“Except make sure they’re safe?” It’s odd how Dr. Taylor can keep something from sounding like an accusation. Her words don’t sound mean or directed at Hannah in some sort of personal attack. They sound like the truth. Simple and easy. “I’m sure it’d be easy to help Ben now, you two have reconnected, and you’ve been able to have an actual relationship. But back in January? After a decade apart, was it really so easy?”
“No.” Hannah breathes. In through her nose and out through her mouth. “Thomas and I, we didn’t sleep that night. After I went and got Ben.”
“Really?” I ask.
“We weren’t sure why you’d been kicked out. Neither of us wanted to assume the worst, but for a little bit, we actually considered calling the police. We didn’t, obviously.” Hannah cracks a smile. “By the time the sun came up, we knew we had to help you, no matter what had happened.”
“Hannah.” Dr. Taylor straightens in her seat, notepad and pen forgotten. “When you took Ben in, when you bought them clothes and necessities, when Thomas got them into a new school, what was your goal?”
Hannah answers without hesitation. “Protecting them.”
“Do you think a part of you was trying to make up for your absence?”
This one’s less easy. Hannah’s mouth hangs open for a few seconds, her eyes unfocused. “I … maybe.”
“Ben.” Dr. Taylor looks right at me, like her sharp eyes can see right through me. “Do you feel better? Now that you’ve told Hannah how you feel?”
“Not really,” I say. There’s just a bigger void between us now, and I don’t know what could possibly fill it.
“Do you wish you’d stayed quiet?”
“No. I am glad I said something, but I don’t know.” This has all just been really confusing, and I’m not really sure what we were trying to accomplish here.
“What do you want from Hannah now? What can she do to make you feel better?”
“I don’t really know.” I don’t want anything else from her; she’s done so much for me. “She’s the only reason I’ve made it this far.”
“There’s nothing that you can think of?”
I look at Hannah, her red-rimmed eyes, her messy hair. I’m guessing I look about the same right now. There really is no mistaking us as anything other than siblings. We have so much of our parents in us, sometimes too much.
But we can’t help it.
“No.”
“Can we talk, just for a second?” Hannah asks me when we’re back home.
“Didn’t we just do that?” I say. I don’t want to be an asshole, but I just don’t have it in me right now.
“I wanted to tell you something. Something I didn’t want Dr. Taylor to know.”
Oh.
Already my mind is racing with whatever it could be. Something so bad she wouldn’t even want to say it out loud to anyone but me?
“Is that smart? Shouldn’t we do it with her?”
“If I wanted her to know I would’ve told you both at the appointment.” Hannah’s voice is surprisingly short, but then she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath and starts walking toward the kitchen. I follow her, the air between us feeling more poisonous with every step. “Sorry.”
The entire ride back home, we didn’t speak to each other. It was weird, and I was starting to feel like this wasn’t something we’d be able to fix.
“Sit down.” Hannah points to the chair at the table in the corner, the exact spot where I’d come out to her. “I haven’t told anyone this, except Thomas, and I only told him a few years ago, after we were married.”
“Okay.”
“I want to tell you about why I left the house.”
“I thought it was just because Mom and Dad were so suffocating,” I say, even though I feel like right now isn’t my time to talk.
“That was part of it, but there’s more.” She clasps her hands together.
“Okay … What was it?”
“So, about a month before I graduated, I was seeing this guy, and we decided to sleep together.”
“You were dating someone?” I ask her.
Hannah nods. “That’s a part of the story.”
“Oh, sorry.” I had no idea, but that was probably on purpose.
Hannah takes a long sigh, like she’s thinking of what to say next. “We were safe, used a condom and everything, but that doesn’t always work. A few weeks later when I was supposed to get my period, I didn’t.”
Fuck.
“You were …”
“No, no.” Hannah shakes her head. “Just my cycle, it was weird. I think I was syncing up with some of the other girls in my class. That’s not the point.” She takes another breath. “I thought I might be pregnant though. So, I bought a few tests, did them, all negative.”
I notice her hands are shaking.
“I thought I threw them all away. I was so careful.” Hannah shakes her head, almost like she’s talking more to herself than she is to me. “But I guess I forgot one or maybe Mom was snooping in the trash but … she found out.”
“Hannah …”
“She freaked, obviously. I told her they were all negative. That’s when she figured out I was dating Mark, the boy I’d slept with. I asked her to keep the secret from Dad, because I knew he’d blow a fuse. And she told me she would.”
Hannah swallows, and it feels like it takes forever for her to start talking again.
“Except she didn’t. She told him at some point, and he exploded. Told me I was a disappointment, that he ‘didn’t raise a whore.’ That was the only time he ever hit me, and that was the night I decided that I couldn’t be there anymore, and I figured after graduation was as nice a time as any.”
“Hannah, I didn’t—”
“I know, you didn’t know. I didn’t tell you for a reason. But that was why I left. And it hurt me for so long to know that I was leaving you with them, Ben. Part of me hoped they’d get better, or maybe they’d go easier on you.” She lets out this pitiful little chuckle, if you can even call it that. “Maybe all this is my fault. Maybe I should’ve called child services, told them where you were. But I was only eighteen, I couldn’t take care of a kid. So, I thought you’d end up in the system. And if that happened … I knew I’d never see you again.” The tears fall quickly down her face. “I’m sorry, Ben, I’m so sorry.”
“I …” I can’t move, and there are no words for what I’m feeling right now. This mix of helplessness, guilt, the betrayal, the bile rising in the back of my throat. I get up from my seat and I walk over to her, pulling my sister into the tightest hug I can manage. I don’t care if it’s hurting me, or her, I just want her to be close to me right now, and I never want to let go of her.
“I’m sorry, Hannah. I’m so sorry.” I start sobbing, the room filled with nothing but the sound of us crying while we hold each other.
“I’m sorry, Ben.” Her arms wrap around me. “I felt like it was my fault for so long, that I left you there with them. I should’ve done more.”