Back Where She Belongs

chapter THREE



AS SHE TURNED onto the brick driveway that curved up the hill toward the Wharton house, Tara glanced at her mother, who’d been quiet on the drive home. She hadn’t even grilled Tara about her choice of casket and flowers, which wasn’t like her mother at all. “You okay?” Tara asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” her mother said, jerking her gaze from the side window to the front, chin high.

So much for a tender moment of support. “No reason, I guess.” Tara looked up at the huge colonial on the hill. Laughably out of place in the desert, it was still home, and she felt a rush of tenderness seeing it again.

She was ridiculously emotional.

As she pulled under the porte cochere, Judith Rand, the longtime housekeeper, came down the terrace steps to meet them.

“You came,” Judith said to Tara in the same sarcastic tone her mother had used.

“How are you, Judith?” The woman had mirrored Tara’s mother’s attitudes toward Tara’s rebellious ways, but she’d always done Tara secret kindnesses.

“Sheets are fresh on the bed,” Judith said, helping Tara’s mother out of the passenger seat. “Park in the garage. The Tesla’s gone and the Mercedes is in the shop.”

Her mother gasped and sagged, no doubt remembering what had happened to the Tesla. Judith caught her arm and glared at Tara, as if Tara were the one who’d brought it up. She started up the steps with Rachel. “Breakfast is at seven,” she said over her shoulder. “If you sleep in, you’re on your own.”

“I run at five, so I’ll just grab some fruit,” Tara called out. She assumed Judith was still making the hearty breakfasts Tara’s father preferred—biscuits and gravy, steak and eggs or huge, cheesy omelets.

The gardener opened the garage and Tara parked, then rolled her bag along the path to the kitchen door.

The kitchen smelled of tomato soup, a Judith staple, which added to the homey effect of the buttercup walls, pale soapstone counters, stone fireplace and copper pots hanging over the dark-wood island.

Tara crossed the gleaming oak floors and lifted the suitcase’s wheels onto the Persian rug in the sitting room, which was painted dove-gray with white molding.

Growing up, Tara found the antique furnishings, the elaborately carved staircase and mantel fussy and old-fashioned. Now it comforted her—especially the steady tick of the grandfather clock that had been in her father’s family since the Civil War.

The grand piano gleamed in the light from the many-paned arched windows. As a girl, Faye had been an accomplished pianist, starring in every recital and playing for the high school jazz ensemble. Tara had taken lessons, but quit after three months. No one had objected. No one expected much from Tara. Faye had been the perfect daughter. That gave Tara the freedom to make her own way. It had been a gift, but a lonely one.

Moving closer to the window, she could just make out the hummingbird terrace tucked to one side of the property. She and Dylan had spent hours there, lost in each other arms. When she got a chance, she’d go out there for a break, to breathe easier, to watch the birds and listen to the fountain.

And remember Dylan?

What would be the point of that?

Reaching the wooden staircase, Tara rested her hand on the square newel post, as she’d done a million times bounding up or down the steps, her mother snapping at her to walk like a lady, not gallop like a horse.

The stairs creaked. She’d memorized which to avoid when sneaking in or out at night.

Her bedroom at the end of the hall was decorated like a luxury hotel room. As soon as Tara had left for college, her mother had thrown out Tara’s band posters, social-issue bumper stickers, stuffed animals, crazy jewelry and the clothes she’d left. Her mother used to shudder over the vintage looks Tara created from the Lutheran church’s used-clothes store. Tara had liked supporting the charity, being frugal like her father and, yes, irritating her mother.

She winced. She used to do things just to get a reaction. Born ten years after Faye, Tara had clearly been an accident her parents wanted to pretend hadn’t happened at all. Faye had done her best to make up for her parents’ neglect. She swore that they’d treated her just as absently, but Tara knew better. Even as a kid, she’d been good at reading people, and her parents plainly adored Faye.

Should she unpack? She didn’t know how long she’d be here. It all depended on Faye. How soon she recovered. What if she...died?

That idea took Tara’s breath away. Don’t die, Faye. Please don’t die. She got out her phone to call Rita. She’d convinced the nurse they should exchange numbers since Tara lived an hour from the hospital, and Joseph, the official family contact, wasn’t big on sharing news.

