Читать книгу My Sister, Myself - Tara Quinn Taylor - Страница 8

BEN SANDERS approached the Shelter Valley exit with trepidation. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. There were other places to get a good education. Other places to start over. What if the town was nothing more than a few old buildings, some houses and a street or two? What if it wasn’t home?

He’d heard about Shelter Valley his whole life, heard it described as a town where people cared, where they looked out for one another. A place where family mattered. He hoped it was true.

Signaling his turn, Ben guided the Ford F-150 from the highway, slowing as he came to the end of the ramp.

With everything he owned packed in boxes and stacked in the bed of his truck, he took the turn toward Shelter Valley, glancing avidly around him. He had no idea what he was looking for. Something he recognized, maybe. But no matter what his boyhood imaginings told him, he knew there would be nothing. He’d never been here before.

Except in his heart.

He’d been hearing the story of his grandmother’s journey from Shelter Valley since before he was old enough to understand its significance—a fourteen-year-old girl separated from her family, from the strong father she’d adored, from the only way of life she’d ever known. That story was the one piece of family lore his father had ever shared with him.

Shelter Valley had been beckoning him ever since. Maybe because of the nomadic way he’d grown up. Or maybe he’d inherited more than his share of his great-grandfather’s genes. Maybe old Samuel Montford was calling him to come home.

Maybe he’d just built up some stupid fantasy of a home because at the age of twenty-six he’d never had a real one.

The town came into view in a hurry. Over a hill, and there it was, out in the desert right where his great-grandfather had left it. Surrounded by hard ground and cacti, the town of his dreams had a color scheme of shades of brown and a backdrop of majestic mountains. Slowing the truck as he drove into Shelter Valley, Ben tried to notice everything at once. The neighborhoods, what he could see of them, looked nice, nothing fancy for the most part, but clean and well kept. There were people about, an old woman pruning a rosebush, some kids playing with a ball on the sidewalk, a teenage girl roller-skating alongside him.

He let her pass.

This time was for him. He wanted to savor it alone.

A few mansions sat interspersed on the distant mountain ahead of him. He wondered if a Montford lived in one of those houses. If there were even any Montfords left in this town.

He’d always believed he had family here.

More wishful thinking of a lonely boy.

Ben wasn’t a boy anymore. Marriage had cured him of that. Raising and supporting the child he’d believed was his had finished the job. Or maybe it’d been losing her—

No! He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to allow himself those thoughts, those memories. The pain. Not ever. He had a new life now. The one that had been interrupted during his senior year in high school. He was going it alone, counting on the only person he knew he could count on—himself. No more looking back.

His new address was on a piece of paper that lay on the seat beside him—an apartment in an older home near the campus of Montford University. Classes started in two days, but it wouldn’t take him that long to get ready. He’d already registered by mail and phone, only had a few books left to buy. Some boxes to unpack.

Eight years later than he’d planned, he was starting college.

Slowing even more as he neared downtown Shelter Valley—a strip of stores on both sides of Main Street, with angled parking along the curbs—Ben smiled. The Valley Diner, with its forest-green awning, Weber’s department store, the drugstore, were all just as he’d imagined. Almost as if someone had crept into his boyhood fantasies, stolen the images and dropped them here for him to find all these years later.

And then, as he reached the intersection at Main and Montford, he noticed the statue holding pride of place in the town square. Surrounded by lush green and carefully cropped grass, the life-size sculpture sparkled with a newness that reminded him of Christmas. Its polished stone surfaces glistened beneath the setting Arizona sun. The placard was so big he could read it from the road.

With a rush of incomprehensible feeling, Ben pulled his truck into the first empty spot he found, locked it up—kind of pointless considering all the stuff piled in the back—and as though compelled, headed straight for the statue. He read every word of the brief biography typed in smaller print on the placard before allowing himself his first real look.

He’d been waiting all his life for this moment.

And he wasn’t disappointed.

Incredulous, his heart full, Ben stared up at the likeness of his great-grandfather. The sculpted features were solid and real, almost as though Samuel Montford would come to life if the sun got warm enough. And as Ben stood and stared at the man who’d lived so many years ago, he could have been looking in a mirror.

A couple strolled by hand in hand, engrossed in each other, but they smiled at Ben as they passed. He smiled back. He wanted to ask if they saw the resemblance, half expected them to notice without his asking. They might have, too, if they’d ever fully looked his way.

There’d be time for that later. The rest of his life.

Bidding his great-grandfather a silent “See ya later,” Ben strode eagerly toward his truck. The apartment he’d never seen before was calling him. He’d come home.

