The Secret of Everything (42 page)

Bastard.

It infuriated Sam that any man had so mistreated his lover, and her scars and marks were his sorrow. For the first time in his life, he let a woman in.

“It was a pretty crazy summer that year. Vita came,” he said, and their eyes met. “It was real hot and dry, and forest fires were sparking all over the place. The crops weren’t doing so well, the commune was broke, Xander’s women were fighting, and a bunch of freaks showed up, doing way too many drugs.” He shook his head, twitching his thumb against the bottom of
his coffee cup. “It was all falling apart. Lot of bickering, fist-fights, that kind of thing,” Sam said. “A fight over a woman, the children all restless and fighting with one another.”

“Andy drowned at the hot springs, too,” Vita said. “I think that freaked a lot of people out.”

“Right. Drunk as a skunk, but nonetheless.” He looked at Tessa. Again the shadows under her eyes went through him. “The idyll was over,” he said. “I wanted to get out of there, but I didn’t want to leave Guinnevere.”

He cleared his throat. “Even the weather was crazy. First the forest fires, then too much rain, and we got worried about flooding. Crazy thunderstorms every stinkin’ day.”

Tessa simply listened, her eyes on his face, mouth impassive.

“And then Winnie found Xander in bed with a fifteen-year-old runaway, and she completely lost it.”

“Winnie was our mother, right?” Annie said. She stuck her hands in her back pockets. “I remember this part.”

Vita reached over and touched her arm.

“We were playing in the tower,” Annie said, looking at Tessa. “My dad was singing to us, and Mama came in and had a gun, and she shot him in the chest. Blood came pouring out so fast it looked like it was fake.”

“In the tower?” Tessa said, looking at her sister with bewilderment. “Wouldn’t you think I’d remember something like that?”

“That’s when she took us to the river,” Annie said. “And threw us in.”

“I heard the shot,” Sam said, nodding grimly, “and went after her. I saw her jump, and I knew she’d thrown you both in ahead of her.” Even thirty-something years later, the memory slayed him—seeing Tessa bobbing in the water, so far below. He’d run as hard as he could to get her and nearly lost her
twice. When he finally hauled her out, she’d been sick as a dog, throwing up river water for an hour. “I got Guinnevere out, but there was no sign of Winnie or Rhiannon.” His voice was raw. “No sign.”

Vita picked up the story. “There was a lightning strike near the camp, and it sparked a pretty huge fire—we had all been evacuated. It was several days before we realized that Xander was dead. By then, Winnie and you two were gone, presumed drowned, and Sam was nowhere to be found, so we thought he’d drowned, too.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what happened after that night.”

Sam bowed his head, wishing he could make it up to Vita, at least. She’d surely been wounded in all of that. “I really did do what I thought was the right thing,” he said, looking at each of their faces in turn.

No one replied, so he took a breath and went on. “You were pretty sick for a few days,” Sam said to Tessa. “I took you to a motel up in Alamosa, and when you woke up, you couldn’t remember anything right, like somebody scrambled your brains. When you started talking, all you remembered was the story I told you to give anybody who asked: that you were my daughter, and your name was Tessa, and we were going to a Renaissance festival.”

Her face opened, flowering with memory. “Oh, I do remember this part! We had breakfast at a place with little jukeboxes on the table.”

“Right,” he said. “It was a blessing that you couldn’t remember your own mother trying to kill you, that you couldn’t remember your sister. So I left it alone.”

“Maybe,” Tessa said. She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I need to think about it all. I’m sorry, all of you. I want—I just—” She stood up. “I can’t take it in.” She headed for the door, then
stopped and turned around. “Why Tessa?” she asked. “I don’t get how you came up with Tessa.”

Annie said, “I know. It was my doll’s name.”

Tessa came back, took Annie’s hand, and said, “Let’s go to the river.”

Which left Sam and Vita alone. He looked at her, but she picked up the empty cups and slammed them into the tub beneath the counter. “Don’t even start,” she said. “I loved you.”

“I loved you, too,” he said, and meant it.

“You couldn’t have taken me with you?”

Sam took a breath. “It never crossed my mind.”

She looked at him for a long time, then shook her head. “Well, at least that’s honest.”

   T
essa and Annie walked through the plaza toward the river trail. “Do you remember all of this?” Tessa asked.

“No. I didn’t actually know that Los Ladrones was the town I remembered from those years.”

“So you didn’t come here on purpose?”

“No, they sent me here through the penal system.” She smiled. “Weird, huh?”

Tessa nodded, shot Annie a glance. “I feel kind of shy with you, but I want to know everything about you.”

“Me, too. Exactly.” She pointed at a little apartment block. “I just moved in right there.”

“Really.” Tessa stopped. Pointed toward the cottage she had rented. “I just moved in right there, because I adopted a dog.”

Annie laughed. “I found a cat, and I couldn’t leave her. Her name is Athena.”

Tessa’s mouth opened. “I remember Athena! A white cat, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” She clasped Tessa’s hands. “You’ll end up remembering all of it eventually, I bet.”

“I would like that.”

They walked in silence, and Annie said, “Do you drink coffee?”

