Once a Family

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  * * *

  SEDONA DIDN’T DRIVE straight back to The Stand. She pulled into a big-box store first, finding a parking spot farther out in the lot—one with no cars on either side. Her car had enough dings in it already. “Tanner gave me some money for you to get any incidentals you might need,” she said.

  Expecting her client to hop out of the Thunderbird, excited about spending the free money, Sedona was surprised when Tatum didn’t even unbuckle her seat belt. “I don’t need anything from him.”

  Her pretty face was stony.

  Sedona turned in her seat. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tatum.” She waited until the girl turned those striking blue-gray eyes on her. “You were fine a few minutes ago and now you’re not. What happened?”

  Was the desk where Tanner had turned on Tatum? Maybe they’d had an altercation while he’d been sitting there and he’d grabbed her arm to keep her from running off.

  Maybe she’d been emotional, as hormonal teenage girls often got, and had been flailing out at him and in trying to restrain her he’d knocked her into the desk.

  Sedona had spent the past seven or eight minutes trying to rein in her suppositions.

  Her fears.

  Tanner would not intentionally harm his sister. She just could not believe differently.

  “Nothing happened.”

  “That’s it, then.”

  Starting the engine, Sedona threw the car in reverse.

  “What’s it?”

  “I can’t represent you if you aren’t going to be honest with me.”

  “I...”

  Sedona glanced over, her look warning Tatum not to lie to her.

  “Okay.” The girl’s whole demeanor changed. Sedona pulled the car back into its spot and cut the engine.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I...just... It doesn’t have anything to do with...anything.”

  “Fine.” She’d be the judge of that.

  “It’s not like... Tanner doesn’t even know I know and...”

  “Know what?”

  Tatum’s eyes held a pool of emotion when she glanced over. Emotion Sedona couldn’t translate. It wasn’t fear.

  But Tatum’s struggle was obvious. The girl was having a hard time talking about whatever was bothering her.

  “This thing that Tanner doesn’t know you know...does it have something to do with the reason you say he hit you?”

  She almost choked on the words. Tanner’s claims that he had never, ever physically hurt his baby sister rang so true to her.

  But this was Tatum and she had to reach the girl from her own frame of reference if she hoped to discover the whole truth.

  “No. I told you, it’s nothing to do with anything.”

  “Except that it upset you.”

  “Yeah.”

  Tatum’s gaze pleaded with her to let it go. Which made it even more paramount that she not do so.

  “Does Del know about it?” The girl fancied herself in love. Could very well be in love. And it appeared that, until she’d been banned from having contact with him, she’d told Del everything.

  “Partly.”

  She remembered the hardcover book she’d seen Tatum pack. The book Tanner had admitted to her he’d read. “What about your diary? Did you write about it in there? Maybe if you show me the page I could read about it.”

  “No, it’s not in there. It’s not, like, a big deal.”

  Using her most serious lawyer voice Sedona said, “I need to know, Tatum.”

  When Tatum looked up at her, her expression was skewed, twisted, a cross between pissed and belligerent. “He doesn’t have a high school education, okay? He’s a dropout.”

  Phew. Something they could handle. “Del, you mean,” she said. “He’s dropped out of school and no one knows you know and you don’t want Tanner to find out.”

  Because Del’s quitting school would prove Tanner right, the boy wasn’t a good catch for his sister. And Tanner’s desk must be synonymous in Tatum’s mind with the man himself....

  “No.” Tatum’s voice came quietly. “Tanner doesn’t have a high school diploma. I’m talking about my brother. And it’s not like I care about the school part. I’m sure he quit to take care of me. But he lied to me. Do you have any idea how it feels, knowing that?”

  The air left her lungs. She was staring. Knew it. And couldn’t seem to make herself move.

  It didn’t matter. Dropping out of high school wasn’t a crime. And Tanner had clearly made a life for himself and his sister, but...

  He was a man who valued formal education above all else, yet had none of his own. Which had to hurt him like hell.

  “He acts like I’ll be a total loser if I don’t ace my college entrance exams next fall, even though I have my whole junior year to take them and I can repeat them in my senior year, too, if I want. He thinks I have to go to some Ivy League school like Thomas did. He always says that it takes higher education to make it in this world. That’s why Talia turned to dancing, because she didn’t think she could make it doing anything else without college.”

  “Did she tell you that?” Of course, there were other ways to make money. Loads of them. Thousands of people made good livings every day without college educations. Better than good in a lot of cases. But...

  “No. I just figured it out for myself.” Tatum shrugged. “Why else would she be dancing...like that...you know?”

  “Well...”

