I Don’t Read Between The Lines, I Only Tell The Truth Outright Chapter 02

I Don’t Read Between The Lines, I Only Tell The Truth Outright Chapter 02

The dinner I had waited three years for broke up in under an hour.

By the time I got back to the house, Daphne was propped on the couch with a glass of water. My mother sat beside her, patting her back, and my three brothers stood around her as she had just come out of the ER.

I was still hanging up my coat when my mother called over to me. “Nora, come apologize to Daphne.”

I walked over. “What am I apologizing for?”

Her hand stopped moving.

Eli laughed at me. “You really need somebody to spell it out?”

“Yes. If nobody spells it out, I might apologize for the wrong thing.” I turned to him. “Is it because I asked why she took my seat? Or because I didn’t hand it over on my own?”

Eli stood up. “Here we go. You do this every time. You pull every sentence apart until nobody in this house has anywhere to stand.”

“Whoever said the unreasonable thing is the one with nowhere to stand. What’s wrong with that?”

“A family isn’t about being right.”

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about love!”

I looked at him and asked him something else. “In the three years I’ve been back, you’ve been at three of her birthdays. You haven’t come home for a single one of mine. When you say love, do you mean the love between all of you and her?”

Eli’s face went red. “I had things going on those times.”

I counted them off on my fingers. “The first time you took her to a concert. The second time she’d had a fight with a friend. The third time her cat wouldn’t eat. Which one of those was your business?”

Eli didn’t say anything.

Daphne set her glass down and said it quietly. “You remember all of it so clearly.”

“Of course I do. I only get one birthday a year.”

Something uncomfortable moved through my mother’s eyes. “Nora, you can’t drag up every single thing because we spent more time with Daphne in the past.”

“It isn’t the past. My last birthday was two months ago.”

The living room went quiet again.

Adrian couldn’t take it anymore and pushed a box across the table to me. “The dinner didn’t go the way it should have. This is for you.”

I opened it, and there was a pearl necklace inside.

Daphne’s face changed. Her hand went to her throat without thinking, where a gold locket hung.

I had seen that locket before. The first time my mother came to see me, she had brought a photo of it.

“This was always meant for the Weston daughter. We lost you when you were small, and I’ve been holding on to it for you.”

I pointed at Daphne’s throat. “Why is something of mine around her neck?”

My mother answered fast. “Daphne went through a rough time the year she turned 18. I wanted her to have something comforting, so I let her wear it for a while.”

“How long is a while?”

“Three years.”

“When does she give it back?”

Daphne reached up to take it off, and my mother caught her hand. “Nora, it’s a necklace. If you like it, I’ll buy you one.”

“I don’t need jewelry. I’m asking why the thing you said you were keeping for me became a gift to her.”

My mother’s eyes went red. “I thought we would never find you.”

“You found me.” I looked at her. “So why hasn’t it come back?”

Daphne started crying. “I’ll give it to Nora.”

“Daphne! I gave that to you. You don’t have to give it back.”

I nodded and set the pearl necklace back on the table. “Understood.”

My mother stared at me. “Understood what?”

“That locket was never being kept for me, and this necklace isn’t making up for anything. You want me to take something new so that I’ll stop asking where the old one went.”

My father walked in right then and caught the last line, and his eyebrows came down. “What’s the fuss about now?”

Eli got in first. “She’s demanding the locket off Daphne’s neck.”

“I’m not demanding anything.” I corrected him. “I’m confirming whether it’s mine. If it isn’t, I don’t want it. If it is, it should come back. Is that hard to follow?”

My father was quiet for a moment. “We’ll deal with the locket later. Tomorrow we’re getting your paperwork done.”

I looked at him.

Three years ago, with the Westons, my legal records had never left the little county I grew up in. Every time it came up, they said the process was complicated.

Daphne laughed softly. “Nora’s been back so long, and her name is finally coming over to us.”

“Why finally?”

Her smile thinned out. “I’m happy for you.”

“You said finally, which means you knew it had been dragging on. So do you know why it dragged on this long?”

Daphne’s eyes slid away from mine.

My mother cut in. “The whole family is going with you tomorrow.”

I checked. “Dad, Mom, and all three of my brothers?”

Adrian nodded. “All of us.”

Eli leaned back on the couch, and he sounded impatient. “It’s paperwork. Do you have to take attendance?”

“Yes.” I looked around at all of them. “Because I don’t want anybody waking up tomorrow with a stomachache, a dizzy spell, or a cat that won’t eat.”

Daphne went a shade paler.

My mother took my hand. “That won’t happen. Nobody is leaving this time.”