“Then you should do that. She’s up in her studio.”
With a nod, Natalie released Harry’s hand. “You’ve never been anything but wonderful to me, and I’m ashamed of what I said to you. You’ve never once let me down, ever, even when I deserved it.”
“Long walk for her,” CiCi murmured when Natalie went inside.
“Yeah, it is. We interrupted your work. I can wait out—”
“Don’t be silly. I can’t work wondering if I’ll hear screaming, shouting, and cursing. Let’s have a beer.”
“I could use one.”
CiCi stepped up to the doorway, reached up to pat his cheek. “You’re good for her, Harry. I wasn’t sure of it, but you’re good for her.”
“I love her.”
“Love’s the glue. Use it right, it can fix most anything.”
*
Simone used glue, metal pins, sandpaper, paints. After a week of intense work, she began to believe she could bring Tish back. She could bring the life back into the face.
She heard the footsteps as she pushed back to study the morning’s progress.
“Come see. I think … I think maybe.”
Then she looked up, saw Natalie. Slowly, she got to her feet. “You’re not welcome here.”
“I know. I’m asking for five minutes. Please. There’s nothing … Oh God! You fixed it.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Natalie stopped her rush forward to the worktable, gripped her hands behind her back. “There’s nothing you can say to me I don’t deserve. Being sorry, ashamed, disgusted with myself isn’t enough. Knowing you’ve fixed what I tried to ruin doesn’t let me off the hook.”
“She isn’t fixed.”
“But it—she … She’s so beautiful, Simone. I resented that, resented what you can create out of freaking mud. I’m ashamed of that, I can’t even explain how ashamed. I didn’t tell you about the engagement, the party, because I didn’t want you to come. I told myself you wouldn’t anyway. It wouldn’t matter to you. I was only going to have you in the wedding party because people would think poorly of me otherwise. I let myself think and feel terrible things about you.”
“Why?”
“You left me. It felt like you left me. After the mall—” She broke off when Simone’s face went blank, when she turned away. “Like that. You wouldn’t talk about it with me.”
“I talked about it in therapy. I talked about it to the police. Over and over.”
“You wouldn’t talk to me, and I needed my big sister. I was so scared. I’d wake up screaming, but you—”
“I had nightmares, Nat. Cold sweats, gasping for air. No screams, so Mom didn’t rush in, but I had nightmares.”
Staring, Natalie brushed tears from her cheek. “You never said.”
“I didn’t want to talk about it then. I don’t want to talk about it now. I put it away.”
“You put me away.”
“Oh, bullshit.” Simone whirled back. “Bullshit.”
“It’s not. It doesn’t feel like bullshit, Simone, not to me. Before, you included me. It was you and Mi and Tish, but you included me. They were my friends, too. After, you shut me out. It was just you and Mi.”
“Jesus Christ! Tish died. Mi was in the hospital for weeks.”
“I know, I know. I was fourteen, Sim. Please, God. Have some pity. I thought she was dead. When I dragged Mom behind that counter, I thought she was dead. I thought you were dead. Then you weren’t, and I kept dreaming you were. Everybody but me. Tish was my friend, too. And Mi. And all I saw was me being replaced as a sister. I know how stupid and selfish that sounds. The two of you came here when Mi got out of the hospital. To CiCi. And all I could think was Why did they leave me behind?”
“She needed me, and I needed—”
Natalie hadn’t been hurt, Simone thought. But of course, she had. Of course she had.
“I didn’t think,” Simone managed. “I didn’t think of it as leaving you out or behind. I just needed to get away from it. The reporters, the police, the talk, the looks. I was sixteen, Natalie. And broken inside.”
“It was always Mi after that. You had each other. I was broken, too.”
“I’m sorry.” Simone dropped back on her stool, rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see it. Maybe I didn’t want to see it. You had Mom and Dad, CiCi, friends of your own. You got so involved in school, in projects.”
“It helped me stop thinking. It helped stop the nightmares. But I wanted you, Simone. I was too mad to tell you. Not mad,” she corrected. “More sorry for myself. Then you went to New York, to college. With Mi. You started dying your hair weird colors, wearing clothes Mom just hated. So I hated them, too. I wanted my sister back, but I wanted you back the way I wanted you. You weren’t the way I wanted you, or I thought you should be. Then you sort of were, and … I didn’t like you.”
Finally, Natalie sat, let out a breath that ended with a baffled laugh. “I just realized that. I didn’t like the Simone who wore business suits and dated that—what was his name?”
“Gerald Worth, the freaking Fourth.”
“Oh yeah.” Natalie sniffled. “He was kind of a jerk, but he didn’t mean to be. I didn’t like you that way, or the other way because you weren’t the big sister I had before the world changed for us. Then you dropped out of college and went back to New York, then you went off to Italy, and I didn’t know who the hell you were. You hardly came home.”
“The welcome wasn’t exactly warm there.”
“You don’t put much effort into it, either.”
“Maybe not,” Simone replied. “Maybe not.”
“Everything I said last week, I felt. I believed. I was wrong, but I felt it, sincerely. I was wrong to expect you to, I don’t know, freeze in place from before, when we all changed that night. I was so, so wrong to say those things to CiCi, who’s the most loving and amazing person in the world, and I’ll never stop being ashamed of that.”
“She wouldn’t want you to be ashamed forever.”
“I know. Another reason for the shame. I’m here because of Harry, because he makes me a better person.” Those blue eyes teared up again. “He makes me want to be a better person. You’ve been selfish, Simone. So have I. But this is who you are, and who I am. I’m going to try to be a better person—the one Harry sees when he looks at me. I’m going to try to be a better sister. It’s the only way I know how to make amends for what I did.”
“I don’t know if we’d be any different from who we are, but I’m sorry. I am sorry I wasn’t there for you, that I didn’t see I wasn’t there. We can try starting from here, with who we are now.”
“Yeah. Yes.” Tears swirling, Natalie got to her feet, stepped forward.
Her gaze fell on the bust, and she saw what she hadn’t before.
“It’s Tish.”
“Yes.”
Her hand flew up to her mouth, clamped there. More tears now, spilling over her fingers. “Oh God, oh my God. It’s Tish. I never really looked—I didn’t want to.” Shuddering, Natalie lowered her hand, and as Simone rose, she saw deep grief. “It’s Tish. You made something beautiful, and I … You had to feel as if she died again. Oh, Simone.”
“Yes, I did.” But she came around the worktable, felt herself able and more willing to pull Natalie to her. “I did. But I can bring her back. I can bring her back,” she said, with her eyes on the clay. “This time, this way.”
PART TWO
Passion of Purpose
Wealth lost, something lost,
Honor lost, something lost:
Courage lost, all lost.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Reed sat with Chaz Bergman on the rocks watching the moonbeam light over the bay. They each had a bottle of Summer Pale Ale, a technical violation. But at two in the morning on the lonely stretch of coastline, Reed figured nobody cared.
Though Chaz had moved to Seattle for a job right out of college, they hadn’t lost touch, and kept up sporadically through texts and e-mails.
Face-to-face time tended to be limited to Chaz’s return for Christmas and the occasional long summer weekend.
“Sorry I couldn’t make it earlier,” Reed said as they settled in.
“Cop shit?”
“Yeah.”
“You get the bad guy?”