When We Were Sisters

Love and loyalty made them sisters. Secrets could still destroy them.

As children in foster care, Cecilia and Robin vowed they would be the sisters each had never had. Now superstar singer-songwriter Cecilia lives life on the edge, but when Robin is nearly killed in an accident, Cecilia drops everything to be with her.

Robin set aside her career as a successful photojournalist to create the loving family she always yearned for. But gazing through a wide-angle lens at both past and future, she sees that her marriage is disintegrating. Her attorney husband is rarely home. She and the children need Kris’s love and attention, but does Kris need them?

When Cecilia asks Robin to be the still photographer for a documentary on foster care, Robin agrees, even though Kris will be forced to take charge for the months she’s away. She gambles that he’ll prove to them both that their children—and their marriage—are a priority in his life.

Cecilia herself needs more than time with her sister. A lifetime of lies has finally caught up with her. She wants a chance to tell the real story of their childhood and free herself from the nightmares that still haunt her.

As the documentary unfolds, memories will be tested and the meaning of family redefined, but the love two young girls forged into bonds of sisterhood will help them move forward as the women they were always meant to be.

Praise for the novels of Emilie Richards

“Richards creates a heart-wrenching atmosphere that slowly builds to the final pages, and continues to echo after the book is finished.”

—Publishers Weekly on One Mountain Away

“Emilie Richards is at the top of her game in this richly rewarding tale of love and family and the ties that bind us all. One Mountain Away is everything I want in a novel and more. A must-buy!”

—New York Times bestselling author Barbara Bretton

“This is emotional, suspenseful drama filled with hope and love.”

—Library Journal on No River Too Wide

“Portraying the uncomfortable subject of domestic abuse with unflinching thoroughness and tender understanding, Richards’s third installment in the Goddesses Anonymous series offers important insights into a far too prevalent social problem.”

—Booklist on No River Too Wide

“A juicy, sprawling beach read with a suspenseful twist.”

—Publishers Weekly on Fortunate Harbor

“A multi-layered plot, vivid descriptions and a keen sense of place and time.”

—Library Journal on Rising Tides

“Richards’s ability to portray compelling characters who grapple with challenging family issues is laudable, and this well-crafted tale should score well with fans of Luanne Rice and Kristin Hannah.”

—Publishers Weekly on Fox River, starred review

EMILIE RICHARDS is the author of over seventy novels which have been published in more than twenty-one countries and sixteen languages.

Emilie is a multiple finalist for the RITA® from Romance Writers of America, and a RITA® winner. Romantic Times magazine has given her multiple awards, including one for career achievement. She regularly appears on bestseller lists including the USA Today list and many of her books have been made into television movies in Germany.

Emilie divides her year between Chautauqua, NY and Sarasota, FL. She is an avid gardener, kayaker and quilter and the mother of four children and three grandchildren, whom she regards as her greatest creative endeavours.

When We Were Sisters

Emilie Richards

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To parents everywhere, birth, adopted and foster,

who make the welfare of everybody’s

children their highest priority.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Reader Questions for When We Were Sisters

Extract

Copyright

1

Robin

The stories of our lives can be told in so many ways, but no one account, no matter how carefully rendered, is completely true. Words are, at best, only an outline, something I discovered years ago whenever I was asked about my childhood. In the same way, I’m sure I’ll tell the story of last night’s accident differently every time I’m forced to recount it.

I hope that won’t be often.

Right up until the minute I slid into the backseat of Gretchen Wainwright’s Camry, I remember everything that happened yesterday. For better or worse I remember little that happened afterward. The neurologist on call at the hospital promised that wisps of amnesia are not unusual, that after even a minor brain injury, patients often recount “islands of memory,” when past events are viewed through fog. Sometimes the fog lifts, and, blessedly, sometimes it does not.

Here’s what I do recall.

Meadow Branch, a housing development just outside Leesburg, Virginia, is more than my home. This little patch of earth is my refuge and my center. The friends I’ve made here are more important to me than I am to them, which is not to say they don’t care. They do. But I treasure each of them in a way they’ll never understand. To my knowledge I am the only woman in our neighborhood who grew up without a real home or family. And before Meadow Branch I never had a friend who didn’t blow away on the winds of fortune. No friend except Cecilia, of course. Cecilia, my sister, and—of no real importance to me—a superstar singer-songwriter, is my anchor in a way that even Kris, my husband, will never be.

