The Shortest Distance Between Two Women by Kris Radish Page B

say, even though she is bewildered by the jealousy she never before knew her sister feels, is tender and true. She tells her niece that mothers get tired and that they forget they were once sixteen and in need of space and time and attention. She tells Stephie that yes, her mother drinks a bit too much, but it would be hard to imagine that she does anything else. No drugs. Probably not sex at all, which she does not tell Stephie.
    “I think it eventually ends,” Emma says finally, trying to convince herself and then quickly asks, “When does your break actually begin?”
    “Why?”
    “Answer the question, smartass.”
    “Are you swearing?”
    “Hell yes.”
    Stephanie finally laughs and far away, maybe six or ten years from now, Emma can hear the distinct tone of Marty’s glorious laugh resonating in the teenage cackle of her beloved niece. She hears this hint of glory and Emma knows something brave and wise that she cannot name or hold but she knows something shedid not know before this phone call. And that simple feeling, of something coming, something remarkable that will happen, causes her to make an improbable, unlikely, and maybe terribly dangerous decision.
    As she says it, Emma has no idea where what she is about to say is coming from, what it might mean, or what could possibly happen to the course of her Gilford-motivated life. She only remembers being sixteen and waiting for the last three inches of her breasts to get going and grow. She only remembers how lonely she often felt living in her own house even though she was usually surrounded by way too many sisters.
    And that’s why she promises her niece that she can come stay with her for a week and that she will try and work it out with her mother. And Stephie squeals with laughter and the phone goes dead and Emma does not have time to realize what she has just done because she unexpectedly falls back asleep. But just four hours later her cell phone, propped next to her ear, rings again and she awakens to find there is a crisis brewing.
    There’s a major deadline and the temporary workers she helped hire have been stranded because of bad weather on the other side of the world and Emma finds herself racing through her house before five a.m., struggling to get dressed and trying with great difficulty to remember exactly what she promised her niece.
    A week? A week, knowing that Joy already hates her because she gets along with her only daughter better than she does? A week of all the stuff that probably drives Joy mad—the music, friends, swearing, loudness and also a week of all the good stuff—conversations and lights on in the house when she gets home and hugs in the kitchen and a seven-day slice of motherhood instead of the usual bits and pieces?
    The Joy mess hangs in front of Emma like an unmovablecurtain as she races into her office, imagining with dread the conversation she must now have with her oldest sister in order to keep her promise to Stephie. At least it will keep her distracted from the weight of the reunion, her abrupt departure from the brunch, and the phone call from Samuel, which already seems as if it happened a year ago.
    Emma’s massive headache probably started as she answered Stephie’s midnight phone call. But by three p.m., when she still has not solved her work crisis, it has turned into a full-blown, want-to-lie-down-with-a-towel-on-my-face, throbbing pain that runs from the center of her forehead to the back of her neck.
    There is barely time during the next three hours for her to swallow some Tylenol, eat an apple on the run, and call every recruiter in a ten-state area as she struggles to meet her hiring deadline.
    Emma is almost panting with pain and exhaustion at six-fifteen p.m., more than twelve hours into a workday that she knows will not end for several more hours, when her assistant smiles knowingly, tells her that she left two messages on her desk that “seem kind of urgent,” smiles knowingly again, and then