Rosalind wondered what would happen if she turned towards Jane and just told her the problem was with Tommy. Or not with Tommy. With their relationship. With the wedding. Or with Rosalind's fear over the wedding. With Rosalind's uncertainty about everything.
Jane was scribbling fiercely in her notebook. Rosalind knew that if Rosalind said the problem was with Tommy, Jane would blink three times, like she always did when the world wasn't aligning with her idea of it.
In fact, if Rosalind said the problem was Tommy, Jane's brain might actually stop. Her heart might cease beating. It would not compute.
For Jane, Rosalind and Tommy were the epitome of romance, love, life, companionship, the whole shebang.
Jane had actually once told Rosalind that whenever Jane had to write about an ideal couple or a romantic scene, she always used Rosalind and Tommy as a model.
Rosalind could not rob her sister of such a valuable writing tool.
Anyway, Rosalind knew the problem wasn't Tommy. She loved Tommy.
The problem was her. She was pretty sure she was having a full-blown quarter-life crisis. She adored the urban farm, but was it really what she wanted to be doing with the rest of her life? Or even the next year of her life?
And Rosalind knew Tommy wanted kids. Rosalind wanted kids. She had always wanted kids ever since Batty was the most precious baby, and Rosalind had held her night and day and...basically been a mother, at nine years old.
Was that really fair? Rosalind had been a mother since she was a child, and she had loved it, but was it fair that she had never gotten the chance to not be a mother?
Rosalind and Tommy were going to get married, and then soon, very soon, within a year, people were going to start asking about little footsteps and buns in ovens and stirrings in the womb and all the other stupid phrases people used when they wanted to pry into a couple's private life. And because everyone was asking, and because they did want kids, and because Rosalind got older every year, and 30 was right around the corner, and her biological clock was ticking, and they did want more than one after all, because kids without siblings were weird and lonely, so since time was flying, they were just going to do it and get pregnant.
Then Rosalind's youthful heydey was going to be over before it really got the chance to start. She would be a mother. And honestly, Rosalind had been a mother for almost 20 years already.
And, for the first time, Rosalind was admitting that she was pissed about it.
A small tiny voice whispered in the back of Rosalind's head. It told her that maybe it was her own fault.
You didn't have to be so motherly, the voice whispered. You could have been like Skye and Jane, free and independent and happy and sisters, just sisters.
Rosalind shook her head. She looked at the ocean and let the crash of the waves wash away that voice. It wasn't that simple. Rosalind had to be the oldest. There was no other way to be.
She turned to Jane, hunched over her notepad.
"I hope they get red wine," Rosalind said.
"Batty likes white," Jane said. "And Skye says she's gotten good at making cocktails, she had a bartender friend teach her."
"Well, something for everyone," Rosalind said.