by Dawn Atkins
“How are you holding up?” He looked at her the way he always had, searching, missing nothing, his gaze piercing but tender. He’d understood her without words. As a teenager in the throes of first-love, she’d been wild about that, basked in it, adored it.
Now it made her feel naked...vulnerable.
“Oh, I’m a fighter, too,” she said, forcing a smile. She didn’t want him to see how frightened and small and sad she felt.
“You are,” he said. “I remember.” There was tenderness in his gaze, and delight, and the same flare of attraction she felt. Ten years later. How strange.
“My mother’s not here—”
The curtain rustled and her mother and Joseph stepped in. “So you came,” her mother said archly to Tara, eyebrows lifted.
The insult stung, but a retort died on Tara’s lips at her mother’s appearance. Her eyes were puffy, her usually flawless skin blotched and her blond up-do was smashed on one side. Her cashmere sweater bore a coffee stain. Rachel Wharton didn’t step onto her terrace for the paper unless she looked ready for the cover of Town & Country.
Pity surged through Tara. “I’m so sorry, Mom.” She lurched forward and hugged her mother. The woman went rigid. This was not Wharton family protocol, but Tara didn’t give a damn.
Her mother’s body felt frail, as if her bones might snap under any pressure. Tara released her and smiled, trying to hide her alarm. Her mother’s eyes were too shiny, her pupils too large. She’d taken something.
Her mother had always taken pills—pills to wake up, pills to go to sleep, pills to cheer her, calm her or distract her. Bubble wrap against emotion.
Tara used to raid her mom’s medicine cabinet to give pills to her friends or to sell them for cigarette money. She wasn’t proud of that. Being angry, lonely, sad and hurt didn’t excuse her actions. Dylan had changed her. Sometimes it had felt like he’d saved her.
“They limit us to two visitors at a time,” Joseph said to Dylan, no animosity in his tone. Joseph was gaunt, almost shrunken, his receding hairline prominent against his pale forehead, which was lined with worry.
“I’m leaving,” Dylan said, not reacting to Joseph’s brusque words. “I wanted to reassure you about the funeral, Rachel. I’ve arranged for the band students to be bussed to another high school.”
“Thank you so much,” Rachel said. “I’m sorry you had to intervene. Abbott spent three years on that school board. He should not have to beg to use the auditorium.”
“It was no trouble. Part of the job.”
“The job?” Tara blurted. What did Dylan have to do with the high school and her father’s funeral?
“I’m the Wharton town manager,” he said to her.
“You’re kidding! You don’t work for your dad anymore?”
“I work with him still, yes. But I’m also town manager.”
“Wow,” she said. “Wow.” Twenty-eight seemed young for that kind of responsibility, but Dylan had been a student leader in high school—top grades, all-around good guy...her total opposite.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t sound so amazed,” her mother said. “You’ve practically insulted the man. I apologize for my daughter’s rudeness, Dylan. You do a great job...even part-time.”
Annoyance flickered in Dylan’s eyes, whether at Tara or her mother, she couldn’t tell. “I’m sorry for your loss, Rachel,” he said, then turned to Tara. “And yours. I’m sorry you lost your father.” His words caught her short and her knees gave way. She’d lost her father. He was dead...gone forever. Tara had been so focused on Faye that fact hadn’t sunk in.
“Thank you,” she said. She could tell he’d caught the hitch in her step, though she’d shifted her weight to hide it. Dylan didn’t miss much about her. That hadn’t changed. With a last concerned look at Tara, he told them he’d confirm with the mortuary and left.
“Still blunt, I see,” her mother said to her. Tara’s directness had been her antidote to her mother’s obsession with how things looked, with being proper and polite. That was partly the appeal of Tara’s career, which demanded honesty and openness. The truth, no matter how painful, was always better than a lie.
“It was a simple question.”
“You’re too thin,” her mother said. “And that hairstyle does not flatter your face.”
