Hushed

by Gina Robinson

  "'Call the cops,' I told Sarah as calmly as I could." Rick paused and took a sip of wine. "She grabbed the phone just as we heard sirens. A dozen or more cop cars and fire engines pulled up. Along with the bomb squad.

  "Cops got out with bullhorns and started yelling directions for everyone on all floors but the fifth to evacuate. They told those of us on the fifth floor to stay put and wait for help.

  "A ladder truck pulled up at the opposite end of the building and raised its ladder to help two girls out.

  "'We'll be last', I told Steve and Sarah. There was a large evergreen outside Sarah's room. 'To hell with waiting,' I told my lab partners. 'I'm not waiting to be blown up.' The three of us decided to climb out the window.

  "I was good at climbing trees and not afraid of heights. I went first and tested the tree out. I decided the nearest branch was sturdy enough to hold one or two of us at a time and the climb down would be safe. Safer than staying inside.

  "Steve guided Sarah out the window. I grabbed her from my perch on the branch and helped her to the trunk. I was going back to help Steve when the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen leaned out the window next to Sarah's room. 'Can you help us, too?'

  "Her eyes were the deepest blue. Round and large. But not afraid. Why hadn't I ever seen her before?'" He took a deep breath, lost in the memory.

  I was lost in his story, picturing Rick Butler coming to an impressionable young Mom's rescue. Imagining Seth rescuing me in a similar situation. The bond would be unbreakable.

  "The sun lit up her flowing hair like a halo. There was no way in hell I could have said no. Fortunately, there was another, equally sturdy branch near her window. I climbed out it to help her.

  "'I'm Laura,' she said, as calmly as if she was introducing herself at a party." He smiled at the memory. "'And this is Mary.'

  "Mary was hunkering inside the room. It took some doing, but Laura and I coaxed her out. I helped Mary to the center of the tree where Steve waited to help her down while Laura waited for me to come back for her.

  "Sarah was already gamely scrambling down. By the time I went back for Laura, she was climbing out on the branch herself. She wobbled. I caught her hand and helped her to the tree trunk.

  "'Do you always skulk about in trees helping damsels in distress?' she asked me.

  "'Always. It's a calling. My superhero power—tree climbing. I haven't seen you here before,' I said to her.

  "'You wouldn't. This is the first time I've visited Mary. We were supposed to be studying. So much for that. You don't live on the fifth floor, I hope?'

  "The dorm was coed by floor. The fifth was obviously a girls' floor. 'I'm a Tau Psi,' I told her.

  "'Too bad,' she said. 'I don't much care for frat boys.'

  "She scrambled down the tree like a seasoned tomboy. The tree was large and the bottom branch was trimmed a good six feet off the ground. I swung down first and held my arms out to catch her as she hung from the bottom branch, and I helped her down.

  "I remember everything about that moment as if it was yesterday. The smell of her perfume. The look in her eyes. The way she smiled down at me. The way she felt in my arms—" He stopped himself short, as if he'd said too much already.

  "You saved her? Wow!" I was picturing the scene. Mom in his arms. Danger in the air. Rick playing hero. Mom a hero, too, for making sure Mary was safe first.

  I agreed with Rick. He wasn't being arrogant at all when he wondered why Laura hadn't told me about her adventure. Who wouldn't tell such a story? Why hadn't Mom ever mentioned she'd almost been blown up? And that a guy had saved her. It was as if she was trying to completely erase Rick from her life. Trying to forget he'd ever existed.

  I had to know the rest. "Then what happened?"

  "I took Laura's hand. The cops were directing students into the street and the far parking lot. Hand in hand, we ran toward the crowd. We'd just reached the street when the bomb went off, deafening us for a minute."

  He turned serious. "Windows blew out. Glass rained down, just missing us. I wrapped my arms around Laura to protect her from the debris. But damn if that solid concrete dorm was still standing when the smoke cleared. Barely damaged. Except for the fifth floor."

  He took a deep breath. "The rooms we'd been in were badly burned, completely destroyed. But only one person died—the bomber." He paused again.

  I had no words.

