The Truth About Tara (10 page)

Three seven-week-old kittens, each one more adorable than the last, played near their mother. The kittens batted at each other with their front paws and meowed.

“They are so c-cute!” Danny shouted.

“Shh,” Susie scolded. “You’ll scare them.”

“I will not!” he protested.

At the ice cream store Susie had mentioned that her great-grandmother’s cat recently gave birth to kittens. Danny, of course, had begged to go see them right away.

If these had been routine circumstances, Carrie would have found a way to gently dissuade him. The B and B was a good twenty miles from Wawpaney, not exactly the kind of place to pop in and out. But Carrie was still looking for a chance to tell Gustavo about her conversation with Susie on the swings.

“Can I pick one up?” Danny asked.

“Only. If. You’re. Really. Careful,” Susie said, enunciating each word clearly.

“I’ll be c-careful,” Danny promised.

He used excessive care in lifting the smallest kitten onto his lap. Very gently he stroked the kitten’s back. It purred. He giggled. Carrie and Gustavo exchanged a smile. Clearly the children would be okay on the screened porch by themselves for a little while.

“Can we go inside?” she asked Gustavo.

“Certainly.” He let her precede him through the open French doors. “I don’t suppose you’re in the market for a cat? They’re just about old enough to leave their mother.”

“It sure looks to me like Susie wants to keep every last one of them,” Carrie said.

“She does, but I’ve already told her she can only have one,” Gustavo said. “I got the mama fixed, too, so we won’t have more litters.”

Carrie glanced over her shoulder at Danny, who now had two kittens on his lap. “Let me think about it. I just might take one of the kittens off your hands.”

“Don’t think too much, Carrie,” he said, rolling the
r’
s in her name in that way she loved. “People who think about acting usually talk themselves out of it. Remember, do what feels right.”

She focused her attention on him. He wore khaki shorts and a cream polo shirt that was flattering with his dark coloring. This close, he smelled great. “It feels right being here with you.”

Even to her own ears, she sounded flirtatious. What was the matter with her? At age fifty-four, she should be more in control of herself. Every time she opened her mouth around Gustavo, something came out that he could construe as having a double meaning.

“It’s a darn shame you closed the house to guests. It’s lovely,” she said, to cover her gaffe. She swept a hand to encompass the first floor. A spacious kitchen opened into a den with a brick fireplace, where a paisley-print sofa and love seat were angled for an optimum view of the console television. The opposite side of the room contained a blond wooden table with eight faded upholstered chairs.

“Lovely, but worn around the edges.” He indicated the faded wooden floors. “These need to be refinished, the counters in the kitchen should be replaced and all the furniture should be trashed.”

“That’s all cosmetic.” Carrie did a three-sixty, enjoying the late-afternoon light that flooded the house. A view of the Chesapeake was visible through the screen porch. “This old place has good bones.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But before it can become operational again it needs a good home remodeler and an interior decorator.”

“Or an amateur who knows what looks good. The floor should be finished in a warm honey color and the furniture should be moved around to take advantage of that splended view.” She walked to an empty spot. “I’d put a brown leather recliner right here. And those faded floral curtains need to go. The only thing behind the house is the bay, so you don’t have to worry about people peering in at you.”

“If I was keeping this place, I’d take you upstairs to the bedrooms,” he said.

She felt her cheeks stain, although she was sure he was referring to touring the bedrooms. Now she was attributing sexual innuendo to the things he said. She needed to make sure there were no misunderstandings.

“If you change your mind, just let me know and I’ll
decorate
for free.” Carrie emphasized the operative word.

“I’m not changing my mind,” he said. “I like teaching too much.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” she said. “How did you become a special ed teacher?”

“I was already a teacher. But after Susie was born, I went to night school to get certified.”

“That must be a great advantage in dealing with Susie,” she said.

“The main reason I went into special ed was that I wanted to understand her better.”

“Did it work?” she asked.

“Not entirely,” he said slowly. “If I understood her better, I have a feeling we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“You figured out I wanted to talk to you about Susie,” she said.