That means she cares, Tara told herself. “It’s good to see you, too.” None of them would be at their best, she knew. She had to guard against dwelling on old pains or operating on old assumptions. She was better than that. She’d fought for ten years to rise above her past. This would be her test.
Her mother swayed, so Tara helped her into the chair, wondering if she’d taken too many pills.
“I need to get to work,” Joseph said, looking at his watch. “Will you drive Rachel to the mortuary, then home?” he asked Tara.
“Happy to.” She followed him out into the hall. He’d barely told her a thing about the accident. “I have a few questions—”
“Her car’s at the mechanics, but she shouldn’t be behind the wheel as shaky as she is. You’ll likely have to take over with the funeral director. I did what I could.”
“Thank you, Joseph. I appreciate your help. I’m sure things are chaotic at Wharton right now. That’s a lot of weight to carry.”
He softened abruptly at her tone. “Lucky for me I’ve got that home gym, I guess.”
The joke made Tara wince, since she knew Faye had wanted the spare room for a baby. There had been some difficulty, though Faye hadn’t said whether it was a physical problem or a disagreement about becoming parents, and Tara hadn’t pried. Faye was a private person.
“If I can help out at Wharton, I’d like to,” she said.
“Not unless you secretly got an engineering degree.”
He knew full well what she did for a living, but she ignored the slight. “I did help a computer-chip company with the crisis plan that got them through a plant closure.”
“I don’t see how that fits,” he said.
Crisis plans covered executive deaths and other contingencies, but Joseph was too harried and worried to hear that—or for her to mention that Faye had wanted to hire her. “How about if I stop in one day to talk about that?”
“No need,” he snapped, then seemed to realize he’d been rude. “If you’d like a tour, our HR person gives them to our bigger customers. Call ahead.”
“I’d like that,” she said, bristling at his dismissal, though she managed a smile. Rise above. Be your better self.
He turned toward the elevator, but she moved in front of him. “Before you go, can you tell me more about the accident? I really don’t know much.”
“There’s not much to know.” His eyes flitted to the side, avoiding her.
Zing. Her instincts flared. There was more here. She held her tongue, knowing Joseph would be compelled to fill the silence. It was human nature.
He licked his lips, shifted his weight, then blew out a breath. “Evidently Faye was driving your father back from his poker game when it happened.”
“Faye was driving?”
“I know. Abbott was possessive about the Tesla.”
“My father always drove.” It was about control, she knew, not about any protectiveness about a particular car.
“But the Tesla was special. He traded in the Prius early.” Her father was a frugal man who drove his cars forever, no matter how much her mother complained that it made him look cheap. He was never showy about his wealth. Tara had respected that about him.
She remembered something else he’d said that bothered her. “You said evidently. You didn’t know what Faye was doing?”
“I’d gone back to the office. It’s quiet after hours, so I get more done...” He was tense and stiff, which likely meant he was hiding something. Without knowing his baseline gestures, she couldn’t say for sure. Reading micro-expressions was more art than science.
As good as she was at this—her clients sometimes asked if she was psychic—her exha
ustion and distress were interfering with her instincts, not to mention how off she felt returning to Wharton.
“They found her car at Vito’s,” Joseph continued. “Perhaps she was eating there and ran into your father.” The poker game took place upstairs from the Italian restaurant.
“But it was Monday night. That’s Faye’s TV night.” Faye had told Tara about the guilty-pleasure drama she loved and had to watch real-time because she didn’t know how to use the fancy DVR Joseph had bought.
“Then he called her. I don’t know,” Joseph said impatiently. “The point is she lost control on that bad curve where the hiking trail starts, went over the rail, down the embankment and into the trees.”
She knew the spot. Her boyfriend Reed had crashed his motorcycle there the night Dylan had insisted she ride with him because Reed had had a couple beers. They’d found Reed limping along the shoulder. He’d cracked two ribs and broken his collarbone.
Now she pictured her father and Faye flying over the barrier, tumbling down the slope, landing with a crash.
