Enough was enough.
She took a deep breath and launched the hardest set of facts at Fran. “I won’t break up with him, because we were never together in the first place. That kiss I gave him? We weren’t together. It took him as much by surprise as you. I did it to convince you to stay put so we wouldn’t drive anymore.”
The silence was as deafening as the thunder outside.
“So you both lied to me,” Fran finally said, “but at least he has the decency to want to make the lie into a truth. You want to keep on lying.”
“No,” Daphne said. “Not to you, or to him.”
“But to yourself.” Fran flipped back the covers, undoing Daphne’s work. “You want to know why I insisted on this trek across the country? Because I wanted to spend time with you before I died. Real time. Not sitting, cramped in a plane. Yes, this house on wheels is preposterous, but it suited us, didn’t it? I could rest at a moment’s notice and you—you could ignore your dying godmother in style.”
“I wasn’t ignoring—”
Fran rolled right over her. “Then, after nearly three thousand miles, by accident—by my godsend of an accident, I might add—we end up in the one town with the one man who gets you to drive, to see how you can be safe. And you want to leave all that?”
“It’s for his sake, too. It can’t last. He has a business, a family, a place. I have my life. It would never work.”
Fran, usually slow moving nowadays, jumped to her feet as fast as the lightning outside. “Don’t give me that. What you’re scared of is if it does work. You can’t bear to move on. You’d rather stay stuck in that car crash.”
“Why don’t you just say it?” Daphne said. “Why don’t you just say that you wish I’d died in the car crash and she had lived?”
“You might as well have for all the good you’ve done in your life,” Fran said.
Daphne staggered, her back hitting the bedroom door. She’d always known on some level that Fran resented her, but she wasn’t prepared for how much it hurt to hear the words from her lips. Daphne groped for the bedroom door handle to escape but Fran’s hand got there first, her face, haggard but fierce, close to Daphne’s. “I moved on,” she said. “Moshe moved on. You—you stayed stuck in your books. In your theories. In your unjustified guilt. You shrank away from every opportunity to live. And here—finally, finally you have a man who is showing you how to do just that. Yet you deny yourself and him.”
Even sick as she was, Fran stood over Daphne, trying to intimidate her. It wouldn’t work; Daphne had learned her talent long ago. “I survived the accident because I stayed small and hung on. As for your ridiculous metaphor that me learning how to drive means I’m starting to live, let me remind you that driving is a good way to bring life to a screeching halt, too. And there’s no coming back from that.”
“He made you drive.”
“And yet the dead are still dead. Because, as you know, my dear godmother, dead loved ones can’t be replaced, no matter how much you might wish it so.”
Fran paled and swayed and then stiffened. “Get out.”
Daphne shot down the narrow hallway like a bullet from a barrel, flung open the motor home door and marched on. She fumbled in her sandals but resumed walking.
The thunder was constant now, lightning was all around. The wind was high, the sky black. An utterly Romantic episode. Forget Austen. This was a Brontëan moment. Perhaps she’d meet Heathcliff.
She hadn’t gone two blocks before the rain started. Spits on her arm. She crossed the street to the lakeside park. She would wait it out at one of the camp shelters. She most certainly was not going back to the RV. Not if she wished to avoid murder charges.
By the time she got to the shelter, she was thoroughly soaked. She sat on the picnic table and watched the water stream from the roof. She was cold and hot at the same time. Cold skin, hot heart. Still, the drops collected and fell, collected and fell. The order of physics at work, despite the chaos and noise of the storm. The imperturbable workings of weight and gravity, of energy and motion.
Daphne slowly calmed. Fran meant well. Fran was sick. Was dying. Did she really want to stain the remainder of her time with Fran in anger?
When the storm eased and the evening sky lightened before sunset, Daphne left the camp shelter as washed clean as the air and the trees and the houses themselves. As washed and full of purpose as The Stagecoach, which came around the bend in the street at the same moment Daphne turned onto it. She watched Fran barrel by, eyes on the darkening road, paying no heed whatsoever to Daphne.
