Home Before Dark

by Susan Wiggs

  Jessie felt a disturbance in the air. People who didn’t know any better sometimes claimed the blind had special powers of acuity in their hearing or smell or tactile sense, but that wasn’t true. Not being able to see simply allowed her to focus on other sensations.

  This disturbance was different, fraught with tension. When people approached Jessie, the dog was not protective but she was definitely proprietary. She trotted up to Jessie’s side, and Jessie leaned down to clip the walking leash to her collar. Flambeau pranced and then settled at her left side. Jessie lowered her hand to the dog’s warm head, but she faced directly forward.

  “Hello?” she said.

  Long, unhurried strides rang on the buckled concrete sidewalk. Her skin recognized him first. Oh, she felt him, so close, and it was something she had missed with every fiber of her being. The sound of his breathing confirmed it.

  “Oh my God.” The words rode a soft breath of disbelief.

  “Lady, you are some piece of work.”

  “Don’t. Don’t yell at me, Dusty.”

  “Somebody needs to yell at you, Jessie,” he said. “Or is that going to make you run again?”

  “I wasn’t running. I was—” She stopped. “I was taking care of my own private business.”

  “Right.” He gave an angry laugh. “I offered you my damned heart on a platter. And still you left without a word. What the hell were you thinking?”

  He had it all wrong, she thought. How could he have it so wrong? “I was thinking that what was happening to me was not the sort of thing I felt like sharing. Particularly with a man who had just lost his wife.”

  “What the hell’s that got to do with it? Do two losses make a right?”

  “I didn’t want you to suffer, Dusty.”

  “I fell in love with you, and you left. You think I didn’t suffer?”

  She jerked her chin up in defiance. “Going blind is bad enough when it happens to one person. Why should I make it happen to the people around me?”

  “You are one weird woman,” he said, anger crackling around him like a force field. “Damn you, Jess. Why do you believe you can make these decisions for people?”

  “Because forcing you to love me like this would be cruel.”

  “Like what?” he demanded.

  She hated him for making her say it. “I’m blind. Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter. Don’t pretend people will understand. The whole world will look at you and think, what a waste. That wonderful man sacrificing his happiness to take care of a blind woman. I won’t let you, Dusty. That’s why I left, and that’s why you should do the same.”

  He gave a snort of disgust. “You make a lot of assumptions on your own. It’s exactly what you did about Lila. You kept the identity of her father from everybody because you thought that would be easier on them.”

  “And it was.”

  “That’s bullshit, Jess. Jesus, look what it did to you. It made you into a person who can’t let herself love, can’t trust herself to stay.”

  She couldn’t defend herself against that. He was holding up a mirror, and she recognized the truth. Still, she couldn’t take the final step. “If I’d told Luz, she would have tried to fix this. It’s what she does. Why should I hand her a problem she can’t solve?”

  “Sighted or blind, you’re a problem, Jess, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”

  And then he took her in his arms, and she broke open, all the terror and hurt flowing out of her on a raft of tears. “Damn it, Dusty. I haven’t fallen apart once. Not once. And now you come here and—”

  “Yeah, I’m here.” He kissed her hair, her face—forehead, cheeks, eyes, lips—until the tears were gone. Her senses filled with him—the way he tasted and smelled and sounded, the warmth of him. “Don’t you ever do that again, Jess,” he said. “Don’t you ever leave me.”

  There was an assumption in his anguished command that she knew she should object to, but it felt too good to hold him, to melt in his arms, to forget for a moment how impossible this all was. She let her mind drift back to the night in Mexico—the lush, decadent romance, the dark, fragrant garden, the mindless pleasure. Finally, she made herself ask the obvious. “How did you find me?”

  “Your old flame contacted Luz, looking for you.”

  “Great. Something else for Luz to worry about.”

  “I told her not to worry. You’re going to be all right.”

  She put a hand to her hair. “I’m a wreck.”

  He plunged his hand into her hair. “Do you think that matters?”

  They strolled together along the periphery of the park. Jessie’s blood sang; she couldn’t help it. He shouldn’t have come. She should be fighting him off, but she couldn’t. “Flambeau likes you,” she told him.

  “She’s going to love Amber and Arnufo, too. I figure she’ll put up with Pico de Gallo.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “You’re coming back to Edenville with me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Jesus Christ, woman, would you listen to yourself? Who do you think you are, walking away from me, from your sister, from everyone who loves you?” His anger shocked her and bit deep.

  “I’m blind. How can you stand me?”

  “I’ll pretend you never said that.”

  Emotions welled up in her, frightening in their intensity. She tried to fight them, to make excuses, anything to keep this from happening. She thought about her sterile apartment, her closed little world. “Who do you think you are, barging in here, ordering me around?”

  “I would never do that. You’re coming because you want to.”

  “What makes you think—”

  “Your sister won an Endicott Prize. Did you know that?”

