Home Before Dark

by Susan Wiggs

  Jessie got everything, she thought, and got it first, even Ian. The idea burned through her in a white-hot rage. When she shut her eyes, she could see them clearly, young and laughing, enjoying each other’s raw lust with no thought for the consequences.

  “…just put it out of my mind,” Ian was saying as he drove. “After I met you, I didn’t think of it at all.”

  Luz realized he was talking about his long-ago affair with her sister. Affair. She had never consciously thought of that word in connection with Ian.

  “And after you realized she was my sister,” she said, feeling dizzy, oxygen-deprived. “Didn’t it occur to you to tell me then?”

  “To us both,” he admitted. “But we hadn’t seen each other in weeks. I forgot all about her.” He pulled off the road at the deserted county park, where a late-autumn breeze was sweeping through the tops of the changing maples. “Listen to me, Luz. A lot of things happened to me before I met you. I got drunk and broke a guy’s nose and almost got expelled from law school.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “It’s not something I’m proud of or care to dwell on. I also caught a trophy bass at Lake Travis, and had my wisdom teeth out. When I was in the sixth grade, I lost a spelling bee on purpose so I wouldn’t have to miss pitching in a Little League tournament. I didn’t tell you those things, either. So I dated your sister and forgot her, Luz. I fell in love with you.”

  She stared straight ahead. His litany of things that happened before they met rang false, because nothing on the list involved her sister. Yet she believed him when he said the affair meant nothing. And she believed he was as surprised as she was upon learning the identity of Lila’s father. Even so, she felt betrayed by him and Jessie both. She was devastated by the fact that her marriage had been founded on a half-truth. It might not exist at all, if she had known. Did that mean the marriage itself was inauthentic or invalid? And what about the love she felt for Ian? What was happening to that?

  “We need to figure out what to say to Lila,” she said.

  “Why do we need to say anything at all?”

  She turned on the seat to face him in disbelief. “You don’t think we should tell her?”

  He yanked at the knot of his tie. “It’s a lot for a teenager to deal with. What’s she going to think if we tell her I screwed around with your sister before I met you? She won’t care about the sequence of things. Once she gets that in her head, all she’ll think about is the fact that Jessie and I screwed around.”

  Luz winced. A deep and pounding dread filled her. Could they survive this, or had Jessie’s confession only held up a magnifying glass to the flaws that were already there? “I don’t like lying about this.”

  “Is not telling her the same as lying?”

  “It was to me,” said Luz.

  After Luz and Ian left, Jessie returned to the empty house, hearing the friendly old creak of settling wood, the hush of the wind through the trees outside, the sucking and lapping of the waves of Eagle Lake down at the shore. She took one last stroll through the home of her chaotic childhood, marveling at how Luz had managed to transform the place into a home filled with warmth. The house had been an empty shell for them as girls. As a wife and mother, Luz filled it with love, populated it with her children, made it a haven as safe and solid as a fortress.

  Jessie let go of the envy she felt for her sister. That was one piece of baggage she refused to take with her. One by one, she set aside the others: the end of her career and relationship with Simon. Her unfinished business with Lila. The fallout from dangerous secrets. And finally, her terrible yearning for Dusty. That was the hardest thing of all to surrender. At last, she’d fallen in love, but could not stay to see it through. Against her will, she was about to enter a mysterious new world, and she intended to travel light.

  Still, she wanted to take a minute to say goodbye to one that she had only just begun to savor and appreciate. Even facing exile to the Beacon, she had still managed to thrive here, to allow joy into her life.

  She found the old wishing jar, and tore a page from Luz’s grocery list. Under the scrawled reminder to buy mouthwash and mayonnaise, Jessie scribbled a message which she doubted would be read anytime soon.

  She had come here wanting to see her daughter. For her daughter to see her. Only now could she admit that what she had really sought in coming home was absolution. But there was no point in wishing for something that would never happen, only in figuring out a way to reconcile herself. It wasn’t enough, nothing would never be enough, not for Jessie.

