The Wrong Sister Read Online Free Page A

student. She usually didn’t cause trouble. She did not go to college. Her only real glory in high school was being a member of the varsity swim team. She didn’t really win all that much, or create any new records, but had fun doing it. That led to several summers during which she worked as a lifeguard at the community pool before switching to the pool’s office. That was before she had Ally. Then she stayed at home and worked a few hours a week by giving swim lessons to young kids. She was perfectly happy. In academics, perfection was reserved for her own perfect sister, Gretchen. Gretchen was the kind of woman whom Micah’s family would have loved. She was tall, model-beautiful and a child psychologist. Intelligent, successful, extraordinary, she was also warm, kind, caring, and wonderful.
    The weird thing was: Tracy never harbored a shred of jealousy toward Gretchen. Gretchen moved across the country twice, finished a doctorate program, and twice got married to handsome, impressive men, while Tracy never did anything like that. She lived fifteen minutes from her parents and drove her kids around town. She ran errands in her mini-van, cooked dinner every night, and worked in her daughters’ schools. She was so soccer mom-boring it was a little weird she held no resentment towards Gretchen. They had always been best friends and remained so.
    However, Gretchen was gone now, after moving across the country with her new husband and adopted daughter. The weight of her absence never felt as heavy to Tracy as it did in that moment.
    So Tracy was not the kind of wife that could earn respect for Micah. His family blamed her for influencing his choice to not move home and join the family business. They pointed their fingers at her when he settled for a small chain investment firm that barely let him clear a couple hundred thousand a year. She also got the blame for his less than affluent means and lifestyle.
    That was all shit in Tracy’s eyes, who believed they made a comfortable living and had a wonderful life. They made more than the average family and were blessed with plenty. There was nothing more they needed. They enjoyed their lives, and it was not just a display. They worked hard, vacationed, and raised their kids to be decent. Micah worked long hours, but he made up for it whenever he could relax with Tracy and the girls. He was totally there, and very engaged, loving, supportive, kind and thoughtful.
    It didn’t bother her in the least that she wasn’t as spectacular as his family might have preferred in Micah’s woman. Tracy knew right down to her toes how much Micah loved her. He adored her. He revered her and always had, starting from the days when they were broke and living in a studio apartment after first getting married and starting their new life together. What did she care if his family were uptight snobs who never experienced any passion in their lives? She preferred to have fun and laugh, or hang with her girls to being forced to tolerate their cold, formal, boring lifestyles.
    So now, to hear that Micah was doing this for them , his snobby family, was completely surreal to her. The pressures they put on him absolutely shocked her. She thought Micah was happy with her in Calliston, with their two girls and their normal, ordinary, and, what she thought, was a wonderful lifestyle.
    “You did that out of a juvenile need to please your family? Your father? The most demanding, uncompromising man on the planet? We agreed years ago he wasn’t worth our time or effort or emotions. He’s mean. He’s un-pleasable. You know that! How could you even try to seek the unattainable? Are you telling me, all these years, when I thought I was what you wanted, you privately agreed with your family and shared their opinions of me?”
    The thought was almost as crushing as Micah being a crook.
    Jumping up, he was right beside her in two steps. He simply scooped her up to his chest and cupped her face in his hands. “No.