Tara boosted herself up onto the high bed, sinking into the thick pillow-top, and waited for Rita to answer.

“This is Rita.”

“How is Faye doing?” Tara asked.

“Holding her own.” Was there a hesitation in Rita’s voice?

“Should I come back out? Is she having problems? I’ve got a laptop. I can easily work there.” Tara got to her feet.

“Stay where you are. Get some rest. Your sister’s busy healing. She knows you’re pulling for her.”

Tara swallowed past the tightness in her throat caused by Rita’s words. “I’ll be there in the morning then, but if anything happens. Anything—”

“I’ll call. I promise. Now don’t make me sorry I gave you my number.”

“I won’t. Thanks again.”

Just as Tara clicked off, a text appeared on her display. It was from Jeff Cameron, the CEO of Cameron Plastics.

Natives restless re: webinar. Make this work.

He’d flown in his division managers to plan the company-wide conference Tara was to facilitate later in the year to improve manager–employee relations. Jeff was also president of the manufacturing trade association, so his praise could bring new clients. She was doing decently for a new company, but she had to keep building. Grow or die.

She reassured him as best she could, though live meetings were always more powerful. Eye contact drew people in, raised the energy level and built enthusiasm. In a webinar, people were easily distracted and she’d be unable to read body language.

A lively PowerPoint helped, so Tara would create that now. She managed to shut out her emotions and worries to make decent progress, though she dozed at the keyboard, waking up when Judith yelled that dinner was ready.

Her mother was eating in her room, Judith told her, so it was just Tara at the kitchen table. Besides soup, Judith had made fried chicken with gravy, corn on the cob, creamed spinach and homemade rolls. Sunday dinner. Judith had fussed, which touched Tara. She ate all she could knowing Judith would interpret any leftovers as not liking her cooking.

“I’m stuffed,” she said finally, so full she feared she’d pop the zipper on her jeans.

“Good. You’re skinnier than your mother.”

Over Judith’s head was a shelf loaded with cookbooks. Looked like Tara’s mother had kept up the tradition of giving Judith a new one each Christmas—her mother’s hint that Judith try something new.

“You ever use any of those cookbooks?”

Judith shrugged. “Your mother likes me to have things to dust.”

She smiled. Tara liked Judith, despite her frostiness. The woman clearly loved Tara’s parents, and was especially close to her mother.

Tara decided to hold the webinar in the sunroom her mother used as her office, so she lifted the roll top of the antique secretary and set up her laptop, plugging into the ethernet she found there.

This was her favorite room, cozy with soft furniture, an embroidered window seat and a half-dozen hanging plants. The heavy food made her sleepy again, plus her brain felt like it had been sandpapered, so she made herself a cup of espresso with her mother’s expensive machine—and put the finishing touches on her presentation before the meeting was to start.

By the time she closed out the webinar at 10:00 p.m., Tara was wringing with sweat and totally wired on adrenaline and caffeine. Judging from the relaxed comments, the thoughtful questions and the absence of rustling, the meeting had gone well. Jeff had sounded pleased as he signed off.

She stood and stretched, thinking she’d make some tea or go for a walk to get rid of her nervous energy. The top of the secretary held photos—mostly formal black-and-white pictures in elaborate silver frames. There was one color shot in a contemporary frame. Tara picked it up. It was of Faye, Tara and their mother from the day trip to Sunset Crater they’d taken the day before Faye’s wedding. Tara smiled. They all looked happy, and the light was beautiful. This would be the photo she taped to Faye’s bed tray.

Tara headed to the kitchen to make tea and find a knife to lift up the frame tabs.

In the dim kitchen, she was startled to see her mother on a stool at the counter. Light from the full moon glimmered off ice in a highball glass beside a bottle of vodka.

“Is that a gimlet?” Tara asked. That was her mother’s drink.

“Straight vodka. Gimlet’s too...damn...com...plicated.”

Tara went on full alert. Her mother never got drunk and she never used what she called foul language, including damn and hell. “I’m making chamomile tea. Would you like some?”

“I waited for you. We hafta do the pro...gram for the fun’ral. What was going on in there?”

“I was hosting a web meeting with one of my clients.”

“Yes. You have clients.”

Was she being sarcastic?