“I am,” Daphne said to the vanishing Stagecoach, “going to kill you.”
CHAPTER TEN
DAPHNE DRAGGED HER WET, shivering self into the library two minutes before closing, according to the clock she and Judy looked at simultaneously.
“C-could you c-call Mel for me, please?”
Judy did not hesitate to comply.
The sound of his voice nearly undid her. “F-Fran left with the m-motor home.” Get a grip, Daphne. “I was wondering if you could pick me up. At the library.”
“Yep. Be right there.” No questions asked.
Daphne set the phone in the cradle. “Thanks,” she said to an unusally subdued Judy and squelched to the small glass foyer to wait. She’d feel more comfortable outside, but also colder. Though right now, she wasn’t sure if her shivering was from cold, shock or sheer humiliation.
Mel must have anticipated her state because the hot air was blasting in his truck when he pulled up. He reached behind into the back seat and handed her a plaid shirt padded like a jacket.
She shoved her arms down the sleeves, wearing it backward. “Thanks for coming, Mel. I’m sorry to call you.”
“My pleasure.” Heavens, he made it sound as if it were. “She say where she’s going?”
“I wasn’t there for her to tell.” Daphne wiggled out of her soggy sandals. How bad would it look if she planted her feet on the vents? “We had a fight. I confessed our whole scheme. She accused me of—of stuff. I stormed out. Straight into the rain. And, yes, the metaphoric prescience of the scene is not lost upon me.”
Mel stayed quiet.
“On my way back, she drove right past me. I don’t know if she saw me. Anyway, she has everything of mine. Computer, phone, money, clothes. Toothbrush. Books. All my books.” The last came out on a near wail.
Mel tucked a corner of his thick shirt around her shoulder. “You have any idea where she was headed?”
“To the coast, I assume. To dump out Frederick.” Waves of shivers rocked her. Panic. “Mel. She’s not going to make it. She’s going to get in an accident. She’ll kill herself. Or someone else.” Another horrifying thought hit her. “Her medication. I was going to refill her pillboxes tomorrow. I don’t trust her to read the labels right.”
“First,” Mel said, “we’ll talk to the police.”
For once, Daphne was grateful for Mel’s popularity; he got an officer’s immediate attention. It also helped that the cops already had Fran and Daphne entered in their database. The officer notified the Rocky Mountain House detachment, forty miles to the west. It was the last full detachment before the Rocky Mountains. Before long stretches of nothing. No gas stations, no lit roads and with turnoffs every bit as narrow as the entrance into Tim Hortons.
By the time Mel and Daphne left the station, Daphne was having to consciously tell herself to breathe. Mel wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her tight to his side. He kissed the top of her head and guided her into his truck, closing the door behind her.
He drove them to an apartment building a block from the downtown. His place. About to turn down into the underground parking, Mel braked.
“I never thought to ask,” he said. “Would you prefer a hotel? I’d pay until this is all sorted.”
“I’m fine. If you are. Either way. Which
ever you prefer.” Because unless she wanted to clamber into a Dumpster, she really was at his mercy.
He eased off the brake. “I prefer you with me.”
His place was neat as the proverbial pin. The dining room table gleamed. The handles on his mugs all faced the same direction. He kept the teakettle in a cupboard, and when he finished making her a chamomile tea served on the couch, he returned all the tea paraphernalia to its rightful place. She would never have expected this meticulousness from someone who seemed so relaxed.
She wasn’t sure her apartment had ever been this neat. Her chaos must annoy him to no end.
He slipped down the hallway, presumably to his bedroom. She heard him move around, a drawer opened, a hanger scraped along a rod. Daphne closed her eyes and breathed.
His hand on her shoulder brought her back awake. “I got the bed made up for you. And a change of clothes. Well, sort of.”
“Oh. I can sleep on the couch. No need to fuss.”
