Home Before Dark (31 page)

Lila watched the shiny green van with the bird logo on the side roll away toward town. They hadn't even asked her if she wanted to go to the golf course and Dairy Queen. Not that she would have accepted, but it would have been nice to have the option. Typical. Getting spoiled by grandparents, even funky ones like Miss Glenny and Grandpa Stu, was apparently something else she had outgrown.

Turning from the window, she surveyed her room. True to their word, her parents had made her take down the posters, pick up the mess and keep it that way. Privately she admitted that she preferred her room uncluttered and bright. The only decorations were photographs she had taken herself. Her mother had shown her how to use some of Aunt Jessie's cameras, and Lila had a pretty good eye for taking pictures. But now it seemed sort of creepy, because she knew why Aunt Jessie had left all the photographic equipment behind.

It was a shock, what Mom had discovered about Aunt Jessie. Lila had never known a blind person before. Wandering over to the computer, she read the article she'd found about
AZOOR. Acute zonal occult outer retinopathy. According to some famous doctor at Vanderbilt, the condition started with flashing lights and an enlarged blind spot. The visual loss would spread, sometimes to total blindness in both eyes, and sometimes there were even hallucinations. Mom said AZOOR wasn't hereditary. Lila didn't think you could catch something from your aunt, anyway.

Jessie had used what little was left of her diminishing vision so well it seemed as though she could see. Lila had never guessed. Then again, she wouldn't have noticed an air raid if it didn't directly affect her. She vowed to pay closer attention to the people in her life, to care about them more.

She focused on her favorite photograph of Andy Cruz, showing him geared up at the fire station. He liked her, had said so right out. He didn't play games like other guys. When she talked to him about the accident, and he told her it wasn't her fault, she almost completely believed him. Almost. She just wished she could hang on to that belief when she woke up sweating in the middle of the night, her mind screaming with flashbacks.

A light tap sounded at the door.

“Yeah?” Lila called, sitting down at her mirrored vanity. She had been planning on trying out a new tube of mascara. Sable Dreams.

“Honey, can we come in? Your dad and I want to talk to you.”

Lila felt a prickle of unease. Usually these talks meant nothing good. “Sure,” she said, breaking out the mascara and twisting the wand.

The door opened and in walked her parents. They looked worried.

“Is it something else about Aunt Jessie?” Lila asked.

“Sort of.”

“Is she coming home?”

“Dusty went to see her. We all hope she'll come back with him. But…what we've learned from this terrible thing with Jessie is that it's destructive to keep secrets from the people you love.”

Lila took out the mascara wand and held the bristled end to the light. “Look, if this is about that progress report, I've been meaning to tell you—”

“It's not about the progress report.” Her mom glanced at her dad. “It's really not even about secrets. It's something we haven't told you yet. We've been putting it off.”

Great. Mom was pregnant again. Lila thrust the wand back into the tube with an angry shove. Mom had no idea what it had been like last time for Lila, to have a pregnant mother at her age. Keeping her face expressionless, she set down the mascara tube and tucked her hands between her knees, waiting.

Mom sat down on the papasan chair across from her. Dad stayed by the door as though he wanted to flee. He probably did.

“Well,” said Mom with a wavering smile. “I don't quite know where to start. That's one reason we haven't had this conversation.”

“What conversation?” Lila asked, losing patience. “You're the only one who's talking and you haven't said anything yet.”

Dad's face turned hard, and Lila waited for the expected rebuke:
Don't take that tone with your mother, young lady.
But he surprised her by saying nothing.

So she waited, mystified and unsettled by her mother, who was usually so sure of herself no matter what. Then a horrifying thought smacked Lila over the head. “Oh my God, Mommy, are you sick like Aunt Jessie?”

“No,” Mom said with reassuring swiftness. “But Aunt Jessie
is…part of this.” She seemed to get over her hesitation then. “Dad and I have loved you since the moment you were born. Completely, with every bit of our hearts.”

“Okay,” said Lila. She wouldn't argue with that. Sometimes she felt completely smothered by love from her mother. There was a whole archive of pictures, starting with the preemie ward where Lila had lain in a special crib, small as a fingerling trout. Her parents had hovered near every second—at least that was the impression she had.

“The fact is, I didn't actually give birth to you, sweetie. Daddy and I adopted you.”

Nothing. Lila felt absolutely nothing. The words were not real to her. They sort of hung in the air like a strange fog, and in a moment, the wind would come and blow them away.