  The crunch of tires on gravel reminded her of what she had to do next. She wrapped the little handwritten note around a penny, pressed her lips to it briefly and put it into the wishing jar. Then she replaced it in the cupboard and stood back to give herself one last look at Luz’s collage of photographs on the wall. Squinting through the haze, she focused on the proud poses, the wide grins, the crazy costumes. The images were sewn together like a homemade quilt.

  Down in the corner, she spotted a shot of her and Luz, looking so much alike that most people probably wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. There was nothing extraordinary about this picture. In fact, Jessie guessed that Luz had taken the shot by setting the shutter on timer and racing to leap into the frame before it went off. They were perhaps thirteen and sixteen years of age in the picture. They filled the frame, their laughing, healthy faces turned toward the camera, their arms twined and held high in the air in a gesture of some forgotten victory, or perhaps of simple joy.

  A car horn sounded, signaling that the shuttle van had arrived. The image flickered and swam away from Jessie, leaving only a smear of shadow in its wake. She quickly reached out and pressed her fingers to a photograph that had long ago imprinted itself on her heart.

  “See you around, Luz,” she said.

  Part 2

  After

  The death of reason isn’t blackness, but another kind of light.

  —Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates (1996)

  CHAPTER 29

  On a cold, dry day in February, when the legendary hill country heat seemed a mere figment of the imagination, the phone rang. It was the business line in the kitchen, and Luz was busy lugging an overflowing basket of dirty clothes out to the laundry room. She decided to let the machine pick up. Ian had given her the second line as a Christmas gift. It wasn’t a terribly romantic choice, but Luz had wanted it. Amazingly she had needed it. In the aftermath of Jessie’s disclosure, Ian was trying hard, but dealing with the fallout from this was like putting an octopus in a box.

  When Texas Life magazine published the article about the tragedy at Edenville, Luz’s life had changed in another way. The article had been movingly written under Jessie’s byline. She’d sent the piece on disk to Blair before leaving. But the true heart of the piece had been Luz’s photographs. Her portraits conveyed, with honesty and sensitivity, the haunted faces of friends and survivors, of family members creating a bittersweet tribute to Dig Bridger. Those were the pictures that stayed with people. Photo editors across the country seemed to recognize this, because the calls had started coming in as soon as the piece was published.

  Overhearing the speaker on the answering machine, Luz gathered that the call was in regard to agency representation. Despite the load of sweaty gym socks and ratty T-shirts, she caught herself grinning. Who would have thought an agent would be interested in her? She turned down most assignments; there was the small matter of finding enough time to become the Annie Leibovitz of Texas. But some were too intriguing to pass up, like the Luling Watermelon Thump or a documentary essay on a bereavement camp for children who had lost a parent.

  It was all confusing and exciting and extraordinary. The only shadow over the entire picture was Jessie’s absence, and the wreckage she had strewn in her wake.

  Jessie had left as she had so many times before, giving no notice, no explanation, certainly no forwarding address. Disappearing was her specialty. Luz had a Hotmail a
ddress for her, but her messages bounced back, unretrieved by the subscriber. Luz felt justified in her anger at Jessie. Her sister had kept a terrible secret from her for years. To top it off, she’d blown back into their lives, taking Lila to the city for tattoos and sophisticated hairstyles. No one would blame Luz for her cold dismissal of Jessie.

  Yet sometimes, regrets came back to haunt her. Until Jessie showed up again, or at least called, Luz wouldn’t have the chance to settle things—between her and Jessie, and in her own heart.

  Luz’s shock about Lila’s paternity had turned to anger, then hurt and now it seemed stuck there, no matter how she rationalized the matter. She couldn’t control what had happened to Ian before she met him. She understood that he’d had a life before he’d met her. He’d slept with other women. What she didn’t understand was why he’d never told her one of those women was her sister. Their marriage had suffered invisible damage, and neither quite knew how to repair it.

  “It wasn’t important,” he’d said at least a dozen times. “I didn’t want anything to spoil what was happening between us.”