In the past year, as my neighbors have begun to drift into new chapters of their lives, I’ve been discouraged. Our house is strangely quiet. The small group of women on our street no longer see each other regularly, no longer huddle together at soccer games, passing communal white wine in GoCups up and down bleacher rows. These days, our sons and daughters travel to matches all over the state in jewel-tone polyester jerseys, like flocks of migrating parrots. At home they’re busy preparing for ever-increasing batteries of tests or studying karate, piano or ballet.

Most of my friends have jobs now, and we no longer sweat together in the Meadow Branch exercise room. Some work part-time so they can continue being the family chauffeur. Others send their children to after-school care or to a stranger who’s paid by the hour to make certain they arrive at scheduled activities on time. So many rituals have ended.

I miss the rituals and the women, so I’m particularly grateful that our monthly dinners have continued. Each time I get an email announcing time and place, I close my eyes for a quick prayer of thanksgiving. Every month I wait to learn that this, too, has quietly died away.

Last night as I put my children’s dinner on the kitchen table, I tried to remember when I’d last seen all my friends in the same place. When the telephone rang I was still going over the past month in my head. The moment I realized Kris was the caller, I considered not answering, but I knew nothing would prevent him from leaving a message.

I took the telephone into the living room and asked him to wait as I yelled up the stairs to tell Nik and Pet to come down and eat. At twelve Nik likes to ignore my summons, but ten-year-old Pet managed an “okay.” Then I took the phone out to the front porch and closed the door behind me.

“Are you calling from the car?” I asked.

A pause. I pictured a bleary-eyed Kris checking his surroundings to see if he was on the road home.

“I’m still at the office.”

I lowered myself to our porch swing, which was swaying in a breeze growing colder as the sun dropped toward the horizon. “Kris, I have to leave in a little while. I’m riding to the restaurant with Gretchen, and she’ll be picking me up right on time. She’s nothing if not punctual.”

“You need to find somebody else to watch the kids tonight. I’m sorry, but a potential client just showed up, and this is important.”

I watched a heavier gust of wind ruffle the chrysanthemums I’d planted in brass pots flanking our steps. I fill the pots according to season. This fall they’re particularly beautiful, the chrysanthemums in hues of bronze and deepest purple interlaced with silvery dusty miller and trailing sedum.

At one time in my life I didn’t speak at all. No matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn’t push words out of my throat. Even now I sometimes fall mute when I feel strong emotion, but this time I managed a sentence.

“Kris, my plans are important, too.”

His sigh carried the necessary miles, and I pictured him sitting in his expansive Tysons Corner office with its coveted view of a nondescript street below. Without facial clues I couldn’t tell if Kris was upset that I hadn’t just snapped my heels and saluted, or if he was upset with himself for disappointing me. I didn’t want to guess.

He was speaking softly now, as if someone might overhear. “Listen, Robin, I know going out with your friends is important. I really do. But this guy flew in unexpectedly—”

“And Buff assumes you’ll drop everything and take him to dinner because you always do.” Buff is a senior partner at Kris’s law firm and the one with whom he most often works.

He fell silent.

I filled the gap, unusual in itself. “Pet and Nik will be fine alone for the time it takes you to drive home. Leave right now and tell Buff you’ll bring the client with you. Pick up pizza or Chinese. You can return him to his hotel once I’m back.”

“You always seem to be able to find a babysitter. Just call somebody. Promise you’ll pay them extra.”

“I’m supposed to leave in...” I looked at my watch. “Twenty-five minutes now. I can’t find a babysitter in twenty-five minutes.”

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you about that. But I am telling you I can’t come home. I’m sorry. If you can’t go out tonight, maybe you can arrange another dinner with your friends sometime soon.”

I closed my eyes. “Do what you have to, but please come home.”

“You should have arranged something ahead of time. Just in case.”

And there it was. I should have arranged for a babysitter, because I should have known Kris would disappoint me.

“I’m hanging up now.” I ended the call.

When the telephone rang again, I wondered foolishly if Kris was about to apologize. With the client, without the client, I didn’t care, but surely he wanted me to know he was on his way home to be a father to the children who rarely saw him.

Of course the person on the other end wasn’t Kris.

“Robin! Were you sitting on the telephone?”

