Читать книгу Return to Emmett's Mill - Kimberly Van Meter - Страница 10

CHAPTER FOUR

TASHA GAVE THE LIST in her hand a quick glance as she breezed through the double sliding doors of the small grocery market, intent on finishing the task as quickly as she could. She wasn’t thrilled with doing the grocery shopping, but both her sisters had plans of their own and couldn’t change them.

Miner Market hadn’t changed much since she was a kid, she noted, going right to the deli counter for her father’s roast beef. In high school, she used to come here with her girlfriends for a hot burrito and a soda, which was often shared among them during lunch. She smiled at the memory and kept moving until she heard her named called.

“Tasha Simmons! Look at you! Goodness, girl, don’t you age?”

Tasha stopped and a name filtered into her memory as the brunette woman ran over to her. “Crystal, wow. You look great, too. How are you?” she inquired politely.

She patted a rounded stomach and beamed. “Can’t complain. Number three right here. Another boy. Jack said pretty soon we’ll have our own basketball team at the rate we’re going. Any kids for you?”

“Uh, no,” she answered, struggling to keep her expression pleasantly bland, ignoring the void she felt in her heart. “Not yet.” Probably never. She lifted her basket. “Well, good to see you. I’d better get to this list or Natalie will kill me.”

Crystal nodded and moved her cart as if to leave but stopped as a sudden thought occurred to her. “I heard Josh’s in town, too. Have you seen him?”

“Actually, yes, he came to my mother’s funeral.”

Crystal’s expression lost some of its sparkle. “Oh, that’s right. She was such an awesome woman,” she said, resting her hand on her belly. “You let me know if you guys need anything. Anything at all.”

Tasha accepted Crystal’s offer with a nod but knew she wouldn’t call.

She detoured down the bread aisle when she saw someone else she’d gone to school with and exhaled softly in relief when she didn’t hear her name called at her back.

For a fleeting, selfish moment, she wished she was already back in Belize, away from the groups of well-meaning folk who had no idea why she wasn’t in the mood to reminisce.

Her coworkers knew she treasured her private time, and since she’d never established herself as the social type, they left her to it.

She drew a deep breath against the sudden tightness in her chest and looked down at the few items she’d managed to grab and groaned. The list was a page long. How much food could one old man eat? She had a sneaking suspicion Natalie had loaded the list in the hopes that she’d run into a friend or two. She sighed. Her sister wasn’t as sly as she thought. Tasha’s problem wasn’t Emmett’s Mill or the people; it was the memory. She’d seen countless counselors, psychiatrists and even a shaman or two in the hopes of dealing with that one incident, but her own brand of therapy prescribed avoidance. And it worked. She didn’t see the point of messing with a method that wasn’t broken.

Almost finished and grumbling under her breath about retribution, she rounded the corner and almost swallowed her tongue when she came face-to-face with someone she’d hoped to never see again.

Diane Lewis, Bronson’s wife, stood not more than four feet in front of her, an uncomfortable expression on her pinched face. For a paralyzing moment, Tasha thought Diane knew what had happened, but when she calmed, she realized Bronson would never have admitted his guilt. Still, Diane’s reaction to her wasn’t kind, which made her wonder what story Bronson had given for her sudden departure.

“Hello, Diane,” she ventured, offering a smile.

“Natasha.” Diane returned with her given name instead of the shortened version everyone else used. “You look well.”

“Thank you.” She struggled to find neutral ground but her insides were trembling. A condolence was in order for Bronson’s death but she couldn’t find the words. When Natalie wrote to tell her, Tasha had read the letter multiple times and crumpled it to her chest as she allowed grim satisfaction to roll through her. It wasn’t right, certainly wasn’t Christian-like, but she hoped he rotted in hell. And it wasn’t something she could tell his wife. Diane solved the dilemma by speaking again first.

“I heard about your mother. Give Gerald my best.”

Tasha nodded, and Diane, stiff-backed and elegantly coiffed, kept moving. It was several moments before Tasha could breathe without great effort. Wiping at her eyes, she glanced quickly to see if anyone had caught the uncomfortable exchange. Once satisfied she’d suffered alone, she hastened for the checkout lane.

TASHA RETURNED TO HER dad’s place and heard her sisters’ voices, one raised and one exasperated.

“What’s going on?” she asked, and placed the groceries on the kitchen counter. Nora immediately crossed her arms and sent a stony look her way, while Natalie simply exhaled, the breath lifting her bangs as frustration laced her features. “What now?” She followed her sister’s gaze outside. Their father was on the porch swing without benefit of a jacket or sweater and the wind was kicking up. “What’s he doing? It’s freezing. Someone needs to get him to come inside.”

