The Space Between Sisters Read Online Free

here?” she asked, opening the top drawer.
    â€œGo right ahead,” Win said, and she couldn’t help but smile. No one had ever been able to tease her the way Poppy did.
    â€œOr what about . . . this drawer?” Poppy asked, opening up the bottom drawer. “Can I put it in here?” She dangled it over the drawer.
    Win started laughing. She couldn’t help it. This was the best thing about Poppy. This was what made everything else about her worth putting up with. She could always be counted on to make Win laugh. Laugh at life, yes, but even more importantly, laugh at herself. And suddenly, it seemed ridiculous to her that this was how she’d spent her night, at home, alone, rearranging her already perfectly arranged kitchen drawers.
    â€œI missed you, Pops,” she said, through her laughter.
    â€œI missed you, too,” Poppy said, giving Win a hug.
    Win hugged her back, hard. “And you’re right. We will have fun this summer. Stay, Pops. Stay as long as you want.” This would be good for Poppy, Win thought, but it would be good for her, too. Because for every night Win made a gourmet dinner for one, there was a night she ate a bowl of cereal leaning against the kitchen counter. And for every night she curled up on the couch after dinner to read an edifying novel, there was a night she ended up on her bed, tearfully perusing old photo albums until she fell asleep, in a soggy heap, on top of the covers.
    â€œWe should let Mom and Dad know I’m here,” Poppy said, giving Win one final squeeze before she let go of her. “They’ll be happy we’re together.”
    â€œ Oh, I got a postcard from Dad,” Win said. She plucked it out of a basket on the kitchen counter and handed it to Poppy. Their father, who was divorced from their mother, was a part-time carpenter, a part-time musician, and a full-time drinker who spent most of his time ricocheting around the country, going wherever his work or his drinking took him.
    â€œHe sent me the same one,” Poppy said, studying the postcard. She flipped it over and read it. “Same wording, too.” She glanced over at Win. “Where, exactly, is Shelby, Montana?”
    Win shrugged. “Do you really think he’s found a regular gig playing in a bar there?” she asked Poppy, a little skeptically.
    â€œI think . . .” said Poppy, putting the postcard down. “I think that he’s probably got a regular gig sleeping with the woman who owns the bar. And I think she’ll probably keep him around until she gets tired of him. Or until he drinks her out of Jack Daniel’s.”
    â€œOne or the other,” Win agreed, wishing Poppy wasn’t right, but knowing that, in all but the details, she probably was.
    â€œI got a phone call from Mom, though,” Poppy said, with artificial brightness. Their mother, like their father, could never beaccused of being an overinvolved parent. But unlike their father, she was not a drinker. She was instead, as she’d explained to her daughters many times before, on a lifelong journey of self-realization, a journey that had not often included, when Poppy and Win were growing up, such mundane things as attending their orchestra performances, or school plays, or parent teacher conferences. Now she and her most recent boyfriend were living in a trailer outside Sedona, Arizona, and she was trying to get her new crystal business off the ground. “Apparently, selling dream catcher jars is much more competitive than she realized,” Poppy explained. “I guess Sedona’s a crowded market.”
    The two of them shared a look that spoke volumes about their respective relationships with their mother, and then Win remembered something. “Poppy, what about your friend?” she whispered. “We’ve just left him sitting out there this whole time.”
    â€œOh, Everett hasn’t just been sitting out there,” Poppy