Amy sits up straight, Amy always remembers to hold up her dress outside and let it down inside, Amy always laughs at the perfect volume, and no one gets unnerved when the littlest Miss March makes eye contact.

She made friends so quickly in school, and picked up French, considered quite a fashionable language, even quicker.

Amy March always knew exactly how to be the kind of woman a man wanted, one to flatter him and enjoy pleasant conversation with, and always gained the admiration and respect of the ladies. She walked with her head up, and her small feet never caught the edge of her dress.

It almost frustrated Jo, how comfortable Amy seemed in her own skin and around other people. Around strangers even. She always made it look so easy. So why couldn't she do it too? Why couldn't Jo have been born with at least half of the traits that made Amy so... palatable? What was appealing about her own unfashionable hair color and big hands and her awful dull eyes? Amy's sparkled 'just like sapphires', Aunt Flo had said. Then she had turned her gaze to Jo and wondered aloud where she had gotten her eye color from. "Must not have been from this side of the family," Aunt March had oh-so-helpfully chimed in.

Then after thinking all of this, Jo would be awash with guilt.

It wasn't Amy's fault that she hated herself sometimes.

'It is so beautiful to be loved as Laurie loves me.'

Good for Amy. Really, truly, it was, and Jo was happy it had happened this way. Imagine having a brother-in-law like Fred Vaugn, how dull. The letter was lovely, the engagement was lovely, and Jo was well and truly satisfied with whom her sister had chosen, and she told her mother so. It was the truth.

She conveniently left out the squirming pit of jealousy in the bottom of her stomach. She didn't want Laurie, Lord no, Amy could have him.

'I never knew how much like heaven this world could be, when two people love and live for one another!'

She bit down hard onto her pillow late at night. She had thought she would be okay with no one ever loving her that way. Now lonely years seemed to stretch impossibly far before her, no Beth there to soften the blow.

"Dressed from head to toe in silk," Hannah had said. She was right. And diamonds sparkled on her ears, and on her hand where the wedding ring was. Jo could hardly recognize her little sister. But it was still Amy, that's for sure. Same nose, same curls, same laugh.

Jo hated catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror these days. She always looked so tired. And Laurie pointing out the lines on her face didn't help. And there sat Amy, untouched by tragedy.

Where had she been when Beth drew her last breath? When she had woken up with tears on her face and sweat on her brow, when both she and Jo hadn't slept in two days because Jo wouldn't leave her- couldn't leave her.

Was she in Paris? Or was she in Zurich? Fast asleep with curling papers in her hair, or having afternoon tea?

Jo hated herself for thinking this way. If Amy had taken the boat back here, what would she have been able to do? It wouldn't have changed the fact that Beth was gone. Maybe she wouldn't even have gotten here on time if she'd tried.

But she didn't have to see her struggle, she didn't have to see little bits of her slip away until she was barely a shadow of your Beth, she got to hear the news all at once and it was hanging over your head for weeks and weeks and the knowledge that she would be gone got heavier and heavier and when the time came you had to hold your parents first before you grieved because you feel so damn responsible all the time you have to fix it you have to stop it and you couldn't fix it you can't fix this-

"Jo," Amy said, jerking her out of her downward spiral.

"Yes?"

"I want you to have these," she held out a sketchbook. Jo set it in her lap and carefully turned the pages. Months of Amy's hard work in the form of sketches, watercolor, and pastel. Each one was labeled in the bottom right corner where exactly the landscape or building was.

"Amy..." she could hardly get the words out. "This is- are you sure you want to give these away?"

"Yes," Amy said. "Almost every time I saw something pretty I thought of how much you would like to be here, if only you could come with, if only Meg, or-" she got choked up suddenly. "Anyways, I wanted to share it with someone."

Conflicting feelings of jealousy and love seemed to fill Jo to bursting.

But she could never stay angry with or jealous of her sister for long. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her. Amy reciprocated the hug and they stayed that way for a while. The feelings would come back, Jo knew, in tired, unreasonable fits. But they wouldn't stay forever.

It was a comfort to have her back more than anything. And she would never let her know about those awful thoughts.