by Susan Wiggs
“Ma’am, my job is to investigate and initiate action that will bring about resolution, justice and reparation for the victims of this terrible tragedy.”
“And your fee for this would be…?”
“Negotiated with the victim and family,” he said, very smoothly.
She hung up on him. Lawyers—the scum of the earth, her brother-in-law notwithstanding.
She jotted down the call on the list, drawing a scowling face next to it. The accident had rattled her in so many ways. Her first panicked reaction when Luz had awakened her had been a silent shrieking in her soul. What if something happened to Lila? What if the doctors needed important medical information about her, like who her biological parents were?
Ever since her outburst with Luz and Ian, the idea kept niggling at Jessie. She felt herself edging toward a growing conviction that the time had come to put the truth out there. Medical reasons aside, maybe Lila simply deserved to know the truth of who she was.
Lately, even Luz admitted things weren’t so hot for Lila. Knowing the truth wouldn’t turn her into a Rhodes scholar, but would it make things worse? And whom would it serve? Whom would it hurt?
Heaving a discontented sigh, she glanced at Scottie. Sitting in his tire swing, he kicked his feet into the fine dust of the yard, ineffectually trying to propel himself forward.
“Hey, chief,” she called. “Want a push?”
“Yup.” He squealed with delight as she pushed him high. Clutching the rope, he threw back his head and laughed.
“You hang on tight, now.” Jessie felt a surge of apprehension. Only yesterday, she wouldn’t have paused to consider the dangers inherent in pushing a little boy on a swing, but now her mind conjured up hideous disasters. This was something she hadn’t anticipated—the understanding that life with kids was a constant, pressing, pounding worry about what disaster would come next.
“Are you hanging on?” she asked.
“I’m hanging on.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
As she pushed him higher and higher, a shadow haunted the edge of her vision.
Not now.
There was no pain, but a strobe followed by a pulse of black fog, obscuring her right field of vision.
Please.
She had never learned how to pray, but since the mysterious condition had stricken her two years earlier, she had taught herself. She prayed in the primitive, unschooled manner of a child, in broad and desperate supplications.
Please don’t let this be happening to me.
She used to rage at the idea that her prayers were ignored. But maybe, just maybe she was praying for the wrong thing. The specialists she’d consulted reluctantly concluded that they couldn’t fix this. No one could. And judging by her diminishing field of vision, she didn’t have much longer in the light.
Soon, Dr. Tso had told her in his sleek, plush clinic in downtown Taipei. And Dr. Hadden in Auckland had gone even further—If there is anyone you should see, now would be the time.
If there is anyone you should see…
The words had driven her home. And so far, she had done nothing but screw up.
Scottie was oblivious as he soared, his face turned to the sky. “Look!” he yelled. “Look, Aunt Jessie. I can see the whole world.”
“That’s good,” she told him. “You just look out at the amazing world.”
“Amazing,” Scottie said.
“Pump with your legs,” she said. “I need to make a phone call.” She dug her wallet from the zippered silk belt around her waist. Years of travel had trained her to keep everything she needed in a slender billfold.
An echo of the old restlessness reverberated through her as she extracted a forgotten boarding pass stuck like a bookmark between the pages of her well-thumbed passport. Ever since giving up her baby, she had traveled the globe, searching, always searching but never sure what she was seeking. For as long as she could remember, there had been something lacking, something missing from her life, her heart, her world. She was searching for a way to make herself whole, and she chose to do it by traveling, seeing untold wonders, majesty and squalor. She’d captured vivid images with her camera in a way that, while not making her rich, had allowed her to cover the hospital expenses, bit by bit.
If Jessie chose to fill the void by traveling the world, Luz found a more direct and obvious method. She married, had babies, moved back to the family home. Jessie wondered if Luz was truly fulfilled. She wondered if she had the nerve to ask her. Because what if the answer was no?
