Back Where She Belongs(6)

“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?”