“What a novel idea. Why didn’t we think of that?” Nora quipped sarcastically, continuing with a snort. “Like we haven’t already tried. He won’t budge. It’s like he’s gone crazy or something.”

“Cut him some slack. He just lost his wife,” Tasha reminded her sister sharply, and moved past them. What was Nora’s problem? Everyone in the family was hurting. Was it asking too much for her to be a little more sensitive? Bracing herself against the cold, she stalked out the side door to the porch swing, still annoyed at Nora for her callousness but not quite sure what to say to her father. They’d pretty much avoided each other since she returned, and while it hurt to be treated like the plague, she didn’t have the courage to push it.

As she came closer she saw his eyes were bloodshot and softly swollen from tears, and her heart stuttered. She slowed her step and gingerly sat beside him.

“Dad?” She tried to discern what he was looking at, but she saw nothing except pine trees and bracken. She turned to him. “What’s going on? You need to come inside. It’s too cold.”

His bottom lip, blue from the frigid mountain air, trembled as if he were about to answer, but nothing came out. Instead, he lifted his chin just a bit higher as he focused on a point just beyond the pines.

She tried again, ignoring the goose bumps rioting across any exposed skin and the rush of memories that threatened to rob her of her ability to speak coherently. Once, this man had been her hero. Until the day he failed her when she needed him the most. Not the time. Focus on the now before the man froze to death. “Dad, please come inside. Natalie’s made your favorite for dinner. Meat loaf, I think.”

“Not hungry,” he retorted hoarsely.

Stubborn man. “What are you doing? Trying to die of exposure? Don’t be like this. Mom’s gone. We don’t need to lose our father in the same week because he was too foolish to come in before a storm.”

“Don’t talk to me about losing your mom,” he said, startling her with his sharp, angry rasp. His mouth tightened and his hand trembled as he lifted it to wipe away a sudden glint in his eye. “You weren’t here when she needed you. You don’t know what she went through.”

Stricken by the vehemence in her father’s voice, she tripped on her own words as she tried to defend herself. “Dad, I—”

“Bah!” he spat. “Go save a goddamned tree. It’s all you seem to care about.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” she gasped. “Why would you say that? I came home as soon as I found out.”

“She was already dead!”

Tasha sucked in a sharp breath and tears sprang to her eyes. Once again her own father was against her. How could he possibly believe she wouldn’t have been here if she’d known sooner? “I came as soon as I could,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice level when she wanted to scream.

“She cried your name over and over, wanting to know why you weren’t here.” He buried his head in his hands, raking his fingers through the wild knot of white hair on his head, his breath catching as he continued. “And there was nothing I could do. Nothing! Natalie called and left messages with your supervisor. She wrote letters… Why would you hurt your mother like that? She needed you so much,” he ended with a bereaved moan, his shoulders shaking silently as he cried into his hands.

She’d never received any messages. A million different things could’ve happened to them, none of which were anyone’s fault specifically, but the communication gaps were wider in underdeveloped countries. She squeezed her eyes shut and hated her sisters for sending her outside to be crucified. But she couldn’t argue the facts. Tasha hadn’t been here when her family needed her the most. She risked rejection and gently placed her hand on her father’s shoulder. “I’m sorry it wasn’t good enough. Sorrier than anyone will ever know,” she added in a whisper. “I can’t take it back. I’d do anything if I could. Deep down somewhere, you have to believe that, Dad. I loved her, too.”

His throat worked convulsively as he raised his head, searching for the truth in her eyes. Please believe…

After a long moment he nodded and tears of relief sprang to her eyes, but she choked them back for her father’s sake. He was drowning in a sea of his own heartache, and she wouldn’t do anything to further drag him under, but she yearned to hear something else from him—something she was not likely to get.

“Oh, Tasha… My Missy…she died in so much pain.” He looked away, but not before she caught the open anguish in his heart. Fresh guilt washed over her. She tried to speak, to offer something to ease the burden he carried, but nothing short of a watery croak came out. Say something, her brain urged, but she didn’t know what to say. She knew nothing would ease his sense of loss, because she knew nothing anyone could say to her would mend the jagged hole in her heart. So it was better to just sit there and freeze your ass off? “Dad, please come in out of the cold. Everyone is worried you’re going to catch pneumonia out here. Please.”

A long moment passed before her words reached that closed-off space blocked by his grief, then he turned slowly, a measure of his old personality asserting itself in his gruff voice. “You go on. I’ll come in when I’m ready,” he said, dismissing her.