Her parents stared at her with an expectancy about ten times as intense as when report cards came in the mail. “Sweetie,” Mom began.

Lila's arm shot up like a raised sword. Dad held on to Mom's shoulder. He, unlike Mom, understood what lay in the valleys of the silences. Lila appreciated that about him. She couldn't hear this, not now. She needed silence, complete silence, in order to take in this thing her mother had thrown at her. She would have to inhale it like germ warfare, or swallow it like a foreign body, and later take it out, poke at it and study it like a lab specimen, cut it open and find out what lay at its heart. But right now, she rejected what she'd heard on every level.

It simply couldn't be. That's all there was to it. Adoption was for people who couldn't have babies. Her mother had babies all the time. Lila had seen it with her own eyes. Mom's belly got huge, and out came a baby, and the whole house smelled like diapers and throw-up for months afterward. That's how it happened in this family.

Wasn't it?

She swallowed once, twice. Found her voice. “What are you saying? Are you crazy?”

“I'm saying I'm not your birth mother. Daddy and I adopted you. It's not really a secret and there's nothing shameful about it. But years ago we all agreed that you are our daughter in every way that matters, so it never really came up. It's not something we even think about. It's simply not an issue.”

Adopted.
That was what you told your brother when you wanted to make him cry. Lila tried to make sense of this totally bizarre development. She'd always known that her parents had only been married a few months when she came along. That was no big deal. But the fact was, her family took pictures. Every event, from the time Mom got her first camera at the age of ten, had been carefully recorded by Mom or Aunt Jessie. And now that she thought of it, they didn't have one single picture of Mom, pregnant with her.

She looked from one parent to the other. This was impossible. She was a Benning. She looked like her mother. She looked like her brothers. Some people even said she looked like her father. She had the same red hair and green eyes as Miss Glenny, as her mom, as—

“Sweetheart,” Mom said, “your birth mother is Aunt Jessie.”

With a vicious twist, Lila reopened the mascara. Swiveling around on the stool, she leaned toward the mirror and applied the thick, sticky mascara to her eyelashes. She caught a glimpse of her face in the vanity mirror. She could hear them speaking—her
adoptive
parents—and none of the things they said surprised her. Jessie had been young, unattached, all set to travel the world, they said. Mom and Dad were settling down, starting a life.

“You fulfilled us in every way,” Mom said, with that little hitch in her voice. “You made us a family. We're sorry we
went so long without telling you. Jessie wanted it that way. I kept thinking it didn't matter. How could it matter? From the first moment we made this decision, I thought of you as mine in every way.”

Lila hardened her heart. They had kept her from knowing the biggest secret in the world. Who she was.

She swiveled back on the stool. Her face felt like stone, her chest hollowed out. “Who's my father?”

“Back when you were born,” said Dad, “Jessie put ‘unknown' on the birth certificate.”

Unknown.

“Lila, sweetie.” Mom crossed the room and took her hand. “Just before she left in November, she finally told us.”

Dad went down on one knee in front of her, like he was genuflecting, and turned the vanity stool so she had to face him. “Listen, a long time ago, before I ever met your mom, I went out with Jessie a few times and then quit seeing her. I never knew—”

Oh God oh Jesus. Lila stared at him, wide-eyed, and slowly blinked, the fresh mascara gumming her lashes together. “You mean…you and Aunt Jessie—” She couldn't continue. She was gagging on the words.

Lila took her hand away from her mom's. Not rudely. This wasn't the sort of thing you were rude about. This went so far beyond rude, she couldn't imagine how to respond.

“We want you to be okay with this,” her dad said.

Her dad? Which dad? The one who'd married her mother or the one who'd screwed her aunt?

How could she look at them now, either of them, with out wondering about the other part of her, that biological part that belonged to one but not the other. Aunt Jessie—her mother—wanted no part of her. Aunt Jessie had gone away
and had a fabulous life, and she only came back when blind ness destroyed her.

“You want me to be okay with this,” she repeated slowly, hoping to bring out the absurdity of the request. “Sure, I'll be okay, knowing you never trusted me enough to tell me the truth.”

“It's not a matter of trust,” said Mom. Then she said something totally unexpected. “I was afraid, Lila-girl.”

No way, thought Lila. Her mother was the most fearless person on the planet, everyone knew that. “Afraid of what?”

“That you would turn to Jessie, be dazzled by her lifestyle and feel deprived.”

