“Just because you can’t talk doesn’t mean you get to make decisions unilaterally.”
“Big word,” her Voice mocks. She’s had that one saved since Petra and I started SAT prep, but it’s been a while since she used it.
“Just because you can’t talk doesn’t mean I don’t get a say.”
“Yes.” Mirabel has the luxury of her Voice speaking one thing and her face doing something else. Can you stick out your tongue and talk at the same time?
“I won’t just acquiesce. I won’t just bow to your pronouncement. I’m not other people.”
“Truth,” Monday says from the corner. “You are you.”
“No,” says Mirabel.
“Just because you can’t walk or move or speak or eat or do really anything for yourself doesn’t mean you always get your way.”
“Lie,” Monday whispers from beneath her hands. Getting her way tends to be exactly what Mirabel’s limits mean.
“I don’t care what you think anyway,” I say.
“Lie,” Monday says again, but I keep right on going.
“I’ll tell Russell.”
“Hearsay. Inadmissible,” Mirabel’s Voice says immediately. She must have known I’d get here eventually and saved that in advance.
“Fine.” I am talking through my teeth, but it’s so they won’t chatter. “Then I’ll tell River. He’ll tell his father you told, and then it won’t matter whether you respected his privacy and confidence—which you didn’t, by the way. You told Monday. You told me. He won’t believe you didn’t tell everyone else in the world too. Mama will lose her job. He’ll warn his lawyers. And this whole thing will be in vain.”
“Stop!” Monday’s hands do not move from her ears. “One, Three, stop, stop!” She sounds like a stuck video game.
“You would,” Mirabel’s Voice says.
“Truth,” I say. “I would unless you—” but she interrupts because she wasn’t done.
“You want the plant to reopen so your boyfriend will stay.”
This takes my breath away. When it comes back I get all debate-clubby. “If I wanted the plant to reopen, why would I be begging you to tell Russell what Nathan said in therapy? If I didn’t want you to tell, why would I be standing here screaming that you have to tell?”
“Deep down,” her Voice says while her face does smug and angry and hurt and scared and superior all at once.
“You’re the one who won’t use what you know,” I throw back at her. “Maybe you’re the one who wants the plant to reopen deep down.”
“Why?” her Voice asks. Then there’s a pause while she adds, “He’s not my boyfriend.”
My mouth opens again, but nothing comes out. Monday looks terrified. And frankly, I’m with her because either Mirabel truly believes this appalling thing about me, or she’s stooped to lies and slander. Either is low and mean and unlike her.
And untrue.
But not entirely untrue.
It’s not true that I would sacrifice my mother, my sisters, my father’s memory, our town, and our future just so River won’t move back to Boston. I would not. I would never abandon our sister pact to make sure the plant does not reopen, even if it means losing River. If that’s what it takes, I will let him go. I will have to.
Also, it’s her—not me—holding the smoking gun in her hand but refusing to pull the trigger. Or pull it again, I guess, since it’s already smoking. Or whatever the stupid metaphor is. Point is, she’s the one who has the information that could stop Nathan, and she’s the one refusing to use it to do so.
But it is true that for the first time since Belsum came back, for the first time in my life really, I’m starting to see other things that could happen and how they might not be so bad. It would be bad if the plant reopened, but it would not be so bad if the plant not reopening dragged out a few months or years until we graduated, during which River and his family had to stay to fill out paperwork or something. It would be bad if Belsum got rich off our suffering, but it would not be so bad if the possibility of Belsum getting rich reduced our suffering, either because of an influx into Bourne of promise and hope and a little cash or because I finally met a guy I like.
We still have to take them down, but they are becoming less evil by the moment—River, of course, but also his homesick mom and, apparently, his heartsick dad. We are wavering in our commitment—Mirabel because of technicalities or, as she would call them, principles, Monday because she can’t take raised voices or muddled morality. And me? I guess because I’m young and in love. Which, of course, makes me think back to Romeo and Juliet. They were young and in love, and it got them killed, and not only them—a bunch of other people too. They were young and in love, and it made them abandon beliefs and loyalties and—yes—grudges that had been serving them their whole lives, their parents too, their entire families for generations.
But the other thing about Romeo and Juliet? Both only children. Not a sister between them. And you can tell because even when you’re happy and don’t want to hear it, sisters won’t let you settle a blood feud or fake your own death. Sisters don’t care how he’s magic or how it feels when his hands touch your face and his eyes meet your eyes or how much he changes your life and opens your world and everything in it, especially you. They won’t green-light your ill-founded, life-ruining plan just because you’re in love. With sisters, at the very least, you’re going to need a much better reason than that.
Two
If their house is small enough, even two sisters who are not talking to each other still have to talk to each other even if one of them cannot talk. After Mab and Mirabel fight, Mirabel goes straight to our room, but she cannot slam the door behind her so I pretend she just went in there to do homework or read a library book. Mab can slam the door behind her, and the door she slams behind her is the front door because she is so mad she leaves the house, but four minutes later she comes back because it is cold outside and too dark to walk in the woods. She comes into the bedroom and slams that door too, but we are already in there so I do not think it works.
I am on my bed and Mirabel is on hers so the only places for Mab to sit are in Mirabel’s wheelchair, which she would not do, or her own bed, but she lies on it and faces the wall and the postcards instead of sitting and facing us.
And she does not say sorry.
That is all the mad you can be in our house.
But Mab is also impatient so she only waits two minutes before she rolls over and says, “Fine. We’ll compromise.”
Mirabel is very patient so she does not say anything so neither do I. So Mab says, “Also I had sex.”
Mirabel wants to be mad, but I think she also wants to hear about the sex. I do not want Mirabel to be mad, but I also do not want to hear about the sex. Or, to be more accurate, I want to not hear about the sex.
“Let us start with the compromise,” I say.
Mab does a big sigh. “I get that Mama won’t tell Russell what Nathan said in therapy,” she says to Mirabel, “and I get you won’t either. But he’s no different from Apple, so what if we did your plan for her sessions where something she told would just point us in the right direction? What if we used what he said to find evidence ourselves?”