My sister d:ied on my wedding day — a week later, her coworker called and said, “She left you a phone and a note. COME TO THE OFFICE IMMEDIATELY!”

During dinner, Claire asked Ryan where he used to live, what jobs he’d worked, and whether he always moved around this much. Later, when I cornered her beside the sink, I whispered, “Can you please stop?”

“I’m asking questions, Ally.”

“You’re picking at him, Claire.”

She looked past me toward the dining room. “Maybe you should ask why he makes me want to.”

That stayed with me. When I brought it up to Ryan in the car later, he only shrugged lightly.

“Maybe your sister just doesn’t like me.”

He said it kindly, almost gently, like I was the one making too much of it. Maybe that was the first moment something shifted, though I didn’t recognize it then.

The closer the wedding came, the stranger Claire became.

One night, the four of us sat around my parents’ dining table eating pot roast when Claire suddenly set down her fork and looked directly at me.

“You should reconsider marrying him, Alice.”

My mother froze with her glass halfway to her mouth.

“What?” I laughed because I honestly thought she had to be joking.

Claire didn’t smile. “I mean it.”

Heat rushed into my face. “What is wrong with you?”