No. Don’t think of that. Focus on what’s wrong. “Why would Dad ask Faye to drive him? Why not one of the poker guys? And why did he need a ride? Had he been drinking?”
“I told you all I know,” Joseph said, barely hiding his frustration. “Ask Faye when she wakes up. If she wakes up.” He took a sharp breath in reaction to his own words, revealing the pain he’d been holding back, then strode to the elevator, where he pounded the button repeatedly with the flat of his hand, face turned away from her.
“She’s a fighter,” she called to him. “Don’t forget that.”
Joseph didn’t acknowledge her words. People so cut off from their emotions frustrated Tara. It was a hot button because, growing up, her parents had shut her out of their lives almost completely. They were all reserved, while she had big, big emotions. She’d trained herself to hold back, but it hadn’t been easy.
She returned to Faye’s room, where her mother sat with perfect posture, carefully avoiding the sight of her daughter’s face. Her poor mother. If Tara could help her, she would. If Faye died, Tara would be all the family her mother had left. She was certain that if her mother had to choose a daughter to lose, it would be Tara, not Faye. There was no sting to that awareness anymore. In fact, it made her feel sorrier for her mother.
CHAPTER TWO
TARA PARKED HER rental car outside the Parthenon Mortuary, which bore a resemblance to the ancient Greek temple it was named for, and went to help her mother out of the passenger seat. Her mother had slept for most of the hour-long drive and seemed groggy, so Tara held out her hand.
Her mother waved her away and forged up the steps with her usual self assurance. They were met by Dimitri Mikanos, the funeral director, with twinkling blue eyes and a bright yellow suit. When Tara introduced herself, he clearly hadn’t realized there was a second daughter, which pinched a little, but, truly, was what she should have expected. All her life, she’d longed to be invisible in Wharton.
The inside of the funeral home was painted bright blue with white trim, as cheerful as its director, which Tara appreciated, considering the gloom of their task. Her mother held it together until Dimitri ran down the list of decisions she had to make—casket color, style, upholstery, flowers, grave markers, clothing. Then she gasped and began fumbling in her purse for pills that spilled from the pillbox, trembling violently.
Dimitri helped her mother to a sofa in a small lounge, then Tara followed him into the casket room to make the selections. The organ music unsettled her, and the decisions were bewildering. Satin or plush, plain or tuck-and-roll, gold handles or bronze, casket spray or standing baskets, on and on.
Tara got through it, her emotions under control, until Dimitri brought out a clothing bag and took out three of her father’s suits that Joseph had brought in. Tara had to choose the one they’d put on her father.
She tensed up, held her breath, but it was no use. It was the shoes that got her—specifically a pair of oxblood wingtips like the ones she remembered from her childhood. Custom-made in Italy, they’d been her father’s favorites. Buy a quality shoe and take good care of it, he’d told her when she watched him polish them. She loved the smell of polish, the circular movements, how shiny the shoes got. She’d begged to go to the shoemaker’s when he had new heels put on. Mr. Vanzetti had brought out a bowl of rock candy—a treat only for good children, he’d said. “Is she a good girl?” he’d asked Tara’s father in his heavy Italian accent. Tara had held her breath waiting for her father’s verdict. When he gave a solemn yes, Tara’s heart had leaped in her chest. She chose a piece that looked like granite and tasted like a grape jellybean...and magic.
She could tell that Mr. Vanzetti had put new heels on the pair she now looked at, and the thought sent grief through Tara in a wave so deep she felt like she had to lift her chin to catch a breath. Her father was dead. She was choosing the clothes he’d take to his grave.
She would never get a grudging nod or even a disapproving glare from the man ever again. “Those.” She pointed. “I’ll get my mother,” she blurted to hide her emotion, practically running down the hall to the small room, where her mother lay sleeping on a gold-embroidered white sofa.
Tara had the fleeting wish she could run into Dylan’s arms again, but that made her feel foolish.