  “Don’t you get it, Sedona? He’s like... I’ve been trying my whole life to live up to his example, to be as good as he thinks I can be because he gave up so much. And now I find out that he’s been lying to me from the very beginning. Like he didn’t think I was even good enough to know the truth. Or like he was ashamed and thought I wouldn’t love him enough. Or maybe he thought I was too stupid to make my own choices and would quit school like he did. I don’t know. I just... It’s like our whole lives...how do I know what else he’s said that’s a lie? I just... There are things...and now I don’t know what to believe and...he let me down, you know?” Her eyes were filled with tears. “And I didn’t even see it coming. Up until then I believed every single word that ever came out of his mouth. I believed in him. I thought he was like...kind of this god, you know? I feel so stupid and...”

  Sedona completely got it. It wasn’t so much that Tanner hadn’t finished school, as that he wasn’t who she’d thought he was.

  And he’d been all she’d had.

  “Is this why you don’t want to go back home? Because you’re not sure you can trust him?” People came and went from the store. Baskets rolled by in the parking lot. And Sedona took a shot in the dark.

  “No!” The immediacy and intensity of Tatum’s response was convincing. “I told you this has nothing to do with anything. You just asked me what went on back there and that’s it.”

  “Being home reminded you?”

  “Walking by his desk reminded me.”

  And Sedona remembered something else. “You said Tanner doesn’t know you know.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So how did you find out?” Had their mother been in touch, after all? Or was there someone else from their past bothering Tatum? Like her father, maybe?

  “I saw an application for a GED tucked away in his desk.”

  Which was somewhat circumstantial, but could have been there for any number of reasons, none of which came immediately to mind.

  “It might not have been his,” she pointed out.

  “It was filled out. It listed the online credential that showed that he’d completed necessary course and testing work and he just had to send it in.”

  “So what were you doing in his desk?”

  “Looking
for Talia’s new phone number. I knew once he found her again, and she crossed over to his side and cut me off, that he’d have a way to contact her.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask him for it?”

  “No. What was the point? He’d already laid down the law where she was concerned.”

  Tatum sounded more resigned and downtrodden than combative at that point.

  “And you didn’t tell him you saw the GED application, either.”

  “No.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Six weeks ago. It was after I met Del and Tanner was already making noises about not liking him and I knew he’d ruined Talia’s love life when she was about my age and figured she’d help me know what to do.”

  Six weeks. A couple of weeks before Tatum ran away to The Stand. But after the first time she’d been hit, according to what she’d told them on the day she’d come to them. She’d been hit twice—a month before she’d arrived, and then again the week prior to her arrival. Those facts were ingrained in Sedona’s mind.

  Tatum had insisted that today’s upset had nothing to do with her reasons for being at The Stand. And now Sedona believed her.

  “How about if we go in and see if there’s anything you need?” she asked, smiling at the girl. “Shopping always makes a girl feel better.”

  Tatum sat still for a moment and then, with a nod and a smile that seemed warm and genuine, opened her car door.

  “He sent it in,” she said, just before they entered the busy store.

  Sedona, whose mind was racing with implications and ramifications, and a bit of her own stupor, as well, said, “What?”

  “Tanner, he sent the application in.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I checked. He had a handful of envelopes to mail right after that and the next day, when I came home from school, I looked in his desk and the application was gone.”

  * * *

  TANNER HATED HIMSELF for his weakness, but five minutes after he’d heard Sedona’s car arrive, he’d stood at the window in the barn that would allow him to see the front driveway, and waited to see them leave again.

  Just so that he could see Tatum at home.

  And see Sedona with her.

  He’d hoped to see Tatum smile. To show some sign that she missed home.

  He hadn’t seen her face as she walked out the door.

  Still, he had seen her.

  The way she’d strutted down the porch stairs, with confidence, but no hurry...he knew that walk. She still felt like this place was home to her.

  He knew all her walks. Her mad stomp. Her hurried skip. Even her fearful rush—the time or two they’d had weather warnings and she’d come running to hide her head in his shoulder.

  So...the place he’d provided was still home to her.

  It wasn’t much. But he’d take it.

  And the next time she came home, she’d have a fresh new welcome—a home that reached out to her from the second she turned into the driveway.

  They’d picked out the paint color together a few years before. A pale yellow with white for accents. He’d tried to talk her into semitransparent stain. She’d wanted neon yellow solid color. They’d settled on her color and his penchant for a more sedate shade.

  He’d rented a sander some time back and the wood, while old, was under roof and in good repair. A trip to the home improvement store and he had the couple of gallons of yellow and the gallon of white exterior latex paint that he needed. Rollers, extension handle, brushes, tray, liners and stir sticks were all out in the barn already—waiting. Left over from the interior work he’d done, mostly to Tatum’s specifications.

  And two hours after his sister had left their home with her attorney, he was dressed in old khakis and a white T-shirt, with yellow paint on the toe of his tennis shoes, rolling new yellow paint on top of old sanded wood.

  He had more pruning to do. Cleaning that needed to be done in the winery and in the house. The pH levels to test. Today, the painting came first.

