When We Were Sisters (35 page)

“There were three file cabinets against that wall.” I walked over and framed the space with my hands. “A bookcase over there with nothing much on it.” I nodded to the adjoining wall. “Jud wasn't a reader. Old copies of
Farm Journal
took up one shelf. A couple of veterinary textbooks and framed photos of him in his rodeo days another.”

“Rodeo,” she said, as if she was remembering.

Whether she did or not, I recapped as she looked through the desk. She didn't stop me. “That's how he and Betty met. He was riding the circuit somewhere in Arkansas, and she was visiting family in Fayetteville. I guess they both thought he was big stuff. He got thrown off a bull and broke something or other, and she nursed him back to health. He liked her cooking, so he married her. He liked that she had land coming to her someday, too. Her family was scattered all over this area. The year after they married she inherited the ranch from her father and they moved here.”

“You remember a lot.”

“He talked more than she did. In fact he talked about himself all the time. And I had the pleasure of his company whenever he saw fit to come out to the barn.”

Robin said the next without enthusiasm. “He always wore a tooled leather belt with a rodeo belt buckle. The buckle was brass, maybe with some silver plate. He used to brag about winning it somewhere in Texas. He liked to show it off. There was a cowboy riding a bull with Jud's name engraved below it. He never took off that belt.”

I took a moment, another deep breath, and then I walked back to where she was standing. No chair stood at the desk now, so I perched on the edge. “Robin, did you ever wonder how I was able to move to New York when I turned eighteen? How I managed? You were only fourteen, but did you wonder?”

“I know it was hard. You used to write funny stories about the place you lived, but I could read between the lines.”

“Even terrible living conditions in Manhattan cost a small fortune.” I let that settle a moment. “I had a little money to help me get started.”

“You told me Betty helped at first.”

I guessed it had been as good a lie as any, although if she had considered it at length, she would have realized Betty had no interest in helping anybody, even herself.

“When I left, you moved to the group home,” I said. “You had a lot on your mind.”

“Betty didn't help you.” It wasn't a question.

“She did give me a few dollars from the state's final check. But not even enough for the bus fare. I got that from Jud.”

“
Jud
gave you money? Before he left town?”

“Not exactly.” I sighed, long and slow, and then I was sorry because I had to take a deep breath to replace it and I couldn't stop coughing. “I stole it,” I said, when I was breathing normally again.

She looked surprised but not shocked. “From Jud?”

“I started keeping books for the ranch just a few months after we moved here. The books were one of the many jobs he hated, and I took business classes from ninth grade on. Remember? Mrs. Davis insisted I learn some skills that would help me survive when the system cut me loose. She hoped I would go to college, but she wasn't optimistic I would get the aid I'd need. I was good in math, still am, so we settled on accounting and bookkeeping. At first that's how I survived in New York. I did the books for a little deli near my apartment, and along with a paycheck I got leftover coleslaw and potato salad.”

I was rambling. Hedging. I made myself move on. “Jud was a blowhard, but not a very smart one. He didn't graduate from high school, and his reading skills were poor. People who claim to know everything are afraid to ask questions. I figured out pretty quickly that he couldn't make heads or tails out of his books. I could move money around, open accounts and move money into them without him becoming suspicious. As long as I only took a little at a time. A few bucks here, a few more there.”

Robin looked fascinated, not distressed. “Wouldn't you need his signature to open an account?”

“I took over most of his jobs, and after six months or so I signed every check that came through this office and made out the deposit slips for him. It was easier, since I was doing all the paperwork anyway, and pretty soon I was able to forge his signature so well nobody ever suspected. The smaller checks went into a new account I set up in his name at a different bank from his usual. He never once noticed they were missing.”

I opened drawers, as Robin had, for something to do while I confessed. Nothing remained inside. “Jud thought I was willing to do the office stuff because he took over some of the outside chores. But the real reason? I was building a nest egg. Eighteen was right around the corner. I knew you would only be fourteen by then, and I couldn't let you stay here on your own. So I saved money to get both of us out when the time came.”

“You used to talk about running away together. I thought it was just talk.”

“He owed us. Both of us. So did Betty. They were being paid to take care of us, but they used us like farm laborers. We were supposed to have a clothing allowance, spending money, but you know how that went.”

“You did this until what, you turned eighteen?”

“Until the day he walked out. After that things fell apart fast, but luckily I saw they might, so I cashed out and got rid of the evidence. Betty sold off the livestock, and when those final payments came in she took over the books. I backed away, and my plans changed. We talked after Jud left, remember? I told you we could leave together, that you could come with me and nobody would spend much time or money looking for you.”

Her expression softened. “I remember.”

“Then a new caseworker came to see us. I don't even remember her name, but she was one of the better ones. She said she found you a good place, well funded and safe. When I told her I couldn't trust her promises, she took us
both
to see Live Oaks. Do you remember? It was far from perfect—”

“But we both thought the school I would attend was one of the better ones in the area, and I could stay there until I graduated. She more or less promised that. I told you I wanted to give Live Oaks a try.”

“You did.”

“You weren't the only liar in this house, CeCe. I didn't want to live there. Not at all. But even then I knew better than to let you give up your life for me.”