  Rick looked me right in the eye. "Do you know what Laura said to me when our ears stopped ringing enough so we could hear again?"

  "Thanks for going out on a limb for me?" I said, fearing what she really said.

  His eyes went wide with surprise and then he broke out laughing.

  "You're your mother's daughter, all right. No," he said. "She said, 'Do you think my prof is going to believe the excuse that a bomber blew up my homework?'"

  My eyes welled with tears. "That sounds exactly like her." I was so proud of both of them.

  I just couldn't get over it. He'd risked his life for Mom? I pictured it all too clearly. Rick with his cocky frat-boy attitude and long, sexy hair. It was like the prince coming to rescue Rapunzel from the tower. I had the feeling he was sanitizing the account for our ears. I imagined him coaxing the girls down with a lot of flirting going on. Laughing at danger. Putting them at ease.

  After that, even if he hadn't been totally hot, she would have been hard-pressed not to develop a hero-worship crush on him.

  "I took Laura out for ice cream," Rick said as an afterthought. "Because that's what you do to calm nerves after nearly being blown up. And she refused my offer of a beer at the frat." His smile turned sad. "That was the beginning of a whirlwind romance."

  He must have seen the look of shock on our faces.

  He couldn't have guessed the real reason for mine. I was becoming convinced he'd been in love with Mom. Really in love. The look in his eyes when he talked about her. The romantic way he remembered their dramatic first meeting.

  So what had happened to break them apart?

  "You can look up the old news reports about it," Rick said. "Probably have the news story on microfiche at the college newspaper archives."

  "And I thought mass campus killings were a modern-day phenomenon." Seth laced his fingers through mine, holding on protectively.

  "Human nature hasn't changed." Rick picked up his glass again. "Explosions seemed to be the theme that school year. Just five or six weeks later, Mount St. Helens blew up."

  I made a mental note—Mom and Rick Butler had dated for about six weeks. Okay, not an eternity. Not a long-term thing. But, evidently, not inconsequential, either. I had to keep Rick talking.

  "Dessert, anyone?" Rick asked. "Caesar will be insulted if we don't indulge."

  I nodded. "Sure, why not?" I didn't want to insult Caesar. Plus, the cookies he'd packed us for lunch had been delicious. "We studied the eruption in, like, the fifth grade." I leaned back to let the waiter clear my plate. "What was it like in person?"

  The waiter set a dessert menu in front of me.

  "Gray." Rick didn't bother looking at the dessert menu. "The crème brûlée is superb. So are the chocolate lava cake and the early spring rhubarb cobbler. We grow the rhubarb at the winery."

  "You'll have to be more specific," I said. "About the eruption."

  He ordered coffee for the table. "That. Not as spectacular as the old news footage. I'd gone home for the weekend. Which made Laura unhappy. I left home in Seattle to drive back to school shortly after the mountain erupted. Drove all the way across the state in an ash cloud.

  "Poor visibility. We crawled along. I was concerned the ash would clog my air filter. Cars were stalling out along on the freeway. Took me forever, but I made it back as the worst of it hit the university. Day turned to night. The birds roosted. It was eerie. Back at the frat, they'd thought ahead to buy beer. Got as many kegs as they could get their hands on and prepared for a long volcano party.

  "I tried to call Laura. But the phone lines were busy, totally overloaded. S
o I disobeyed university orders and went out in the ash to her dorm to rescue her from certain boredom.

  "The girls were scared. But there was really no reason. I convinced Laura to come back to the frat with me and party on." He paused.

  I tried to imagine Mom at a frat party. She hated the Greek system. Never said anything good about frats or the guys in them.

  "Mom wouldn't go to a frat party. She doesn't like frats or frat guys. She's always warned me off them." I didn't know why I felt I had to challenge him.

  "You don't know your mom as well as you think." Rick looked out over the lake, like he was getting control of his emotions.

  When he looked back at me, he was grinning. Arrogantly. "Is that what she told you? Damn. Could have fooled me. She liked frat boys well enough in those days."

  He had the nerve to laugh.

