Passion (54 page)

“That’s why I drove from Rapid River to New Orleans. That’s why we drove from there to Richmond.” The pilot started the engines,
and John felt sweat beading on his forehead. “My family flew to Florida when I was… I don’t know, fifteen, sixteen. It was
the first time I’d ever been on a plane. I’d never been so scared or so sick in my life.” His hands were clammy, and his heart
was starting to thud loud enough to compete with the engines in noise level. “The next summer we were going to Hawaii for
vacation. Not even the prospect of getting out on those waves was enough to get me
willingly on that plane. I pleaded to stay home. I
begged,
and my father said, ‘Grow up. Show a little backbone.’” He took a deep breath to ease the tightness in his chest. “I thought
I was going to die. I swore when I got back home that I would never, ever get on a plane again as long as I lived, and I never
did. Until now.”

She reached across the space that separated them and slid her hand into his. “Just remember why you’re here,” she advised,
curling her fingers tightly around his. “Just think about Janie.”

He survived the takeoff, the flight, and the landing in Charlotte, where they changed planes. He also survived the second
leg of their journey. He walked off the plane in Florida feeling like death warmed over, but he hadn’t panicked. He hadn’t
lost control. He hadn’t gotten sick as a dog. Maybe thinking about Janie had helped.

Holding on to Teryl definitely had.

They rented a car for the short drive to Verona, following the rental clerk’s directions to Janie’s neighborhood. She had
lived there ten years, but John had never visited. He had loaned her the down payment for the house—she had refused his offer
of a gift but had been happy to accept a loan—but he had never seen the house. Like Teryl’s, it was stucco with a red tile
roof and plenty of arches, but where Teryl’s house was—had been—close to a hundred years old, this one had been new when Janie
had moved in. She’d chosen the wallpaper and the paint, the tile and the carpet. She’d made the necessary modifications and
had loved every part of it. When it was finished and ready for her to move in, she had pronounced it absolutely perfect.

Perfect. She used the word a lot for a woman whose life, thanks to him, had little perfection in it.

Teryl pulled the car into the empty driveway and shut off the engine, then glanced at him. “Are you feeling better?”

He nodded, even though it was a lie. He felt pretty damned lousy—still queasy from the plane and worried sick over Janie.

Teryl gave his hand a squeeze before climbing out. “Come on. Let’s see if she’s here.”

By the time he got out, she was halfway to the small porch. If she thought there was anything odd about the ramp that replaced
the usual steps, she didn’t comment on it. She simply walked to the top, rang the doorbell once, waited a moment, then rang
it again. She was reaching to press the button a third time when he stopped her. “Sometimes she’s kind of slow. Give her a
minute.”

But maybe this morning she wasn’t simply slow. Maybe she wasn’t here. Maybe she was here but couldn’t answer the door. Maybe
she was inside, hurt and unable to call out. Maybe—

The door swung in, interrupting his worries, and for the first time in more years than he wanted to count, he found himself
face to face with his sister. She looked at Teryl first, wearing a polite smile, waiting for a greeting of some sort; then
her gaze shifted to him. The smile faded, disappeared completely, then returned, brighter, broader, than before. “Johnny?”
she asked, her voice sharp and shaky with shock. “Oh, my God, it
is
you! Johnny!”

Teryl took a step back, trying not to stare as John bent to hug his sister. She tried to remember what he had told her about
Janie and the accident that had killed their brother. All she’d needed to do to make the Olympic track team, he’d said, was
show up for the trials, but she hadn’t, because of the accident. But she had survived, Teryl had stated rather than asked,
and he’d given a rather cryptic answer that she hadn’t pursued.
More or less.

She had survived in a wheelchair.

That was the other part of John’s great grief regarding the wreck. It had been his car, and
he
had been driving. His brother had died, and his sister, the world-class runner, the Olympic hopeful, had suffered injuries
so devastating that she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. And John had walked away without a scratch.

Teryl felt a surge of pain in her chest. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, wanted to convince him
that he’d punished himself long enough, wanted to ease
his guilt and his sorrow. She wanted to comfort him, to somehow heal him. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry she hadn’t
understood his need to come here, to see for himself that Janie was all right. She wanted to simply hold him and love him.
But Janie was holding him now. He didn’t need
her
when he had his sister.

