Home Before Dark

by Susan Wiggs

Jessie sent her a pained smile.

  The boys were denied dessert as punishment for the chanting.

  “That means she didn’t make dessert in the first place,” Wyatt muttered, thus earning the extra chore of loading the dishwasher.

  Owen and Wyatt were banished to the showers. Scottie grabbed a battered copy of Go Dog Go! and went in search of Lila to read it to him, certain his big sister had forgiven him already. Ian went to get one of the cabins ready for Jessie.

  “Nothing like a nice relaxing meal with the family, is there?” Luz peeled off her apron and folded it over the back of a chair. She grabbed a bottle of red wine and two glasses and led the way out to the deck. “Now comes Merlot time,” she said, imitating the old commercial.

  She lit a citronella candle to keep the mosquitoes away. They sat down in a pair of Adirondack chairs and Luz poured. They weren’t proper red wine glasses, they didn’t match, but they were festive enough.

  Luz held up her glass. “I’m glad you’re back. And stunned.”

  Jessie raised her glass but instead of clinking against Luz’s, she misfired and dumped half the wine on the deck between them.

  “Damn it,” she said through her teeth. “Sorry—”

  “De nada.” Luz gave her a refill. “With four kids, spilled beverages are my life, doncha know?”

  They sipped their Merlot. Across the lake, the sun was a thread of fire on the horizon. The calm waters were glazed in beaten gold, with inky lines wavering across the surface. Lines she didn’t trust. Didn’t know which were real and which were not.

  “Did you call Mom?” Luz asked.

  “No. I suppose I should.” Their mother lived in Scottsdale with husband number four. Stan? No, Stu. Stuart Burns. Jessie had never met him. She made a point not to get too cozy with her stepfathers, since none of them stayed around for long, yet Stu had defied the odds. These days, Glenny was the ladies’ pro on a suburban golf course, and somehow she was just as busy as she had been when she was constantly on the tour.

  Jessie and her sister sat without speaking for a while. There was so much to say that they said nothing, just listened to the sounds of the settling day: water lapping at the shore, bobwhites calling out for reasons no human could fathom, the swish of the wind through the bigtooth maples that grew along the south shore of the lake.

  Luz drew her bare feet up to the edge of the chair and draped her arms around her knees. Her feet were tanned, the nails of one foot painted with pink polish. So much about her seemed half finished—projects, toenail polish, her garden. It was the story of her life. She’d left college before earning her degree to marry Ian and adopt Lila. Jessie wondered if this was a life half-lived, or had Luz left things undone because she had more important things to do?

  Across the water, about a quarter-mile off, a vaguely familiar pickup truck pulled up to a wooden house set in the side of a broad hill. Jessie thought it might be the stranger who had given her directions earlier. “Are you acquainted with your neighbor across the way?” she asked, more concerned with filling the silence than with the answer.

  “Not really. He’s got a little girl about eighteen months old, I think. I heard he used to be a pilot in Alaska, but he moved down here when his wife died or left him or whatever. He’s got a fancy Swiss-made airplane out at the county airpark. Ian’s used his service for work before. His name’s Rusty or Dusty, if I recall.” Luz’s face grew dreamy. “He’s a grade-A hunka burnin’ love, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Luz.”

  “I know, I know. But even we soccer moms have our fantasies.”

  “Is that a floatplane tied to his dock?”

  “Yeah. He does lessons and tours, too, or so I hear. A regular jack-of-all-aviation. Maybe you could get him to fly you over the maples. That is, if you’re going to be around for a while.”

  “Maybe.” Jessie had hoped the wine would help relax the knots in her stomach, but it wasn’t working.

  The quiet lapping of the lake lent a sense of intimacy—though it was probably only imagined—to the moment. Luz didn’t say a word, yet Jessie heard the question as clearly as though her sister had spoken it aloud: Why did you come back?

  The wind licked across the surface of the water and sifted through the maple leaves.

  Jessie took a deep breath. “I wanted—” say it “—to see her.”

  She knew what the next question would be before Luz asked it. Why now?

