Healing Waters (34 page)

In answer, she pulled a piece of paper out of the folder she'd brought and handed it to him. It was a list all right, typed, complete with bullets. And he'd expected her to show up telling him to forget it, that he was full of soup.

He grinned. “So, how was it for you, making this?”

She looked slightly annoyed.

“Seriously. I'm as interested in the process as I was in what you wrote down. Was it as easy as falling off a log? Or more like pulling out your own molars?”

“I procrastinated,” she said. “And then once I started—” She looked straight at him. “It was like pulling out my nose hairs, one by one, with red-hot tweezers.”

“Holy crow!” Sully said.

“You asked,” she said.

“I did. I'm sorry it was that painful.”

She gave him a squinty look. “I don't think you're that sorry.”

“Therapy does seem a little sadistic sometimes.”

“I told you, I'll do whatever I have to for Bethany. The more I'm with her, the more I find out that just rips my heart out.”

“I
am
sorry about that,” Sully said. “So tell me about what you wrote here.”

She pointed in the general direction of the first item.

• my first dance lesson

“How old were you?” Sully said.

“Five. My grandmother took me.”

“She was important to you, your grandmother.”

He watched her swallow.

“The most important person in my life.”

“What about your parents?” He glanced at the list. “I don't see them on here.”

“They were parents. You know. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. My father was an iron worker.”

That much Sully knew. Sonia had made their father's loss of career due to alcohol public knowledge, part of her rising up from a bad start in life. He just wanted to hear Lucia's take on it.

She didn't give him one.

“So you liked the dance lessons,” Sully said.

“Loved them. I was good—so they told me.” She frowned down at herself. “Hard to believe now, right?”

“Why would it be? I can see you as a dancer.”

“I'm ready to move on to number two,” she said.

Sully looked back at the list, where she'd written:

• Sonia's singing voice was discovered

• Grandma Brocacini died

• Sonia went on the audition tour

Holy crow.

“So—what do I do with this?” she said.

“I'll tell you what I see.” Sully pulled his feet up to sit cross-legged, knees sticking out like cricket legs over the arms of the chair. “I think Sonia would win at
Family Feud
. She would probably say most of these same things about
her
childhood.”

Lucia gave a soft grunt. “Sonia's childhood was my childhood. When they discovered how well she could sing, everything sort of revolved around that.”

No bitterness bit at her voice. That bothered Sully.

“How old was Sonia then?”

“Five.”

“And you were how old?”

“Ten.” Lucia looked upward, fingers on her chin. “I was playing a record in my room, practicing pirouettes, and Sonia was watching me. I had a solo in the recital coming up. Grandma Broc was making my costume.” She knotted her mouth. “You said you wanted details.”

“I love it.”

“I was thinking about the tutu I got to wear, and Sonia started singing with the record, making up words, which she'd never done before. It wasn't this sweet little kindergarten chirp. She just belted it out like she was trying out for Broadway. I was, like, ‘Could you hold it down? I'm trying to dance here'—but my mother tore into my room, and I remember she had a potato and a peeler.”

She stopped and looked at Sully. “You really want to hear all this?”

“I'll let you know if I get bored.”

“It couldn't have been more than a few days later that they started her in voice lessons.”

Sully studied the list. “Where in this timeline did your grandmother die?”

“About two days after the big discovery.”

“So Grandma Broc didn't get to see you in the recital.”

“I wasn't in the recital.”

“Why?”

“The funeral, and nobody could finish the costume.” Lucia churned slightly in the chair. “It didn't matter, because when she died, so did the lessons, because she always paid for them.”

“Who paid for Sonia's voice lessons?”

“My mother got a part-time job at a needlepoint shop. Crewel work was big back then, and she taught classes, that kind of thing.”

“But she didn't make enough to pay for your dancing lessons.”

“I know where you're going with this,” Lucia said. “I recognized a long time ago that Sonia got more than I did, but she was the one with the talent.”

“People said you were a good dancer. Did your parents think you were, by the way?”

She gave him the wry smile. “When I made the dance team in fifth grade, my mother told me she was proud of me—and surprised.”

“Oh?”

“She said I was the only one with meat on my bones—all the other girls were such skinny little things—and yet I could still keep up with them.”

Sully felt his heart turn over.

She shrugged. “Anyway, I wasn't going to make a career out of it. Sonia was.”

“They knew that then?”

“My mother did. She got Sonia all these auditions for shows and commercials, and when she finally got a part in a regional production of
Annie
and the review was all over what a powerhouse voice she had and how the world would be hearing from her in the big time, that was it. Mother homeschooled her so they could go on the road anytime an opportunity came up.”

“She was a real stage mom, huh?”

Lucia rolled her eyes. “She was insufferable.”

He was glad to see at least that much resentment. Something about all this resignation nagged at him.

“What about your father?” he said. “Was he on board with all that?”

Lucia almost smiled then. “My dad was—well, it wasn't like he had a whole lot of choice. My mother just always did exactly what she wanted to do when it came to Sonia.”

“And what happened for you while Sonia and your mother were off chasing stardom?”

“I stayed home with my dad,” she said. “We ate a lot of pizza. In fact, we became experts on which pizza place made the best sauce, the thickest crust. Until I got sick of it and started cooking.”

“At what age?”

“Probably twelve. I found some of Grandma Broc's recipes, and I figured if I could read, I could cook, so . . .”

“How did you feel about that?” He cringed inwardly. He sounded like a shrink.

But Lucia looked up with a flash of realization in her eyes. “I think I was relieved.”