She sat near her mother’s hip. She’d been surprised how devastated her mother seemed by her husband’s death. Her parents had appeared to operate in separate spheres, hardly speaking to each other. Abbott’s life was Wharton Electronics and her mother managed the social and charity functions that suited her role as the wife of the most important man in Wharton.
Growing up, dinners had been quiet affairs, her father an intimidating frown at the head of the table, where he ate in silence, reading the paper or a book, unless her mother was reporting one of Tara’s crimes against the rules of comportment for the town’s leading family. Then he would redden before tersely declaring Tara’s punishment.
Looking at her mother’s face, Tara saw lines that hadn’t been there three years ago when she’d come for Faye’s wedding. Her mother was nearly sixty, so her age had to show some. The veins in her hands were more pronounced, the skin crinkled like parchment.
One day she’ll be gone and you don’t even know her.
The thought startled Tara. Her visits home from college had been short—full of tense silences and brittle exchanges, with her parents lobbing thinly veiled insults about her classes, her major, her appearance and her ideas—so after she graduated, she’d never returned. Why put everyone through that misery? Faye visited Tara twice a year and they spoke often by phone.
Tara had lost the chance to connect with her father, but her mother was right here. Could they make peace? Become friends? That might be too much to ask. But, dammit, she was going to try. The idea filled her with tenderness, hope and a sense of purpose.
She could hear Dimitri speaking to someone in his office, so she sat with her mother for a few more minutes to settle her own emotions.
When Tara heard Dimitri’s office door open, and what sounded like two people saying goodbye, she said, “Mom?”
“Huh?” Her mother jerked to a sit, her face blank, eyes dazed.
“It’s all done. We can leave.”
“Oh. Yes. Well.” Her mother seemed to push past her confusion and gather herself, sitting taller. “I was a bit sleepy.” She tugged her blazer straight, poked a strand of hair in place and arranged her smile. Tara averted her gaze, feeling like she’d accidentally seen behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain, and the Wizard preferred his privacy.
They went to Dimitri’s door.
“You just missed Mr. Ryland,” he said with a smile.
“We did?” Tara asked, her heart jumping a little.
“He arrived just after we finished.”
She’d wished for Dylan to appear and he had. In high school, they’d believed they could sense each other from far away, draw each
other closer by wishing very hard. It made her smile to remember how ridiculously romantic they’d been.
“So it’s official. The auditorium is ours?” her mother asked.
“It is. Our Mr. Ryland gets things done,” Dimitri said.
“I gathered that,” Tara said, looking at her mother, who’d sung Dylan’s praises in the hospital, if in a backhanded way.
Her mother hadn’t minded when Tara started dating Dylan, probably because Tara stopped getting into trouble. Not that Tara and her mother had talked much. Mostly they glared and slammed doors in each other’s faces.
That changed when Tara announced she would be going to Northern Arizona University, the state college Dylan had chosen because of the famous observatory there. Her mother went nuts, railing against Tara choosing a state school when she had more prestigious options, that it was childish to ruin her future over puppy love, which, of course, made Tara even more determined to go there.
Then Dylan changed his mind.
The funeral director held out a card and Tara realized she’d missed why she would need it.
“My email is there,” he said. “To send what you want on the program.”
“Oh. Right. Yes.”
“Where is your mind, Tara?” her mother said.
Lost in the past, where it didn’t belong. She’d better quit that. She needed a clear head and a calm heart to handle what lay ahead—helping her mother, watching over Faye and keeping her business afloat. She had no time or energy to relive lost loves or revisit broken hearts.
* * *
STANDING UNDER AN olive tree in the mortuary parking lot, Dylan looked up from his confirmation text to the bus company to see Tara help her mother into a car. Funny, he’d just been thinking about her.
They used to believe they were so tuned in they could sense each other from across a room...a football field...the whole town.
They’d been so young, so wrapped up in each other.
The embrace at the hospital had been automatic, and it was as if their bodies remembered. She’d melted into him and he’d closed himself around her. He’d felt the same lovesick jolt he used to get when they were reunited after being apart for a few hours.
