“Because I want to hear what she tells me herself,” I said.

She nodded, but her eyes stayed on the number, and so, if I am honest, did mine.

I want to be truthful about that, because it would be easy to tell this as though I were clear-eyed the whole way.

I was not.

The number frightened me, and part of what frightened me was how badly some small cowardly part of me wanted simply to say yes — to be the generous sister, the one who believed, the one who did not pick at every detail until her own family called her jealous.

It would have been so much easier to say yes.