Adapt

by Melanie Rachel

  “But I do trust you,” he said immediately. “Besides, I already know your family, and they’re great.”

  She took a breath. “Yes. But there are other things to tell you about, things that happened before the girls went to live with the Gardiners.”

  Will straightened a bit. She was going to tell him about her parents? Other than telling him her mother had died, there hadn’t been much said. “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh.” She worried her bottom lip. “I know how your sister feels, because I felt that with my younger sisters.”

  “Do you want to tell me why?” he inquired. His mind was racing, but he maintained his composure.

  Elizabeth nodded. “It’s a long story, so bear with me. It’s important to me,” she said, “that you never tell anyone else what I’m about to tell you.”

  Will turned his head to face her. “You have my word, but don’t think you need to prove anything to me.”

  “Honestly,” she admitted, “my family knows most of it. But I’ve never said it out loud. And I don’t look good in it. I mostly just leave it in the past.”

  “I understand,” he responded. “Will you tell me anyway?” Elizabeth glanced up at him. Will tried to keep his gaze steady.

  “My mother didn’t just die, Will,” she said, looking straight into his eyes. “She took her own life.”

  His heart contracted. “Damn, Elizabeth,” he breathed. “That’s really hard. I’m sorry.”

  She considered that for a moment. “Promise you won’t think I’m horrible?” she whispered.

  “Of course I won't,” he reassured her.

  She bit her lip and cast her gaze away. “I was relieved.”

  Once the words were out, she sagged a little. Will waited for her to say more, and she seemed to be waiting for him to respond. When they had been at a stalemate a bit too long, Will broke the quiet. “Tell me.”

  She raised her left hand, touched her forehead, and then began. “I was sixteen when my father left us.”

  Will stifled a curse. It gets worse?

  “I think I mentioned it to Richard once. I wasn’t sure if he ever told you.” He shook his head, and she nodded. “My mother was bipolar, and she was really resistant to taking her medication. She really only listened to Jane, so when Jane left for college, it was much harder. But my father insisted that she not be held back by what was going on at home, and I agreed. I couldn’t wait until it was my turn to go to college.” She sat up and adjusted a pillow behind her back.

  When she glanced at him, Will nodded, silently encouraging her to continue. His mind was already furiously trying to catalog the important points. Her mother was bipolar. Why was Jane taking care of her mother? Shouldn’t that have been their father? But he’d left them . . .

  “Jane went to college,” Elizabeth said, locating her place in the narrative, “and Tom just couldn’t handle my mother on his own. We worked together to keep everything running, he and I, but I guess whatever I did wasn’t enough, because I came home from school one day, and he had left.” She snorted. “His clothes, his stuff, everything. No note, no way to contact him--he’d even left his phone on his nightstand. I thought maybe he’d cool off and come back in the morning, but he didn’t. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since.”

  “Tom’s your dad?” he asked gently. She nodded. Damn. It was hard enough having parents taken from you. To have one just disappear. . . “Oh, Elizabeth,” he said, and kissed the back of her hand.

  Elizabeth was almost indifferent. There was no anger, no sorrow, just a recounting of facts, as though it had all happened to someone else. “It’s okay. It’s not really something I think much about anymore.”

  “I’m honored you trust me enough to tell me.” He meant it. He hated that she’d been hurt in such a way but flattered that she wanted to tell him the story.

  She tipped her head back against the wall. “I may as well finish this and be done with it if you don’t mind.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Go ahead.”

  “My mother immediately forbade me from saying anything to anyone about Tom leaving. She threatened to drop the girls off with her social worker and tell the agency that the Gardiners were not to be contacted.”

  Will was perplexed. “Why would she do that?”

  Elizabeth yawned. “She hated Aunt Maddy, and she didn’t want the neighbors to know. She was absolutely certain my father would come back and didn’t want them talking about her.” She leaned against him. “I took on the work Tom had been doing, and we carried on.”

  Will put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug.

  “I had to quit the soccer team so I could be with my sisters after school. My coach was not amused.” She offered him a wan smile. “My teammates kind of harassed me about it. But I couldn’t explain, or my mother would have told the social workers that Uncle Ed was abusive so he couldn’t take us. We’d have been split up for sure.” She sighed. “At least, that’s what she said she’d do.”

  Will mulled that over for a minute, then prompted her, “When did Jane and the Gardiners finally learn your father was gone?”

  Her expression turned thoughtful. “Well, Jane took classes that summer and didn’t come home. He left in May, so about eleven months, I guess. Not quite a year.”

  Will was shocked. He’d thought maybe a few weeks. How is that possible? “Jane didn’t even come home for Christmas?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No, she volunteered with a university group to serve holiday dinners at the food bank. So she stayed in Montclair with the Gardiners.”

  “How did they finally learn about it?” Will asked.

  Elizabeth put a hand over her eyes. “In April, just before I graduated, I came home and found my mother with her head down on the kitchen table. She’d taken a bunch of sleeping pills.”

  He blinked and swallowed. “Wow.” What else was there to say?