“It wasn’t difficult,” he said. “You wouldn’t have suggested ice cream before dinner if you weren’t trying to cheer her up.”

Carrie’s gaze fell on a photo hanging from the wall in the entranceway of the house. Susie appeared to be about a year old. She was sitting on the lap of a smiling woman with delicate features and strawberry-blond hair. Gustavo stood beside them, his arm resting on the woman’s shoulder, his expression tender as he gazed down at Susie.

“Is that your ex-wife?” Carrie asked.

“Yeah,” he said, his expression unreadable. “That was taken the year before we divorced. It’s already been almost nine years. She still lives in Baltimore.”

“Susie was crying when you asked me to check up on her,” Carrie said softly. “I told her I cried sometimes, too. She asked if that was because my mama didn’t love me, either.”

Gustavo swore under his breath. He raked a hand through his dark hair. “Sorry about the language. The whole thing just makes me so angry.” He drew in a deep breath and expelled it. “Did Susie say anything else?”

“Something that made no sense,” Carrie said. “About her mama being with a man in a hat.”

Gustavo’s eyebrows furrowed, then smoothed out. He groaned. “Susie must have overheard me talking to her mother on the phone. Victoria was supposed to come down from Baltimore and visit her this weekend. Instead she’s going to Manhattan with some guy.”

“Oh, no.” Carrie laid a hand on his arm, hating to see the pain the situation caused him. “No wonder Susie was upset.”

“I could kick myself for letting Susie overhear,” Gustavo said. “The thing is, I think Victoria does love her. She just can’t deal with Susie not being perfect.”

“She’s missing out on a wonderful girl,” Carrie said.

He gave her a wry smile. “Spoken like the mother of a child with Down syndrome.”

“Oh, I’m not Danny’s mama. He’s my foster child. From what little I know of Danny’s real mama, she’s sort of like Victoria. Only way worse.” Carrie paused. “She told the agency she couldn’t handle a retard.”

Gustavo’s eyes opened wide. “She used that word?”

“That’s what they told me,” Carrie said. “She’s struggling with her husband not in the picture but she still has custody of Danny’s brother.”

“Let me guess.” Gustavo’s lips twisted. “He’s not mentally challenged.”

“Right you are.”

“Have you been a foster mother to other children with special needs?”

“Danny’s the first,” Carrie said. “Not a lot of foster parents ask to take in special-needs children, so they recruited some of us veterans.”

He gave a low whistle. “Carrie Greer, you are my kind of woman.”

She felt herself blush at the same time she noticed she was still touching him.

“Don’t make me out to be some kind of saint,” she insisted. “I need Danny every bit as much as he needs me.”

Gustavo tilted his head. “Why’s that?”

She hadn’t become a foster mother until Tara left home for college. She’d figured out long ago that children who needed her, the way Tara once had, helped fill the hole in her heart. Not completely, but enough so she could function.

The pain of losing both Sunny and Scott at the same time had been so wrenching it never fully went away.

With a start, she realized this was the first time she’d thought of her lost loved ones since Gustavo had asked her to check on his daughter.

“Carrie?” Gustavo was regarding her curiously. “Are you okay?”

No, she wasn’t okay. This was the anniversary of the worst day of her life. “I’m sorry, but Danny and I need to go.”

“So soon? I was about to ask you to stay for dinner.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I make a mean cheeseburger.”

“Thank you,” Carrie said firmly, “but no.”

“Okay, then what are you doing Friday night? Because—”

“I’m busy Friday night,” Carrie interrupted, dismayed that he’d gotten the idea that she might accept a date with him. She headed through the house for the screened-in porch, almost desperate to collect Danny and get away.

No matter what she’d told Tara about treating today like any other day, that was impossible.

Not so impossible when you have Gustavo and Susie Miller to distract you,
a voice inside her head whispered.

She shut out the voice, feeling vaguely disloyal.

She didn’t want to forget Sunny and Scott. Not today. Not ever.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
J
ACK
turned his pickup from the main thoroughfare that ran through Wawpaney onto Highway 13,
the four-lane road that cut a swath through the Eastern Shore.