“No, I don’t really like the taste. I like tea. How about you?”

“Same! Coffee smells great, but I think it tastes terrible. So bitter! Do you put sugar and milk in your tea?”

“Yes. Two sugars and milk.”

Annie nodded in satisfaction, and Tessa asked a favorite color. Orange, for both. They traded preferences, back and forth. It started to be silly and fun, missing only a few things.

When they got to the river, Tessa stopped. “Have you been down here? Did you know this was the river where we nearly drowned?”

“Is it?” She looked at it dispassionately. “Pretty. I’m not getting any bad feelings about it, though. Does it bother you?”

“No, I’ve been down here several times now.”

Annie said, “What’s with you and the girls’ dad? Are you involved with him?”

“Hmmm. Kind of. We’re sleeping together, but I’m trying not to get too attached. I’m only here to try to set up a tour, and my boss just nixed it.”

Annie stopped and faced Tessa, a sharp New Mexico
tsk
falling out of her. “You’re leaving? I thought maybe with your dad coming here and all—”

“What would I do for work?”

“I don’t know. What do you like doing?”

“Photography,” she said, surprising herself. “I always wanted to be a photographer, but I got sidetracked.”

Annie laughed. “Of course you did. I’m an artist!”

“What kind of things do you do?”

“Color,” she said. “I’m not that good at it yet, but it makes me happy. You’ll have to show me your photos.” She inclined
her head. “Please stay for a little while, so we can get to know each other again.”

Tessa nodded. “I’m here for a month, anyway. We’ll see after that.”

“Okay.”

They walked for a time, talking about nothing and everything, and all the shyness Tessa had been feeling dropped away. She started to feel less and less angry at her father, too, at the world in general.

And then she thought of Natalie. “I have to go back. There’s something I have to do.”

“I need to get a nap!” Annie said. “It’s been such an emotional day!”

Tessa put an arm around her, a head on her shoulder. “In a good way.”

As they came close to town again, in the shadows of the portico Tessa saw the Coyote Man. “Look,” she said. “There’s the man I was telling you about. I keep seeing that man everywhere. Do you know him? He’s staring right at us.”

Annie smiled very softly. “You can see him?”

“Can’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, and took Tessa’s hand. “It’s my husband, Tommy. I killed him when he killed my cat. That’s why I went to jail.”

Tessa stared at her sister. “What?”

“He always said he’d follow me into hell if that’s what it took.” She laughed. “I seem to be his hell.”

Tessa looked back, and even from this distance she could feel the radiating anger, so fierce and terrible. “He doesn’t frighten you?”

Annie shook her head. “No. He’s so angry only because he can’t do anything to me anymore. I think his purgatory is having to watch me being happy. When he makes reparation, he’ll be able to move on.”

Tessa looked back, but he was gone. “Can you still see him?”

“No. Usually no one but me ever sees him. Not so odd that you saw him, I guess, but kind of interesting that Vita did.”

“She was abused, a long time ago, remember? Maybe that’s it.” Tessa paused. “She’s not our mother, is she?”

“Now, that I’m sure of. No. She isn’t.” Annie turned. “Give me a hug, Guinnevere.”

Tessa hugged her sister. “Rhiannon. I’m so glad to find you.”

Annie’s mention of reparation gave Tessa an idea. She needed to go see Natalie. That moment of yanking her hand out of Nat’s replayed itself in her head over and over, and she had to try to make it right.

Just as her father, she supposed, was trying to make things right.

Reparation
.

As she drove out to Vince’s house—not entirely sure she remembered the way—everything Sam said replayed itself in her mind. It was very difficult to imagine the tidy, productive, and prosperous Green Gate Farms as the place Sam painted for them, but in a way she sort of remembered some of it. Peeing outside. Always scrounging for food from people in this tepee or that cottage.

She made one wrong turn, then managed to find the right dirt road that led to Vince’s house. The clouds were now breaking up over the mountains, and long gold fingers of sun reached toward the land. She got out of the car with her mouth
open at the extravagant beauty and grabbed her camera off the seat. It was always hard to capture light effects like this—the mountains deep, deep blue and smeary, the clouds gray and peach and sculpted like batting, and the needles of light poking through the fabric, pointing into the fields as if there were treasures buried in each spot. Pedro barked and came running toward her, and she shot him, too, beautiful dog. Felix whined to get out of the car, and she wavered, then let him.

Vince stood on the porch, thumbs caught on his pockets. “How’re you doing?” he asked.

She focused on him, too, then lowered the camera and approached. “I’m okay.”

He came down the steps a little way, stopped. “I’ve been thinking, Tessa, that maybe this thing between us is causing trouble. You have your ways and I have mine, and maybe—” He took a breath. “Maybe you were right all along.”

Tessa struggled to keep her face neutral. “Kind of a bad day to tell me this.”

“I know. I’m just worried about Natalie. That she’ll start trying to replace her mom with you and get her heart broken all over again.”

Tessa shrugged, as if she didn’t care. As if it didn’t matter. “It’s Natalie I came to see, actually. Can I talk to her?”

“I don’t think so, Tessa.” He rubbed his face. “She’s emotionally exhausted.”