Death Takes a Holiday by Jennifer Harlow

through the open window. “Who were you talking to?” Nana asks through her laughs.
    “Bea’s back,” Brian answers in the vocal equivalent of a poker face.
    “She’s here?” a woman who I assume is my newish sister-in-law, Renata, asks.
    They’ve been together for close to five years, and I’ve met her three times. Each conversation lasted about two minutes with the usual stranger chitchat: weather, jobs, and traffic. She was perfectly pleasant but distant. God knows what he’s told her about me.
    As I set the bags on my bed, Nana steps up to my window, looking in through the screen. “Come outside and meet your nephew.”
    “I just got home,” I say, “give me a minute.”
    I need to find my emotional suit of armor and slap it on. I also need to lock away my sarcastic side in a lead box so as not to peeve off Brian in front of his new family. He’ll be on his best behavior, so I will return the favor. Though I may mention that time when he was seven and made a doody in the pool. It is my God-given right as his sister to embarrass him. It’s the normal thing to do.
    I brush my hair, re-apply lipstick and deodorant, and join the family. The three and a half of them sit around the circular green plastic table and chairs underneath the metal awning. Nana’s back yard is tiny with a square piece of concrete and grass everywhere else. It’s perfect for a dog and Brian asked for one every day for a month when we first moved here, but animals don’t like me. I come within two feet of one and they go nuts. Either barking, hissing, running away, or the occasional alpha male will try to attack me. It never bothered me until I fell for a werewolf. The fact I literally make his skin prickle and crawl does not bode well for our future. We were doomed from the start.
    Renata is one of those perfect people who are destined for the good life before they’re even born. Her father is an Oscar-winning movie producer, so she grew up with the best of everything. Her good looks come from her actress mother. Glossy brown hair, flawless olive skin, wide doe eyes, and even though she just gave birth, she’s skinnier than me. I really wish I dressed up today. Women like her always make me feel like a white trash hag with warts.
    Nana holds the newest Alexander in her arms, feeding him a bottle. He has his mother’s complexion and a thick head of black hair. Another looker. Nana gazes down at him with such love and adoration a huge smile surfaces on my face. I’ve never seen her so happy.
    “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?” Nana says in a high pitch sing-song reserved for deranged preschool teachers. The baby seems to like it though. He wiggles and waves his arms as if he’s dancing.
    “Hi … all,” I say.
    Renata glimpses up from her progeny to me, her smile never wavering. Brian glances at me, expressionless. “There you are,” Nana says. “Did you have fun?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You look really good,” Renata says.
    “Thank you. So do you.”
    “God no! I’m a fat slob,” she chuckles. I guess zooming up from size zero to a size four means it’s lipo time.
    “You’re beautiful,” Brian says to her. He reaches over to her and kisses her hand. Their eyes meet and you can practically see the love and adoration pouring out of them like Superman’s lasers. An invisible someone by the name of envy punches me in the gut, though my smile doesn’t waver. I don’t think I can do this right now, looking on as my perfect brother lives his perfect life. I save people, and he finds loopholes to earn millionaires more millions. He makes my life hell for years and gets a beautiful wife and baby. I’m stuck lusting after two mythical creatures. I don’t know, maybe a person like me who can do what I can isn’t meant for this. Maybe I’m just meant to stand on the sidelines protecting those who can have it all. Karma is such a lie.
    “Yeah, I never would have guessed you’d just had a baby,” I