  Her voice was barely audible now. “I wasn’t patient with her, you know? I kept insisting she take her meds, every day, without fail. It was a battle. She would pretend to take them and often I’d find the pills later, on top of the trash or floating in the toilet.” She spoke as though the words themselves tasted bitter. “She wouldn’t empty the cans or flush the toilet. She wanted me to see that she’d won.”

  Elizabeth took a long drink of water. “Jane was always her favorite, but she at least tolerated me before I tried to become her doctor instead of her daughter. But it was so hard to be her daughter, Will. It was just really hard.”

  He murmured something he hoped sounded positive.

  “I took care of my younger sisters all that time. My mother wouldn’t do it, and I couldn’t let them be sent to foster care. The Gardiners lived out of state, so that would have been an issue—I just became their parent. I thought it was better than letting the adults fight over custody. But when my mother died and Aunt Maddy came to stay with us—just until we could finish the school year—I could see the whole thing was just my mother manipulating me. I should have just called. Aunt Maddy did everything I could do—more than I could do—and she did it better. The girls were thrilled.”

  “Your sisters adore you, Elizabeth,” Will insisted. “Kit wanted you to speak to her whole school, and Lydia dyed her hair to look like yours. I don’t know Mary as well, but I can guess she feels the same. I think it’s safe to say that they understand how much you love them.”

  She closed her eyes and did not respond. When she spoke again, it was to return to her mother. “This is the part nobody else knows and you can’t tell.”

  Will leaned over and said softly, “I promised, and I meant it.”

  “She left a letter for Tom, and another one for me.” She took a deep breath. “I never told anyone there were two.”

  “A parting shot, I imagine?” Will asked sourly.

  There was a short, bitter laugh. “You’ve sized her up well considering you never met her.”

  He shrugged although he knew she couldn’t
see him. “You’ve offered a rather clear description.”

  “I know I’m biased.” Elizabeth tilted her head to one side, and Will felt her entire body stiffen. “The letter was pretty rambling, mostly, but one thing I will always remember. She wrote that I always wanted her to take her pills, so she had.”

  Chapter Eight

  Will gazed at Elizabeth for a while to be sure she was sleeping soundly before standing up and stretching.

  He was deeply angry with Elizabeth’s parents, but he knew it was a useless expenditure of emotion. Her mother in particular was beyond anyone’s reach. He was also keenly disappointed in Georgiana. He had been shocked at her behavior last night. She’d seen how worried he and Richard had been, yet she hadn’t admitted that Elizabeth had called or that she had, in fact, hung up on her. When had Georgiana ceased to care that he was working himself up into a panic? What the hell was she doing answering my phone in the first place? I was twenty feet away in the next room, not in another state.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the listing of recent calls. Elizabeth’s number did not appear. Not only had Georgiana answered the call and warned Elizabeth off, she’d then removed any evidence that the call had been received. She’d been deliberately trying to drive a wedge between them.

  “This isn’t you, G,” he whispered, baffled. “It’s not.”

  His phone began to buzz, and Georgiana’s photo popped up as though speaking her name had conjured her from thin air. He glanced at Elizabeth who was still sleeping soundly and stepped out into the hall.

  When he answered the call, Georgiana sounded worried. He wondered whether she was worried for him or that Elizabeth would tell him what had happened. “Richard called me from the hospital, Will. Is everything okay?”

  “Elizabeth will be fine,” Will said shortly, trying to quell his rising resentment. “I asked why she didn’t call last night, and you know what she told me?”

  Georgiana sighed. “I’m sorry, Will.”

  “Not sorry enough to tell me that Elizabeth had called instead of letting me worry all night. Not sorry enough to apologize for telling her I didn’t want her around.” Will ran his free hand though his hair tiredly. “She actually stood up for you, Georgiana, told me you’re just having a hard time seeing me with anyone serious.” Thank God Elizabeth has younger sisters and can see through you.

  “She did?” Georgiana asked.

  “She did.” Will glanced at his watch. He didn’t want to be away too long in case Elizabeth woke up, but this conversation couldn’t wait. “I’m trying so hard to be less intrusive, G. You have no idea how difficult it is for me.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’ve asked me to back off and give you some space, not to interfere, to trust you, and I’ve done that, haven’t I?” After making you the most important person in my life for five years, working hours around your schedule, sitting in parent-teacher conferences, listening to you practice the piano, helping you study, holding you while you cried, taking care of you when you were sick, cheering at your recitals and graduations, setting your curfew. He still worried about her but couldn’t do anything about it. Her request for less of him in her life had cut him deeply, but he had agreed, because that’s what a good parent did. Stand back and wait to be called.

  There was silence on the line, and then a small voice replied, “Yes.”

  “Then why?” the question exploded from him involuntarily. “Why didn’t you show me the same courtesy?”

  “I don’t know,” was the hesitant reply. “I guess I didn’t think you’d back off quite so much.”

  “Is there an exact number of phone calls or texts I’m allowed to send, G?” Will asked, her answer doing nothing to cool his ire. “Because you don’t respond when I do.”

  “You only sent me a few emails, Will, and I did reply to them,” Georgiana insisted.

  “I send one email a week, G. You know that. Every Monday. Look,” Will responded, his temper growing hotter, “I’m going to try to talk Elizabeth into staying with us tonight.” He growled. “Every time I leave her at that damn apartment, something goes wrong.”

