by Susan Wiggs
“I don’t need your lectures,” Lila snapped, looking like an MTV groupie. “I don’t need you to tell me I’m a screwup. I don’t need you to tell me I’m grounded forever and how you used to be so proud of me and now you’re ashamed and aren’t I ashamed, too, and that the decisions I’m making now are going to affect the rest of my life and, thanks to my poor choices, I’m cutting off some of my best options—”
“At least we know she listened,” Luz pointed out wryly.
“And if I don’t straighten up and fly right, I’ll end up in a polyester apron and paper hat—”
“That’s enough.” Ian rapped out the order, sounding eerily like the military father he had worked so hard to distance himself from. “Lila—” He stopped short of speaking his mind: I’ve heard death row murderers who were more civil than you. “I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that your whole world has changed overnight. But you’re still our daughter. Your mother and I haven’t discussed specifics, but there are going to be some serious consequences.”
“There’s a surprise,” Lila murmured, unfazed.
Christ, where did she come from, the Jerry Springer show?
The phone rang, then stopped; Jessie had probably picked up.
Scrappy and defiant, Lila dove for her cordless extension. Luz beat her to it. “Hey,” said Lila. “That might be for me. It could be news about my friends. I have to know if they’re okay.”
“I’ll get that information for you. You’re grounded from the phone. Also the stereo, TV and computer.”
“I need to know what’s going on,” Lila protested. “You can’t cut me off from—”
“You cut yourself off, Lila,” Ian pointed out. “When you pulled that stunt, you put all your privileges at risk.”
Her face turned paler than ever. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I did a stupid thing and I’ll never do it again, okay?”
“We agree on one thing—it was stupid.” Luz’s face softened as she put a hand on Lila’s shoulder. “Honey, you’re precious to us, you know that.”
“Anything else?” Lila leaned back out of reach.
Luz dropped her hand, but otherwise made no response to the rejection. “This room needs to change.” Luz started rattling off a list. “I haven’t seen the floor in a year. The deathrock posters come down, and you’re going to paint the walls—they haven’t been done in years.”
“So you’re saying a Nine-Inch Nails poster caused the accident.”
Luz ignored her. “I’m saying the posters go into the trash. You’ll take the bus to and from school. No more riding with friends…” She enumerated the terms of house arrest, and she did so with a cold, controlled and focused fury that even Ian couldn’t match.
Ian watched Lila’s face, which reflected her emotions like the lake on a windless day. He was supposed to be good at evaluating the merits of the case, deciding whether or not justice had been done and persuading others that justice had or had not been served. In the case of his daughter, he felt helpless.
“What makes you think this will change a thing?” Lila demanded. “It will only make me hate you more.”
Damn. She was definitely a Ryder woman, no doubt about that. Tough as rawhide from a longhorn. “Don’t speak to your mother like that.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“At least you’ll be alive to hate me,” Luz said, masking her hurt. “I don’t expect any thanks for this but at least I’ll still have my daughter.” She turned and walked out of the room. Down the hall, the shower came on. That was where Luz cried, where no one could see her, where the water drowned out her sobs.
“Why would she even want me alive?” Lila said, not so adept at hiding her own tears. “She obviously hates me.”
“You know better than that,” Ian said. “We all do.”
CHAPTER 10
“You’re not meant to be alone, Dustin Charles Matlock. You know I’m right.”
“I’m not alone, Mama,” Dusty said into the phone.
“You’re a young man in the prime of life,” she said as though he hadn’t spoken. “It’s time to put the past behind you.”
He eyed Amber, who was building a tower with her squishy blocks across the room. “Yes, ma’am.”
“So anyway, Leafy Willis’s daughter moved to Austin to do her residency, and she doesn’t know a soul—”
“Give me her number, and I’ll call her.” He’d learned long ago not to argue. And a part of him agreed that his mother was right. For Amber’s sake, he needed to get his head out of the past and start living. He was damned lonely sometimes—though not for the oozingly sweet huntresses his mother often sent his way. His widowed state was a babe magnet, but he kept attracting the wrong kind of babes.