She sat down at the table and took a small white business card from her billfold. A graphic depicted a generic bird. Birdies were her mother’s specialty.
The name was printed in shiny gold embossed letters: Glenny Ryder. Golf Champion. Those were the only words on the card, and that was probably appropriate. Those were the words that defined Glenny. No one, not even her daughters, could really think of her without including in the same thoughts “golf” and “champion.”
Any other designation would be inaccurate. Glenny Ryder, mother of two, had never sounded quite right. She had given birth to her daughters; she even loved them in her own way. But as far as Jessie knew, she’d never mothered them.
She turned the card over and over in her fingers. How about Glenny Ryder: wife? That wouldn’t fit, either. She had probably been married a total of thirty years, but to four different men. Glenny Ryder: serial wife.
Holding the card at an angle, she read the number she had never memorized because it kept changing and because she so seldom called. On the back, she had crossed out and rewritten three new phone numbers. She dialed the latest version.
“Hello?”
Jessie had to think for a second before her stepfather’s name came to her. “Stu. Is this Stuart?”
“Luz?”
“No, it’s Jessie.”
“Well, now, Jessie. Isn’t that nice. How are you?” He had a pleasant voice, one that reminded her of the host of a radio call-in show.
She bit her lip. “Fine. I’m back in the States, visiting my sister.”
“Fantastic,” Stuart said. “You must be having a great time, all together again.”
“Uh-huh.” Jessie shut her eyes, picturing him. Her mother had a talent for attracting and ill-advisedly marrying handsome, charming men who did irresponsible things with her money. Stuart was probably no exception. Luz had attended the wedding in Vegas a few years ago and had, of course, sent pictures to Jessie. She vaguely recalled a good-looking man seated at a bunting-draped table next to his radiant bride. He was not, thank God, visibly younger than Glenny. Their mother had worn an amber silk sheath, her athletic arms bare, her flame-colored hair too long for a woman her age. But the look worked for Ann-Margret, and it worked for Glenny Ryder.
“Is my mother around?”
“She’s at the club.”
“Of course she is,” Jessie said wryly.
“She just gets better and better. You must be so proud.”
“Oh, you bet.”
“Anyway, she does carry a cell phone, strictly for emergencies.”
She scribbled the number on the tablet. “Thank you, Stuart.”
“No problem. Everything okay?”
She hesitated. “Just peachy. But I do need to speak with Glenny.”
“I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”
Jessie rang off and drummed her fingers on the table. Strictly for emergencies. What did that mean, anyway? Her mother’s emergencies meant a late check for commercial residuals, or her graphite driver needed reshafting.
The fact was, Glenny Ryder was not a bad person or even, for that matter, a bad mother. She’d simply given her girls an unconventional upbringing. From Augusta to Palm Springs, the three of them traveled the green highways of America, singing along with Jackson Browne or Carole King.
In places like the Springs, they lived like trailer trash, their car parked at some edge-of-town motel with a tired Vacancy si
gn and a name like the Starlite Inn. During the school year, they lived at the house at Eagle Lake, looked after by the hap hazard kindness of neighbors and hired baby-sitters until they were deemed old enough to look after themselves. Glenny judged this to be when Luz turned nine and grew tall enough to reach the hide-a-key over the lintel.
Either through sheer luck or remarkably good insight, no overt disaster occurred. The girls raised themselves, Luz with an earnest diligence and Jessie with an angry wildness. Glenny collected both trophies and husbands, the former proving more productive and enduring than the latter. The girls learned to fix their own problems before Glenny found out about them. Jessie and her sister had always tried to take the tough decisions away from their mother. From the time they were very small, she had trained them to make allowances for her. The career put gas in the car and food in their bellies, so the career came first.
It quickly became a habit, an unwritten rule. Don’t put too many demands on Glenny because she has a tournament coming up. If she doesn’t make the cut…
Well, disaster was happening now, Jessie thought. On a scale she could never have prepared for. Somewhere in the world there must be a manual or list of things to do when your world falls apart. The first thing on the list would be “call your mother.”