“COME ON, CHRISTINE, where are you?” Dr. Phyllis Langford paced in front of her living-room window, watching the road intently. She found herself playing an old childhood game: Christine’s would be the fifth car to drive down her street. No, the tenth…

Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the window, she was a little frightened by the tension she read there. Even framed by her flyaway red hair, her face looked stiff, unyielding.

With Christine already weeks later than she should have been, Phyllis was growing more and more anxious to see her, to know that her friend was all right. Daylight passed into darkness, and still Christine didn’t arrive. Her note, obviously quickly scrawled, had said today was the day.

It had said nothing about the car accident that had delayed her. Nothing to convey to Phyllis the extent of Christine’s injuries, the damage to her car, how Tory had fared. Cryptic to the point of impersonal, the scribbled note had merely said she’d be arriving this afternoon.

Afternoon was over now.

Driven from her quaint little house by an energy she didn’t understand, Phyllis stood out by the curb, watching for headlights. Something was wrong.

Her heart twisted as she thought of her friend, and the tortured life she’d led. Shelter Valley was supposed to be Christine’s new beginning. A life where good was possible—and where evil was left far behind. A time for healing. A time for Christine and her younger sister, Tory, to nurture each other.

With a doctorate in psychology, Phyllis fully understood the steps the sisters would have to take, the stages they’d pass through on their way to emotional freedom from their abusive past. But it was as a friend that she intended to be with them, to accompany them on that journey.

Back in her house, Phyllis rechecked the room that Christine and Tory would be sharing. The twin beds were made. The closet full of hangers. The new dressers empty and waiting.

School was due to start on Monday. As the newest psychology professor at Montford University, Phyllis had been ready for the semester to begin weeks ago. Christine, the new English professor, hadn’t had the same time to prepare. She had her lessons planned; she’d shipped them—and all her books and research materials—ahead of her. But still, she’d left herself too little time to acclimate to her new home in Arizona—a far cry from the New England city they’d left—and to Montford’s campus, the small town, the people here.

Not to mention the new climate, Phyllis thought, going in to change the short-sleeved knit shirt she’d pulled on over knee-length shorts earlier that afternoon. Even with the air conditioner running, she couldn’t seem to stop sweating. Arizona’s heat might be dry, but Phyllis certainly wasn’t.

Maybe when Christine got settled in, she could help Phyllis lose some weight. She’d offered to help back when they’d lived next door to each other in Boston, but at that time Phyllis had still been punishing herself because of a husband who’d preferred another woman’s body to her own. Her plumpness had been what she’d deserved.

Then.

Christine and Tory weren’t the only ones reinventing themselves. In the weeks since she’d arrived in Shelter Valley, Phyllis had changed, too. Already she’d made some friends. Close friends. Becca and Will Parsons and their darling new daughter, Bethany. Becca’s sister, Sari. Martha Moore and John Strickland. Linda Morgan, the associate dean at Montford. Will’s energetic youngest sister, Randi. Most of them friends she knew would still be in her life thirty years from now.

Because of their big hearts and their willingness to accept a stranger as one of them, Phyllis had begun to value herself again.

And she knew that if Christine was ever going to find peace on this earth, Shelter Valley was the place.

Having waited so long for the doorbell to ring, Phyllis felt her heart jump alarmingly when it finally did. She flew to the door, flung it open and pulled the young woman standing on the front step into her arms.

“I’m so glad you guys are finally here,” she said, tearing up with relief.

“Yeah.” Tory was crying, too.

“Where’s Christine?” Phyllis asked, urging Tory into the house as she looked past her.

There was a new Mustang in her driveway. An empty Mustang.

Dread crawled over her as she turned slowly back. But there was no reason to think the worst.

“Where’s Christine?” she asked again. Back in Boston there’d been reason to worry, but Christine would be fine now.

“She’s…” Tory seemed to be having trouble breathing. “He…Bruce…”

Taking the younger woman’s trembling hands, Phyllis led her to the couch. Phyllis responded to Tory’s desperation, and her own emotions began to shut down, preparing her for the bad news she sensed was coming.

“Bruce…” Tory tried again.

But Phyllis didn’t need to hear. Tory’s sobs were so filled with anguish Phyllis was choking, too.

“He found you,” she said, trying to keep her own panic at bay. “He’s got Christine.”

Tory’s ex-husband was the reason Christine had accepted the job at Montford—to get Tory as far away from the man as she could.

Tory shook her head. “He…killed her…” The last word trailed off into a tormented whisper.

Numb with shock, Phyllis sat with Tory, held her, comforted her, but she had no idea what she was saying. Had a feeling it didn’t much matter, that Tory had no idea what she was saying, either. A solitary tear stole down Phyllis’s cheek.

Damn.

She’d known something was wrong. She’d known it.

