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And then he’d co A son

“After I was bornmy folks probably weren’t as sensitive to her needs as they could have been,” he said, thinking back, ai for fairness “She had some jealousy issues”

That went unattended Forever

“And she took it out on you?”

She’d locked hi cookies, so that he didn’t get to lick the bowl He was five He’d turned on a light and looked at the pictures in the books that were stored on a shelf next to him

“My folks had this thing,” he said “If ere bad, eren’t spanked or put in time-out We had perks taken away fro trip my father had promised me for the weekend”

Lacey’s silence left him far too much room to say more than he wanted to

“So JoAnne had this game When ere in the car, she’d pinch et in trouble, which meant that we’d both lose a perk Her contention was that she’d lost all perks she’d cared about when I was born”

“Did she?”

“I have nothing upon which to base an opinion I don’t knohat life was like for her before I was born My parents were great tobad to her But I was five years younger than she was I have no clue ent on after I went to bed at night”

He turned them around and headed back up the beach the way they’d co, completely selfishly, that Lacey had had time to make their dinner

Not because she was a better cook As far as he’d been able to tell, both of the sisters ell schooled in the kitchen He just wanted to eat Lacey’s cooking

Which probably made him a sick puppy Or just weird, at the very least, a weird dude

“She used to tell ly and everyone laughed at my sorry ass She’d pull my hair just to see if she could make me cry And then mock me if I did And if I told our parents, she’d make life twice as miserable”

He’d learned how to stay out of her way And later, how to placate her Because life wasn’t perfect and wasn’t meant to be easy