She blew a hard breath in mild frustration. “Dad, Nat and Nora sent me out here to bring you in. If I go back in there without you, either they’ll just send me out again or Nat will send Nora, and trust me when I say that girl is not big on saying things nice. She’s likely to have you declared mentally unfit and put in one of those old-folk homes where they feed you nothing but Jell-O and Ritz crackers. You don’t want that, do you?”

A part of her was joking, but another part had to admit that sometimes Nora was unpredictable. She wouldn’t put it past her sister to do something so rash, if only to make a point.

Her father’s chuckle sounded dry and rusty but she welcomed the sound. He rose on stiff limbs from the old porch. “That girl has balls the size of Texas sometimes,” he said.

“She reminds me of someone else I know,” she retorted under her breath, fatigue suddenly pulling at her eyes and forcing a yawn despite the chatter of her teeth. She followed her father into the house, glad to be out of the cold and to have accomplished her objective.

The minute they came inside, Natalie fussed around their father, trying to put a shawl across his shoulders until he waved her away and announced he was going to bed, leaving Nora to stare after him in hard-edged annoyance and Natalie to groan over all the food she’d just prepared.

“Tasha, can’t you talk to him? He needs to eat,” Natalie implored, ignoring Nora’s muttered comments even as she looked in the direction their father had disappeared. “I’m worried about him. He hasn’t eaten a good meal in days.”

She sighed wearily and grabbed her coat. “Nat, I think he needs a little space. He’s dealing with a lot right now. It’s not every day your life is destroyed, you know. You can’t expect a raging appetite when everything you’ve ever known is gone.”

“I understand how he feels…” Somehow, Tasha doubted that, but there was no point in arguing and even if there was, she didn’t have the energy. Natalie ignored Tasha’s sigh and continued, “But even so, he needs to eat.”

“He’ll eat when he’s hungry. Just wrap everything up and leave it in the fridge,” she suggested, sliding her arm into her coat, eager to seek the solitude of her hotel room.

Nora came into the room and eyed Tasha’s state of dress with a gathering frown. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my hotel,” she answered.

“I don’t think so. We have details to discuss.”

Natalie stepped forward but Nora ignored her, her voice rising as she crossed her arms across her chest. “You’re not running out on us again when we need you the most.”

“I’m not running out on you,” she returned brusquely, rubbing at her eyes with the flat of her palm. “I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”

“We’re all tired, Tasha. But we need to talk about a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Like who’s going to go through Mom’s things, who’s going to help Dad with the day-today stuff, you know, things like that.” Foreboding tingled at the edge of her thoughts as she waited for her sister to get to the point. “And—” she lifted her chin, as if knowing what she was about to say was going to go over like something icky in a punch bowl “—we need to decide how to split up the shifts.”

“Shifts? What are you talking about?”

Natalie jumped in even as she shot Nora a look that said she wasn’t happy with her delivery, clarifying, “Tasha, what Nora is trying to tell you is we need you home for a while—”

“I can’t,” she broke in flatly. “I have to return to Belize in a few days. I have projects, people who depend on me. My team is right in the middle of creating a serviceable water-treatment system and I can’t just drop everything because—”

“Because our mother died?” Nora finished for her, two high points of angry color flashing in her cheeks. “No, heaven forbid, that Tasha rearrange her schedule to accommodate a death in the family.” She threw up her hands and stalked into the kitchen, still ranting. “Gotta make sure some obscure village in the jungle has running water or else Tasha might lose her saintly status.”

“What’s her problem?” Tasha queried Natalie, who was looking as if she were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. “She’s been pissed off at me since I returned. I don’t understand what she’s so angry about.”

Natalie took a seat on the armrest of the sofa, something she never would’ve done if their mother was still around, and sighed. “This is how she deals with her grief, I guess. She turns it into anger.”

“Yeah. Anger against me.” Tasha exhaled loudly, then turned to her sister. “But you understand, right? Why I can’t stay? I mean, I really do have obligations.” Tasha expected a quick answer, but Natalie’s long pause made her look sharply. “What? Are you mad at me, too?”

“A little,” she admitted, but she seemed ashamed of her admission and elucidated in a quiet voice. “I know why you wouldn’t return before…but the man who hurt you died five years ago, Tasha, and Mom needed you.” Her voice cracked a little and tears glistened as she added, “We all needed you. And now that you’re back, we need you to stay at least long enough to get Dad back on track.”