  "Dad." Seth had a challenge in his voice.

  Rick ignored it. "We partied all night. When the sun came up the next day, the world was covered in two to three inches of gray ash. Like fine, powdery snow, only dirty.

  "The university canceled class. They never did that. Not even the day the dorm blew up. Or the many times they received anonymous threats about someone poisoning the dorm salad bars with cyanide stolen from the chemistry department.

  "Then they issued us facemasks. The kind doctors or maybe, more accurately, furniture makers or something wear. Because the dust could be dangerous to our lungs. Give us lung cancer when we were older." He laughed. "Hasn't come true yet. The truth was, it was just dust. Like the kind you get on your car from driving along a dirt road on a dry summer day. Just pulverized mountain.

  "We wore them for about a day until everyone discarded them as a nuisance. Made your face hot and it was hard to breathe. Damn funny for a while, though, seeing everyone on campus wearing a white mask over their mouths. Couldn't recognize a damn person." He shook his head like it had all been folly.

  "The university and town sent the street sweepers out to get rid of the dust. Which mostly just made a dust storm in the wake of the sweepers. Many people scooped up jars and vials of the stuff to keep as a souvenir. I didn't bother.

  "The second day, a breeze kicked up and blew the dust off the trees. The stuff blew around everywhere. Some of it sifted into the grass. After a few days, it finally rained. We were never so glad about a rain shower. Washed most of the dust down the drains. But not all. Remnants hung around and blew around in dry weather for years.

  "The middle of the state got a lot more ash. Thicker ash. A good ten years later they had to close I-90 because of an ash storm caused by wind."

  Something about his tone. His eyes lost their look of humor and happy memories. It was as if the ash coming had put a gray cloud on everything.

  Seth grabbed his water glass. "Dad, didn't you marry Mom that summer?"

  "In Seattle. We didn't have a problem with the ash there. It missed us."

  I frowned. "But you were dating my mom when the mountain erupted? Then…" I couldn't help frowning.

  Seth shot me a look warning me to back off. I opened my mouth to go for it anyway.

  Rick beat me to it. "So what happened?" He sighed. "Colleen was pregnant with Seth's older brother. She told me a few days after the mountain blew up.

  "Colleen was always…fragile. She wanted the baby. Wouldn't hear of aborting or giving it up. She needed me. I broke up with your mom and did the right thing by Colleen and my baby. I married her."

  Chapter 16

  Maddie

  Somehow, I made it through the rest of dinner and the evening. Though I didn't know how. I was reeling. Since I'd first suspected Rick Butler of fathering Ian, I'd assumed he was a complete douche who'd walked out on Mom when he found out she was pregnant. How was I supposed to deal with this new information?

  He'd gotten two girls pregnant? At the same time! And married the first one who told him. Out of a sense of duty. No wonder Mom never mentioned him. He'd broken her heart. I was sure of that.

  I should have hated him. But I couldn't. Not after he'd saved her. And spoken so fondly of her. He wasn't the douche I'd thought he was. Or wanted him to be.

  And now, an even more terrible thought occurred to me—did Rick even know Mom had been pregnant, too? Was she really the villain, keeping the baby a secret from him?

  He sure didn't act like he knew.

  And what about my dad? What had she told him? He'd always claimed Ian as his own. Had he known the truth? Or had Mom convinced him the baby was his?

  The thoughts kept swirling in my head like an ominous cloud on the emotional horizon. I didn't know what to think or believe.

  Through dessert, I listened to Seth and his dad banter back and forth. I didn't know whether they noticed my relative silence.

  After dinner, Seth took me out to sit on the beach and look at the stars.

  He slid his arm around me and held me close. "You're awfully quiet."

  "I'm thinking." I bit my lip. "Does it bother you that your dad married your mom out of a sense of responsibility?"

  "You mean does it bother me that Mom trapped him into marrying her?" He sounded bitter, and yet almost amused at the same time. Like it was what it was. "Not really. I've always known she was pregnant when they got married. When I think about the way things are, it makes total sense. From my perspective, they've never been in love. Always been divorced and bitter toward each other.