She rattled off a phone number. “That’s Tiffani with an i.”
He paused as though writing it down. “Got it, Mama.”
“She’s going to be a neurosurgeon.”
Dr. Tiffani, he thought. With an i.
“Anyway, call her. Take her out for a nice dinner. And you’re still bringing Amber to see me this week, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now, put Amber on.”
“Mama, she doesn’t speak English yet.”
“If you don’t let her talk to her grandma, she’ll never learn,” said his mother. “Let me speak to my granddaughter. I haven’t seen her in two weeks. I declare, son, if you’d moved to Austin like we wanted you to—”
“I’ll put her on.” The last thing Dusty wanted was to argue with his mother about his decision to settle down in Edenville. Holding out the receiver to Amber, he said, “Here you go, short stuff. It’s Grandma Weezy.” His sister’s firstborn had given Louisa Childress Matlock the name, and now all the grandkids called her that.
The baby grabbed the cordless receiver. As always, she had the uncanny ability to hold the earpiece in exactly the right place. Even more uncannily, she said, “Yah.”
Then she cocked her head in a listening posture. Dusty stood back and watched. What did females talk about, anyway? He had been raised in a houseful of women—three high-maintenance sisters and an alpha-mother—so he knew they talked all the time, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recall a single topic of conversation. In truth, he had never really been able to understand the rhythm of a woman’s heart, or comprehend the workings of her mind, and that knowledge made him doubt his ability to raise a daughter. But that was exactly what he was doing. Once Amber learned to speak, what in the world would they talk about?
She babbled earnestly into the receiver, listened some more, babbled some more. Then, growing tired of the game, she set the phone aside and wandered off. Dusty picked up the phone and listened, but apparently his mother had rung off.
Arnufo came in with the mail, dropping everything on the table and heading straight for Amber. At his heels, Pico de Gallo trotted in, pausing to sniff at his food bowl.
“Nah,” yelled Amber, tipping over the tower of blocks as she started toward Arnufo.
“And how is the princesa?” He swept the baby up, eliciting a sweet chortle from her.
“Talkative.” Dusty sat down to flip through the mail. A tall headline on the front page of the Edenville Register caught his eye, and he picked up the paper. Seeing the story in print turned his blood to ice water. “Jesus,” he muttered, scanning the article.
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain in front of your daughter,” Arnufo said.
“Carload of kids flipped over last night out at Seven Hills,” Dusty said. “That’s why I got home so early this morning. The Bennings’ daughter was involved, and Ian was in Huntsville. I had to fly him over to Austin.” The way Ian Benning had looked, meeting him at the airstrip in the middle of the night, would haunt Dusty for a long time. He’d flown the man into a hell every parent dreads. As Dusty so painfully understood, this was the frailty of life. In a heartbeat, everything could change.
His gaze dropped down the page. “One of those ki
ds was killed.” The victim’s name has not been released pending notification of the family. It can’t be Ian’s girl, he thought. No way. But that was the thing about accidents in the middle of the night. You never knew. He stared at the paper, the screaming headline illustrated by a stark photograph of the crushed Jeep. Only yesterday, those kids were doing homework, playing football, sitting down to dinner with their families, arguing with their parents.
Arnufo made the sign of the cross. Amber touched her head with her fist, trying to imitate him. He gave her a kiss, then set her down.
“Hell of a thing,” Dusty muttered, putting the paper aside. “I feel so bad for their families. Goes to show you, kids’ll break your heart every time. You can’t avoid it.”
Arnufo helped himself to coffee, offering a mug to Dusty and a juice box to Amber. “Why would you want to?”
“Because it effing hurts, viejo. That’s why.”
“So what? A true man bears the pain.”
“A true idiot goes looking for it.”