Turning her back on them, she stared at the ramp. It hadn’t really registered with her when they’d arrived; she hadn’t noticed
that all the other houses on the block had steps. She hadn’t noticed the flower beds, either, that ran the length of the house,
built up behind pink stucco walls to a height of two and a half to three feet—convenient for gardening from a chair. She was
so unobservant.

Behind her Janie sniffled and dried her tears. “Jeez, Johnny, it’s been twenty years since you brought a girl around. Introduce
us, will you?”

Teryl indulged in her own covert sniff before turning to face them again. She wished he would reach for her hand, but he didn’t.
She wished he didn’t look so embarrassed by the emotion—both Janie’s and his own—but he did. He simply, plainly introduced
her. “This is Teryl Weaver.”

Janie’s gaze turned speculative. “Teryl.” She offered her hand, and Teryl moved forward to shake it. “We’ve traded messages.”
With that knowing, schoolteacher sort of look sharpening, she wheeled her chair back so they could enter the house. “Come
on in, you two. I think you both owe me some explanations.”

Traffic on I-95 was light when they crossed into North Carolina. It was coming up on 3:00
A.M
., and they’d been driving, it seemed to Teryl, for forever. All their worries over Janie, it turned out, had been for nothing.
After having the worst luck in the world and facing every misfortune that could have possibly befallen them—from lost luggage
to stolen passports, from misplaced reservations to illnesses of every variety—she and her fellow teachers had ended their
trip early and returned home. She had found Teryl’s message on her machine and called the agency to leave her own message,
but it wasn’t her fault, she’d said with a shrug, if a fierce summer storm that night had knocked out the phones.

After explaining the situation with Simon, they had moved her into a hotel, and John had made arrangements for security guards
to watch her every move. She had protested, but in the end, she’d done exactly what her brother wanted. It was because he
didn’t often ask favors of her, he had awkwardly teased, but she had disagreed. It was because she loved him.

No wonder Teryl had liked her from the start. They had that much in common.

Once Janie was settled and John had promised to see her again when this mess was over, they had headed north in the rental
car. Although she hadn’t relished the long drive when she was already feeling pretty ragged, Teryl hadn’t even considered
asking him to fly again… although she would give just about anything if he would find a motel and stop. She had dozed from
time to time, but the rental car wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the Blazer. There was no room to stretch her legs, and, even
with the seat reclined, her position was still awkward. It was only sheer exhaustion that had allowed her to sleep what little
she’d managed.

She was lying on her side, staring at billboards in garish, neon-bright colors, when John spoke for the first time in hours.
“Are you awake?”

“Hmm.”

“You’ve been extraordinarily patient today. I appreciate it.”

She didn’t reply. She wasn’t like D.J. She didn’t
want
to be appreciated. She wasn’t that desperate yet… was she?

“Today was the first time I’d seen Janie since it happened. The accident,” he explained, as if she could possibly need clarification.
“She’s changed so much.”

Turning to face him, she pillowed her head on her clasped hands. “She’s a lovely woman.”

“She always was. She was the definitive California girl: tall, pretty, blue-eyed, blond-haired, tanned, healthy, athletic.”
He sighed heavily. “Then she got in the car with me, and all that changed.”

“Only the athletic part. She’s still tall, pretty, blue-eyed, blond-haired, tanned, and healthy. She seems better adjusted
than most people. She’s independent. She has a job she likes and plenty of friends. She keeps busy with volunteer work, teaching
English as a second language to emigrants. She has a boyfriend.” Teryl shrugged. “She’s happy.”

He gave her a long, measuring look. “I left you two alone for less than an hour while I took care of hiring the security people.
You learned an awful lot about her.”

“I like her,” she said. “She’s nice.” After a long silence, she asked, “What happened that day, John?” Janie had asked her
if she knew the events of that summer day, and Teryl had shaken her head. The other woman hadn’t elaborated. She had simply
gripped the chair’s armrests tighter and fiercely murmured, “It
wasn’t
his fault.”