  Luz refused to consider whether or not their brand-new love could have been spoiled. She and Ian skirted the topic.

  Before she reached the laundry room adjacent to the garage, Luz heard someone drive up. Still lugging the basket of clothes, she stepped out onto the porch. The air nipped at her cheeks and nose, and she was grateful for the thick, warm University of Texas Longhorns sweatshirt and matching rust-colored sweatpants she had thrown on this morning. A bright winter sun glanced off the windshield of the approaching car.

  For a single, hopeful heartbeat, she imagined it was Jessie, but the moment the car pulled up she knew better.

  Blair LaBorde was already scolding by the time she got out of the car and rushed up the porch to greet Luz. “Put that damned laundry down, woman.”

  Luz obeyed, only to get another scolding. Blair checked her out from head to toe, taking in Luz’s messy ponytail caught up in a scrunchie, and the ill-fitting sweat suit. “On second thought, you actually looked better holding the basket.” Grabbing Luz’s hand, Blair pulled her inside. “Has anyone called you yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Good. I wanted to see you in person. Hon, I love you dearly, but we really do need to get you a new outfit.”

  “And I was feeling so fashionable in this,” said Luz.

  “You’re hopeless. But even you wouldn’t dare wear that getup to win the Endicott Prize.”

  The statement didn’t really register in Luz’s mind. It wasn’t until she had poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Blair with her usual half-packet of Sweet’n Low that the words hit her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The Endicott Prize, honey. As in the biggest award a photographer can receive.” Blair beamed at her. “It’s for—” she consulted a wrinkled fax “‘—a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence or an album.’ The winners were announced at 7:00 a.m. Eastern today. Lordy, you should’ve seen the celebration at the office. We exploded for you.”

  Luz sat in stunned silence. Distinguished example.

  “There’s a study fellowship attached to the award. Well?” Blair drummed her acrylic nails on the tabletop. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  Luz grinned from ear to ear. “I rock.”

  “Oh, babe, you sure as hell do.” Blair lifted her coffee mug and clinked it against Luz’s.

  This was so amazing, it was almost embarrassing. Luz wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. “God, I wish Jessie were here.” The words came out of their own accord, telling her more plainly than daylight that she missed her sister and needed things to be right between them.

  “Still haven’t heard from her?”

  Luz shook her head. “I want her to know. I want her to know so badly.” It hit her then that telling Jessie was even more important than telling Ian, or the kids, or her mother. It was almost as though the honor wouldn’t belong to Luz until she told Jessie.

  “It’s no great feat to track someone down,” Blair suggested.

  “Jessie will get in touch when she’s ready. That’s the way it works with us.”

  “What about when you’re ready? Haven’t you ever needed her rather than vice versa?”

  The question took her aback, then forced her to wonder privately if the reason she hadn’t knocked herself out to find Jessie was that she and Ian still hadn’t leveled with Lila. Deep down, she was reluctant to search for her sister. Jessie had dropped the bomb about Ian, then left the issue of leveling with Lila up in the air. With Jessie gone, Luz simply let it dangle in limbo. She thought constantly about how and when to explain things to Lila. By reading everything she could get her hands on regarding adoption and adoptive families, she took small comfort in the fact that she wasn’t alone in her dilemma. So often, the issue simply wasn’t addressed—particularly in families like theirs. The whole world assumed Lila was their natural daughter, and the temptation was strong to stay silent rather than risk making her feel unwanted or confused.

  “I’ll look into contacting Jessie.” Luz gazed out the window at the flat, glassy lake. “I wish she hadn’t picked that day to leave. Jessie and I quarreled. It wasn’t the first time, of course, but we weren’t…finished. At least, I wasn’t. Apparently Jessie had other ideas.”

  “That’s a bad way to leave things with someone you love.”

  “I know.”