  “I shouldn’t have stayed away so long,” Jessie said in a rush of nervousness and half-truth. “The years got away from me. But then I realized…” She took a deep swig of wine. Even now, long after she’d come to terms with reality, she was surprised by the terror that gripped her. She was at a crossroads in her life. Leaving Simon wasn’t the only thing that was happening to her, but it had its own sort of importance. Struggling to hide her secret fear, she said, “Ah, hell. Simon and I broke up, and—”

  “And?”

  Not now.

  “Everything went to shit. Nothing seemed right anymore. I wanted to see Lila and meet the boys, and…I missed you.” The truth of it reverberated through her, the breeze shimmering audibly through the trees. “I’m sorry. What more can I say?”

  “You don’t need to apologize. God knows, I’m no saint.”

  “Yes, you are.” Jessie had always known it, ever since Luz had played the Virgin Mary in the fourth grade Christmas play. Jessie, in first grade, had been in the hosanna chorus, with the sacred duty of ringing a bell on cue. She could still picture her sister, robed in blue, kneeling over a basket of straw containing a swaddled doll. Some artistry of lighting had suffused Luz’s face with a glow of maternal piety that made the women in the audience reach for their husbands’ hands, and even the gym teacher had to wipe away a tear.

  Even then, thought Jessie. Even then.

  Of course, their mother had missed the performance. Each December Glenny played in the Coronado Invitational in San Diego. Jessie couldn’t recall which neighbor had looked after them that year.

  “Luz? Is it that bad, that I came back?”

  “No.” She put a trembling hand on Jessie’s. “It’s that…I didn’t really think you’d ever be back. The work you were doing over there sounded so fabulous… Perfect, like a dream.”

  Jessie took her hand away. “It was fabulous and perfect for a long time, but—” She hesitated. “It’s over now.” She gripped the armrests of her chair. “Luz, do you ever think about telling Lila?”

  “Oh, Jess.” The night shadows haunted Luz’s face with mystery and pain. “Of course we’ve thought about it.”

  “But you never said anything.”

  “That was your idea,” Luz reminded her, “and we agreed to honor that. We moved back here when she was three, so there was no chance of someone asking an awkward question in front of her. People still remark on how much she looks like me.”

  “She does look like you.”

  Luz nodded. “Like both of us. Once in a while, someone remarks that she looks like Ian. Can you imagine?”

  Jessie took a swift gulp of wine. Yes. She could imagine.

  “As a matter of fact, I have brought it up. The first time I tried to explain things to her was when I was pregnant with Wyatt. She was four. She asked me if I got so big when she was a baby in my tummy. It was simply beyond me to lie, even to a four-year-old. So I told her she was a baby in another woman’s tummy, but the moment she was born, I became her mommy. She laughed and told me I was silly, so I didn’t push the issue. It seemed cruel to burden her with information that would only confuse her. She never asked again and I’m sure she forgot the incident. And she was always a difficult child, given to taking dangerous risks.”

  “What do you mean, risks? Why didn’t you ever tell me this stuff? It’s not like I was incommunicado—we had letters, e-mail, phone calls.”

  Luz combed her fingers through her hair. “It was nothing that serious, but she’s contributed her fair share of gray. The first thing she d
id when we moved out here was jump off the dock—and she didn’t know how to swim. That same year, she went toddling out to the neighbors’ cow pasture to pet a Charleroi bull. She broke her arm jumping off the Walkers’ barn roof, flapping a pair of homemade wings, because she thought she could fly. I don’t think I let her out of my sight until she started kindergarten. She loves extreme sports, white-water rafting, waterskiing—anything with a high degree of risk. Ever since she was tiny, she’s had a wild streak running through her. I’m not sure why. Maybe because we worried and fussed over her so much when she was born, or—”

  “Maybe she gets it from me,” Jessie said, knowing the thought had crossed her sister’s mind.

  “I won’t take that cop-out,” Luz said. “I got the daughter I raised—that’s how it works. Ian and I aren’t perfect… Ah, Jess. Time slips by so quickly. I was always so busy when the boys were little. Even now, I barely have a moment to go to the bathroom, let alone psychoanalyze my daughter.”

