Back Where She Belongs(51)

“We’ll fix what’s wrong at Wharton, too. I’m here, and I’ll stay until things are right again. Please wake up and help me.” Her sister’s eyes seemed shadowed to Tara. She continued to waste away beneath the sheets. Unable to stand the sight, Tara glanced away. Her gaze snagged on the photo of the two sisters and their mother, Faye in love and happy.

“We couldn’t make it work, Faye. Dylan and I. We’ve hurt each other too much. Dylan’s here forever and I can’t wait to leave.” She swallowed hard, the pain of the breakup burning through her more powerfully than ever.

“What would you tell me, Faye? Am I right or wrong?”

When you love someone, you forgive them. Faye had told her that about her father and the ruined model ship. Love was supposed to open your heart, make new things possible.

But wasn’t Tara too crippled? You know how to love, Dylan had said so fervently that she knew he believed it.

Could it possibly be true? When Dylan had broken her heart the first time, Tara had built walls against anyone who might hurt her. She told herself she was being smart, staying focused on her career, on the things she could control, but the truth was she’d been afraid. Afraid to risk her heart.

Tears slid down her cheeks. Not again. She’d lost it with Dylan already today. But sitting with Faye, knowing her sister accepted her for who she was, she decided to let go. She cried for Faye, for her father and her mother, for all the mistakes and misjudgments she’d made, and for losing Dylan all over again.

A tear dripped onto Faye’s hand. When she reached to wipe it off, her sister’s hand twitched. Tara froze. “Faye? Did you do that? Are you awake? Move your hand again.” She’d made that request so often, getting nothing back, she was totally blown away when Faye’s finger lifted again.

“Oh, my God! You did it. You moved. On purpose!” Tara grabbed her hand, holding it loosely. “Can you squeeze?”

There was the tiniest bit of pressure, but it was there.

Faye was waking up. Tara didn’t need Rita and her flashlight to know that. She pushed the call button. When a voice asked what she needed, she yelled the news. Nurses came running. Rita checked the responses, then grinned at Tara. “She had to come back, girl, to turn off that bad music.”

“Whatever it took,” she said. “I can’t believe she’s waking up.”

Faye groaned and turned her head.

“Faye? Can you hear me?” Tara said.

Nothing.

“Will she be able to talk?” she asked Rita.

“It happens different ways,” Rita said. “Be patient.”

“I can do that. I can be patient. You bet.” She grabbed her phone and called Joseph. He was so silent at first she thought he’d hung up on her. Then she heard a gasp and knew he was crying.

“She loves you, Joseph. Come see her. You’ll start fresh. You’ll try harder. You’ll ask more questions and listen more closely.”

Why can’t you do that with Dylan?

Next, she called her mother. “Faye’s awake, Mom. She’s coming back to us.” Her mother made a choked sound. She almost sounded more upset than relieved. So odd. Tara told her that Joseph would be picking her up, then clicked off.

Finally she called Dylan and told him.

He got choked up, too, but in a happy way. “Thank God, Tara. I’m so glad. Dad’s here, too. We’re both glad. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She was relieved he’d assumed she’d want him here. He’d supported her from the beginning. He should be here for the happy ending.

She clicked off the phone.

The neurologist arrived and told Tara some sobering things about Faye’s recovery—the difficulties she might have with speech, memory and mobility. It wouldn’t be easy, but Faye had fought her way back to life. She would fight her way back to full function.

“I knew you would make it. You’re the strongest person I know.” Faye was coming back to her. This time, she would listen, be there for Faye the way Faye had always been there for her.

When Joseph arrived, he lunged for his wife. “Faye,” he choked out, pushing back her hair, kissing her forehead, looking at her with pure adoration. Tara had underestimated Joseph by miles.

Had she underestimated Dylan? Herself?

Tara noticed her mother hadn’t come in. “You picked up Mom, right?”