“I can’t thank you enough for driving me and Danny to camp,” Carrie Greer said from the passenger seat. She’d pulled her long blond hair back from her face and wore capris and a sleeveless shirt instead of one of her usual flowing dresses. The alterations made her appear younger.

“Thank you, Jack!” Danny called from the backseat.

Carrie craned her head around to look at the boy. “You have lovely manners, Danny.” She faced forward again. “Doesn’t he, Jack?”

“He does,” Jack said. “But you’re wrong about not thanking me enough. That makes four or five times since I picked you up.”

“We’re just so darn grateful you could come get us,” Carrie said. “With Tara out on her kayak, I wasn’t sure who else to call when the car wouldn’t start.”

Jack’s cell phone had rung after his early morning run, when he was doing some of the shoulder stretches Art Goodnight had prescribed for him. Carrie had told him her problem, explaining that Tara had gotten up at dawn to kayak through the salt marshes at the National Wildlife Reserve and would be a little late to the third day of camp. He’d made a mental note to ask Art about adding kayaking to his rehab when he met with the trainer later that afternoon.

“You did the right thing,” Jack said. “Gus suggested the volunteers exchange cell numbers for emergencies just like this one.”

“Yes, but it’s still a bother,” she said. “I know you’re not working at the camp today.”

“Don’t worry about it.” One of the infrequent traffic lights that dotted the main road glowed green in the distance. “Shell Beach isn’t that far away.”

“Shell Beach!” she exclaimed. “Why, I thought you were renting a place in Wawpaney.”

“It’s near Wawpaney.” He sailed through the still-green traffic light. He spotted a car a few hundred feet behind him, but the road in front was empty. “Shell Beach is only six or seven miles away.”

“Seven miles of rural road,” Carrie said. “I wish you had told me. Surely I could have figured out another way to get to camp.”

“What? And deprive me of your company?”

“Scarcely a hardship,” she said.

“Okay. Then why deprive yourself of
my
company? I really am delightful,” he said, trying to coax a smile out of her. She didn’t disappoint him.

“What do you think, Danny?” he called to the boy. “Aren’t I delightful?”

When there was no answer, Jack checked the rearview mirror and Carrie swiveled to face the boy. Danny’s eyes were closed and his head rested against the seat back. His mouth was open slightly and he was breathing regularly in the rhythm of sleep.

“I’m sure Danny would have backed me up on that if he were awake,” Jack said.

“
Toy Story
was on TV last night,” she said. “He begged to watch it, so I let him stay up past his bedtime.”

“I watched that, too,” he said.

“You did not!”

“Yeah, I did,” he said. “I love all those
Toy Story
movies. But it would mess with my macho image, so you can’t tell anybody, especially your daughter.”

“Tara’s never gone for the overly macho type, anyway,” Carrie said. “Have you asked her out yet?”

“I’m waiting until I grow on her,” he said. “She doesn’t seem to like me much.”

“But you’re delightful!”

“I know,” he said. “Go figure.”

She laughed, a light tinkling sound. “Don’t give up on my girl. I met my husband when he crashed into my car in a parking lot and then had the nerve to say it was my fault. I thought he was a real jerk. He asked me out three times before I said yes.”

“I take it he wasn’t a jerk?”

“The opposite. He was a wonderful husband and a great father,” Carrie said. “Sunny adored him.”

“Sunny?” Jack asked. “Is that Tara’s nickname?”

“Not Tara,” Carrie said. “My other daughter. Nobody ever called her anything else.”

“I didn’t know Tara has a sister,” Jack said, not sure why the information that she wasn’t an only child surprised him. He was from a family of six.

“Not anymore she doesn’t,” Carrie said with infinite sadness. “My darling Sunny drowned while we were on vacation at the Outer Banks. Scott did, too. He was trying to save her.”

“Did they fall out of a boat?” Jack asked before he could bank his curiosity.

“No,” Carrie said. “It was an undertow.”