“Yeah, right. You must think I'm shallow as a mud puddle, to turn my back on my real parents and fall for somebody who walked away from me the day I was born.” Lila spoke in anger but she could see her meaning beginning to penetrate.

She heard a car pull up in the drive and knew it was Andy, giving her a lift to the fire station to set up for tomorrow's pancake breakfast fundraiser. It was something her mother would do, organize a pancake breakfast, but Lila surprised herself by enjoying it.

“Anyway,” she said, “you're crazy if you ever thought I wouldn't love you the same, respect you the same, trust you to be there to catch me when I fall.” She stood, put the mascara in her purse. “I've got to go now.” Impulsively she kissed her dad on the cheek and hugged her mom, feeling their astonishment. “What?” she said. “Did you think it was going to rock my world? I'll be back by suppertime.”

She ran downstairs and outside, half diving into Andy Cruz's pickup truck. “Go,” she said. “Hurry.”

He eyed her sideways as he pulled out of the drive. Just being with him made her feel good about herself. Different
from Heath Walker. With Heath, she'd had to be “on,” had to appear a certain way. With Andy, she didn't have to worry.

“You all right?” he asked. “Is it something with your folks?”

“I'm fine. Everything's just fine.” And then she looked out the window and watched the landscape smear past. She wondered if the new mascara was waterproof.

“You look terrified,” said Dusty, slowing the car as he drove Jessie down the last incline to Broken Rock.

“Well,
duh.
”

“Duh,” said Amber, wedged into her car seat.

“This is a mistake,” said Jessie, tamping down a flutter of panic.

“No,” Arnufo said, from the back seat beside Amber. “If you had not agreed to come back here, your bossy sister would have come for you with the
reata.
”

Jessie slid her hand across the seat of the new-smelling car and found Dusty's thigh. The roomy car was just one of the adjustments he'd made for her sake. A car could accommodate Jessie and Flambeau in addition to Amber and her car seat.

My God, she thought. What sort of man could love like that, with such certainty?

She knew what he was pushing her to do. She couldn't commit to him, to anyone or anything, until she fixed things with her family. She wasn't sure she could do that. For the first time in her life, though, she was ready to try.

As a car inched down the hill, she said, “So tell me what I'm getting into here.”

“It's all set up for a party on the deck,” Dusty said. “There's a banner that says Welcome Home Jessie strung from the live oak, and there are helium balloons tied to pretty much everything. I guess your folks are staying in the big cabin. Looks as though cabin number two has been made up for you.”

Jessie braced her hand flat against the dashboard. “Wait a second. I assumed I would be spending the weekend with you.”

Dusty stroked her cheek. “I don't want to spend the week end with you.” Before she could reply, he added, “I was thinking of something more along the lines of your whole life.”

She couldn't speak. Her mind bounced everywhere. In his aw-shucks, good-old-boy way, Dusty was as stubborn as she was. He was the only person she'd ever met who would not be manipulated by her.

Arnufo made a grunt of satisfaction. Somewhere outside, Beaver barked and Flambeau snapped to attention. “Easy, girl,” Jessie said.

“The coonhound is confined to the dog run,” Dusty said. “Okay, now everyone's coming out onto the porch. They're all smiling.”

“Luz, too?”

“Yeah. Luz, too.”

Jessie and Luz had spoken on the phone the previous night. They'd finally told Lila she was adopted and Ian was her natural father. Jessie had no idea how to feel about this news. That was what she'd come here for last fall, but now that it was done, she didn't know how she felt. She had asked Luz how Lila took the disclosure.

“She took it. Nothing I do or say thrills her these days, you
know that. But her head didn't explode or anything. Just come home. You need to see her. And Mom's dying to see you.”

“Your mother looks exactly like she does on TV,” Dusty said. “I guess that's her husband in the chair beside her.”

“Stuart. She married him in Vegas a few years ago. I've never met him.”

He parked the car and Amber babbled with excitement while Arnufo got her out of her seat. The baby had grown so much during Jessie's absence. But Amber remembered her. The moment Dusty had put her in Jessie's arms, she'd clung with innocent and absolute trust.

Jessie had decided to have a sighted guide rather than make Flambeau work during her visit. All the new people and excitement were enough for the dog to handle. She opened the passenger door and stood, then let the dog out, feeling the strong body pour out onto the ground. Flambeau paused at her side, alert and awaiting orders. “It's okay, girl,” Jessie said, and turned toward the house. The weather had taken a sudden turn, and warm currents of springtime rode the air.