“Not fussing,” he said quietly. “Come on.”
He stretched out his hand and she took it.
The bedroom was a romantic setting. The bed lamps glowed warmly and the cover was smoothed, with a corner flipped back. He’d laid out a flannel shirt on the bed. It would come down to her knees, be its own Mel nightgown.
“I bet,” she murmured, “there’s a new toothbrush ready for me in the bathroom.”
He smiled. “Good night,” he said. “I’ll be out on the couch, if you need anything. Don’t worry. Tomorrow’s a new day.”
Which, Daphne concluded as she stretched out, was a good thing.
So was Mel’s choice of thread count...
* * *
MEL STOLE INTO his apartment the next morning after getting breakfast. He tried to muffle the crinkle of the brown paper bag and steady the coffees as he tiptoed into the kitchen. He took a thermos from the cupboard—brand-new in the box—and rinsed it under a slow noiseless trickle of water, dulling any splashes with a dishcloth in the drain. He poured the coffee from the Tim Hortons cups into the thermos and sealed it. Second-guessing himself, he eased out the rarely used coffee maker and grounds from the freezer. Moving with the exaggerated care of a man in space, Mel proceeded to set up the coffee maker until the only step that remained was to flip the switch.
Next, he transferred the egg-and-sausage muffins into the toaster oven, not rattling the racks one iota. The door of the toaster oven squeaked as he closed it. He grimaced and paused to assess the noise from the bedroom. Nothing. Good.
With breakfast ready to warm, he silently lowered plates to the table. Stacked the half-dozen doughnuts in an artful pyramid of glazed and sprinkled. Napkins. He could get real ones from the linen closet if he avoided the squeaky floorboard.
“Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?” Connie rapped on his open door and clacked in on her heels. “Morning, Mel. You need to be more security conscious. Anybody could walk in when your door’s wide-open.” She shut it with a resounding thud and snapped the bolt home.
“Ooh, is that coffee I smell?” Connie beelined for the coffee maker. She jiggled the empty pot, flicked open the top, snapped it shut and squawked when she spotted the problem. “You haven’t turned it on. What are you waiting for?”
For you to leave. And Daphne to awaken, which she probably had with all of Connie’s noise. He listened for movement above the din of Connie, but then he doubted he’d hear her blink open her eyes, stretch her legs across the sheets, snuggle deeper into the bed...
Connie’s fingers snapped in his face. “Mel, what’s up?”
“What are you doing here, Connie?”
“Good morning to you, too, grumpy.” She tapped a box she’d set on the bare kitchen counter. It was made of thick pressed cardboard with a lid that fitted tightly over the sides. “This is for you. It was with Mom’s things, which—hallelujah—I’m almost done sorting. Most of her stuff is going straight to the secondhand store or the Dumpster, but this box has your name on it.”
“What are you throwing out?”
“Clothes, shoes. Hair curlers. Yarn.”
“You should let me see it first.”
“Mel. Why would you need to see your mother’s underwear?”
“Not that, but you never know what you can get for odds ’n’ ends.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what I can get for bobby pins,” Connie said and pointed to the box. “Any idea what’s in there?”
“Nope.”
“Open it.”
Now was not the time to open a box addressed to him by his mother. “Later.”
“Meaning after I leave.” She banged open a few cupboard doors. “Where do you keep your— Oh, here.” She took out a mug, clattering it against others, and then opened the fridge. “Do you have cream?” she asked before bothering to look.
“Here,” Mel said, taking it from the convenience store grocery bag, along with a carton of milk. He wasn’t sure which one Daphne preferred.
It occurred to him that Daphne was probably awake but hiding from Connie in the bedroom. Even during his sister’s most obnoxious years, he hadn’t been as annoyed as he was right now with her friendly, bright presence.
Yesterday he’d realized how much Daphne meant to him, and then a few short hours later, he was given the golden chance to have her to himself. Sure, Fran’s disappearance made for less-than-ideal circumstances but he’d find a way to solve that problem. If he could hustle Connie out the door.