But Glenny Ryder wasn’t like most mothers. She wasn’t like any mother.
Hiya, Mom. I’m going blind, and Luz’s daughter sneaked out last night and nearly got herself killed, joyriding with a carload of drunk kids. And how are things with you?
She stabbed in the number. While it rang, Jessie pictured the artificially lush golf course, its green-carpeted fairways rolling past stands of yucca and saguaro cactus, kidney-shaped ponds looking deceptively cool in the desert heat.
A hushed voice answered, “Glenny Ryder’s service.”
Only her mother would bring an answering service to the golf course.
“This is her daughter, Jessie. I need to speak with my mother.”
“Jess? Hey, girl. You sound like your sister.” Then Jessie recognized the voice of her mother’s caddie. Glenny Ryder and Bucky McCabe had been together for over twenty years, making it the most successful long-term relationship thus far in her mother’s life.
Jessie smiled. “Hey yourself. You still following my mother around?”
“Somebody’s got to do it.”
“What did I interrupt?”
“A real pretty tee shot. It’s all right. Phone doesn’t ring but it vibrates.”
“Ingenious. Look, would you put Glenny on?”
“You bet.” Bucky hesitated. “Sure would be nice to see you again, sweet pea.”
“It would be nice to see you again, too,” said Jessie.
A few moments later, another voice came on. “Jessica Didrickson Ryder, is that you?” Glenny was using what had always been known as her golf course whisper, designed to disturb no one.
“Hey, Glenny. I know you’re in the middle of a round, but this is pretty important.”
A beat of hesitation. “What’s wrong?”
Christ, she didn’t have a clue where to begin. “I’m back in the States,” she said. “I’m staying at Luz’s.”
“Welcome home, champ. So what’s the problem?” Glenny’s voice was deep and sweet from nights of celebratory cocktails and Virginia Slims.
Jessie wondered why she had thought calling her mother was a good idea. “Luz’s having a little trouble with Lila. And I’m—” She stopped, the words freezing in her throat. How did you explain this to anyone, even yourself? It had a name— AZOOR—and a pathology. The one thing it didn’t have was a known cure. She could find no reason to share that with her mother. “So anyway,” she said, “Lila went out joyriding with a bunch of kids last night and there was a wreck.”
“Oh, God—”
“She’s not hurt,” Jessie said quickly. “Some of the others were.” She shut her eyes, wondering what Lila had seen, heard, felt. How long would the nightmare images haunt her? When would she begin asking the hard questions about the others? How would her fragile, mysterious, adolescent heart take bad news?
“Luz is pretty shaken up. I thought you would want to know.”
“Well.” Glenny exhaled loudly. “Poor thing.”
Jessie couldn’t tell whether she referred to Lila or Luz. “Everyone’s been up all night,” she said.
“Should I come?”
As far as Jessie knew, a mother wouldn’t have to ask that question. A mother would know. Should I come?
She opened her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said with total honesty. “I suppose that’s up to you, Glenny.”
“Stu’s got a conference in Phoenix next week…. If I showed up, I would probably only be in the way,” she said, hedging already. She was practically begging for Jessie to agree, to tell her: Of course that’s true. Maybe you should wait until things settle down around here. And naturally, that meant she would never come.
“You wouldn’t be in the way,” Jessie said. “With the three cabins, there’s plenty of room.”
“I don’t know… You’ve never even met Stuart.”
Jessie bit her tongue to keep from reminding her that in the past, her mother had brought home any number of men she’d never met. “All the more reason to come. I’d love to meet him.”
“I’ll see what I can work out.”
Jessie knew what that meant. She’d used the phrase many times herself. It meant you had a terrible time saying the word no, but no was the only answer you gave to people who wanted something from you. It meant you didn’t want to get involved.
It meant there was nothing the other party could say to change your mind.