“Really. How so?”

“With my mother gone, I didn't have to listen to her and my father scream at each other. They were both Italian, so they were emotional anyway, and they fought about everything. There wasn't any syrup for my father's pancakes, there wasn't enough money for Sonia's dance lessons . . .”

“
Sonia's
dance lessons?”

“You don't get on Broadway just because you can sing. You have to be able to dance, act, walk on water. But at least when Mother was away they didn't fight.”

Sully waited for some indignation to spark. When it didn't, he said, “You and your father got along.”

“When Mother wasn't there. When she was, we just didn't talk to each other that much. He went to work, and then he went to the bar, and then he came home soused and fought with my mother and went to bed.”

“Did he go to the bar when she was out of town?”

Lucia shook her head. “No, he came home with the groceries, and I cooked and we watched
Different Strokes
and
Facts of Life
while I did my homework. Oh, and the Olympics. I remember we watched the whole Olympics together, especially the ice skating. It was like dance to me.”

“Did you miss dancing?”

“I danced when they were gone—just in my room to my tapes.”

Her voice grew thin, and Sully wondered if she had ever opened up even this much to anyone since Grandma Broc died thirty years ago. What he wouldn't give for the luxury of spending six months just sifting through all this . . .

“You did great with your list, Lucia,” he said.

“All it tells me is that I had to give up my childhood for Sonia, which I basically already knew. How does that help me with Bethany?”

Her eyes locked with his.

“That's it, isn't it?” she said. “Bethany has had to give up her childhood for Sonia too.” She sat up in the chair, and her face came alive under the torch flicker. “Then what I'm doing is right—I'm giving her a childhood.” She held up both palms. “That's why I'm here—so you can help me not mess it up.”

Sully closed his eyes. Dang. This was the part he didn't like— where he had to burst that first bubble.

“What?” she said. “No ding-ding-ding?”

“How about a ding and a half?” Sully said. “You're absolutely right that both you and Bethany had to give up too much for Sonia. And you're halfway there when you say you need to provide whatever you can to make sure Bethany gets to be a happy little girl.”

“I know it's only until Sonia is well enough to be a mother to her again. I know that.” Lucia shook her head. “But isn't it going to be awhile before she's emotionally ready?”

“Could be, yes.” He wondered what had happened to the twenty-three-day countdown. “But that's not exactly what I'm talking about.”

“Then what the Sam Hill
are
you talking about?”

He didn't stop to savor the anger. “I'm talking about the fact that if you replace giving yourself up for Sonia with giving yourself up for Bethany, she's going to end up just like her mother.”

Lucia searched his face so hard, Sully could almost feel her yearning digging through him. He'd never seen a client try so hard to understand.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “You're going to have to explain that to me.”

“Here's the deal,” he said. “I haven't heard your whole story, but from what little I know, I'm convinced you have lived your life for ‘them.' Your mother. Your father. Your sister. Now for Bethany.” He gave her half a grin. “I recall from a conversation we had one evening that you are into pronouns.”

“Pronouns?” she said. But her face colored. She remembered.

“You liked the sound of
we
, and so far we—you and I—have been a pretty good team dealing with Sonia. But I sense that you aren't used to
we
. You've always lived for
them
, and it's hard to be part of
we
without caring a whole lot more about
I
.”

“What game show is this?” she said.

“This would be
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
, where we set you up with a whole different life.” Sully grinned all the way. “Only it's not a house, it's a new way of looking at yourself—as
I
, a valuable, significant person created by God—not just as someone who can do a whole lot for
them
.”

Before she even seemed able to begin to absorb that, Sully heard the door to the deck open and slam into the side of the house. Right on cue.

He looked up in disgust and saw Marnie hanging halfway over the deck railing.

“Lucia!” she screamed. “It's Sonia—you have to come here!”

Sully would have turned to Lucia and named it Exhibit A—if he hadn't heard the glass shatter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

W
e both tore to the deck at full tilt, where Sullivan pushed past me and disappeared inside the house through the French door. I didn't even get to it before I heard the shattering again, closer and more alarming. By the time I crossed the living room, crashes were cascading like an avalanche.

Everything turned surreal as I took the last corner into the foyer and plowed into Sullivan's arm held out as a barrier. My sister stood in the center of the entryway in a gold silk dress that hung haphazardly off one shoulder, with the copper cross from over her bed clutched like a sword in her raw hands. All around her lay shards of the mammoth mirror, their shattered edges pointing accusingly at her walls and her treasures and herself.

Behind me, Marnie screamed.

Sonia didn't look up, but she said to the wreckage around her, “Yes, I'm hideous, aren't I? I'm hideous.”

Sullivan leaned his head down until his lips were next to my ear.

“Dr. Ukwu's number is in my cell phone. Text him and tell him to meet me at Vanderbilt emergency. Then I might need you to call 911. We'll see.”

He pressed his phone into my hand and took a small step toward her. Glass crackled under his sandal.

“Sonia,” Sullivan said. “Honey, it's Sully.”

He used a Southern accent I'd never detected in his voice before. “I want you to let me carry you out of there before you cut your feet, okay?”

“It doesn't matter, Sully,” she said. Her accent was gone.

“It matters to me,” he said. “It matters to God.”

“I hate God!”

She swung the cross, barely missing the side of Sully's head. He caught it in one hand as she tried to swing it back, and he grabbed her wrists with the other.

“Lucia!” he shouted over her screams. “Make that call!”

As he lifted my thrashing, cursing sister out of her ruins, I dialed 911.