Free Liabilities by Shannon Dermott

in.
    “I thought you might be hungry,” Mary said.
    I was able to school my features and not show any surprise. I took the basket of food from her. There was some dried meat, fruits and a bit of cheese. A minute later and she returned with a glass of lemonade.
    “Thanks, Mary.”
    She smiled and gave a tiny shrug. “I wondered when I’d see you. You were supposed to stay at our house.”
    And there it was in her mind, betrayal.
    My opening presented itself. “Do you know what’s going on with Mike and her?”
    If I’d hoped for some sympathy for my sister, I’d come to the wrong place. She shrugged again, this time a bit more exaggerated. “She made her bed.”
    “And that’s it,” I said slowly, enunciating each word, hoping she’d hear my dismay at her lack of care for our sister.
    “What can I do? The pair of you made bad decisions when it comes to men. You left a good one, and she chose a bad one.”
    Her statement may have been true but hearing it from her pissed me off. She was just like Miss Goody Two Shoes. “Oh, like you marrying the boy who wanted me is any better.”
    So that might have been mean, but Mary wasn’t a saint.
    Her eyes narrowed. Her lips pinched. “You could have had him, but you didn’t want him. You wanted Turner. Or so you told everyone, only to leave him. And now he’s destroyed Beth.”
    Beth was Mary’s best friend. “They would have been married if you hadn’t come back that Christmas.”
    Mary had a way of stretching the truth to suit her purposes. According to Turner, he hadn’t even talked to Beth until he found out I’d come back. None of this mattered. “I didn’t make Turner do anything.”
    “No, you didn’t,” she said with a sneer. “You just have a way making the boys lose their heads over you.”
    “What are you talking about?” I asked because the hate in her tone was off the charts. This was beyond petty jealousies.
    “What’s going on in here?”
    Mary and I turned to find Turner standing in the doorway. My sister morphed into something sweet and her quick changed bordered on something that bordered on psychotic. “Nothing. Bailey here hasn’t even bothered to see her nephew, our parents’ first grandchild.”
    Oh she couldn’t have gloated any harder. She pulled the bundle of joy out of the sling across her body. “Can you hold him while I go outside and check on the kids? He’s a heavy sleeper. He shouldn’t be a problem. I know you never wanted kids.”
    She strolled out leaving me holding the sleeping baby who hadn’t stirred. No wonder she could bring the kid to work. I cradled the tiny bundle in my arms feeling a love that only comes from family. It was instant but sure. He was perfect and a little darling. Turner got on his knees to kneel close to me. With gentle fingers, he brushed the wisped of hair from the baby’s forehead.
    “What’s this about you not wanting kids?”
    My hope that he’d overlooked the dig my sister got in was squashed. That had been something I’d told to Mary when we were younger forced to babysit, I’d resented the duty.
    “It was just something I said in anger one of those time when we had to babysit instead of hanging out with everyone else.” I didn’t say that everyone else really just meant him.
    “Oh,” he said looking up at me. “Do you want to have kids?”
    Mary’s hope had been for Turner to see we weren’t compatible. And now I wondered if she was right. Turner wanted to save the poor and live out his life in service of others. It was grand, and I love him all the more for it. Could I do that? And would I want to bring up my kids the same way. Did I even want the responsibility of it?
    I raised my arms to kiss my nephew on the forehead. The way Mary was acting I didn’t think I’d get another shot of being this close, because I didn’t want to be around her. As I gently lowered the baby, he stirred. His coo wasn’t that loud, but a mother’s instinct is apparently