I stared at the darkening sky and pictured Cecilia, auburn hair waving down her back, expressive, exquisitely pampered face scrunched up in question. I couldn’t picture the spot from which she was calling. She might be in a dressing room, getting ready to go onstage, or at her home in Pacific Palisades looking over the ocean.

“No,” I said, “I just hung up with Kris.”

When I didn’t go on she lowered her voice. “Is everything okay?”

“Not so much.” I blew out one breath before I gulped another. “In the scheme of things it’s nothing.”

“Tell me what it is.”

So I did. Cecilia doesn’t give up, and I had to leave time to call Talya and tell her that Gretchen wouldn’t need to stop at my house on the way to dinner. I wouldn’t be going.

After I finished, Cecilia was silent a moment. She doesn’t like Kris and never has, but she knows that criticizing him will drive a wedge between us. Cecilia would hate that worse than anything, even more than she hates the occasional scathing review of a concert or album.

“Call your next-door neighbor,” she said.

“Talya’s going to the dinner, too.”

“Her husband isn’t going, is he?”

“Michael?” Michael Weinberg is an anesthesiologist and never on call at night. “Ask Michael to babysit?”

“Why not? He’ll be babysitting their daughter anyway. What’s her name?”

“Channa. But Michael bores Nik to death. He’s always trying to get him interested in chemistry or astronomy, and Nik hides when the Weinbergs come over, just to avoid him.”

“Too bad for Nik, but who’s more important, you, a grown woman who needs to see her friends, or a twelve-year-old boy? Besides, Nik’s probably really hiding from Channa. The last time I saw her she was growing up and out, and I bet he doesn’t know what to say around her anymore.”

I carefully weigh advice from Cecilia, at least advice of a personal nature. Her life is larger than mine, larger than almost anybody’s. There’s not much room for simple matters, and other people, like Donny, her personal manager, handle those.

Still, she’s often surprisingly insightful, and this time she was right about Michael, and about Channa, who one day in the not so distant future would be as pretty and well-endowed as her mother. Cecilia has been behind me pushing hard since the day we met. And this time I needed the shove.

“You nailed it again. I’m going to hang up and call him.” I glanced at my watch. “Can we talk another time?”

“Okay, but don’t put me off. Something important’s come up, and we need to talk. So call when you’re free and I’ll drop everything.” She hung up.

I could probably put my children through college on what a tabloid would pay me for Cecilia’s private cell number.

Twenty-five minutes later, Talya and I climbed into Gretchen’s car, me in the front, Talya in the back next to another neighbor, Margaret. Our neighborhood is made up of young to middle-aged professionals, but the similarities stop there. We represent every religion and political outlook. Gretchen, a Reese Witherspoon look-alike, is a professional fund-raiser for the Republican Party. Brown-haired ordinary me assembled campaign literature during both Obama campaigns. Black-haired Talya is a Conservative Jew; red-haired Margaret planned to shut herself away with the Carmelites until she fell madly in love in her senior year of college. The other four women we were meeting at the restaurant are just as diverse, one from China, another who grew up on a farm in South Africa.

I wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation with Kris when we both got home, but I was looking forward to conversation and a meal with my friends in the meantime.

Two hours later, as we stood up to leave the restaurant, I was sorry I had come.

On the way out the door Talya and Gretchen were still locked in the conversation that had consumed them throughout dinner. I had been sitting beside Talya, but we had hardly exchanged a sentence. She and Gretchen had discussed their jobs, volleying questions and responses back and forth across the table. Talya, who is now managing a small local theater, wanted Gretchen to give her tips for their next fund-raising drive.

On my other side Lynn, who had once been my favorite tennis partner, had chatted with another woman about camps their children might attend next summer. Margaret, across from me, spent a large portion of the evening texting a colleague, apologizing for texting and then texting some more.

Our lives are now separate. My neighbors are moving forward without looking back. The common ground we once shared is giving way under our feet.

Halfway through the meal I’d finally admitted to myself that I was the only one at the table with nothing new to say.

In the parking lot Gretchen unlocked the car, but instead of sitting in the front passenger seat, as I had on the trip there, I opened the rear door.

“Robin, I’ll be happy to sit there again,” Talya said.

“No, you sit up front with Gretchen. You two haven’t finished your conversation.”