“Faye says you’re very...pro...fezzhional.”

No. That sounded sincere.

“I try to be. I’m doing well, especially in this economy and—” She stopped, realizing her mother had bigger concerns. “What’s up, Mom? What’s going on?”

“You’ll have to drive me to the hozzpital. Joseph’s going too early and my car...my car...see...it’s still—”

“At the mechanic’s. I remember. No problem. I’m happy to drive.”

Abruptly her mother grabbed Tara’s forearm, her fingers digging in, her eyes fierce and desperate. “Is she suffering? I can’t stand to think...that I... That my little girl...is in pain...”

“No, Mom. She’s not suffering. Rita told me coma patients fidget when they’re hurting. And Faye doesn’t move at all.” She’s as still as death.

“You wouldn’t lie to me?” Then her mother gave a small smile. “Not you. You’re honest to a fault.” That was a jab, but her mother’s behavior was so troubling that Tara was relieved by the normalcy of the dig. Her mother noticed the photograph Tara held. “Wha’s the pic...ture for?”

“To tape up for Faye to look at. What do you think?” She showed it to her mother, who blinked, as if to clear her vision, then studied it. “This was that trip we took before Faye got married.”

“Yeah. Sunset Crater. We were talking about it and you said let’s go so we did.” It had been a rare instance of spontaneity from their mother, and Tara had loved it. As they set off, her mother had actually squeezed Tara’s hand in excitement.

With so little reaction from her parents, Tara had learned to interpret the smallest gesture or postural shift. In a way, that had led to her skill with people. She knew well the way her mother’s eyebrows lifted whenever Tara spoke, as if she expected Tara to be loud or wrong. She knew the sour lip twist when Tara’s manners failed and the huffed breath when Tara bumped a chair, the relieved exhale when Tara left the room, the quick stiffening when she entered.

Her father had hardly seemed aware Tara existed. His neglect somehow hurt less, maybe because he neglected her mother, too, as far as Tara could see. When he was home, he was in his study or reading. His books, their places marked, were scattered throughout the house. Only Faye made him light up. Tara had been happy for Faye, but she’d also ached with envy.

“That was a fine trip.” Her mother smiled, running her finger over the glass.

They’d parked on the lookout and asked a tourist to take their photo. They stood with the crater behind them, Tara and their mother on either side of Faye, who sat on the hood of their mother’s sky-blue Mercedes, her heel braced in the heart-shaped dent in the fender their father had refused to fix. Her mother was notoriously bad at parking and her father had gotten fed up with all the bodywork charges.

“Faye looks so happy,” Tara said. Her sister practically glowed with joy.

“Faye was always happy.” Unlike you. Her mother claimed Tara had been a colicky baby, a cranky child and an impossible teenager.

“But this is more. You can see she’s in love.” At the time, Tara had dismissed that, insisting that Faye owed it to herself to go after her dream, to study art. Love can wait, she’d said.

Tara cringed at her nerve. The trouble was that Tara had never been in love. Not real, adult love. The thing with Dylan didn’t qualify. She didn’t understand love. Worse, in the back of her mind lurked the deep and painful truth that Dylan had blurted when they had that terrible fight:

You don’t know how to love anyone, not even yourself.

Still, still that thought made her gasp as if from a stomach punch and left her feeling empty and aching inside.

Tara should have rejoiced that Faye had found love, that she was happy. Instead she’d harassed her about it, sounding eerily like her mother when Tara said she was going to NAU with Dylan. Her mother had said it was puppy love.

Tara had been just as thoughtless. It was the Wharton Effect—the feeling of being both lost and trapped because of growing up where everyone knew them and their family, and had opinions about everything they said or did.

Unlike Tara, Faye had shaved off her corners to fit Wharton’s round hole, and Tara had thought she had to wake up Faye to what she’d sacrificed. Faye loved her life here. Tara knew that deep down. Faye loved Joseph. And she loved Wharton Electronics. Only Tara was the misfit.

“She shouldn’t have been in that car,” her mother wailed suddenly, turning the picture facedown on the counter, her face raw with pain. “Why would he do that to her?”

The prickling sensation came again. “You mean why did Dad ask Faye to drive? Is that it?”

Her mother just shook her head, looking down at the counter.