  Jessie’s gut lurched at the words my daughter. Leaning back in her chair, she absorbed the blow. With some barely acknowledged part of herself, she understood that Luz loved the idea of Jessie being fifteen thousand miles away. It was so much easier that way.

  “She’s been getting in trouble at school, acting out, that sort of thing. You saw how she acted toward me. My sweet little fairy child has turned into a demon, skipping school, sneaking out at night, climbing the water tower, rappelling off the train bridge, skinny-dipping in Eagle Lake. I keep telling myself it’s a normal teenage rebellion, she’ll get over it and we’ll all survive, but it keeps getting worse. Her grades are going south, I don’t know her friends anymore. She’s going through all the things you read about in those scary books about adolescents. Ophelia is alive and kicking.”

  “So what are you doing about it?”

  “We’ve been talking to the school counselor, but I don’t know if it’s doing any good.”

  “So does the counselor know—”

  “Of course not. If we haven’t told her, we’re not about to tell some stranger. Only Mom knows, and she’s never, ever mentioned it.”

  “Maybe Lila’s having some sort of identity crisis.”

  “She’s fifteen and a half. Everything is a crisis when you’re that age.”

  Evening light fell over Luz. How different she was now. Yet how much the same. Over the years Luz had sent dozens of beautifully composed photos. Innumerable portraits and informal snapshots infused with the rich honesty that was Luz’s trademark. Most pictures showcased the kids, but a few had featured Ian. He was always playing with them, flying kites, setting off homemade rockets, running along beside one of the boys on a new bike, paddling a boat. Luz’s place had always been behind the camera. Like Jessie, she’d studied photography in college, and her photos were remarkable and crystal clear. Photography had been a passion for both sisters. Yet Luz had given up her ambitions to raise a family.

  Jessie stood and stretched her arms toward the sky, arching her back. “I’m going to hit the hay. I don’t even know what day it is.”

  Luz stood up and hugged her. “Ah, the jet lag. You must be bushed. I’ll let you get to bed. Ian took your luggage over.”

  In the house behind them, lights glimmered in the windows, and the low hum of the air conditioner swished through the gathering twilight. The thump of rock music vibrated from one of the upstairs windows.

  At the path to the cabin, Luz paused and squeezed Jessie’s hand. “How long are you planning on staying?”

  “I don’t know. Look, if it’s a problem—”

  “Of course it’s not a problem. You belong here for as long as it feels like home to you.”

  Jessie squeezed back, even as she bit her tongue. She’d never tell Luz, but this place had never felt like home to her. No place ever had. “I don’t know what’s next for me.” It was probably the most honest thing she had said all night. “I called Blair LaBorde as soon as I landed in Austin.” Blair was an old friend from the University of Texas, a fiercely ambitious failed debutante who didn’t give a flip about the genteel past. After finishing her doctorate, she taught for a few years, then became the star writer of a glossy popular news magazine called Texas Life, working out of the Austin bureau.

  Jessie was aware of the irony of looking for an assignment at this point, but she needed all the work she could get, and she needed it now. More than that, she needed the solace of work, which for so much of her life had been a refuge from issues she didn’t care to face. When she took pictures, she could disappear into the camera lens and travel to sharp-edged, dramatic places where the real world turned into fantasy.

  “You called Blair but not me?”

  “I had to let her know I could use some work.”

  Luz relaxed a little; Jessie knew her sister understood practical matters all too well. “With her connections, she’s bound to have tons of assignments.”

  “That’s what she said. When I mentioned Edenville, she found a dead lead for a local story, and promised to see if she could revive it.”

  “Then it’s as good as done. I wonder what it’s about?” They stopped at the bumpy path that led to the three cabins on the property. “Not exactly the five-star hotels you’re used to, is it, Jess?” Luz asked.

  Jessie laughed, shaking her head. “You have an inflated view of my glamorous international lifestyle.”

  “At least you have a lifestyle.”

  “At least you have a life.” Jessie laughed again as she said it, but she could feel the tension thrumming between them, as fresh as if she’d never left.