“How did it happen?” she asked softly, more because the only part of her mind currently working, the analytical part, knew Tory needed to get everything out.

Christine’s life was over. Her struggle was over. Phyllis just couldn’t believe it.

“Somehow he discovered that we were heading out here,” Tory said, her voice weak from crying. Her slim, perfectly sculpted frame and beautiful face were sagging with strain. Watching her, Phyllis was taken aback at how much she resembled her sister. She’d thought so when she’d first met Tory earlier in the summer.

Not many months ago, Christine had sat on this same couch back in Boston, her body bent in defeat, her big blue eyes—exact replicas of Tory’s—dark with shadows as she recounted for Phyllis the horrors of her childhood.

As Phyllis had then, she sat quietly now, allowing the other sister to do her telling in her own time.

“He caught up with us at the New Mexico border.”

Oh, God. The landscape was so barren there. Hot. Unyielding.

“He kept motioning for us to pull over, but Christine wouldn’t.”

Tory’s eyes filled with helpless tears again as she looked at Phyllis. “I told her to stop,” she said. “He wanted me, not her.”

“Unless he was angry with her for taking you away from him,” Phyllis offered, already seeing the blame and guilt Tory was heaping on herself.

Tory shook her head, her short blond hair bouncing with the vigorous movement. “He only ever wanted me,” she said, her voice bitter. “Other people don’t matter enough to make him angry.” She paused, her eyes dead-looking. “In his mind, there’s no one alive who can beat him. People are merely ants he occasionally has to step on.”

Though she’d heard such things before—in clinical settings—Phyllis was sickened by the description. And by young Tory’s far-too-mature account of the man who’d made her life a living hell.

“So what happened when Christine finally stopped?” Phyllis coaxed softly when it appeared she’d lost Tory to places Phyllis had never been—places she probably couldn’t even imagine.

Tory shook her head, hands trembling. “She didn’t stop,” Tory whispered, her eyes wide with horror.

“She told me I was the only good thing in her life, the only thing worth living for, and she wouldn’t stop.”

“You sound like that surprises you,” Phyllis said.

“If it hadn’t been for me, Christine’s life would have been perfect once she left home,” she said sincerely. “I let her down so many times. I didn’t go to college. I married Bruce. I ran from everything.”

Remembering that she knew things Tory didn’t, Phyllis chose her words carefully. “Christine chose Bruce for you, Tory,” she said, revealing the part she could.

“What?” the young woman asked, shocked.

“How? She couldn’t have. I met him at a party.”

“And when you brought him home, when she met him, knew that he came from a good family, a wealthy family, she did everything she could to throw the two of you together.” Phyllis repeated what Christine herself had confessed all those months ago. “She thought he was your ticket out.”

Silently Tory listened, her gaze turned inward, as though she was remembering back to the unreal days of her courtship.

“She did, didn’t she?” Phyllis finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Tory said, her brow furrowed.

“I guess. Yeah, she was kind of always there, encouraging me, helping me get ready for dates, choosing just the right clothes for me to wear. But then, she was my older sister. She was supposed to do that.”

Feeling the other woman’s confusion, her pain, Phyllis smoothed the bangs from Tory’s eyes—and saw, for the first time, the ugly red scar marring Tory’s forehead just beneath her hairline.

“What happened?” she gasped.

Tory rearranged her bangs self-consciously.

“When Christine wouldn’t pull over, Bruce got more and more reckless, bumping into the side of the car, trying to force us to stop.” Head down, she played with her fingers. “I don’t remember much else,” she confessed. Tears dropped onto her hand.

“When I came to in the hospital, they told me there’d been a one-car accident—no one’s fault. We’d lost control on a curve and driven over a cliff—and that my s-s-sister was dead.”

Phyllis drew the young woman into her arms. “Oh, Tory, honey, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, over and over again, as her own tears fell on Tory’s hair.

Oh, Christine. Dear, sweet, tortured Christine. Have you finally found your peace?

TORY COULDN’T BELIEVE she’d slept. Coming slowly awake Saturday morning in the comfortable bed, the comfortable room, feeling almost rested, she wondered at first if she was still dreaming. A dream she didn’t ever want to wake from.

She glanced sleepily around the room and saw the luggage she and Phyllis had carried in the night before, the new dresser—and the empty twin bed across from her own.

For Christine.

That split second was all it took for everything to come tumbling back. The dread. The fear. The soul-crushing despair.

“You awake?” Phyllis’s voice followed a brief knock on the door.

“Yeah, come in.” Tory quickly pulled her bangs down over her forehead. After years of hiding bruises, the action was purely instinctive.