“Do you think Dad got drunk playing poker? Is that why Faye was driving?”

Her mother raised her gaze. “Abbott drinks iced tea in a highball glass...pretends iz whiz-key.... For a clear head... He hates to lose.”

That made sense to Tara. Her father had always been competitive.

“But...that night...” her mother said. “Maybe...he did drink...” Her mother stared at Tara, urgent again. “Do you think if they were quick...er?” Her mother was really slurring now. “The E...M...Ts? Bill said it was quick. But if they were quicker, maybe she wouldn’t be—”

“Who’s Bill?”

“Bill Fallon.”

“The police chief?” Tara had been in his office several times for lectures about how she was killing her mother by staging protests, drinking, driving too fast, or smoking pot. “So someone called 911 and he came? Wait, doesn’t he play poker with Dad?”

“He missed poker. He wazz pazzing by.” Her mother turned her glass with both hands, miserable. “Bill swore the helicopter was quick. He watches out for us, Bill does.”

“He’s a first responder, Mom. It’s his job to help when there’s an accident.” Goose bumps rose on her arms. Her mother seemed worried, too. Something was amiss. “What else, Mom?”

There was a long, long silence. Tara could hear the grandfather clock ticking. Her pulse seemed to thrum in time.

“We quarreled,” her mother said so softly Tara almost didn’t hear her. “Faye and I. I lost my temper. If I could take it all back, I would.” She seemed to be pleading with Tara.

“What did you fight about?”

Her mother shook her head, not willing to say.

“People say things they don’t mean out of anger. Faye knows that. Faye’s a forgiving person,” she said to make her mother feel better. Meanwhile, her mind raced. So the police chief had missed poker, but seen the crash somehow. That alone seemed strange. “Who else played poker that night?”

“I don’t know. Jim Crowley, Mitch Bender, Paul Robins, Gary Hicks. Why?”

“Maybe they know why Faye was in the car.”

“Oh, no.” Her mother blinked at her. “Your father did not tell tales.”

What the hell did that mean? Tara would find a way to talk to one of the men. Maybe at the funeral.

“If Faye dies...I can’t go on,” her mother said in a choked voice. Tara had never heard her mother sound so desperate.

“Mom...” Tara put a tentative hand on her mother’s back.

Her mother tensed, then sat up straight, as if Tara’s touch had been a warning. “I’m not myself. I apologize.” She cleared her throat. “We’ll discuss the program tomorrow. It must be perfect.” Her mother’s voice cracked. “Everyone loved your father.”

She pushed up to her feet. She started away, then turned back and leveled her gaze at Tara. “Your father loved you. Don’t forget that.” With a sharp nod, her mother walked away, moving stiffly, the way people pretending not to be drunk walked.

Her mother was so formal, so strict. She wouldn’t even allow herself a comforting pat. Tara hoped it wasn’t that she couldn’t allow herself a comforting pat from Tara.

No. Don’t think like that. You’re here to make peace. You can’t look for ways to be hurt.

It might be easier if her mother gave any sign she wanted peace with Tara. She might be better off just leaving it alone, but she couldn’t do it. She had to try to fix this, to make it right. Her whole career was about healing wounds between employees and managers. Shouldn’t she be able to do that with her own mother?

Tara sat in the silent kitchen, feeling deflated and sad.

Your father loved you, her mother had said.

Yeah, right. That was her first reaction. She forced herself to be more positive. He loved you in his own way.

And what way was that exactly?

He’d let her come to the shoe shop that time. And once, when she was ten, she’d begged to go with him when he went to shoot skeet. He’d showed her how to shoot, but it hurt and it was loud and she’d cried, so he’d sent her to the shooting range office, disgusted with her for giving up so easily.

Later, Tara returned to the range for lessons, making the owner swear not to tell her father, determined to prove herself. By the time she got good enough, she no longer cared what her father thought of her.

Would sharing that have changed things between them?

It was too late to know.

Are you proud of me, Dad? Did you know how good I am? She’d sent him a packet, as CEO of Wharton Electronics, one of the dozens she sent to potential clients, but never heard a word. She didn’t need his approval, of course, but the first hurts were the deepest.

You had to heal yourself. She knew that. But being here again brought up those old teenage feelings. The Wharton Effect all over again. Her job was to ignore it, rise above it, kick it to the curb until she could finally, safely, escape for good.

