Perfectly Fair

Chapter 4: What Counts

My face was purple by morning.

I took a photograph in the mirror, then emailed a copy to myself. The picture made my cheek look worse than it felt. I took another of my swollen knuckles, though I knew it would not help my case. The evidence didn't need to make me look innocent. I had stopped asking for that.

At nine, I called the county deputy's office to confirm that my statement had been recorded. The clerk said it had. She also said Grace had given a statement at the hospital and had been photographed there.

"Are you both filing complaints?" I asked.

"I can't discuss another person's report."

"Understood."

After we hung up, I sat at my kitchen table with both hands around a mug of coffee. The family group chat had stayed quiet overnight. Then a message appeared.

Grace: We need to talk before this gets worse.

I read it twice.

Me: I'll talk if we can do it somewhere neutral.

Grace: We're sisters. We don't need a neutral place.

Me: We need one now.

A minute passed.

Grace: Coffee at the marina. Noon.

The marina café was nearly empty when I arrived. I chose a table by the window, where I could see the parking lot and the front door. Grace came in wearing a wide scarf and a baseball cap pulled low. A small bandage crossed her nose.

She stopped when she saw me.

"Your face looks awful," she said.

"So does yours."

She pulled out the chair and sat. "I shouldn't have slapped you."

I waited.

"I was furious."

"That doesn't make it okay."

"I know." She folded the paper sleeve from her coffee cup. "You shouldn't have punched me."

"I know that, too."

She looked up at me. "Then what are we doing?"

"Trying to say what happened without pretending one thing cancels out the other."

"Dad says you want to ruin me."

"I didn't say that."

"He says you're going to file charges."

"I gave a statement. The deputy asked if I wanted the incident documented. I said yes."

"That's the same thing."

"It isn't."

Grace's eyes moved to the window. A fishing boat rocked at the end of the pier. "The inn can't take another scandal. We've had the roof repairs, the failed winter bookings, the whole staff asking whether we're cutting hours."

"That isn't my fault."

"You work there."

"I know what's happening."

"Then you know what a police report does."

"I know what hiding the report does."

She set her cup down too hard. Coffee spilled onto the table.

"Why can't you ever let anything go?" she asked.

I looked at the napkin she was pressing to the spill. "I let a lot go. You slapped me in front of employees. I used to think if you did something awful, Mom would say it was awful. If I did something smaller, I'd get a lecture."

"That's not true."

"Maybe you don't remember it the same way."

She shook her head. "There you go. Keeping score."

"I'm not keeping score. I'm telling you the rule."

"There has never been a rule."

"Exactly."

Her hands stopped moving.

I could see the red line left by the bandage across her nose. My stomach tightened. I had hurt her, and nothing about my parents' behavior made that less true.

"I'm sorry I broke your nose," I said. "I'll take responsibility for that."

Grace's shoulders lowered a fraction.

"But I won't say I attacked you without cause. And I won't ask the deputy to erase what you did."

"You want me to get in trouble?"

"I want the same facts to count for both of us."

"That's not the same as the same punishment."

"No. It isn't."

For a moment, I thought she might say something else. Instead, she picked up her coffee.

"So that's it?" she asked. "You'd rather have a report than a sister?"

I looked at her and saw the question she had offered me. It wasn't a question about whether I loved her. It was a demand to make love mean silence.

"I want both," I said. "I don't know if I can have both."

She stood. "You always have to be right."

"I don't have to be right. I have to be honest."

She left her coffee on the table and walked out.

I watched her cross the parking lot. I did not follow.

At home, I opened my laptop and drafted a letter to the inn's bookkeeper, asking for a copy of my employment records and the current staff schedule. Then I deleted it.

I wasn't ready to make the inn part of this. Not yet.

What I could do was keep my own record. I wrote down the time of the slap, who had been present, when Dad put the bolt across the cellar door, and what he said. I saved the messages. I kept the photos.

The list felt cold and ugly. It also felt like a way to stop arguing with people who remembered only the parts that suited them.

That evening, Mom called.

"Your father is willing to let you come back to work next week," she said. "If you apologize to Grace and agree not to talk about the incident with staff."

"What does he expect me to say about the report?"

"That it was a misunderstanding."

"It wasn't."

"Leah, we're trying to keep the family together."

"Then why does keeping the family together require me to lie?"

She took a breath. I heard the small click of her fingernail against the phone.

"I don't know what you want from us."

"I want you to stop deciding that whatever Grace did matters less because she did it."

Mom didn't answer.

Neither did I.