Chapter 7: The Weight of Granite
The sisters looked at each other across the ten feet of open air.
The silence between them was heavier than a mountain of stone.
""Lauren..."" Jenna whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of melting snow dripping from the eaves. ""I am so sorry. I know... I know there is no excuse. I was selfish. I was jealous of your life, and I let myself believe a monster’s lies just to feel special.""
Lauren stood motionless on the timber porch, looking down at the sister she had held as an infant, the girl she had shared a bedroom with for eighteen years.
She felt no sudden surge of explosive rage. That fire had burned itself out in the long, freezing winter nights on the ridge.
She walked down the wooden steps, stopping three paces from where Jenna knelt in the mud.
""You didn't just break my marriage, Jenna,"" Lauren said, her voice dropping into a register of quiet, devastating truth. ""You made me doubt every memory of my life. You made me question my own worth as a human being every time I looked in the mirror.""
Jenna bowed her head until her forehead touched the wet gravel, sobbing with the uncontrollable grief of a soul stripped of every defense.
""I don't expect you to forgive me, Lauren,"" Jenna choked out. ""I just wanted to say it to your face. I destroyed everything good in our family, and I will carry that stain until the day I die.""
Lauren took a slow, deep breath of the mountain air.
""You will not stay in this house, Jenna,"" Lauren said firmly. ""Aunt Martha has an old caretaker's cottage down by the lower orchard gate. The roof leaks, the stove needs wood, and there is no internet.""
Lauren turned toward the barn.
May you like
""If you want to earn your bread in this valley, put on some work boots and meet us in the apple shed at six o'clock tomorrow morning. We start pruning the north orchard.""
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