Page 60 of Falls From Grace
“Oh lord, sorry,” a voice rang out behind her. She turned to see Anna standing half in and half out the back door in what were probably Gucci pajamas. “I didn’t realize you were out here moping.”
Brynn sighed and scrubbed her face.
“It’s okay, there’s plenty of room to mope if you need to join me.”
To her surprise, Anna closed the door behind her and came and sat in the outdoor chair beside hers.
“Aren’t you freezing?” she said after a moment.
“Not really,” Brynn told her. “I came from Vermont.” She felt Anna turn and look at her.
“I thought you were in Nashville singing country music,” she said accusingly. Brynn found she couldn’t help a small smile at how horrified her older sister sounded.
“Sort of,” she said. “I was in Nashville, but it wasn’t country music. Before that we were in Vermont, writing.”
“So it’s true,” Anna said. “You were literally doing music with Savannah Grace.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuuuuuuuck,” Anna groaned, tipping her head back to the sky and slumping in her chair.
“Excuse me?” Brynn was shocked. Her sister’s facade never cracked, and she’d told Brynn off for swearing more times than she could remember. Anna seemed to be struggling for words for once.
“You just… you just do whatever the hell you want, don’t you?” she said. “You swan off to LA, literally get employed to hang out on the beach in a bikini all day and then - bam! - you’re a musician and recording with a massive star. What even is your life?”
“That’s not exactly accurate-”
“Bullshit! And then you act like being around your family is literally the worst thing you could ever imagine and you mope around as if you’re some kind of victim.”
“Oh wow, Anna, tell me how you really feel.”
“I will! Some of us work our asses off, okay? We do exactly what is expected of us and we excel at it, and it’s still not enough! You get to live this insane, exciting, spontaneous, adventurous life while we’re trapped and you’re still the one with a chip on your shoulder.”
Brynn was about to bite back when her argument died. Her life did sound amazing, when she viewed it through Anna’s eyes.
“Are you… okay?” she asked, suddenly seeing her sister in a new light. Her rigidly perfect veneer, her slightly too thin body, her brittle asides. Anna crumpled. “Oh, honey, no.” Brynn leapt out of her chair and crouched in front of her, her hands resting on her sister’s knees.
“No,” her sister wept. “I’m not. I want to leave Bradley. I’m just holding it together until the kids are back in school, so they’re not there when it all falls apart. And I’m burnt out, but I can’t take a break because the department needs me and what if Bradley uses my burnout against me in a custody battle?”
“Oh shit,” Brynn whispered.
“Oh shit is right.” Anna raised her head and looked at her miserably.
“You’re as fucked up as I am,” Brynn breathed and Anna spluttered out a laugh.
“Of course I am,” she agreed. “We’re from the same family, asswipe.”
“Ooh, Stanford teach you those insults, Ms. Head of Department?”
“Can you stop being a smart-ass and just give me an actual hug, please?”
Brynn hugged her sister. She went inside and made two big hot chocolates and they sat up in the garden for hours, making plans and strategizing. To ease Anna’s rambling over-thinking once they had a workable plan, she confessed her own life disasters, including the long-held secret of her alcoholism and her recent struggle not to drink. Anna took it all in with no more comment than a hand squeeze between their two chairs.
“Okay, let me get this straight,” she said eventually. “You fell in love with Savannah Grace?”
Brynn snorted out a small laugh. Of all the revelations, that was the one Anna was most taken by.
“Yeah.”