She fell silent, so Jack filled in the blanks himself. The girl venturing too far into the water and getting caught in an undercurrent, her father rushing to the rescue and suffering the same fate. His heart twisted, saddened not only for Carrie but for Tara. He knew what it was like to lose a sibling, too.

“I’m sorry.” He thought about what Tara’s friend at the ice cream shop had said and concluded that yesterday had been the anniversary of their deaths. He’d been through ten of those sad commemorations himself since his brother died.

“Me, too. I’m sorry every day of my life.” Carrie paused. “Do you know that’s the first time I’ve told anyone about what happened to them without crying?”

“Maybe it’s time to let go of the grief and focus on the good memories,” Jack ventured.

Carrie said nothing. He glanced at her and saw that she was staring straight ahead at the road, her jaw set at a stubborn angle.

Jack started to say something, then thought better of it. Who was he to lecture another person about how to live with loss? Almost eleven years after his family had gotten the terrible news about his brother, Jack was still working on taking his own advice.

* * *

L
ATER
THE
FOLLOWING
afternoon, Tara stood in front of the campers, bouncing on the soles of her feet and holding aloft a beanbag. Because of her PE background, she’d been asked to lead the rainy-day activity. Music with a rhythmic beat played from the boom box in the corner of the room.

“Now that everybody has a beanbag, we’re ready to start.” She raised her voice to be heard above the music and the steady rain pounding the roof of the community center. “There are a few rules. The first is to keep your eye on the beanbag at all times.”

Danny and one of the other campers brought their beanbags up to their faces and held them against their eyes. Tara hid a smile. So did Jack, although Tara had no business noticing what he was doing. It was nuts. Even though it was imperative she keep her distance from him, she kept slanting him secret looks that if intercepted would lead him to believe she wanted to get to know him better. She shifted her gaze back to the campers.

“My bad. I wasn’t clear. I mean look at your beanbags like this.” She held her beanbag at arm’s length and stared at it. “Everybody got it now?”

“I got it!” Brandon called out, mimicking her actions.

Heads nodded from throughout the large space they’d cleared out for the activity by shoving the tables against the walls. Danny dropped his hand with the beanbag to his side.

“Before we start tossing our beanbags, let’s go over what high, medium and low mean.” She interjected as much enthusiasm into her voice as she could, holding her beanbag at three distinct levels in turn and instructing the campers to do the same. All of them followed suit except Danny. He clutched the beanbag in his hand, a sullen expression on his face.

Oh, no. Tara had seen that look a dozen times since Danny had started living with her mother, most recently during aqua Zumba.

“Now for the challenge.” She brightened her voice even more. “We’ll toss our beanbags into the air and catch them with both hands. Remember to keep the toss low. Like this.”

She threw her beanbag about twelve inches straight up and cradled it with both hands as it came down.

“Now you try it,” she said.

Beanbags flew into the air, most reaching far greater heights than the low level she’d demonstrated, many of them thudding to the floor. Danny’s beanbag didn’t leave his hand.

“That’s a good first try,” Tara said encouragingly as the children picked up the beanbags that had fallen. “This time we’ll concentrate on keeping our tosses low.”

She demonstrated again, then instructed the campers to repeat the activity on the count of three. All of them managed to catch the beanbags on the way down except Danny, who hadn’t even tried.

“Great!” she said. “Okay, class. Let’s see you catch the beanbag three times in a row. Ready, set, go!”

As the other campers did as they were told, she started moving toward Danny. Jack beat her to him.

“Hey, Danny,” he said. “Don’t you want to give it a try, too?”

“No!” Danny spat out, a scowl on his face. It was a word Tara had heard from him too many times.

“You can do it, buddy.” Jack tossed and caught his beanbag a few times. “It’s easy.”

“No!” Danny all but shouted the word. He plopped down in the middle of the floor, his arms crossed over his chest.

“C’mon, Danny. Don’t do that.” Jack reached a hand toward the boy. “I’ll help you up.”

Danny scowled, saying nothing, his eyes fastened on the floor. Jack looked at Tara, a silent plea for help in his eyes. Danny pulled this stunt with regularity and nothing could budge him until he was good and ready to move.