  After a moment, he spoke in a tone of voice that was almost normal. “You’ll go to Uncle Terry’s dinner—Richard will take you. Tonight, I expect apologies from you to all of us. Real ones. And this will never happen again, G. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Will,” Georgiana said, but her tone was less than contrite. “I understand.”

  Once Elizabeth was feeling better but before she was released, Richard drove back to the apartment with Dr. Bennet to retrieve Will’s car; they’d leave the car at the hospital for Will and her sister, and then she’d drive him to the train. Richard knew his father’s party would begin before he got there but couldn’t muster much concern about being late when it gave him unexpected time alone with Elizabeth’s intriguing sister.

  “Lizzy’s very impressed with you, you know,” she was saying as they took the parkway exit closest to Elizabeth’s apartment.

  “Really?” Richard asked, rather pleased with himself. “I’ll have to make sure she knows you told me.”

  He watched Jane Bennet’s lips stretch into the smallest of grins.

  “I think she was very impressed with your facility for languages,” she continued.

  “Well,” he said seriously, “To be honest, I’m pretty impressed with her, too.”

  “Really?” she echoed his earlier reply. “I’ll have to make sure she knows you told me.”

  “One thing’s for sure,” he said quietly as she made a right turn. “She’s good under pressure.” He paused. “I was impressed with you too, Doc, when you called. You diagnosed her concussion from a newspaper photo, you remember?”

  She shrugged. “She’s my sister.”

  Richard shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You were so impressed with me,” she said thoughtfully, “that you didn’t keep my number? You could’ve called me last night when Lizzy didn’t answer.”

  Richard shrugged, embarrassed. “I considered keeping it, but I didn’t know then that I’d be leaving the service. I thought it would be better to not keep it.” He glanced at her through the rearview mirror. She appeared lost in thought. “Why did you keep mine?”

  She snorted. “Because I was pretty sure if I called you, you could put me in touch with Lizzy. She always chooses the worst possible time to not pick up.”

  Richard nodded emphatically. “She does at that, Doc.”

  She tilted her head at him, blue eyes searching his. “Why do you do that?”

  He glanced quickly over at her. “What?”

  She pursed her lips. “Why do you call me Doc instead of Jane?”

  He cleared his throat. “Because, Dr. Bennet, this Marine has a great deal of respect for that title and the woman who holds it, and she’s not given me permission to use her first name.” He grinned a lopsided grin. “Yet.”

  “Hmm,” she replied as he pulled up to the curb in front of Elizabeth’s apartment.

  He gazed at her expectantly, but that was all she said.

  “So, are you going to?” he asked hopefully.

  “Going to what?” she asked lightly, opening up her door and stepping out of the car.

  He frowned at the idea that he’d missed a chance to open it for her. He climbed out of his seat and spoke to her over the roof of the car. “Allow me to call you by your first name.”

  Jane smiled brightly at him, and he felt his heart leap in his chest.

  “I think,” she said slyly, “that I like Doc.”

  Georgiana gnawed on her bottom lip. Her apologies hung heavy in the air. Nobody had responded yet.

  “I’d like some ice cream,” Elizabeth announced and made as if to stand. Will put his hand in front of her.

  “I’ll get it,” he said, more than a little amused at how Elizabeth had decided to let Georgiana dangle. She deserves it, he told himself, feeling a small measure of revenge. But I also know Elizabeth wo
n’t let it go on for long.

  Instead of ice cream, he reheated the butternut squash soup Maddy had sent home with them, folding up a dishtowel to place under the hot bowl and grabbing a spoon. They’d left the Gardiners’ home with what amounted to several Thanksgiving dinners for the four of them. Elizabeth had rolled her eyes and stated that enticing them to stop over by offering them food was her aunt’s way of checking for herself that she was well, and Will had replied that he didn’t see anything wrong with that. “Besides,” he had goaded her, “the food sounds good. Unlike present company, your aunt can actually cook.” Elizabeth had just laughed, too tired to do much else.

  Kaylie Liu and her father had been invited to dinner and were just saying their goodbyes when Elizabeth walked through the door. The girl had nearly knocked her over with an enthusiastic hug. Mr. Liu was a slight man with intelligent eyes that seemed to take everything in at once. He had held Elizabeth’s hand firmly in his own two, leaning in to tell her that he was extremely grateful and that should she ever need anything, she was to call him immediately. Will had been rather diverted, wondering just what Mr. Liu could do for her, but he wisely refrained from speaking. Elizabeth had taken his card and thanked him warmly before hugging Kaylie and wishing them both an uneventful flight back to Los Angeles in the morning. When Will asked her what Mr. Liu did, she glanced at the card and said, “Entertainment lawyer.”

  “I have some ideas for actors to play me,” he teased. “You know, when the time is right.” The sour expression on her face made even her uncle laugh.

  After being fussed over for half an hour at the Gardiners’, they had driven back to the city. Now that she had met Georgiana, her teasing energy seemed to have returned, and he was sure that if anyone could get his sister to revert to her likeable self, it would be Elizabeth.