As Close as Sisters Read Online Free PDF

with my hand. I’d had enough. “I’m sorry,” I said again. Now I felt bad. “I didn’t mean to dump this on you.” I hesitated and went on. “Please don’t tell them. Lilly and Janine. Or my girls.”
    “You know I won’t.”
    “I know.” I watched her pour herself another full glass of wine. And these were big glasses. The kind without the stems. “You’re good with secrets. You never told anyone I made out with Kandy Delacroix at her sixteenth birthday party.”
    Aurora grinned. Raised her glass in toast. “That’s because I made out with her that night, too.”
    I laughed. Hard. The kind of laugh that comes from deep in your belly. I didn’t know why that delighted me, but it did. We were sixteen. We weren’t lesbians; we were just exploring our sexuality . And our drinking limits. I wondered if either of my daughters has ever made out with a girl. I knew I’ll never be able to ask them. We get along well, for a dying mother and her daughters, but there were lines we will never cross. Asking them if they ever kissed a girl would be over the line.
    I laughed until tears came to my eyes. “I’ll be right back,” I said, getting out of my chair. I needed to use the bathroom.
    “Then maybe a walk on the beach?” Aurora’s dark eyes were on mine again.
    “A short walk. Maybe just down to the water. I’m not much of a walker these days.”
    Aurora rose, glass in hand. She had already drunk half of it. “I’ll carry you. If you get too tired.”
    I grinned, resting my hand on the doorjamb. “I know.”

2
    Aurora
    S he’s dying. Stroke. Glide .
    She’s really dying. Stroke. Glide.
    I could see it. Stroke. Glide.
    Her bald head. Stroke. Glide.
    I lifted my head to breathe deeply. The tangy, ionized air filled my lungs.
    My face hit the cold ocean water again.
    But it wasn’t her hair. Stroke. Glide.
    It was her eyes. Stroke. Glide.
    I saw it in her eyes. Stroke. Glide.
    McKenzie was really dying. Stroke.
    I breathed again.
    My strokes were always choppy when I first hit the water. I was more a crawler than a breaststroker, but tonight, I was feeling it. Needing it.
    Slowly, I found my rhythm. My breath. I cut through the dark water, under the dark sky. I was fifty feet off the shoreline. Invisible in the darkness. I liked the invisibility.
    McKenzie was going to die. The thought drifted from my head, down to my shoulders. I pulled at the water, and the thought drifted out from my fingertips.
    Well, fuck me . McKenzie was really going to die.
    And then how would I live?
    For a moment I let my emotions wash over me like the salt water. The pain. The fear. Sadness so deep that it took my breath away. But I could only hold on to the feelings for a second and then they’re gone. Not my own anymore. They drifted below to the great deep.
    Everyone died sometime, I told myself. I was going to die.
    I closed my eyes. I pulled myself through the water. I tasted the salt in my mouth. It stung my eyes, even with goggles on. Stroke. Glide. Stroke. Glide.
    And I did it again.
    I swam faster. Lifting myself in and out of the water, I propelled myself through the dark, cold water. The ocean was the only place where I could really think.
    I dove off the yacht in the Venice lagoon. Pretty ballsy. Even for me. It was probably close to a mile swim. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal except that I had been drunk and sleep-deprived. And I might have done a line of coke. I’m not sure, even now. It was a miracle I had made it to shore without being chopped up by a boat’s propeller.
    I wondered what Fortunato and his brother thought. When they came back to the cabin in their black leather pants and masks. Found me gone. Not in the bathroom. Not up on the deck. Gone. Over the side. Into the dark, silky water.
    I laughed at the idea and gagged and spit. Broke my stroke. Picked it up again.
    I could have died. In that filthy water that night. Christ knew what was in that water. Sharks, probably.
    But I couldn’t