Stay? Here? “I could lose my post,” she blurted out, hoping to appeal to Natalie’s more pragmatic side. When Natalie’s expression didn’t soften, Tasha knew she wasn’t going to back down. “What if I can’t?” she asked, knowing Natalie would understand she was talking about more than just helping out around the house. “What if it’s just too much? Being here makes it real all over again.” She lowered her voice to a painful whisper. “I ran into Diane Lewis at the store.”

Natalie’s face softened. “What did she say?”

“Not a lot,” she admitted. “But it was incredibly awkward and…I don’t want to go through those kinds of encounters on a daily basis.”

“I understand.” Natalie came toward her and pulled her into a fierce hug. “But you’re not alone. We’ll be with you every step, every moment. And if anyone, including Diane Lewis, even looks cross-eyed at you, we’ll handle it. You can’t keep running. We need this. You need this,” she stressed softly, sending a sharp pang straight to Tasha’s heart. “There’s more to your past than just that one ugly moment. We’re in there, too.”

Tasha wanted to say no, but words failed her and she nodded slowly, even though her instincts told her to board the first plane to Belize, back to the place where no one knew her secrets or wanted to know more than she was willing to share. Where no one expected her to face a past that she’d willfully buried under layers of denial, anger and grief.

Her sisters were asking more than she could give.

Yet, she felt her head nod. “Fine,” she whispered, turning to leave but adding a caveat for sanity’s sake. “Only until things are settled. No exceptions.”

“It must be nice to be able to drop limitations on your family. Makes me wonder if you do the same thing to your people in the Peace Corps,” Nora said, returning to the room, her eyes hot. “I’ll bet you trip all over yourself to help out when it doesn’t involve us.”

Tasha drew back in stricken silence, unable to breathe from the pain in her heart from Nora’s attack. But it was true. Tasha ran herself ragged when she was working, trying to dull the constant hurt she carried with her from day to day. Her mouth worked but nothing came out, words failed her. If only she had the courage to explain. Tasha was spared the effort for Natalie whirled on Nora, surprising them both.

“Stop it! I’ve had enough of your snap judgments on a person you hardly know.”

“Why are you taking her side?” Nora wailed. “Ever since she got here she’s been trying to skip out on us like we’ve got the goddamned plague! Why are you defending her?”

Tasha started to say something, but Natalie stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. Natalie drew a deep breath, and when she began again, her tone softened. “She’s agreed to stay long enough to help us get things settled with Dad. Just stop treating her like she’s the enemy. She’s our sister. Try to remember that fact.”

The glitter in Nora’s eyes betrayed the hurt she was feeling, but her expression hardened just the same. “Yeah, well somebody ought to remind her of that fact, too,” she spat, then turned and grabbed her own jacket. “Food’s put away. I’m outta here.”

“Nora…” Tasha managed to croak her sister’s name but the rest died on her lips. Their father’s snores filtered down the hallway and she was glad he hadn’t witnessed their meltdown. She met Natalie’s weary look. “I don’t want to come between you two. You guys are close and I don’t want to ruin it. She has a right to be angry.”

“I agree,” Natalie said quietly. “But she takes it to another level. That’s her way with most things, but it shouldn’t be the way she is with you. The good news is her temper usually burns out as quickly as it fires. Give it a little time. She’ll come around.”

“I don’t know, Nat.” Tasha shook her head wearily. “I don’t think there’s enough time in the world for Nora to get over her issues with me.”

Natalie crooked a thin smile. “Ye of little faith,” she said, adding ruefully, “Then again, you might be right.”

Tasha’s mouth curved for a moment. “Thanks, Nat. Thanks for…everything.”

“What are sisters for?” Natalie joked softly before checking her watch. “It’s late. I better get going and make sure Evan put Colton to bed.”

“He’s such a sweet little boy,” Tasha murmured, watching as Natalie shrugged into her coat. “You’re lucky to have him.”

Natalie smiled, the first bright and genuine one Tasha had seen on her sister’s face since arriving in Emmett’s Mill. They walked to the door in silence until Natalie, hand on the doorknob, stopped with a sad contemplative look. “You know, I never realized how Mom kept us all connected. She was the common thread. Now I guess it falls to you.”

“Oh, God, Nat. Don’t set me up to fail. I think I’ve disappointed enough people to last a lifetime,” she said around the lump of fear in her throat.

Natalie ran the back of her hand lovingly against her cheek and graced her with a sweet smile that spoke of her confidence in Tasha and said, “You won’t fail. It’s not in your nature. You’re a leader… always have been and always will be.”

Tasha stared, struggling under the weight of her sister’s belief and her own denial, but most of all, she wasn’t sure if she wanted her sister to be right or wrong.