Talya looked puzzled, as if she heard the undertone to my words. I felt her hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you and I both sit back here so we can catch up? We hardly had a chance tonight, and I never see you anymore.”

How differently the evening would have ended if I’d said yes. But I didn’t. I remember smiling. I remember that the smile felt like aerobic exercise. I remember the seconds the exchange took, seconds that later might have made all the difference. Then I remember shaking my head and gesturing to the front. “We can talk another time. You go ahead.”

Talya and I had been friends for so long that she knew I was hurt. Recognition flashed across her face, but she smiled, too, as if to say, “We have a date,” and climbed into the passenger seat beside Gretchen.

Ten minutes later Talya took the brunt of the impact when a driver streaked through a stop sign and plowed into the right side of Gretchen’s car. I think I remember seeing the small SUV inexplicably heading for us. I do remember terror rising in my chest, like the bitterest bile.

I don’t remember the crash itself. When I came to in the hospital a doctor told me Talya was gone.

Talya died instantly, and I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what might have changed if she and I hadn’t traded seats.

2

Kris

After my conversation with Robin I turned off my cell phone. Turning it off was stupid, spiteful and weirdly satisfying, but after she hung up I figured we had nothing else to say to each other. And if I was wrong about that, I didn’t want to know.

Even though our call had ended, I know Robin well enough to imagine how she must look at that moment. Her round blue eyes would be shuttered, as if somebody had extinguished the light. Her lips wouldn’t be pursed, since that’s too obvious a signal, but tension would pull at the corners.

Robin hides emotion well, which only makes sense. If you know you’ll be challenged or punished for everything you feel, you soon learn to make sure those feelings are private. After thirteen years of marriage, most of the time I still have to guess what’s going on inside her.

This time, though, there would be no guessing. My wife asks for very little. Tonight I’d made certain even that was too much. But knowing this, I’m still powerless to fix the situation. I’m at a critical stage in my career, and nobody will benefit more than my family if things go well for me at work.

Lately Robin has seemed preoccupied, even distant. If I sometimes feel I’m on a treadmill that’s speeding up with every step, Robin seems to feel her own treadmill has slowed to a standstill. She has too much time to look at the view, and I don’t think she likes what she sees.

I worry. She may not think I notice, but her happiness is important to me. Still we planned our future together, and now we just have to weather this storm.

In the next hours I sat through a dinner I didn’t want to eat with a man I didn’t want to talk to. But increasingly that’s what my job at Singer, Jessup and Barnard has come down to.

I’m not one of those people surrounded by admirers at every party, and I can’t tell a joke or a funny story without mutilating the punch line. I’m not a glad-hander or a hand holder, but I do seem to inspire trust in potential clients. I make them feel our firm will do everything possible for them, and better than any other firm. I also seem to know how to get the best outcome from the time I spend marketing, and my contacts pay off. Consequently I’m getting a reputation for bringing in high-value clients, a rainmaker. Senior partners have noticed.

Singer, Jessup and Barnard is a large firm, with multiple offices in multiple countries. I specialize in complex civil litigation, and I work closely with our product liability practice group, one of those attorneys who makes sure defective or dangerous products are discontinued, or conversely, and much more often, makes sure they stay on the market and the makers escape liability for any resulting harm. It all depends on who’s paying us and how much.

Last night’s client falls into the latter category and will have to pay the firm big-time to win his case. Mervin Pedersen is the CEO of Pedersen Pharmacies, a small chain of compounding pharmacies that allegedly produced an injectable antibiotic that was so contaminated, six patients were hospitalized and one, as he put it, “succumbed.” When Pedersen Pharmacies refused to admit blame and recall their other so-called sterile products for FDA testing, the FDA warned doctors and hospitals to avoid everything they make.

Now Pedersen wants to sue the FDA.

According to good old Merv, the young woman died from complications of her original illness. And the contamination? That occurred after the drug was manufactured, thus placing all blame on the distributor. The problem is that the contaminant was also found in product samples at the company’s labs. Merv made sure I understood that those few bad samples had been set aside for destruction after undergoing stricter testing than they’re required to do by law. And hey, the contaminant was discovered in only that one small batch.

In Merv’s unbiased opinion no other product or sample was ever contaminated. The Pedersen facilities are pristine, sterile, unsullied.

Uh-huh.

