WRONG SISTER, RIGHT WOMAN

"I'm turning over a new leaf. I promise."

Calm, Candace, calm. Who knew? Maybe Nolan was okay. Michelle was a grown-up; her life was her own. But that beautiful house was part Candace's, and legal issues aside, she hated the idea of some guy living there who didn't belong, didn't understand how precious a place it was. Or was she being selfish? Unreasonable? She could be both, she knew. If only Michelle didn't have such a dismal record.

"Can you just date him a little longer, get to know him better before he moves in?"

"I've known him a month, what more do you want?"

"Two months? Four? Eight? A year?"

"He needs a place now. I've got one."

"We've got one."

Candace sank down onto the one space on her couch not heaped with boxes and tried to calculate. She could put off traveling to Langford by a day or two. She'd wanted to get to Rosehill a couple of weeks early before starting her new job, but she didn't absolutely have to be there yet. Her furniture was going into storage regardless, while she stayed with her grandparents. "Here's an idea. How about if I come up and meet him, and if he's all you say, there will be no problem and I'm fine with him moving in."

"For God's sake, Candace, I'm not twelve."

No, you just act like it sometimes, Candace thought. Aloud, she said. "I know. But the house is mine too. And Andrew's. I know he has no plans of living there but it's his too. I think it's understandable I'd want to-"

"I think it's understandable that you should trust your own sister."

"Uh..." Based on what? "What is so bad about me visiting?"

Her red alert got redder. She'd just tossed the idea out there, hadn't really thought it through. Moving was plenty stressful enough, all her plans were in place, she hated to delay. But with Michelle objecting...

"It's just...you shouldn't...we shouldn't have to go through this."

"I'd like to meet him."

"Oh, um, well..."

Candace dropped her head into her hands. This was not good. If Michelle didn't want Candace to meet Nolan, that was proof positive he was more bad news, and Candace needed to get up there as soon as possible to protect her childhood home and to prevent her sister from screwing up her life exactly the way she always did. Exactly the way their mother had.

___________

"Michelle?" Candace called when she entered the house.

She wandered into the kitchen, glanced around and made a face. Cleaning was not Michelle's forte, though the place wasn't as bad as Candace had found it on her few other visits over the past six years. She crossed to the refrigerator, a side-by-side beauty that the delivery men had barely gotten through the kitchen door. Inside...yuck.

Classic Michelle. A few take-out containers, condiments, a rind of Parmesan cheese, one egg, half a lemon, pale celery, a shriveled apple and about two dozen beers. Mmm, mmm, good.

An hour later, she'd gone to the supermarket, come back, eaten a slice of very good pre-cooked tenderloin with veggies and fruit from the salad bar, cleaned up after herself and settled into the living room with a book from Grandad's library, which she and Michelle hadn't been able to get rid of.

At eleven, head pounding from tension and too tired to watch TV, Candace closed the book she wasn't really reading and stood. Odds were good she wouldn't be able to sleep for a while but she didn't want to wait down here anymore. Michelle could easily stay out until two or three. Candace needed her eight hours every night or she turned into a daytime zombie. Sleep to Michelle seemed more like a careless luxury.

Could they be any less alike? Candace's dark to Michelle's light, Candace's lifelong struggle against adding pounds to Michelle's effortlessly slender figure, Candace's practicality and love of order to Michelle's sloppy impulsiveness. They only had her mother's word they had the same father.

Candace sighed and started up the curving steps to the second floor. She'd wanted to get this confrontation- or, optimistically, this meeting-over with so she wouldn't have to think about it all night long. Good thing she'd brought sleeping pills, a new, stronger prescription the doctor said should help her relax on nights when she knew drifting off would take chemical help. Tonight was definitely one of those nights.

Upstairs, she pushed open the familiar door to her room and stopped dead. Michelle had removed all her personal items. Her stuffed animals from high school, her gymnastic awards, her ceramic animals bought with childhood allowance from a tiny, now-defunct store on the street, her floral bedspread and curtains, all gone.

Candace stalked to Michelle's room, which still looked exactly the same as always, except that the bed was actually made. Betty Boop clock, clothes strewn everywhere, makeup cluttering her dresser, jewelry scattered all over her desk among framed photographs and her clumsy teenage attempts at pottery.

Next stop, the master bedroom, which showed clear signs of habitation, including the unmade bed. Michelle and Nolan must be sleeping here. Next door, the guest room-Mom's girlhood bedroom-was unchanged, twin beds still covered in rose-colored quilts.

What was the deal with Candace's room? Was this Michelle's way of sticking it to her sister? Why not hang a big 'Candace No Longer Lives Here' sign on the front door? At least Michelle could have asked if trashing Candace's past was okay.

She slumped against the wall in the hallway, head throbbing, on the verge of tears. Maybe she shouldn't have come.

Except she had to make sure the house would be taken good care of, and she had to make sure Nolan wouldn't take Michelle on another one-way ride to heartbreak and/or self-destruction.

She took her makeup kit into the hall bathroom-cleaned recently, thank goodness-brushed her teeth and slugged down a sleeping pill. Tonight at least she'd sleep. Tomorrow she'd deal with all this, when she was refreshed.

But first, something for this headache. She scoured the medicine cabinet and pulled down a bottle of generic ibuprofen, popped the top and shook one into her hand, staring in the mirror while she filled a paper cup from the dispenser with water. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes and faint puffiness; the stress of the past few days and this damn headache had turned her pale. Ugh.

A split second before she tossed back the pill, she noticed it wasn't ibuprofen's usual brown-orange color. Funny. Most of the generics looked similar to the brand names. She studied the bottle. It said ibuprofen... Should she panic?

She was too tired.