  CHAPTER 4

  Carrying the half-full bottle of wine and a borrowed glass, Jessie made her way along the path through the woods. She was eager for bed, hoping to push past the dizzy exhaustion of jet lag.

  When she was little, the forest had held a thousand unseen terrors for her, and if she had to cross the woods at night, she would hold her breath the whole way for fear of inhaling the evil spirits that inhabited the darkness. She found herself holding her breath now, and the same old terror clawed at her, but unlike that frightened little girl with the messy braids, she knew what scared her. It was a lot more real than monsters hidden amid the sighing maples, shaggy mesquites and bony live oak trees.

  Ian had brought in her bags and turned on a couple of lights and the window unit. Manufactured air that smelled faintly of mildew blew gently into the room. The cabin had a kitchenette, sitting area with a lake view and small bedroom and bathroom in back. A little, contained world, one that held neither threat…nor hope.

  “Hello,” she called out.

  “In the bedroom,” Ian said.

  “Then I’ve got you right where I want you.” Although everything had changed, Jessie forced herself to tease like the fun-loving girl he’d known so long ago. In the pine-paneled room, she found her sister’s husband struggling with a hyper-elasticized mattress pad that didn’t quite fit the queen-sized bed.

  “Right,” he said, flashing her a grin. “Give me a hand with this, will you?”

  She eyed the messy wad of bedclothes. “But you were doing so well on your own.” She grabbed a corner of the mattress pad and wrestled it in place. On the other side of the bed, he did the same. But each time they got one corner covered, the opposite one sprang loose. Finally Ian lay spread-eagled on top of the thing, holding down the corners while Jessie tucked them in place.

  “The things I have to do to get a guy in bed,” she muttered, finally succeeding with the mattress pad. She wrinkled her nose. “You were right earlier—you do smell like yard work.” They worked together in companionable silence, and she was grateful for the ease she felt with her brother-in-law. There was a time when the two of them hadn’t gotten along at all…and a time, before that, when they had gotten along too well. Now they simply got along, because to do anything else would upset Luz.

  Everything about Ian Benning was larger-than-life—his looks, his voice, his laughter…his passion. Tha
t was what had drawn Jessie to him, so long ago, before he’d ever met Luz. Ian and Jessie had never loved each other, but youth and appetite had sustained them through a brief, incendiary affair that had flared up quickly, then burned to ash just as fast.

  She and Ian never talked about that time and no one knew about it, not even Luz. It was all so long ago, she rarely thought about it. Especially since her heart guarded a larger secret, something even Ian didn’t recognize.

  He had been a third-year law student at UT, and Jessie a hard-partying photojournalism major who looked older than she was. Their affair had been simple biology at work, and Jessie had been known to base relationships on shakier foundations than that. She’d met him at a campus party and slept with him that night. For about three weeks, he was everything she’d ever hoped for—physically. But when not directly groping each other, they didn’t have much in common. He thought experimental theater was something found at the Doyle Center on Sixth and Pine, and she thought a capital case was a character on her keyboard. They never officially broke it off, but in the middle of week three, as if by mutual agreement, they stopped seeing each other. She flung herself into a photography project taught by Simon Carrington, a visiting professor from New Zealand. She was fascinated by both the subject and the man.

  Not long afterward, Luz fell in love. He’s perfect, Jess. I can’t wait for you to meet him. And he’s a law student….

  To their credit, Ian and Jessie covered their shock that first meeting. If Luz noticed the startled looks, the red-eared remembrances, the guarded glances, she never let on. When Jessie shook Ian’s hand, she recalled that hand caressing her bare skin. When he gave her a fleeting smile, she remembered the taste of his mouth. It felt weird as hell. Not exactly like incest, but like some sort of secret that had no name.

  Neither Jessie nor Ian ever said a word to Luz. Even then, they wanted to protect her because the idea of upsetting her was unthinkable. They both loved her, both wanted to safe guard her from the mistakes of the past.

  “Where are you, Jess?” he asked, drawing her back to the present. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”