  "I always thought it was because of my brother's death. Now I know there was more to it. Does that make a difference to me?" He shrugged. "Not really. The outcome is the same."

  I had to test him, dip my toes in the waters of coming clean. "Seth, at some point…what happens if your dad and my mom meet each other again? I mean…if you and I…you know, continue on together, they probably will." I was making a mess of things. I shuddered involuntarily and tried to cover and act like it was because of the cool evening.

  He pulled me closer. "It will probably be awkward as hell. But whatever happened between them was years ago. They should be over it by now."

  I nodded uncertainly. "Maybe."

  "Don't worry about it," he said. "We'll deal with it when we have to."

  I had the feeling, though, that "when we have to" was much sooner than he imagined. I was thinking about Ian. And how strange he'd acted when I asked him why he'd chosen to come to the university. Did he suspect what I did? How would he have known?

  I had to talk to him. I needed to tell him what I suspected. I needed his advice and opinion. But I didn't want to hurt him. How could I tell him without hurting him or Mom? Or Dad's memory?

  But if I didn't and he accidentally ran into Seth? Or insisted on meeting him? And eventually, probably sooner than later, he was going to insist on meeting Seth simply because he was my boyfriend. What did I do then? How would I explain? To either of them.

  I was the victim of a sliding, accumulating set of circumstantial evidence. Should I have gone to either Ian or Seth with my suspicions the first time I met Seth and noticed he looked a lot like Ian? When I found out Rick and my parents were at the university at the same time? When I saw that picture of Rick and realized Ian looked like a young Rick? When that letter fell out of Mom's photo album?

  When was the accumulation of evidence enough? Okay, now. Now it was enough. But before—when exactly had it crossed the line?

  I looked at Seth. I wouldn't lose him. I couldn't. But I felt like fate had already doomed us. How would he react if, when, I told him I thought we shared a brother?

  Seth

  I had planned everything about Maddie's visit. I was determined to show her how romantic I could be. And impress her. To show her how committed I was to her. Because, damn, I'd never wanted to impress a girl so badly before. Or show any kind of commitment.

  I was failing. I could feel it. Dad was interfering in ways I'd never imagined. She hadn't acted the same since that story he'd told about saving her mom. And seriously, what guy could compete with that hero shit? What was I suppose
d to do? Hire a bomber so I could save Maddie like Dad had her mom?

  He had to tell that story and one-up me. Dad, the accidental hero.

  Since then, Maddie had been preoccupied. Half a dozen times, she started to tell me something. And cut herself off.

  On Saturday afternoon, I took her on a tour of the local wineries. I'd planned it carefully, starting with the least impressive winery. Ending at Dad's. After closing. Kind of like tasting dry wines first and ending with sweet.

  "All this winetasting should get you extra credit," I told her.

  "And drunk," she teased back, but it was forced, like she there was something heavy on her mind. It weighed down everything about her.

  Basic tasting was free at all the wineries I was going to take her to. So, yeah, you could say it was a cheap date. If I'd played it that way.

  After tasting the standard four offerings at the first winery, Maddie slung her purse over her shoulder. "On to the next one!" That false perkiness sparkled in her voice.

  "Not so fast." I grabbed her hand. "What was your favorite?"

  She paused and looked upward, like she was thinking hard. "That's tough. I liked the last two."

  I prompted her. "You like the sweeter wines?"

  "Dry to sweet!" She laughed and nodded. "When you put it that way, yeah, I guess I do. At least here I did."

  "Choose carefully." I squeezed her hand.

  She looked at me like she wondered what I was up to. "I liked the last one. The dessert wine."

  "Excellent!" I pulled her to a display of wines and grabbed a bottle of the one she liked.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Buying a bottle of your favorite."

  "You don't have to. I wasn't begging—"

  "I want to." I had an excellent plan to show my romantic, committed side. "We'll save it and drink this bottle of wine on our next month anniversary."

  Her eyes misted over. "That's so sweet."

  After I bought her favorite at the second winery, she caught on. "How many wineries are we visiting? How much wine are you going to buy?"