  And when he heard the car in his driveway, he wanted to pretend to himself that he hadn’t been waiting. For her to call. Or visit.

  He and Sedona were...something. Only a fool would deny the way he felt compelled to follow her every movement when she was around. Or the fact that he slept better the nights they talked.

  Strange thing was, she seemed as captivated by him as he was by her.

  And so he denied himself the right to watch her get out of her car and make her way up to him. He could hear every movement she made, the opening of the car door, its closing, the soft movements of dust with each step she took....

  “You got an extra brush?”

  Unless she’d changed in the two hours she’d been gone, and there’d hardly been time if she’d taken Tatum shopping as he’d asked her to do, she wasn’t dressed for painting. She’d been in jeans that morning but they’d been newer looking. And her short-sleeved top had laced up the front, like a shoe.

  He couldn’t let her paint.

  Turning, Tanner met her gaze in spite of himself. And knew she’d come with a purpose. He didn’t ask what it was.

  “Is it true that she threw up three times in the first week of junior high?”

  “Yes.”

  Sedona’s shoulders relaxed and Tanner felt as if he’d passed some kind of test. But then, that’s what life was, he reminded himself...a series of tests. One after another.

  “So she’s prone to stress-related nausea.”

  He frowned. “She used to be. There haven’t been any incidents in a while.”

  “Not that you’ve known about.”

  True.

  But he should have known.

  “She says the stress of the past month has been getting to her and she leaves class when she feels nauseous but returns as soon as she’s better.”

  This wasn’t just a temper tantrum. Not that he’d really thought it was. But...his baby sister was stressed to the point of nine bouts of a condition he’d thought they’d licked.

  “She knows to take deep breaths and think of being cuddled up in her soft down comforter with someone who loves her watching over her....”

  They’d found the solution together. It had worked.

  “So you believe she’s telling the truth about the absences from class?”

  He studied her. The thick, long blond, wavy hair and blue eyes. And couldn’t deny that she didn’t have to speak for him to hear her.

  “Do you?”

  “I want to.”

  “Me, too.”

  She nodded. So did he. And knew there was more.

  His paint was going to dry on the roller.

  “You don’t talk about yourself much.”

  So this was personal? Not what he’d been expecting.

  “I do.”

  Shaking her head, Sedona picked up a roller and headed to the end of the porch he’d started with. Dipping it in paint, she was down on her knees at the left edge and started to paint with slow even rolls. Just enough pressure. Just enough paint. Taking her cue—and the opportunity to work without further conversation—Tanner moved beside her, back to the right side of the same end of the porch, painting while standing up with the extension rod hooked to his roller.

  “You shouldn’t be doing that in such nice clothes.” No matter how much money she had to replace them.

  “It’s latex paint. A little hair spray or isopropyl alcohol rubbed in before throwing them in the wash, and they’ll be clean as new.”

  Hmm. Good to know.

  He concentrated on the soft brush of paint on wood.

  “You talk about your grapes, your wine, your siblings, but you don’t talk a
bout yourself.”

  They were back to that.

  “You just summed me up. I grow grapes, dabble in winemaking and take care of my sister. There is nothing else.”

  “There’s so much else.”

  Like the searing flood that swept through him at the depth of emotion in her tone. His rhythm faltered, leaving him with an unacceptable bubble of paint.

  He fixed the glitch and moved on. Coating several more floorboards on his half of the porch. Keeping time with her. Deciding that Tatum’s choice, to paint the porch yellow, while unique, was not bad.

  “She knows that you didn’t graduate from high school.”

  Tanner froze. Everything inside and out just stopped. And then his heart pounded. Forcing him to breathe.

  The pole beneath his hands dug into his skin and he couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t do anything but listen to the roaring of his circulation in his ears.

  There were some things that were a man’s business alone.

  Eventually he started to paint again. Because he had to do something. Had to get out of the moment. Leave it behind.

  And not think. He had a right to some privacy.

  “She doesn’t care about your lack of formal education....” The words made him cringe.

  He gripped the pole tighter in his hands.

  “She feels betrayed, Tanner. Lied to. In the most elemental way. She feels like she doesn’t know you. And isn’t sure she can trust you.”

  His heart lurched. He’d never betray Tatum. Never. She was his little angel. The thing that pulled him out of bed every morning.

  He painted. Emptied the tray, poured more paint. And continued. Sedona spoke a time or two. Mentioned that the color was good. And that it looked like one coat was going to do it. He heard her.

  “There was never enough money. I found a guy, Ron—you met him at the wine-tasting—who’d give me work during the day when the kids were in school. That way I could make certain there was food on the table for them and the rent and utilities were paid, and they could have the money they needed for school and other things. Most days I was home by the time they got home from school in case Tammy was drunk or had company. I got in trouble with the truant officer and the courts were going to get involved, which meant they’d split us up. My only option was to take away their truancy card so I quit school.”