The call-waiting signal beeped. “I have another call coming in,” she said.
“I’ll let you go, then.”
You did that a long time ago, Glenny.
Keeping one ear tuned to Scottie at all times, she pushed a button to receive the next call, and ended up taking half a dozen—more friends and neighbors, more school officials, people at Ian’s law firm. Still no word from the families of the other kids. She dutifully jotted down numbers and offered a truncated explanation of the accident, then thanked each caller for expressing concern.
Meanwhile, she performed a half-panicked check of her vision. By now she was used to the field drill, holding out a finger at arm’s length and slowly moving it to the periphery, marking the degree where it moved out of range.
“Whatcha doing?” Scottie caught her in the middle of the experiment.
She managed to smile. “Watching my finger until it disappears.”
He imitated her, but swiveled his head in the direction of his finger.
“That’s cheating. You have to keep your eyes straight ahead.”
“Why? If I keep my eye on it, I can see it longer.”
She laughed. “Maybe you’ve got a point, cowboy. If you can’t see something from the corner of your eye, then turn and look at it.”
“Yup.”
Who would have thought that hanging out with a four-year-old could be so enlightening?
Unlike Scottie, Lila was neither straightforward nor simple. She had proven herself to be complex and crafty, manipulative and untruthful. At the same time, she was charming, funny, caustic and beautiful. She had a streak in her that Jessie recognized. It was the same reckless abandon that had driven Jessie to do the stupidest things of her life—to sleep with men she didn’t love, give up too easily, leave too quickly. To let panic and heartbreak drive her decision about her child.
At the time, she believed adoption was the best possible choice for the baby, but the plan seemed to be backfiring now. Why? Why? She’d stayed away, kept her distance. Wasn’t that part of the bargain she’d made with God? She had given her child the calm, steady influence of her sister. Jessie wanted to ensure that Lila didn’t turn out like her.
Yet that was just where Lila seemed to be heading.
Scottie wandered over to the rope swing, and the
phone rang again.
“Benning residence.”
A hesitation. “I’m calling for Jessie Ryder, please.”
She lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “This is Jessie Ryder.”
“It’s Blair LaBorde, from Texas Life.”
Jessie recognized the round and mellow drawl of her former journalism professor. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“I didn’t expect to find something for you so soon. It’s in your own backyard, as a matter of fact.”
Jessie’s blood heated. “No way. You don’t expect me to cover the wreck—”
“Wreck?” Blair’s voice sharpened. “Who said anything about a wreck?”
Jessie stood and paced, wishing she had kept her mouth shut. “This isn’t about the accident?”
“No. But it could be. Maybe it should be, hon.”
“Not on your life.” Jessie owed Blair more of an explanation than that. She’d find out soon enough, anyway. She gave a quick, unsensational summary of what had happened.
Blair gave a low whistle. “Six kids. Hell of a story, there.”
“This is a tight-knit community. People are taking it hard.” She decided not to reveal just how close she was to the situation. “So what is this about?”
“That cold lead I told you about. Something I’ve been hound-dogging for a while. Could be a big story.”
That was code for, Maybe we’ll actually make a little more than the usual pittance. Jessie perked up at the prospect of an assignment. One of the psychologists who had screened her for the Orientation and Mobility program in Austin had suggested that Jessie clung to work because her psyche had rationalized that if the camera took her into darkness, perhaps some grand design would save her from having to go there herself. Of course, a career that relied on being able to see was not going to make sense anymore. But maybe she had one more assignment in her.
“I’m listening.”
“The magazine wanted a feature on a resident of Edenville, Texas a while back, but we dropped the lead. When you mentioned you were going back there, I looked into reviving it.”
Jessie’s heart sank. Christ, what if it was Ian? Ian Benning, the noble, penniless death-row attorney, fighting injustice despite the opposition of his conservative politician father. He was the stuff of David-and-Goliath stories; he always had been. “You’re kidding. So who is it?”