“A true coward avoids it.” Arnufo picked up Amber again, holding her out by both arms as though she were a kitten. “What can you do, eh? Give her away to the gypsies?”
“I can…brace myself, I guess.”
“Look, jefe, I have five daughters. Each one has broken my heart, many times. In this way, they show me I am alive, that I have a heart to break. This is not such a bad thing, eh?”
Dusty studied the full-moon face of his daughter, and Karen’s spirit flashed mysteriously yet unmistakably through the baby’s smile. “No,” he said at last. “It’s not such a bad thing.”
“She will bring you comfort and joy,” Arnufo promised.
“She will bring me sleepless nights and tuition bills.”
“And you will thank God for that.” He gave her a sip of her drink, then set her on the floor.
She was winding down, getting tired, Dusty could tell. Before nap time, she tended to do more crawling than walking, and she usually gave Pico a little peace. He turned his attention to the mail, opening first a large Express Mail envelope from Blair LaBorde. Hell’s bells, he thought. The woman was persistent, he’d give her that.
It was a copy of the Enquirer, folded back to an article with the headline Dead Mother Gives Birth To Healthy Infant. The piece was illustrated by grainy photographs taken at the hospital in Fairbanks, pictures of him stripped of all humanity, pictures of a comatose patient and newborn infant that may or may not have been Karen and Amber. He stared, momentarily uncomprehending. Then he felt everything drain out of him. And finally, the lethal fire of a killing rage sparked inside him.
He crushed the paper into a ball and hurled it away. With the same motion, he picked up the phone and stabbed in a number he now knew by heart. “You’re on my last nerve, Miz LaBorde,” he said when she answered.
“Oh, good, you got my mail.” She didn’t sound surprised. The hound dog had known all along what his answer would be, eventually. “Putrid piece, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t read it.”
“Trust me, it’s putrid. Scrapings from the bottom of a goat roper’s boot.”
“You would know.”
Unfazed, she said, “You’re a stubborn son of a bitch, Matlock. Do you want this to go unanswered? To be the final word on what happened? Look, I don’t know you and I don’t know your story. I only know you have one, and it’s not the version some woman claiming to be your wife’s best friend sold to that rag. Do you want your daughter to grow up and read the wrong version?”
“This’ll be long gone by the time she grows up. It’ll be long gone next week.”
“Maybe, maybe not. People willingly tell lies for money. My publisher’s offering you money to tell the truth. This could secure your daughter’s future.”
He wasn’t even tempted. If he had been, he’d have sold his story to the highest bidder. Instead he had drawn a shell of armor around himself, barring everyone, holding them off. Early on, he’d threatened the hospital if word leaked out. For a time, his privacy stayed intact. But inevitably, the press, in the polished package of Blair LaBorde, had come to call.
“I will secure my daughter’s future,” he said.
“I don’t doubt your intent, Mr. Matlock.”
In his mind, he heard the words Blair LaBorde wouldn’t say, didn’t have to say. Karen would have made the same declaration with the same conviction. I can take care of my daughter. And why not? She was young, strong and healthy; she had every reason to believe she would do just that. The unspoken implication was that Dusty, for all his good intentions and noble declarations, could find himself as helpless as Karen. Anybody could.
His gaze wandered again to the offensive tabloid. That was Nadine Edison’s story, disclosed for money and filtered through the long, grainy lens of intrusion. Amber would grow up and one day she would read about what happened. He hated that this rag was out in the world, that she might come across it.
“What’s an exclusive?” he asked, sounding more weary than angry now.
“You don’t tell your story to anyone but me.”
“No risk of that.”
“I’d only need a couple of days, no more. Maybe just one day.”
He winced, envisioning several long conversations with this woman. “I’ll let you know.” Then he told her a gruff goodbye and hung up.
“You should do it,” Arnufo said, clearly aware of the topic of conversation.
“You should mind your own business.” But Dusty knew he wouldn’t.