“Still in the hall.” He kept staring at Faye, as if he feared that he might miss a word or a look if he turned his head for even a second.

Tara went to find her mother. She stood a foot from the door, frozen, a terrified look on her face.

“It’s okay, Mom. Come talk to her.”

“I don’t know what to say...how to make it right.”

“Make what right? Your quarrel? Faye won’t care.”

Her mother didn’t move.

“The neurologist said she likely won’t remember the accident or the hours before it for a while, maybe never,” she said to jolt her from her trance.

“She...might not...remember?” her mother said haltingly, hopefully.

Tara pulled her arm. “Come and see her.”

Slowly her mother came into the room. Joseph stood and motioned for Rachel to take the bedside chair.

She sat stiffly. “Faye...” she said so softly Tara could hardly hear her. “I’m so sorry. More sorry than I can say.” Her mother did not sound happy at all.

Tara had the terrible feeling that rather than praying for Faye to wake up, her mother had been dreading the possibility. Tara’s instincts flared.

“What’s going on, Mom?” Tara asked. When she shifted her body to better see her mother, the movement knocked the Sunset Crater photo down. Picking it up, she noticed Faye’s foot near the heart-shaped dent in the fender of the powder-blue Mercedes. Powder-blue.

She pictured her mother’s car in the garage, where she saw it each time she pulled in and out. There was no dent, heart-shaped or otherwise. When Tara had arrived, her mother’s car had been in the shop. She’d assumed it was an auto shop. “The Mercedes was at the body shop, wasn’t it?” she asked abruptly.

Her mother blinked at her, her muscles so tight that her hair shivered.

“You were the one,” Tara said, her mouth so dry her tongue stuck to her lips. “You hit the car, didn’t you?” Her mother had acted strangely, but Tara had never considered this possibility. Holding her breath, she waited for her mother’s answer, knowing already that she was right.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN



“IT WAS JUST A TAP,” Tara’s mother replied breathlessly. “I wanted to pass...get them to stop, you know? Anyone would have.” Her cool dignity was gone. Her words ran together. “I brushed the bumper...had to swerve so I wouldn’t crash...I was dizzy...I had taken one of my pills. I’d had a gimlet, too. I was so upset from Faye...you have no idea....” She stopped and gave Tara a pleading look, then swallowed. “I pulled over. When they didn’t drive by, I knew something was wrong, like maybe they’d stopped for me, so I ran back and saw the barrier had been bent.”

“You caused the crash,” Tara said softly. “It was you.” She still couldn’t believe it or understand that this shaky, scared confession was coming from the the same dignified, emotionally restrained woman she’d grown up with.

“I called Bill. He told me not to go down there, that I couldn’t help, that he would take care of it, that paramedics would be on their way in seconds. I wasn’t thinking. My head was not clear. Everything was fuzzy. You have to understand.”

Tara’s body rocked back, as if her mother’s words had physically pushed her. “So you drove away? Left them there?” Her mother had abandoned her dead husband and dying daughter. Tara felt dizzy with shock and disappointment. Her mother had hit them and run away.

“Bill was the officer in charge of the scene. That’s how he explained it. What he said was the law. I might cause more injury. He told me that.”

Excuses? That’s all her mother had? She was fuzzy and obeyed Bill Fallon like a child? “How could you?” Tara took quick breaths, fought down the desire to rail at her mother, to shake her, make her see what she’d done.

Get the truth. That was what mattered now. She had to let her mother talk. There would be time for outrage later. “Why were you trying to stop them?” she said finally in a calmer voice. “Why were you so upset that you took drugs and had a drink?”

Her mother stared at her, her face white, gulping for air, as if she might vomit. Joseph stood behind her, his jaw hanging, as horrified as Tara was.

“You need to tell me,” Tara said. “Too much goes unsaid in our house.”

Her mother gulped, but didn’t speak.

“Why were you chasing Dad and Faye? Where were they going?”