“Good morning.” Phyllis smiled, carrying a cup of coffee, which she set on Tory’s bedside table.

Being waited on in bed warmed Tory even more than the coffee Phyllis had brought.

They discussed trivial things for a while—the unbelievably hot Arizona weather, the pretty house Phyllis had found in August when she’d preceded Christine out to Shelter Valley. Also some of the people she’d met. People Tory would likely meet.

Trying to listen, to absorb, Tory settled for concentrating on Phyllis’s smile, instead, the steady cadence of her voice, the calm strength she emanated as she sat in the middle of Christine’s bed. Her nerves bouncing on the edge of her skin, Tory somehow made herself stay put, made her thoughts stay put. Forced down the panic inside her.

Phyllis was being so darn nice. Other than Christine, no one had ever been so nice to her before. And for no reason that she could fathom.

“We’re going to have to call Dr. Parsons and let him know Christine isn’t coming,” Phyllis finally said gently.

Here it comes, Tory thought, taking a deep breath.

She’d rehearsed the speech. A hundred times on her trek across the barren New Mexico and northern Arizona landscape.

Another deep breath, and still nothing happened.

She couldn’t do it.

“Life insurance was part of her benefits package,” Phyllis said, her eyes full of compassion. “I know Christine’s was already in effect because it was done at the same time as mine. We can give Dr. Parsons a copy of her death certificate, and at least you won’t have any financial worries.”

Tory stared at her.

“I’m counting on you to stay right here with me, just like we planned,” Phyllis continued. “Until you have time to decide what you want to do, anyway. It’s kind of lonely having an entire house to myself after living in an apartment for so long,” she said, obviously giving Tory whatever time she needed to enter the conversation. “I guess I need to hear life on the other side of my walls.”

“There isn’t one,” Tory stated bluntly.

Phyllis frowned. “Isn’t one what?”

“Death certificate.”

“But—”

“At least, not for Christine.”

“I don’t understand.” Phyllis was still frowning. “The hospital told you your sister was dead, but no one signed a death certificate?” Her face cleared. “If they haven’t seen her body, she may still be alive.” She looked at Tory. “Maybe Bruce has her, after all.”

Watching the expressions chase themselves across Phyllis’s face, Tory shook her head.

“The hospital authorities saw her.” She paused, swallowed. “I…saw…her.” Arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees, Tory stared down at the bed. “I had her cremated like she always said she wanted.”

Maybe most sisters didn’t talk to each other about their burials while still so young, but she and Christine had. With the lives they’d lived, the home they’d grown up in, death had been a constant possibility.

“You can’t do that without a death certificate.”

“I had one,” Tory admitted, biting her lip. “Just not Christine’s.” Her head hurt and her face was numb as she silently spun in the unending loop of terror inside her mind.

“Christine and I look so much alike….”

Chin resting on her knees, Tory studied the bed through blurry eyes. Tears dripped off her face, rolling slowly down the sides of her knees, but her voice was almost steady as she related what she’d been told so compassionately by the clergywoman who’d visited her in the hospital.

Tory’s bed sank on one side with Phyllis’s weight. She tried to concentrate on the comfort of the other woman’s hands rubbing slowly back and forth along her back.

“My driver’s license was brand-new. Christine’s was six years old….”

The hand on her back slowed, stopped moving, hung there suspended.

“We were both pretty messed up in the crash….”

“Tory—”

“She’d gotten cold, my monogrammed sweater was the only thing within reach for her to put on without stopping and—”

“Oh, my God.”

“When word got out that the woman who died in the crash was presumed to be Tory Evans, Bruce, who was apparently beside himself, sent one of the family staff to identify me. Her.”

“And the guy did?”

Tory nodded, turned to meet Phyllis’s incredulous eyes. “Christine went through the windshield,” Tory said, trying not to remember the one brief glimpse she’d had of her sister in the morgue. “Her face was barely recognizable, even to me. She’d just had her hair cut short like mine, said she was embarking on a new life and wanted a new look.”

Tory’s sigh was ragged. “Apparently when I first came to and they asked me if I knew who I was, I said Christine.” She looked at Phyllis again. “I can’t remember that at all, but knowing me, knowing how I get when I’m hurting, I would’ve been calling for Christine….”

Her sister had been her balm her entire life, as far back as Tory could remember. Which was pretty damn far. She’d been only three the first time her stepfather had thrown her against a wall. She could still remember the stars she’d seen. The confusion that had kept her immobile long enough for him to do it again.

“This is incredible,” Phyllis said. She took hold of Tory’s shoulders, turning Tory to face her.

“They think you’re dead, that you’ve been cremated.”

Tory nodded wearily, her eyes overflowing with tears. “The death certificate I have is my own.”