“I’m sorry you decided to miss out on the fun, Danny,” Tara said. “Jack, could you help the other campers? I have some new challenges for them.”

Jack hesitated, then did as she asked. She went to the front of the group and instructed the campers on a series of variations, including higher tosses and clapping before the catch. The beanbags thudded to the floor so many times the campers were all laughing by the time they finished—except Danny, who hadn’t budged.

He eventually joined the other campers, but not until it was time for arts and crafts. For the rest of the afternoon he hardly said a word, even when the developmental disability nurse sat down next to him and tried to coax him out of his bad mood. Jack tried, too. He looked so crestfallen that he couldn’t get through to Danny that Tara nearly offered consolation.

Nearly, until she remembered how she was keeping him at arm’s length.

As soon as camp ended, she was out the door. She started for the parking lot, then veered past it. She needed to head into town. The rain had stopped and the cloud cover kept the day cooler than it would have been. The short walk to town would do her good.

“Tara, wait!”

It was Jack’s voice. She looked over her shoulder. He was jogging to catch up. She considered turning around and ignoring him, but that would be childish. Not to mention, she didn’t have a prayer of eluding him. And truth be told, she wasn’t averse to spending time with him. She should be. But she wasn’t. She slowed down until he was walking abreast of her.

“Where are you headed?” he asked good-naturedly.

“The hardware store.” She stepped over a puddle that had pooled on the sidewalk. The grass smelled damp from the recent rain and the air felt heavy, cutting down on the number of people who would usually be walking through town. Signs in storefront windows advertised an upcoming crab and seafood festival and an outdoor concert. “Just know I won’t believe you if you suddenly declare that you need to buy some two-by-fours.”

“I don’t,” he said, chuckling. “I do need to talk. About Danny.”

She should have figured out right off the bat his reason for pursuing her. He’d clearly been bothered by the boy’s refusal to participate in the beanbag activity. Tara supposed she should be grateful he’d come to her about Danny instead of approaching her mother.

“Don’t beat yourself up over what happened today,” she said. “You’ve seen how Danny behaves sometimes. He’s done the same thing to me and my mother occasionally.”

“How long has he been living with your mom?”

“About three or four weeks now,” she said. “I don’t know much about his background except he and his brother were being raised by a single mother.”

“Is his brother in foster care, too?”

“No,” she said. “Only Danny. The brother’s not developmentally disabled.”

Jack swore under his breath. “No wonder Danny’s having problems. Any kid would. Imagine if somebody had separated you and your sister.”

Tara’s heart seemed to skip a beat. “How do you know about Sunny?”

“Your mom told me about her,” he said.

She swallowed. Considering her mother never talked about her lost loved ones, that seemed almost impossible to believe. And when had Jack been alone with her mother? He hadn’t even been at camp yesterday.

“When was that?” she asked, trying to make her voice as casual as possible.

“I gave your mom and Danny a ride to camp yesterday when her car wouldn’t start,” Jack said.

Her mother hadn’t said anything to Tara about the lift. She kept walking, although she had to consciously tell herself to put one foot in front of the other. What else had her mother revealed?

“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said. “I guess I just wanted to let you know you could talk to me about her.”

She swung her head to gaze at him sharply. “Why would I do that?”

“I lost a sibling, too,” he said. “A brother.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, ashamed of herself for snapping at him.

“It’s been tough on my family,” he said.

“That’s the reason your sisters call you all the time,” she said with sudden insight.

“It’s why I cut them some slack,” he said. “I’m the second youngest. Mike was the baby of the family.”

“How many years has it been?” she asked.

“Eleven,” he said. “He died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center.”

“How terrible.” She laid a hand on his arm, the horror of the day sweeping through her with new ferocity. But something didn’t make sense. If Mike was the baby of the family, he would have been in his teens when the attacks occurred. “What was he doing there? Why wasn’t he in Kentucky?”

The questions erupted from her, the words sounding abrupt and almost cruel. She grimaced. “Forget I asked. You don’t have to tell me.”