Free Then I Met My Sister by Christine Hurley Deriso

your mother. It’s why I couldn’t keep reading.” She eyes me warily. “How much have you read?”
    I tuck a hand into my jeans pocket. “Just a few pages. I need to kind of … pace myself. This isn’t the Shannon I was expecting.”
    Aunt Nic’s eyes flood with remorse. “Oh, honey. Maybe I shouldn’t have given it to you. I didn’t mean to disillusion you.”
    I shake my head impatiently. “It’s okay. It’s real. It’s who she was. What is it with our family, having to sanitize everything and make it all sparkly and antiseptic?”
    Aunt Nic fingers her necklace. “Shannon was everything we told you she was—sweet and fun and loving and adorable, all of those things. She was just going through a rebellious phase. No matter what her journal says, please don’t think that’s the whole story. I changed that girl’s diapers, Summer, just like I changed yours. I knew her. You have to believe me. She was an angel.”
    I grit my teeth and fling my hands in the air. “She wasn’t an angel. Thank God I’m finally figuring that out.”
    Aunt Nic sighs. “Aren’t all kids angels in their own families?”
    I clench my fists. “No! I’m not.”
    She presses her palm against my cheek. “But you are! You are to us. That’s what being in a family is all about.”
    I step back from her touch. “That’s what being in our family is all about—being fake. That’s what Shannon was rebelling against. That’s why she hated Mom.”
    Aunt Nic thinks for a second, then crosses her arms. “Did you know that Grandma made your mother and me wear matching dresses until we were, like, twelve?”
    I smile in spite of myself. “I’ve seen the pictures. Tragic.”
    Aunt Nic’s eyes sparkle. “We rebelled around the time we were in middle school. But we loved it when we were kids. I don’t have children, so I know I’m no authority, but … I think parents can be just what their kids need at some points in their lives, then not be what they need at other points.”
    She pauses for a moment, intertwining her fingers. “Yes, your mom is a perfectionist,” she continues. “But frankly, so was Shannon. It worked great when Shannon was little. It was only when she got older that the perfectionism thing started driving her crazy. It was Shannon who changed, not your mother. Your mom couldn’t quite keep up.”
    I shake my head. “If Shannon didn’t mind Mom being a control freak when she was little, it’s just because she was too young to know better. Mom should have let her be her own person.”
    Aunt Nic rubs the crocus stem again, looking wistful. “I don’t know,” she says softly. “I’m sorry Shannon was frustrated, but I kinda feel for your mom. Raising Shannon … it must have been like having a job that you do really well for years and years, then suddenly, with no warning, the rules change, and everything that used to work doesn’t work anymore.”
    “But once Mom could see it wasn’t working, why didn’t she change?” I ask, my voice insistent. “She didn’t even change for me.”
    Aunt Nic’s jaw drops. “She completely changed for you! You’ve been a rebel since the day you were born. How could you have gotten away with that if your mother hadn’t changed?”
    I open my mouth to respond, then close it and shake my head in resignation. I don’t think Aunt Nic gets the problem with Mom—that she always gives me so much to rebel against .
    The door jingles as a customer walks into the flower shop. Aunt Nic smooths her shirt as she turns toward the front of the store.
    “Hey, Aunt Nic?” I call.
    She glances over her shoulder. “Yeah, honey?”
    “If I have other questions, can I ask you?”
    She smiles. “You can ask me anything.”
    My eyes follow her as she walks away. I wish Mom was as easy-going as Aunt Nic. God, I’d settle for her being as easy-going as Queen Elizabeth.
    “Well, hi there!” I hear Aunt Nic chirp, up by the counter. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen