I handed Heather her phone back.
“Did you know how much I make at the clinic?”
She hesitated. “Not exactly.”
“Did you know I’d been there almost seven years?”
“Yes.”
“Then how did you think I could afford to quit?”
“Seth said you’d both planned for it.”
“With what money, Heather?”
She didn’t answer.
I leaned back in the plastic chair.
“Six thousand four hundred dollars,” I said.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“That’s not fair, Natalie. I honestly thought you wanted to do this.”
“Did you ever ask yourself why anybody would give up a full-time job to watch three kids for free?”
She opened her mouth. Then closed it.
Her silence said enough.
She was desperate for affordable childcare. Seth offered her one that cost her almost nothing. And she grabbed it.
“I should have talked to you myself,” she finally said.
“Yes. You should have.”
She wiped her cheeks.
“I didn’t think my brother would lie about something like that.”
“Neither did I.”
And for the first time, I felt something for Heather besides anger.
We’d both believed Seth. We’d both been lied to.
The only difference was that she’d have kept her job. And I’d have lost mine.
“There’s something I don’t get,” I said. “Why didn’t you ever bring any of this up when we saw each other?”
Heather frowned. “I tried.”
“When?”
“At Mom’s birthday dinner last month. I asked you about work. Remember?”
I did remember.
Heather asked me if I still liked working at the clinic. And before I could answer, Seth jumped in and said wedding planning had made work stuff stressful for me, and maybe we should talk about something else.
I thought he was being sweet. Protective.
“Afterward, he told me I’d made you uncomfortable,” Heather said. “He said you were upset I was questioning your decision to stay home.”
My chest tightened.
Because I remembered something else about that night.
On the drive home after that same dinner, Seth told me Heather thought I cared too much about my career. That she couldn’t understand why a woman who was about to get married was so focused on a promotion.
It hurt my feelings. After that, I stopped talking to Heather about work at all.
I looked at her.
“Did you ever tell Seth you thought I was too focused on my career?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Did you tell him you didn’t think I’d make a good wife because I work so much?”
Her confusion turned into shock.
“Of course not! Never!”
My stomach turned over.
Heather stared at me.
“Natalie. What exactly has my brother been telling you about me?”
I looked down at my purse. My wedding band was still in its little box inside. It had never made it onto my finger.
“I think,” I said slowly, “we need to compare some notes.”
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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