Susan Mallery - Sisters Like Us

“That she is.” He smiled at her. “But don’t worry. I won’t let her hurt you. I promise.”

She knew he meant what he said—that he would do his best to protect her. The problem wasn’t that her mother would physically abuse her—the problem was what Bunny would say. In the Bloom family, words were the true weapon, and expectation was the ammunition. The rest of the world considered Stacey a brilliant scientist with a string of credentials and awards. Bunny saw little more than a daughter who refused to be conventional in any way that mattered—in other words, a failure. What on earth was her mother going to say when she found out her daughter was six months pregnant and had never said a word?

Chapter Two

HARPER CHECKED HER daily calendar to confirm all she had to get through that day. As it was the end of the month, she would be billing her clients for her work. In addition, she needed to email Blake and remind him that his mother’s birthday was in two weeks. She already had several gift ideas noted in case he wanted her help with that.

She wrote the email to Blake, a Boeing sales executive who spent his work life traveling the world. Blake sold private jets to the über-rich, and then made sure the customization of said planes was to their liking. She never knew where he was at any given time, or who he was meeting with, but it all sounded very exciting. She thought of him as the sales world’s James Bond.

Her regular clients were Blake, Lucas, a nurse turned stand-up comedian named Misty, Cathy, a party planner, and the City of Mischief Bay. When she’d first started her business, she’d had no idea what she was doing. A half-dozen college extension courses later, she’d mastered several computer programs, learned the basics of a handful of others, knew how to file a DBA, keep basic records for her business and pay her taxes. Harper Helps had been born.

Lucas had been her first client—she’d met him through a friend of a friend. After being shot on the job, Lucas had spent several weeks recovering. During that time, his bills had gone unpaid and his lights and water had been turned off. When he’d recovered, he’d decided to let someone else handle the details of his life and had hired her. Blake had found her through a Facebook ad, of all things, and Misty was one of Lucas’s former nurses.

The work with the city had come through an online posting requesting a bid to design a mailer. She’d applied, offered samples of her work and had been hired.

The irony was Harper had started her home business because she didn’t have any skills—now she would certainly be qualified to work in an office, only to find she didn’t want to. She liked making her own hours and being around for her daughter—not that Becca was especially interested in her mother these days, but still. Harper was here should her daughter ever want or need her.

Harper went into the kitchen and poured herself another cup of coffee. The back door opened and Harper’s mother walked in. Bunny Bloom was petite, slim and in her early sixties. She dressed in high-end knits, wore her dark hair short and spikey and always, always put on makeup before stepping outside her apartment.

Bunny had lost her husband a couple of years ago and while Harper had been a mess in the months following her father’s death, Bunny had soldiered on, taking care of what needed doing. Once the dust had settled, she’d moved into the apartment above Harper’s garage both to be close to her only grandchild and to help Harper financially. There were months when Bunny’s thousand-dollar rent check meant the difference between hamburger for dinner and a box of mac and cheese. Figuratively, Harper thought as she smiled at her mother. She would never use boxed mac and cheese. She would make it herself, from scratch, including the noodles.

“Hey, Mom. How are you?” Harper asked, automatically pouring a second cup of coffee before pulling a freshly made coffee cake from the bread box and cutting off a slice.

“Old. Have you heard from Becca?”

“Just that they’re planning on heading home tomorrow.” She didn’t mention that since the text two days ago saying her daughter had arrived, she hadn’t heard a word. These days Becca just wasn’t talking to her and for the life of her, Harper couldn’t figure out why.

They settled at the round kitchen table and she gave the plate of coffee cake to her mother. Each of the four matching place mats had a rabbit motif, as did the salt-and-pepper shakers in the center of the table. The sugar bowl and creamer had rabbits and tulips, celebrating the holiday and the fact that it was spring.

“Good.” Bunny poured cream into her coffee. “I need to see my only grandchild for Easter. Have you started preparing dinner?”

“I have.”

Although no matter how much she prepped, she would spend most of Easter Sunday in a frenzy of cooking. The menu this year included strawberry avocado salad, a glazed ham, Potatoes Grand-Mère, both roasted asparagus and creamy spring peas, along with lemon meringue pie and an Easter Bunny cake. Oh, and appetizers.

All that for five people, or possibly seven if Lucas came and brought a date. She was never sure with him. Regardless, there would be food for twenty and lots of leftovers. And none of that counted the special “welcome home” dinner she would make tomorrow.

“Do you need help?” her mother asked.

Harper did her best not to scream. Of course she needed help! She was working sixty hours a week in a desperate attempt to stay afloat financially, taking care of her house, dealing with a sixteen-year-old, decorating for the holiday and getting ready to cook a fancy meal. Help would be nice. Help would be grand. But, in Bunny’s world, the woman of the house did not ask for help. No, she did it all herself, seemingly effortlessly. Family came first. The measure of a woman was how well she looked after her family and so on. Harper knew it all by heart. The problem was, from her perspective, the only person who cared about all that was Bunny herself. Bunny who no longer had to do anything for anyone because somehow all that responsibility was Harper’s now. Bunny was free to spend the day with her friends, dress perfectly for every occasion and judge her oldest daughter.

Harper smiled at her mother. “I’m good, Mom. I have it all under control. You just show up and look pretty.”

“All right. Stacey and Kit are coming to dinner?”

“Last I heard.”

Which could be interesting, Harper thought. At some point her sister was going to have to reveal her pregnancy and wouldn’t that be a conversation starter? She wasn’t sure if she wanted it to happen at Easter dinner, though. Not with all the work that went into the meal. Maybe after would be better, when everyone was still digesting, although that could be problematic, as well.

She supposed the actual issue was that there was simply no good time to confess to your mother that you were six months pregnant. At sixteen it made sense to hide the truth, but Stacey was forty.

Harper held in a sigh. She knew exactly why Stacey wasn’t eager to share the information. Their mother would have a million rules and shoulds, all of which Stacey would ignore. Then there would be fighting. Given that scenario, keeping quiet sort of made sense.

“Do you think she left you anything?”

Harper stared at her mother. “I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re asking.”

“Do you think she left you anything?”

“Saying the same thing again doesn’t make it any clearer, Mom.”

Her mother sighed. “In the will.”

Oh, right. Because Bunny would rather buy store-bought bread than actually say Great-Aunt Cheryl’s name. Which would be really funny except Harper had a similar problem with her ex’s girlfriend. She went out of her way to never say Alicia if at all possible. Although there was a huge difference, what with Alicia being twenty-eight and gorgeous and Great-Aunt Cheryl not being a relative at all and, well, dead.