“Don’t you have someplace else you need to be?”
Connie stilled. “Mel,” she said, “are you trying to get rid of me?”
His glance strayed to the two place settings at the table. Connie cupped her hand over her mouth, her words seeping through. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s not what you think.”
Connie’s hand went to her hip. “It’s not Daphne?”
“Yes, but not what you’re assuming. I can’t give you the details. It’s her story.”
“Mel,” Connie said, “you’ve got to give me something.”
“Good morning, Connie.” Daphne stood at the entrance to the kitchen in his flannel shirt. She was as cute as he thought she’d be. She smiled at him. “Mel.”
“I got you coffee and breakfast.” He slid in close to the coffee maker, forcing his sister aside. Then he remembered the thermos. He poured the coffee into a mug, the cream already mixed in by the kid at Tim’s.
“Do you like it with cream? I can make you a fresh pot with milk instead. I got milk. No problem.”
Daphne smiled. “I like it just fine. I heard voices,” she said. “Connie, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea and destroy Mel’s reputation.” She deadpanned the lines, but Connie, not knowing Daphne, backpedaled.
“Oh, no. I mean, I’m totally fine with it. Everyone knows about you two, anyway. This is—” she waved her hand in the direction of the bedroom “—a formality, really.”
“Here,” Mel said to Daphne. “Your coffee.” He indicated the table. “Have a seat, Daphne.”
Now that the matter of intimacy was no longer an issue, Connie seemed to take a general invitation to join them. Daphne slid into a chair, too. Her bare toes curled around the bar of the chair.
What was he doing? Right, breakfast. He spun the dial on the toaster oven and set it to work.
“I understand you want to be discreet, Mel,” Daphne said, “but it would probably be best if as many people as possible know about Fran, in case they spot her.”
In a few brisk words, Daphne outlined Fran’s escapade as Connie made sympathetic noises. “So, frankly, spread the word.” She turned to Mel. “I take it you haven’t heard anything this morning?”
Mel shook his head, the foolishness of his breakfast showing itself. Of course, Daphne would be too worried to eat. He ate no matter what, a habit left over from when he wa
s a young kid and a square meal was a baloney sandwich cut into quarters.
The toaster oven dinged. “Do you want breakfast?”
Daphne looked up. “If that’s not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all.” He poured so much truth into that statement, it came out soft and mushy. Daphne colored.
“Well, I really should be going,” Connie said, and Mel didn’t disagree. At least, not until she reached his door.
“Wait.” When Connie paused, hand on the doorknob, Mel found himself at a loss for how to discuss the next delicate issue, given that the subject was right there and probably pretending that she couldn’t hear every single word. What was he thinking? Daphne ought to be included.
“Daphne. I wondered if Connie might help you, uh—” he swept his hand up and down his front “—get out of my clothes.”
Daphne colored again, not prettily as she had before, but a beet red. Connie groaned.
“Not now... I don’t mean what you’re wearing... Just for later.”
Daphne slipped from her chair and padded over to them. Mel looked down. Her toes were painted a bubblegum blue. She touched his arm. “I can take it from here.”
He scuttled back into the kitchen, trying not to listen to their conversation. He rattled silverware and banged shut drawers as loudly as Connie had ever done.
When their voices rose into goodbyes, Mel darted to the door and pulled out his wallet. “Here,” he said to Connie and wadded a bunch of twenties and fifties into her hand. “To cover it.”
“Holy Toledo,” she said. “I’m going to Walmart, not Rodeo Drive.”
“Bring back the change, then,” he said, and closed the door more or less in her face.
“I’ll repay you,” Daphne said.
“I’m sure you will.” It didn’t matter if she did or didn’t. Like how he never cared if Seth or Connie ever paid him back. In exchange, he got a seat at the family table, the gift of being an uncle for his birthday and phone calls out of the blue to see how he was doing.
Coming Home to You Page 12