“Rum and Coke?” Diane offered.

I reminded myself I was officially no longer the booze police and smiled as cheerfully as I could.

“No thanks, I’ve got beer,” I said. I popped open one of the IPAs before sliding the rest in the fridge. It was citrusy and bitter and perfect.

“I saw Ryan,” I said. “You didn’t mention Terri and Randy are getting divorced.”

Diane’s jaw tightened a little. “Didn’t I?”

“Wow,” Ted said. “Are they really? I’m surprised. Those two were the real deal.”

Diane’s phone chirped. She glanced down at the screen and decided to ignore whoever it was. “Your father and I have been going over tomorrow,” Diane said as she laid her phone down and took a sip of her drink. “The service starts at one. I figure we should get to the funeral home at twelve thirty. I’ve had some photos of Lexie blown up, so we’ll put those on stands around the Lily Room. All the flowers have been ordered. I think we should keep things informal. Invite anyone who wants to say something to get up and speak. And, if we’re able to, maybe the three of us could say a few words, too. I have a Mary Oliver poem I’d like to read—Lexie liked her stuff.”

I nodded and took several long sips as I leaned against the counter, Lexie’s package behind me. “I’ll speak,” I said. I wasn’t sure what I’d say. You could always tell the truth, Lexie whispered in my ear. But what truth would that be? There were so many to choose from.

How, for so long, we were each other’s missing piece? How part of me worshiped and stood in awe of her, but another part secretly hated her for the way she captured the spotlight? How her illness swallowed us both up with sharp, grinding teeth then spit us out in pieces? How I moved all the way across the fucking country to try to distance myself, to stop trying to save my sister, hoping I might save myself? Or how when we sat in the lawyer’s office to hear Gram’s will, a part of me cracked open like a fragile dam? All the old resentments came roaring in, washing away any of the good feelings I had left.

Last year, after we’d gotten her ensconced at Sparrow Crest, I was saying goodbye to her at the airport. “Move in. Live with me,” she’d said. “Like we always planned. The Jax and Lex show, remember? We come as a pair. There is no me without us. The X girls,” she said, holding up her pointer finger, waiting.

But I’d kept my hands clenched into fists at my sides.

“Gram left it to you, remember?” I said. “You were her favorite. You’ve always been everyone’s favorite.”

She stared in disbelief. “That’s not fair! And it’s not my fault.”

“No. Nothing ever is,” I said, looking at her, my heavy bag slung on my shoulder. “Nothing’s ever fair. And nothing’s ever your fault. That’s the whole fucking problem, Lex.”

That was the last time I’d seen my sister.

“And, Ted, you should speak, too. I know Lexie would want you to. They’ll have her… cremains ready for us,” Diane said, not waiting for his reply. “It sounds ridiculous, like crumbs left over at the bottom of a box of crullers, but that’s what the funeral director called them.”

“I like ‘ashes’ better,” my father said.

“Agreed,” I said.

“Well, regardless of what we’re going to call them,” Diane said, “what should we do with them? I’m fairly certain Lexie wouldn’t want to spend time in a box or an urn.”

“The ocean?” Ted suggested.

“Water’s a good idea,” I said. “She always seemed more at home in the water than on land. I vote for Lake Wilmore. Lexie loved it there.”

“We could put her in the swimming pool,” my father said.

Diane and I stared at him, neither of us quite believing he’d really said what he had.

“You’re kidding, right?” I snapped.

“It’s where she learned to swim; where she found herself as a swimmer, I mean. She learned more about swimming in that water than anywhere—”

“It’s where she died, Ted,” Diane said, like she was talking to a dim-witted child.

“It’s where she lived, too!” he countered.

“We’re not putting her in that pool,” I said. “No way! God, I can’t even believe we’re even talking about this as a possibility.”

“But we’re not talking about it,” he said. “That’s the whole problem. You’re doing exactly what you always did with Lexie, Jax. You’re stopping a conversation before it even starts because you’ve already labeled the idea ‘crazy,’ which just means it’s outside your comfort zone, which just about everything is.”

I glared at my father. “If by my ‘comfort zone,’ you mean that I’m thinking rationally and soberly and unwilling to follow you on absurd drunken tangents, then—”

“I think,” Diane interrupted, “that the lake makes the most sense. I’ve got a friend with a canoe. Val. She is always trying to get me to do outdoorsy things, which is definitely outside of my comfort zone. I end up all swollen, covered in poison ivy and bug bites.” She laughed awkwardly, rubbed at her arms like the idea of it made her itchy.

We stared at her, stone-faced.

“Anyway,” Aunt Diane went on, “we can borrow Val’s canoe, say a few words, and let her go there.”

Let her go. I let the words tumble through me. As if it were that easy. One night, we’d sat on her bed, making shadows on the ceiling with a flashlight, speaking in hushed voices so Gram wouldn’t know we were still awake. “Even though we’re three years apart, we’re like twins,” she’d said. We were nothing alike. Not really. We didn’t even look alike. I had my mother’s dark hair and eyes, and Lexie was blond and blue-eyed like our dad. When I’d said as much, she said, “That’s the thing about real twins, Jax. They’re opposites. They’re yin and yang; balance each other out. That’s what me and you do.” She’d held up her index finger and I’d crossed my own over it. “The X girls now and forever.”

I took another swig of beer. “What about after the service?” I asked. “Should we host a gathering of some kind?”