Unforgotten (15 page)
It was a strange closeness, based on nothing but raw need. Two little girls with an ache to be loved; Star’s need to be safe, Rese to be needed. The responsible one. Solid.
Yawning, she rubbed her eyes and looked at her watch. After ten. She had actually managed to sleep, but it was strange to wake up again to Lance’s room, Lance’s world—and Lance.
Yesterday had changed things. There would be no simple solution, no immediate return to Sonoma. Even though she had blocked out a week of reservations, she had assumed they might stay only a few days, as long as it took to bring closure, then back again to the inn. Antonia had blessed their business—the purpose of their trip—but Lance could hardly leave now, even if he didn’t hold himself responsible. He cared too deeply.
That much had been obvious in his voice last night. Everything Lance felt was obvious in his voice. When he’d walked out of the room, she had wanted to close him into her arms and tell him it would be okay. But that was different than holding onto him for dear life as he sped them down the highway. He would have taken that gesture and run, and she was not prepared for a sprint. She knew what it felt like at the finish line.
So here she was. His grandmother was ill, his family concerned. At least their thoughts would no longer be on her. She’d be irrelevant, thanks to … Antonia’s stroke? Something flawed in that thought, and she didn’t mean it. If she could undo those moments that upset Antonia she would.
There were lots of things she’d undo, but how could she see in advance what might happen? She pressed a hand to her eyes, gripped by should haves. If she’d known the socket was bad she would not have plugged in the work light that exploded, not startled Dad with her cry. The whir of the saw blade; the blood-spattered wall.
Grief punched her in the stomach. Her breath came raggedly. Not now! She conquered the thoughts and images. At least she was gaining some control. She was not helpless against it. Not anymore. Star whistled through her nose as Rese slipped from the covers and went into the bathroom.
Someone had already been in the shower. Droplets clung to the walls, moisture hung in the air, and the floor was damp. She breathed in Lance’s scent. She had no idea what cologne or aftershave he used, only that she would forever connect the smell to him. She’d never been to a perfume counter, never intended to. Clean was good enough for her. But she had to admit his scent was pleasant.
The tile—laid before lawsuits suggested the non-glazed variety— was slick beneath her moist feet. She loved the slippery feel of it, the smooth flawless surface. She remembered her small fingers guided by Dad’s thick hand over the beam she had sanded.
“How does it feel?”
“Soft. No, wait. There’s a snag, and a bump.”
“Keep sanding, Rese. Make that oak soft as velvet.”
A good memory. They were there, not completely overshadowed by everything since. She toweled her hair—a short process thanks to its two-inch length—draped the towel, and dressed in jeans and an olive green knit top. She slipped her feet into the sandals Lance had bought the day he’d had her ears pierced. Nothing but a thin strap of white leather between her toes. No protection against falling chunks of wood or pipe or electrical sparks. But in them her feet looked slender and delicate.
Delicate? She held out her hands, spread the fingers and watched the tendons move under the skin, studied her wrist, the ropey forearm. Her arms had worked, yet they were still feminine. No manicured nails, no rings or bracelets, but most definitely a woman’s arms.
It didn’t disappoint her as it once might have. She had proved what she needed to. She could perform in her field as well as Dad had expected. It just didn’t matter without him. She was no longer Barrett Renovation. She was … still deciding.
She went into the living room past Rico, silently drumming to the music on his headphones, to join Chaz in the kitchenette—his university. Lance had put faith into words she understood. The world was under renovation. She pictured a gutted frame, painstakingly refurbished, but not perfect because the original had been so badly damaged. To take the metaphor one step further, even though things didn’t look right yet, that was okay; the work was in progress. It was just that her future was so uncertain.
She’d dreamed of her mother last night, watched as she tried to find her way out of a labyrinth of stainless steel walls as tall as skyscrapers, and the trapped feeling lingered. It was not even two months since she’d learned Mom was alive, and decisions needed to be made for her care. Dad had found her the best facility available, and his life insurance covered its cost. But the desire nagged to bring Mom home.
Could she be a competent caregiver? Time would tell—and other things.
“Any psychotic episodes?”
The doctor at the mental health center had not been joking when he asked. She had collapsed at Dad’s death, hardly functioned for weeks. Shock, they called it. But catatonia was a symptom of schizophrenia. Would it have looked different if they’d known her mother’s history?
She sat down and got a soft “Good morning” in Chaz’s resonant baritone.
“Chaz, do you know about my mother?”
He raised his chin. “A little.”
“Would God want me to be like that? Schizophrenic?”
Chaz scrunched his brow. “What God wants is beyond me. But if I know who He is, then I can accept whatever He wants as right and good.”
“What good would I be, seeing people who aren’t there and doing stupid, dangerous things to people who are?”
“God chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, the weak to shame the strong.”
She had wanted Chaz to tell her God would not allow it to happen, that, because she now believed, there were some magic words or ceremony to ward off the disease. Wouldn’t He rather have her willing and functional? She was a hard worker and a skilled perfectionist. She could do a lot if she had the chance.
“Back home there is a man, Ubaiah, who is palsied and blind. He can do nothing for himself. Each day his caregivers lay him at the door of my father’s church. Flies collect on his skin.”
Rese took that in without showing her revulsion.
Chaz went on in his same even tone. “People who pass by the church touch him like a charm, their load lifted, their problems suddenly lighter.”
“Perspective?”