“Ready?” Dusty offered his arm. Then he all but shoved her forward.

She could hear everyone shuffle their feet in nervous anticipation, and she wanted to scream at them. She thought of the last time she'd shown up here, breaching Luz's fortress against the world, whirling into their lives after a fifteen-year absence. She pictured them standing there, all lined up along the porch, probably holding their breath. Beside her, Flambeau made distinct chuffing noises, and in his dog run, Beaver bayed deeply.

“You hush,” yelled a voice.
Luz.

Jessie's palms were drenched in sweat. She wanted—needed—to pray but only the most childish of thoughts streamed out. Please God, get me through this.

The screen door of the porch opened with a creak and shut with a snap.

The idea of this whole family waiting for her, paralyzed by uncertainty, made Jessie burst out laughing to keep from crying. “Oh, for Christ's sake,” she said, holding out one arm. “If somebody doesn't speak up, I'm going to run smack into you and then you'll be sorry.”

She heard footsteps. Two strong hands closed around hers and Jessie felt herself pulled into her sister's arms. Luz. Oh God, Luz. Jessie's throat went tight as she hugged her sister.

“You idiot,” said Luz, hanging on. “You crazy old thing. I cannot believe you went away like that and never said a word.”

“Sure you can,” Jessie whispered. “It's my specialty.”

“That's going to change.”

“Why are you crying, Mom?” asked Scottie.

The sound of her littlest nephew's voice filled Jessie with sweetness. Pulling away from Luz, she found his slightly sticky hand and squatted down beside him. “I made her sad because I was so naughty,” she explained. “But now I'm really sorry and she's going to forgive me. Are you mad at me, too, Scottie?”

“Mom said you can't see me.”

“That's right.”

“How can you see how big I am?”

She grinned. “That's easy.” Taking him in her arms, she stood and lifted him off the ground. He smelled of canned soup and washing powder. “Wow, you're
gigundo.
”

“Can I play with your dog? Mom said I have to ask.”

She set him down. “Flambeau loves being petted, and when she's not helping me, it's fine.”

The dog emitted a moan of ecstasy. Jessie put out her hand to Luz. Together, they went to see the others, dispensing hugs made awkward by nerves. When she filled her arms with Lila, Jessie tried to detect something, anything to hint at what Lila
thought of all this. But there were too many people milling around, too much going on. Later, she told herself, and was glad she was going to stay the night, after all. Why was Dusty always so smart about things like this?

“Glenny,” she said, hugging her mother for the first time in years.

Time melted away, and she found herself surrounded by familiarity. Charlie perfume, Certs and a sweet husky whisper saying, “There's my girl.”

Her mother's hands bore the familiar calluses of her sport, yet her skin was papery and more delicate than Jessie remembered.

“This is my husband, Stuart.” Her mother guided her hand to a large masculine one.

“Good to meet you at last,” he said, and she recognized his pleasant, southern-California voice from the telephone. Oddly he didn't get up to greet her. She found out why a moment later when Flambeau went crazy sniffing and Stuart seemed to glide backward. Her mother grabbed her arm to steady her.

Jessie frowned. “Are you in a wheelchair?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry I didn't—”

“No, that's okay. I didn't know. Did you hurt yourself?”

“Ten years ago. I'm fine now.”

Jessie wondered how he could be fine if he'd been in a wheelchair for ten years.

Dusty came and kissed Jessie on the cheek. “I'm taking off,” he said. “I put all your stuff in your room.”

“Pah.” Amber leaned toward Jessie and planted a wet kiss on her chin.

“Pah to you, too,” Jessie said. “I can't believe you're depriving me of this amazing child.”

“I'll be back in the morning. You've got plenty here to keep you busy.”

God, he knew. But he was not going to stick around and hold her hand through this. That was the thing about Dusty. He made no apologies for forcing her to do this on her own.

She felt one more kiss, whispering across her lips, and then he was gone.

Jessie could tell the entire family was trying not to act chaotic around her. She imagined Luz calling a meeting to tell everyone that she was blind and needed a calm environment for her and her dog. They had worked on this at the Beacon. Students were prepared for the reaction of friends and family. But they'd lied. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

 

After supper, Ian, Stu and the boys went to liberate poor old Beaver and have a game of Frisbee up the hill. Jessie, her mother, her sister and Lila sat on the deck overlooking the lake.