“I didn’t know your wife well,” Arnufo said. “But well enough to know she was a practical woman with a heart like a lion. She would think this story was wonderful. And Amber is proof that it is true.”
Dusty couldn’t dispute Karen’s practicality. It had governed all the choices she had made in her life, right down to the last. Her love for him had been uncluttered and clean. She was the most honest person he’d ever met. He could hear her now, her voice a whisper on the wind: They want to pay you for telling an amazing story that happens to be true. How bad can that be?
“It’s sleazy,” Dusty said. “Exploitative.”
Arnufo gestured at the tabloid. “That is sleazy. I like Texas Life. Good photography. Good recipes. Good politics.” He finished his coffee with a sigh of satisfaction, then watched as Dusty paged through the contract that had been enclosed with the article.
“It is the right thing to do,” Arnufo concluded. “You are telling the world of a terrible and miraculous thing that happened to you. The world can use a story like this.”
“I don’t give a shit what the world needs. This isn’t about the world. This is about my daughter.”
“Then tell it right, jefe.” Arnufo headed outside for his cigar. He had a lawn chair and a coffee can filled with sand, and he sat very still, smoking and looking out at the lake.
In the end, it was Karen who made the decision. Amber crawled across the room like an off-road four-wheeler and clung to Dusty’s leg, pulling herself up. The top of her head was even with his knee. She always seemed to have a special patience for him. And she tried, in her instinctive way, to help. Her fists clung hard, and she turned her head to pillow her cheek against his leg, making a little puppylike sound of contentment. Then she tilted back her face, and the wide, innocent eyes that stared up at him were Karen’s eyes, the red Valentine mouth was Karen’s mouth.
A wave of devastating love and protectiveness rolled over him with crushing strength. Amber was proof of how precious life was, and the strange way the world has of offering something unexpected when it takes everything away. He felt Karen’s presence in that moment; he heard her heart beating as his own.
Without taking his eyes off the baby, Dusty reached for the phone.
CHAPTER 11
Jessie appointed herself official taker of phone calls. She wanted to shield Luz and Ian from anxious parents, school people and the local paper. Then a wire service and the Department of Public Safety. Then an insuran
ce investigator. Growing ever more protective of her sister, Jessie set up a makeshift workspace on the deck at the umbrella table. She had a cordless phone, a notepad and pencil, a tall glass of iced tea and her youngest nephew whirling himself sick on a tire swing suspended from a nearby live oak.
Most people she spoke with thought she was Luz. Their voices were remarkably similar, although Jessie’s Texas accent had been altered by little-known New Zealand phrases and cadences.
“I didn’t know Luz had a sister,” said an aggressive-sounding matron from the Halfway Baptist Church.
“I didn’t know she had a church,” Jessie said. There was so much she didn’t know about Luz’s life. Over the years, they’d kept in touch—Luz more conscientiously than Jessie, of course. But more of the phone calls and e-mail conversations consisted of Luz asking about Jessie, not vice versa. She winced, realizing how self-centered she’d been. She’d assumed her life was more interesting than Luz’s and had expounded at length about her adventures. Some of her e-mail messages read like the work of a seasoned travel writer, bringing a place to life for people who would never get a chance to go there.
By the fifth call, she had perfected her spiel. Lila’s injuries were minor, and the hospital had released her. She honestly didn’t know the status of the others, and it really wasn’t her place to give out names. She didn’t know who was driving, or whose car it was.
That part was a lie, of course. It had been Heath, the teen heartthrob, in the guise of Heath the village idiot.
For the most part, the callers were caring, worried, supportive. But some were downright nosy, like the church lady. The straw that broke the camel’s back was Grady “Bird-dog” Watkins, a personal injuries lawyer.
“Are you a friend of the Bennings?” Jessie asked.
“Look, I know this is a difficult time for the family, and I don’t want to see it complicated by financial hardship.”
“Of course you don’t. So you propose to sue the driver, his family, the auto manufacturer, the tire company and the hospital. How’s that for starters?”