Then there was Dylan. What about Dylan? There’d been this lingering thing in her head since she’d seen him, like a singer holding a note until she was about to pass out.

She missed him. Still. She wanted him. Still.

And that was the most ridiculous thing of all.

* * *

SATURDAY AT NOON, Dimitri helped Tara out of the the limousine in front of the house for the reception. She was dying for air-conditioning. She’d forgotten that October in Arizona was too warm for the navy business suit she’d worn. The sun had beat down mercilessly during the graveside service.

Hang in there, she told herself. Just a few more hours.

Then she could peel off her clothes, go for a swim or a run, borrow one of her father’s guns and shoot skeet until her shoulder throbbed, drive as fast as she could as far away as she wanted, or throw herself facedown on her bed and let the thick down pillows muffle her sobs.

Dimitri helped Tara’s mother out of the car. She’d held her own since the night in the kitchen, handled the visitation and the funeral with dignity and grace, accepting hugs, pats and cheek kisses with a smile. Her friends, the women who sat on charity boards with her and planned food drives and hosted fund-raising balls, seemed to buoy her. Maybe she felt she had to put on a front for them. Whatever it was, it helped her hold it together. Tara would keep an eye out at the reception in case she started to crack. Her mother’s dignity meant everything to her, so Tara would help preserve it.

The house was a cool relief, noisy with talk, smelling of rich food, flowers, wine and perfume. The dining room table groaned with food, waiters passed hot appetizers and the bartender was busy handing out drinks. Her father would have considered the full bar with top-shelf liquor too showy, but Tara wanted the best to honor him. She headed for the kitchen to be sure the caterers had everything they needed.

“Eat before you fall down.” Judith thrust a plate at Tara with a hunk of beef covered in mustard and a piece of cherry pie—Tara’s favorite as a kid. “You left that yogurt on the counter this morning.”

“Thanks, Judith, for thinking of me. I ran out of time to eat.”

“Can’t have you passing out in front of company. I told the bartender to water your mother’s gimlets. I’ll keep an eye on her. You greet the guests.”

She noticed Judith’s eyes were red. “How are you doing?”

“How do you think I’m doing? Supervising these airhead caterers I should get overtime.” She marched away in a huff, as private about her feelings as Tara’s mother.

Tara started circulating. She noticed Chief Fallon leaning close to her mother to talk. He’d stayed awhile at the visitation, too, bringing her mother a glass of water. The big bouquet on the dining room table had come from him. What had her mother said? Bill watches out for us.

Yeah? Was there more to it than that? It gave her the creeps to even contemplate.

Tara greeted people, made sure everyone had food and liquor. It was exhausting to talk to people who knew her or thought they did—people who hated her or resented her, friends who wanted to rehash wild times, phonies who expressed sympathy with smug eyes. As the hours passed, she felt more and more suffocated. She wanted to yell, you don’t know me and you never did. She’d put on an act in high school. She’d felt like she had no choice.

Since she’d arrived at the reception, she’d kept her eye open for Dylan. He might not come, considering the feud between their fathers. She’d spotted Dylan and his dad after the service speaking to her mother, but that was it.

For the three nights since she’d arrived, she’d had dreams about him. Steamy ones that lingered after she awoke, leaving her with a terrible longing for the real thing. Clearly they represented her need to escape her worries about Faye and her grief over her father.

Sex had been all-consuming back then—a desperate need, an undeniable force, a bonfire that had to be quenched or they’d die.

What would sex with Dylan be like now?

The instant the idea crossed her mind he walked through the door, his father behind him. She’d thought of him and he’d appeared. The old magic again. Afraid if he saw her, he might read her mind, she turned and nearly ran for the kitchen.

Stop this. Grow up.

It wasn’t just the sex that was making her think of him. It was the relief of belonging, of being understood, of fitting in at last. That had meant so much to her back then. And now, her emotions were churned up. Who wouldn’t want to escape into a time when all that mattered was being in the arms of the one person you loved above all else, who loved you the same?

But it wasn’t true even then.

Let it go for good.

Here she was, hiding from him in the kitchen. Ridiculous. She decided to see how they were fixed for crab puffs.