A mile or two went by with no response; then he sighed, a soul-weary sound. “It was June, seventeen years ago. We were celebrating
Tom’s graduation and the end of the spring semester with a family camp-out in the mountains. Our aunts and uncles and some
cousins were there and, of course, our parents. I don’t remember exactly how it started. My dad wasn’t happy with my grades,
he didn’t like the company I kept, he thought I needed direction in my life, I didn’t have enough ambition, I wasn’t working
hard enough, I wasn’t taking school seriously enough. Whatever it was, it led to an argument.
Everything
led to an argument with him. I could be doing something, anything, and he would say I wasn’t doing it right. I’d change and
start doing it his way, and he would say I didn’t have the balls to stand up for myself. So I’d go back to doing it my way,
and he would say I was being disrespectful for ignoring his instructions, but, hey, that was what he got for raising a kid
who was too stupid to know better. Nothing I did ever satisfied him, and that day was no different.”

Teryl thought about her father, sweet, loving, and always respectful. He would never dream of calling a kid stupid, would
never have anything but praise for a kid who was trying even if he was always failing. He loved kids—all kids, not just the
pretty ones or the smart ones or the easy ones.
Sometimes the kids he loved best were the ones who were the hardest to love. The ones who needed it most.
Like D.J.

“He’d been on my back all day, and I guess I was in the mood for a fight. I kept goading him, and finally he lost his temper.
He slapped me in front of everyone there and told me to get out. He said I wasn’t going to ruin the weekend for Tom and Janie.
They didn’t want me to leave like that, so they got in the car with me. Tom wanted to drive—he said I was too upset—but I
wouldn’t let him. I
was
upset, and driving fast and recklessly was a hell of a way to deal with it.” He broke off for a moment, then continued in
that same low, flat voice. “About five miles away I lost control of the car on a curve and drove off the side of the mountain.
Tom died right away. Janie’s spine was crushed. I was thrown clear.”

Tears clogging her throat, Teryl wanted to ask him to stop, wanted to tell him that she’d heard enough. She didn’t want to
know the rest. She didn’t want to hear how devastated he had been, didn’t want to feel even the smallest portion of his grief.
She’d heard enough sad stories in her life, and she didn’t want to hear the rest of this one. But she couldn’t stop him. He
needed to tell it, and, in some perverse way, because she loved him, she needed to hear it.

“We were taken to the nearest hospital, and arrangements were made to fly Janie to L.A. They sent a state trooper to the campground
to tell our parents, but he got the names confused. He told them that Tom was alive and I had died, and he brought them to
the hospital. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when they walked into the emergency room and saw me standing there.”

A fragment of conversation she’d overheard years before came back to her. The subject had been Rico, one of the foster kids
her parents had eventually adopted, and the occasion had been the morning after his first night with the family. He had come
to them from the hospital, where he’d undergone surgery to repair the damage his mother’s boyfriend had done; he had come
bearing bruises, scars, casts, and stitches and an unholy fear of physical contact. There must be a special place in hell,
her mother had said with a ferocity that had frightened Teryl, for people who hurt children. Twenty-two
years later and more than twenty-two years wiser, Teryl could now fully appreciate her mother’s sentiment. She hoped John’s
parents, especially his father, burned there.

“And that’s why you left home,” she said quietly.

“I had no reason to stay. They refused to believe it was an accident. They insisted I had acted out of jealousy and resentment.
They wouldn’t let me go to Tom’s funeral or see Janie. I had to leave.”

Abruptly he changed lanes and exited the interstate. Teryl sat up and looked around at the bright lights of yet another town.
“Do we need gas?”

“No, we’re stopping. You’re tired. You need a bed where you can stretch out and sleep.”

She automatically opened her mouth to protest. Instead, all she said was, “Thank you.”

They stopped at the first motel, and she waited in the car while he checked them in. The room he rented was luxurious compared
to some of the places they’d stayed, but she was too tired to care. Before he got the door closed and locked behind them,
she was pulling back the covers with one hand while removing her clothes with the other. She stripped down to her T-shirt
and panties, crawled into bed, and laid her head on the pillow with a heavy sigh. This felt like such comfort after last night’s
shabby motel, the flight, and the long hours in the car.