I did my job. If Pedersen decides to go ahead with the lawsuit, I’m almost certain my firm will be chosen to represent his company. I just hope someone else is assigned to the case, because in my heart I know Merv Pedersen is scum. He’s the kind of guy who would piss on his factory floor if he could get away with it. I’ll do my best to convey my opinion when I report what was said at dinner, but how can I justify rejecting a lucrative client just because talking to him spoiled my appetite?

I dropped Merv off at his hotel downtown, and only then, still at curbside, did I remember to check my phone. I flicked it on and saw I had a call from, of all people, Cecilia, the diva with no last name—because, let’s be honest, a last name would make her an ordinary human being like the rest of us.

Cecilia never calls me. We only agree on three things. We are both Democrats. We both love Robin and my kids. We dislike each other.

Cecilia is the only human being who can reduce me to muttering under my breath, and tonight was no exception. “To what do I owe this honor?” The sentence emerged as one long word.

I scrolled through my recent calls, but there were none from my wife. I thought maybe Robin had called to provide clarification or warn me what was coming. I did see an unfamiliar number with a Virginia area code, and hoped Pedersen hadn’t gotten up to his room and remembered something else he wanted to discuss.

I considered ignoring Cecilia, but I know her too well. She’ll continue to call until we finally speak. Cloudy skies had just turned to rain, and I didn’t want a conversation on the road during a storm. For the most part I don’t think phones and cars belong together anyway. That makes me hopelessly old-fashioned, but I can live with it.

Cecilia answered immediately. “How is she?”

For a moment I wasn’t sure who she was talking about. “How is who?”

The pause was pregnant. “You don’t know, do you? What, Kris? You haven’t checked your phone all evening?”

I turned off the engine. “How is who?”

“Robin was in an accident tonight.”

For a split second the world went white. I wondered if I tossed my cell phone out the window, would everything immediately return to normal? I would drive home. Robin and I would probably argue, and I would go to sleep with her fuming safely beside me.

I pulled myself back into the moment. “What happened? Is she okay?”

“She’s at the Inova Loudon Hospital. Where you should be. I’ll be on my way there as soon as I make arrangements. But the doctor says she’s going to be all right. Moderate to severe concussion, dislocated shoulder, maybe mild whiplash. They want to keep her a night or maybe two to do more tests. As a precaution.”

I’m no expert but that didn’t sound too bad. My heart began to slow. “Do you know what happened?”

“She was in a car with three other women. She had that dinner—”

I wondered how Cecilia knew about Robin’s dinner. “Go on.”

“The police think the driver of the car that struck hers might have had a heart attack at the wheel. He ran a stop sign and hit the passenger side of Robin’s car. He died.”

“Robin was driving?”

“No, the car she was riding in. Somebody named Gretchen was driving, and she was injured, too, but not badly. So was a woman named Margaret. She was taken by helicopter to a trauma center.”

I knew these women, had known them for years. My heart began to speed again. “You said four?”

“Talya was in the car, too.” She paused. “I’m sorry, Kris, but Talya was killed. She was sitting in the death seat.”

“Death seat?”

“Passenger seat. That’s what Donny calls it.”

I don’t remember exactly what I thought next. Maybe that tonight Michael Weinberg was trying to deal with the worst news of his life. That the unidentified call on my phone was probably from the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office or the hospital where Robin had been taken. That my children were now at home with somebody—who?—and I needed to get to them immediately. That my telephone had been turned off while all this was happening because I’d had an argument with Robin.

And finally that my wife, who I have loved since the first time I saw her taking photographs across a crowded room, was in a hospital grieving the loss of our next-door neighbor. Talya, the young woman who had shared so many good times with our family, the young woman who Robin was closer to than any other woman in the world except Cecilia.

Cecilia had remained silent so I could absorb this. I made my way back to our call. “Why did they call you? How did they know who to call?”

“They checked Robin’s cell phone. I’m listed under her contacts as her sister.”

And then I said something supremely stupid. “You were foster sisters.”

She snorted. “I have a flight to arrange.”

“You don’t have to—” But Cecilia had already disconnected.

She didn’t have to fly in. Who knows what she was leaving and who would suffer, but Cecilia would come anyway. Because in her heart, and in my wife’s heart, too, even though they don’t share a single gene, they are honest-to-God sisters, right down to their bone marrow.