“Perhaps. And perhaps he is a true conduit of grace and healing. The hem of Christ’s robe.”
Rese sank back in the chair. “Does he know it?”
Chaz shrugged. “He can’t say.”
But if he had a part to play, could the same be true of Mom? She had confirmed something Star had only imagined in the dark moments when people treated her unspeakably, when she looked up from the crimes against her body and saw fairies. Mom had called her the fairy child and given Star a deeper comfort than Rese ever had. She didn’t get the fairy thing exactly, but why couldn’t the presence manifest as something beautiful in the face of incomprehensible ugliness? And if Mom had seen Star’s fairies, did she experience some form of God herself? Lance said the Lord would find an open heart. Maybe the mind was not required. Only God knew what it took for Mom to get through one day to the next, and yet her words had touched Star more deeply than anyone imagined.
The foolish things to confound the wise, the weak to shame the strong. Chaz said if she knew who God was, she could accept whatever He wanted as right and good. She straightened.
So then—who
was
God?
————
Lance came in and saw Chaz and Rese with their heads together, Chaz’s long finger to the page, Rese wearing the expression that challenged and amused and endeared her to him. A seizing jealousy gripped.
How lame was that? He’d abdicated the mentor role by losing her trust. What could he tell her now, that wouldn’t show him for the hypocrite he’d been, talking about truth when all the time he’d been misleading and withholding?
Chaz was the one who never faltered. Lance frowned. He should leave them to it, but he went and sat down, satisfied when Chaz slid the ribbon into the Bible to mark his place.
“How is she?” Chaz must have heard the commotion in the hall, or maybe he just guessed where he’d been. Though they had only met four years ago and came from vastly different cultures, it sometimes seemed Chaz was his alter ego, his better self.
“Cussing a blue streak. Only she doesn’t know it.” He told them the words Nonna had adopted for
yes
and
no
. “And she’s consistent. It’s like a code.” He caught Rese’s expression. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m sprouting tentacles, molting my skin? What?”
She raised her chin. “You said that without mocking. My crew would have yukked it up big time.”
“Are you kidding? It took everything I had not to laugh.”
“Nothing was stopping you now.” She leaned in. “But you told it as though it was just another symptom.”
What was her point?
Chaz closed his Bible. “I think I’ll shower while it’s available.” He was giving them privacy, though Lance didn’t know what Rese was trying to say. Rico had moved to the drum set and, still wearing the headphones, employed the air brushes now that everyone was up but Star.
Rese frowned. “You don’t know what it’s like to be the butt of every joke or have people mocking someone you love.”
Had she expected him to make fun of Nonna, thought he would take advantage of someone’s fragility? Well, he’d hardly shown her his best self.
Rese clasped her hands. “You saw the humor, but you didn’t laugh behind her back. Didn’t make us laugh.”
Now she was making too much of it. “I might have, if I wasn’t so worried.”
“I know what it looks like, Lance, that mean streak that feeds on weakness.”
He wasn’t a mocker, or a joker. And he did champion the down-and-outs, had that sensitive spot for unluckies. Didn’t mean he needed a medal. “She gave me this.” He took the key from his pocket and studied it.
Rese leaned forward. “A safe deposit key?”
“Do you know how they work?”
“If you’re not on the signature card, you don’t get in.”
He frowned. “Any way around it?”
“Maybe if a court orders it.”
“That would take too long.”
She reached for the key, felt its smooth surface, and read the engraving. “I don’t think you can use this without her.”
He looked up. “What about with her?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if she tells them to let me in?”
She gave him a slow blink. “Tells them.”
“Sure.”
“You’re going to have her cuss at the bankers.”
He spread his hands. “Who’s gonna know? It’s in Italian.”
Sorrow and fear are oily water.
I cannot hold both in my heart.
Despair extinguishes fear,
for if you can’t care, what is there to lose?
I
gasp as Marco skids into a hollow hidden by shrubs and stomps on the brake. “What are you doing?”
He puts a finger to his mouth and motions me to be still. The road is winding enough that it is some time before the vehicle passes. Marco scrutinizes the car, two men inside.
“Who are they?” I whisper.
“I don’t know. Maybe no one.” But his fingers tighten on the wheel.
We wait in silence, ears straining for the sound of tires, an engine. It comes so softly at first I am not sure if I imagine it, but there is the car coming back slowly, the men leaning and pointing. Marco shoves me down, hissing, “Stay there.”
He eases his door open and slowly cranks down the window, then he slides out and crouches behind it, peering over the edge. The other car draws near, nearer, then is lost behind the shrubbery that hides us. There’s only the sound by which to guess. I tense as the engine quiets to an idle and the grind of tires ceases.
My throat is parched, and I glance at Marco, who has drawn a gun.
Oh, God. Signore …
He motions me to silence, but it is shattered by a thundering spray of bullets. Glass bursts and lands on and around me. I smash my hands to my ears as explosions boom beside me—Marco’s gun, firing back, single shots. He told the truth; someone wants me dead.
And suddenly it matters, more than I knew. I want to live! Even if I must grieve what I have lost. I drag myself off the seat and crawl out behind Marco. He doesn’t move or acknowledge me. He sits frozen, gun poised, muscles tensed.
Branches crunch. Marco lunges up, fires, ducks. No answering bullets, only a crashing of bracken, a thud. I want to see, but the heavy metal door blocks what is happening as surely as my own na
vet
blinded me before. I taste dirt, and blood, and the metal of the car I press my face against.