  On the other side of the lake, she saw Dusty Matlock walk down to his floatplane and start the engine. A few minutes later, he took off in a sweeping arc, the spray sparkling behind him. “He was so perfect for her. So absolutely perfect.” She often thought about Jessie’s whirlwind romance with Dusty. What she couldn’t figure out was how even Jessie could bear to leave a man who so obviously adored her. A man who had an angel for a baby and Arnufo for a live-in nanny. It was more than one woman’s idea of paradise.

  “Do you see much of Dusty Matlock these days?” Blair asked.

  “Enough to know my sister broke his heart.”

  “Small comfort to his legions of fans,” Blair commented. “Women still send scads of mail in care of the magazine. I offered to forward everything to him, but he declined. He also gave me permission to screen everything. That’s been an eye-opener. I think my favorite so far is the pair of underwear with a marriage proposal taped to it.”

  Turning the topic back to the award, Blair gave Luz plenty of much-needed information and advice about managing a career in freelance journalism. It all felt a little unreal to Luz, who never thought her career would exceed family photographs or perhaps the occasional community event. Blair came up with suggestions for everything, from agents on both coasts to a makeover and shopping expedition to Neiman Marcus.

  “I can’t believe it. I am totally unprepared for this,” Luz said.

  “Now, don’t go getting cold feet. Nothing I hate worse than seeing a talented artist run from success.”

  “I don’t have a résumé,” Luz wailed. “I don’t even have a college degree or work history to put on a résumé.”

  “Honey, believe me, you’ve got everything you need.” She gestured at the photograph wall. “Absolutely everything.”

  Luz invited Dusty, Arnufo and Amber over for supper that night and set the table for nine. In a perfect world, they would celebrate by going out for a nice dinner, but with her family’s schedule, she’d be lucky to get them all in the house at the same time. So Lucinda Ryder Benning, Endicott Prizewinning photographer, found herself in an overheated kitchen, supervising homework and fixing sloppy joes. And she was doing it with a Texas-sized grin on her face.

  Owen and Wyatt’s homework session had deteriorated into a sword-fight with pencils, and Scottie came wandering in, looking for something to eat. At the same moment, the phone rang, and Lila, who had been watching MTV, leaped to answer it. She had earned back her phone privileges by getti
ng good marks on her latest report card. Her attitude still needed work, but Luz was mystified as to how to go about fixing it. She was usually good at fixing things. However, in this case, she didn’t even know where to begin. She wished there was a pill she could give her daughter, maybe even a surgical procedure. But there was none. She often caught herself studying Lila in silent contemplation, deeply stricken by the inescapable notion that Ian and Jessie had made this child. Yet Lila was so much a part of Luz’s heart that she wanted to reject the idea entirely. Tonight, however, Luz refused to let anything dampen her spirits.

  Company arrived, and the baby made a beeline for Scottie, whom she regarded with wide-eyed awe. Arnufo handed Luz an arrangement of possumhaw berries and Mexican buckeye. Luz beamed at him. “Keep that up, and you’ll be eating here every night.”

  “Nothing would give me more pleasure.”

  She waved Dusty toward the refrigerator; by now he knew where to find a cold beer. He was a fine man, this man who loved her sister, who openly admitted that he missed her every day. Like Blair, he understood that it would be a simple matter to locate her.

  When they first realized Jessie had gone for good, he and Luz had stood together in the empty guest cabin and debated what to do. Dusty was all for putting out an APB on her, sealing the airports and borders. Luz agreed that, yes, they could indeed locate Jessie. However, her next words had stopped him from initiating a manhunt. “If you find her, then what?”

  They hadn’t discussed the matter again. They had become friends, united by a helpless love for Jessie and bound by the knowledge that she wouldn’t come back until she was ready—and that being ready might take a good long time.

  Jessie had left her cameras, including a Hasselblad, Nikon and Sony digital along with a fortune in expensive accessories and lenses. Stuck to the top of the bag had been a note, Jessie’s characteristic scrawl even sloppier than usual. Thanks for everything, Luz. Give my love to everyone. To Dusty and Amber, too. I’ll be in touch. Love, Jessie. That was Jessie—impulsive, extravagant and just plain confusing.