I drew mold spores into my lungs again and closed my eyes to keep them from filling with tears. “I took the money I stole, and I got on that bus to New York.”

“The rest is history.”

“History. Exactly.”

We fell silent, and I spent the next moments thinking about history in general.

It's never possible to know everything that happened in the past, so we are forced to fill in the blanks, hopeful we're on the right track, hopeful we've thought out all the possibilities and chosen the most likely scenarios. But unless we lived through every part of it, none of us can ever know for certain what really went on years ago. Not just because people lie more than they tell the truth—at least some people—but because our guesses are often completely wrong.

Life rarely unfolds in neat patterns. We might believe, for instance, that one day a man gets fed up and walks out on his wife. After all, he leaves a note that tells the whole story, so why question any of it? The pieces fit. The man and his wife fight constantly. A woman he is suspected of having an affair with leaves town the same day he does. The note is in his handwriting.

Robin rested her hand on my shoulder. “All these years, CeCe, did you think I would be shocked you took enough money to get to New York? Is that why you never told me? Nobody knows better than I do what you were up against. You're a survivor. We both are. And in the years since, how many millions have you given to people who need it?”

“So you think I've been absolved?”

“You. Not them.”

“Maybe Betty's looking for absolution. Maybe that's why she sends you a Christmas card every year.”

She shook her head, either in disbelief or dismay. “We need to get out of here and breathe some fresh air before we have to come back later with the crew. Will you be ready?”

“I will look stunned and astonished right on cue.”

She raised her camera, surprising me, and light flashed.

I won't know until I see that photo which Cecilia Robin caught.

There are so many.

44

Cecilia

An owl is screeching in the distance. I can hear him outside my window, over the drone of crickets and bellowing of frogs from the banks of Cold Creek. I'm riveted with fear, not because an owl out for a hunt has awakened me, but because of a closer noise, the slightest squeak of a door, the shuffling of feet. I think about where I can hide, and I struggle to sit up. Sitting up should be simple, yet I'm frozen in place. I can't breathe because I can't even remember how. Somehow I fling myself upright and air rushes into my lungs. I open my mouth to scream.

Then I remember what will happen if I do.

When my eyelids fly apart light is filtering through the sliding windows of my camper. There's a full moon tonight and a cloudless sky littered with stars. An owl
is
screeching, which makes it harder for me to distinguish this night from the one I lived just moments ago. But I have this nightmare so often everything about it is familiar. No matter where I am, which of my homes, which hotel in which city, which seat I've fallen asleep in on my tour bus, the nightmare is the same.

The only difference tonight is that the scene was more vivid, more real. Because the sounds and smells outside this camper are the sounds and smells of my adolescence.

The sheet that was covering me lands on the floor, and I swing my legs to the side and rest my head in my hands.

Dealing with Nightmares 101
.

The doctor who worked with me in Australia taught me a technique called Imagery Rehearsal. When I refused to explore my nightmares in our sessions, she suggested I order them, least frightening to most, and write down as many details of the first as I could remember, then rewrite it, changing the ending into a positive one. If I dreamed of falling, I might dream about wings lifting me so I could soar peacefully overhead. If I dreamed of drowning, I could imagine a lifeboat arriving or a raft to climb on. When I was satisfied with what I'd come up with I was to rehearse the new ending, think about it at length before bedtime, then let it drift away as I fell asleep.

Unfortunately just picking up the pen is too traumatic. I never get past the first sentence.

I stood on wobbly legs and turned on the light. I've had better luck with other suggestions she gave me, all of which eventually help clear a nightmare from my mind. Turning on a light, fetching a drink of water, reading a book. Combined, an assortment of those, along with a long shower, usually chase away the remnants, and hours later I'm able to get back to sleep. But lack of sleep was the final straw that landed me in the psychiatric ward of that Australian hospital, and if this nightmare returns over and over while I'm here in Cold Creek, I might end up in another.

“Damned owl!”

I sat again. The owl was real, and so were the crickets. But since Cold Creek, which ran behind the Osburn house and most likely this campground, was now dry, the frogs had gone elsewhere or dried up, too. And after a while, as I silently wished he would find a mouse and choke on it, the owl flew away.

The nightmare was receding. I went into the bathroom and washed my face, since a shower is complicated in a camper and necessarily brief. There was a bathhouse not far away, but I didn't want to dress and walk across the grounds to an unfamiliar building, then strip and shower where anyone could walk in.

Anyone.

When someone tapped on my door I was sobbing. Since Mick rented the entire facility we were able to place our campers so far apart I hadn't worried about waking anyone when I turned on my light. My site was spacious and private, shaded by pines.

The tapper was probably Robin, who was several sites away. I wiped my eyes on the hem of my gown and went to the door. “Robin?”

A male voice answered. “Donny.”

I didn't have to think. I opened the door, then I stepped aside to let him in.

He took one look at me, and drew me into his arms. “A bad one?”

I began to cry again. And this time it took forever to stop. He held me as I sobbed and kissed my hair. “You're okay. You're okay. It's not real.”

“I wish to God...that were true.”