“Dinner was unbelievable, Luz,” said Jessie, leaning back in an Adirondack chair and patting her stomach. “Those twice-baked potatoes— Lord, you outdid yourself. And chocolate sheet cake. My teeth are singing.”

“Lila made the cake,” Glenny pointed out.

“It was the best cake I've ever had.”

“You don't have to say that,” Lila replied.

“Not unless I mean it,” said Jessie. She sensed a lingering suspicion and resentment from Lila.

“You've lost weight,” Luz said. “I don't want you getting too skinny.”

“I haven't been dieting on purpose,” Jessie said, allowing her sister to deflect the confrontation—for now. “Four of the eight people in my training group at the Beacon were diabetic so they didn't serve a lot of sweets. After I finished and moved off-campus, I was cooking for myself. Ramen noodles and cold cereal are my two major food groups. And then there's
the exercise. When you commit to having a dog, that part is not optional.” She dropped her hand to Flambeau's head, and Flambeau lifted her face with the sweet, uncomplicated adoration that had enchanted Jessie since the moment they'd first met.

“How did you pick your dog?” asked Lila.

Jessie smiled. “The person who is blind doesn't get to pick. The instructors do that. They get to know you, and of course they know the dogs because they've been training them for months. They match temperaments and personalities.”

“And hair, too,” Glenny pointed out. “The two of you are a knockout together. A pair of gorgeous redheads.”

“She sure is devoted to you,” said Lila.

“Oh, I hope so, love. That's one of the main goals of all the intensive training. Flambeau and I have to bond completely. I think it's working.” She curved her hand under the dog's chin. “A guide dog has a rough time of it, early in life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Flambeau's not even two years old, and her heart has been broken three times. They took her from her mother at eight weeks of age, then gave her to a family to raise. After a year of that, she went to an instructor at the Beacon, and she thought he was her person. Finally they gave her to me.”

“Poor baby.” Lila sounded genuinely distressed. Flambeau's tail thumped the deck. “Some of the 4-H Club kids at school raise puppies for the Beacon. I never understood how they could do it—raise a puppy, train it and love it for a whole year and then give it away.”

“Flambeau was raised by a boy from Round Rock,” Jessie said. “He came to visit the day the dog and I were matched up. It was—” She stopped, swallowed hard. “It was a day I'll never, ever forget. They brought her to me, and she jumped up to give me a hug. Technically the dogs are supposed to be
discouraged from jumping up, but it was something Brian had taught her when she was a pup—to give hugs on command. And that's what my girl did, and it was— I can't even describe what I was feeling. Hope and optimism and finally the certainty that I was going to be okay. And the whole time, I could hear Brian and his mom sobbing away while they stood back and watched us with the instructor. I asked Brian later if he had any regrets, but he said no. He said Flambeau was doing exactly what he'd raised her to do, and that was more important than him keeping her as a pet.”

Jessie stopped to take a deep breath. She was amazed at how hard this was. “So you see, I don't dare blow it with her. She got her heart broken a few times along the way, but finally she's in her right place with me, Lila.”

Jessie listened to the silence that followed. She was learning to hear the things that hid inside silence. The soughing of the cool breeze through the trees and the lapping of the lake around the dock pilings. Closer in, she detected the creak of Lila shifting in her chair and the soft gasp of her mother's breathing, a muffled sniff from Luz and the sound of her petting Flambeau.

She turned to Lila. “I need for you to be okay with what I did. I need to know you're in your right place.”

“It's always been about what you need,” Lila said in a harsh, quiet voice. “I'm not a dog. I might be okay with this, or I might not. But either way, it's not going to be because your needs matter.”

Jessie could feel the shock emanating from her mother and sister. She sensed Luz gathering breath for a rebuke, but before she could speak, Jessie said, “Well, that's a relief. And here I thought y'all were going to treat me special because I'm blind.”

She stood and went to the rail of the deck, bracing her
hands on the rough cedar. “Losing my vision forced me to find new ways of seeing. I did some stupid things when I was young. A lot of stupid things. I took my sister for granted and lost touch with my mother. I fell for too many men who cared too little about me. But there's one thing I did that wasn't stupid. It was the smartest thing I ever did. I gave you to your mother. My God, Lila, you're so lucky I did that one smart thing.”

She heard Lila drop to her knees and imagined her face-to-face with Flambeau. The feathery tail swished in response. Taking a deep breath, Jessie said, “Brian doesn't love Flambeau any less because he gave her to me.”

Lila climbed to her feet. “Yeah, okay.” She took a few steps, paused a moment, then left.