t okay exactly, but she was different. That counted for something. A lot, actually.
“It’s going to be great,” Sabrina said. “Though it’ll be hard to top Zoé’s potatoes. I think I married some kind of wizard.”
Zoé laughed, balancing the pie on top of the whipped cream. “I’ll never tell.”
Chloé’s dining room was like the rest of her house: expensively furnished, but empty-feeling. The dinner spread out on the table helped considerably. Chloé picked up a knife and went to work on the turkey as if she’d been carving meat her whole life. “What do you want?” she asked Zoé, indicating the juicy-looking meat.
More of this, Zoé thought. More of you. I want to try having a sister again, if you’ll let me. “A thigh, please,” she said instead. “Thanks, Chloé.”
Chloé’s smile was genuine when she said, “You’re welcome. I’m glad you came.”