We stood like that until I was finally calm. I drew away at last. “How did you know?”

“I was awake. I saw your light. I expected it. Going through the house, letting Mick film you there today. You were so brave, so controlled, but something had to give.”

“I thought I was okay. Coming early, going through first. That's what you didn't understand. I wanted to innoculate myself. And if I fell apart, I wanted to do it alone. I didn't want to fall apart on film. I don't want a reputation—” I couldn't go on.

“As something other than a ballbuster?” He tilted his head. “Why do you care?”

“I eat men alive. I'm the strongest woman out there. I've built an empire on that. Remember Australia and how hard you worked to keep my breakdown out of the press?”

“Cecilia, I kept it out of the press because it was your life and your business, not because I care about your reputation. I care...” He shook his head.

“I don't know who this new person is. The woman who's letting the past rule everything. It's not like I repressed any of the crap that happened to me, Donny. It's not like it's all coming back after I stuffed it in some part of my unconscious for decades and now it's seeping out. I have never forgotten a moment of my childhood or my years in foster care. Not one moment. So why is it trying to destroy me now?”

“Because you're doing your best to face and share it, even if you're struggling not to share every detail. You're trying to look it in the eye so it'll go away. You thought this would be easy?”

“No. No, of course not! But I thought I could do it. I thought I knew how. I thought if Robin was with me. If you...”

His eyes were sad. “Sweetheart, we can't protect you from the past.”

“How about the future? You're going to leave me forever when the filming ends. Everybody I love leaves, except Robin, and I think I tried to chase her away, too, by throwing her mother in her face. What's wrong with me, Donny? I am never going to live like a normal person. I'm going to spend my whole life making sure nobody gets close.”

He watched me, but he didn't reach for me again.

“I don't want you to go.” I stretched out my arm and with my trembling hand touched his shoulder. Then, with effort, his cheek. “This is all so sleazy, so sad, and I don't want you to be part of it. I want to be someone else for you, but even knowing how selfish this is, I don't want you to go.”

He covered my hand and held it in place a moment; then he kissed my fingers before he let my hand drop to my side. “The thing is, Cecilia? I know who you are. Not everything that turned you into that woman, but the woman herself. I know you. I know about the nightmares and the weeks when you get so little sleep you're dead on your feet, but you keep moving anyway. I know when you finally admit you're tired, you're actually exhausted, and when you say you want to stop touring for a while, that means you're about to break into a million pieces. I know you don't trust me or any man, and you only married Sage because he wouldn't make demands you couldn't meet.”

“You should run screaming.”

“Yeah.”

My next words were the most difficult I've ever said. “But please...don't.” I bit my lip. “Don't run.” I touched his arm, wrapped my fingers around it to hold him there. “The nightmares? They're bad enough. But needing you?” I swallowed, and my throat felt swollen.

“It's a scary thing, isn't it? Easier to push me away before it gets scarier.”

“You have no idea.”

He stepped forward and cradled my face in his hands. “Of course I do. You're terrified of any kind of intimacy. Being alone is easy in comparison. But I'm not the monster in your nightmares. I'm just the guy who loves you, every battered inch. I'm just the guy who would like to give you what you haven't been able to take before.”

“I'm going to destroy you.”

He smiled a little. “I'm not going to let you. You've seen me in negotiations. Nobody gets the better of me.”

“I am so much more important to you than anybody who's tried.”

“If you know that, and if it matters? We're going to be okay.”

I pushed the words out of my aching throat. “You are...so much more important...to me.”

“I love you, Cecilia. I'm not sure when it happened. I knew it was the worst possible idea, but there it was. Right in front of both of us, and at first I was as blind to it as you're pretending to be now.”

“I don't know if I can love anybody.”

“You already do. You don't have to tell me. Eventually you'll figure it out.”

“Please...you're not going to leave?”

“Tonight? Or forever?”

I moved closer, my breasts pressing against his chest. “Don't leave at all.”

He combed his fingers through my hair; then he bent his head and kissed me. I felt like I was melting, as if every inch of me was giving up the struggle to keep my distance.

“We'll take this slowly.” He kissed my cheek, my forehead, my earlobe. “You can say stop, and I will.”

My heart was speeding out of control, but I backed away. “You should know why I won't be any good at this.”

His face was grim. “You almost broke my heart today when you refused to let Mick film you in the bedroom that had been yours. Your bastard foster father. Don't you think I know what drives you? I never had details, but I think I've always known.”

My knees felt weak. “There's more, Donny. You need to know what you're getting into. You need to know
everything
that happened on that ranch. You think you know...”

“It only matters if you need to tell me. But there's nothing you can say tonight that will change the way I feel about you. And nothing you can do, or can't.”

“I have to tell you. I...”

I wondered if I would ever run out of tears. They were streaming down my cheeks again, but he didn't back away. “I can't do this unless you know...” I finally got it out. “Unless you know everything.”

He moved to the bed and tugged me along with him. He lay against my pillows and pulled me to lie half across him. My nightgown was twisted beneath me, but I didn't care. I hid my face against his shoulder.

“We have the rest of the night.” He kissed my hair. “We have as long as it takes.”

I had no choice but to start at the beginning.