  Wonder broke over her. “Really?”

  “Who do you suppose she needed to tell when she got the news? You weren’t there for her, Jess. You’ve got to fix this thing with your sister. She needs you. So do I, even though you’re a pain in the ass. I love you, Jessie, and you love me.”

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe. She stepped back and tried to find her voice to give Flambeau the command to take her home, away, anywhere but here.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Go where?”

  “Back to your place.”

  “I intend to. But you’re not invited.”

  His laughter washed over her like a song she had nearly forgotten. “Oh, honey,” he said, “when has that ever stopped me?”

  CHAPTER 33

  Lila watched the shiny green van with the bird logo on the side roll away toward town. They hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to go to the golf course and Dairy Queen. Not that she would have accepted, but it would have been nice to have the option. Typical. Getting spoiled by grandparents, even funky ones like Miss Glenny and Grandpa Stu, was apparently something else she had outgrown.

  Turning from the window, she surveyed her room. True to their word, her parents had made her take down the posters, pick up the mess and keep it that way. Privately she admitted that she preferred her room uncluttered and bright. The only decorations were photographs she had taken herself. Her mother had shown her how to use some of Aunt Jessie’s cameras, and Lila had a pretty good eye for taking pictures. But now it seemed sort of creepy, because she knew why Aunt Jessie had left all the photographic equipment behind.

  It was a shock, what Mom had discovered about Aunt Jessie. Lila had never known a blind person before. Wandering over to the computer, she read the article she’d found about AZOOR. Acute zonal occult outer retinopathy. According to some famous doctor at Vanderbilt, the condition started with flashing lights and an enlarged blind spot. The visual loss would spread, sometimes to total blindness in both eyes, and sometimes there were even hallucinations. Mom said AZOOR wasn’t hereditary. Lila didn’t think you could catch something from your aunt, anyway.

  Jessie had used what little was left of her diminishing vision so well it seemed as though she co
uld see. Lila had never guessed. Then again, she wouldn’t have noticed an air raid if it didn’t directly affect her. She vowed to pay closer attention to the people in her life, to care about them more.

  She focused on her favorite photograph of Andy Cruz, showing him geared up at the fire station. He liked her, had said so right out. He didn’t play games like other guys. When she talked to him about the accident, and he told her it wasn’t her fault, she almost completely believed him. Almost. She just wished she could hang on to that belief when she woke up sweating in the middle of the night, her mind screaming with flashbacks.

  A light tap sounded at the door.

  “Yeah?” Lila called, sitting down at her mirrored vanity. She had been planning on trying out a new tube of mascara. Sable Dreams.

  “Honey, can we come in? Your dad and I want to talk to you.”

  Lila felt a prickle of unease. Usually these talks meant nothing good. “Sure,” she said, breaking out the mascara and twisting the wand.

  The door opened and in walked her parents. They looked worried.

  “Is it something else about Aunt Jessie?” Lila asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “Is she coming home?”

  “Dusty went to see her. We all hope she’ll come back with him. But…what we’ve learned from this terrible thing with Jessie is that it’s destructive to keep secrets from the people you love.”

  Lila took out the mascara wand and held the bristled end to the light. “Look, if this is about that progress report, I’ve been meaning to tell you—”

  “It’s not about the progress report.” Her mom glanced at her dad. “It’s really not even about secrets. It’s something we haven’t told you yet. We’ve been putting it off.”

  Great. Mom was pregnant again. Lila thrust the wand back into the tube with an angry shove. Mom had no idea what it had been like last time for Lila, to have a pregnant mother at her age. Keeping her face expressionless, she set down the mascara tube and tucked her hands between her knees, waiting.

  Mom sat down on the papasan chair across from her. Dad stayed by the door as though he wanted to flee. He probably did.

  “Well,” said Mom with a wavering smile. “I don’t quite know where to start. That’s one reason we haven’t had this conversation.”

  “What conversation?” Lila asked, losing patience. “You’re the only one who’s talking and you haven’t said anything yet.”

  Dad’s face turned hard, and Lila waited for the expected rebuke: Don’t take that tone with your mother, young lady. But he surprised her by saying nothing.

  So she waited, mystified and unsettled by her mother, who was usually so sure of herself no matter what. Then a horrifying thought smacked Lila over the head. “Oh my God, Mommy, are you sick like Aunt Jessie?”

  “No,” Mom said with reassuring swiftness. “But Aunt Jessie is…part of this.” She seemed to get over her hesitation then. “Dad and I have loved you since the moment you were born. Completely, with every bit of our hearts.”

  “Okay,” said Lila. She wouldn’t argue with that. Sometimes she felt completely smothered by love from her mother. There was a whole archive of pictures, starting with the preemie ward where Lila had lain in a special crib, small as a fingerling trout. Her parents had hovered near every second—at least that was the impression she had.

  “The fact is, I didn’t actually give birth to you, sweetie. Daddy and I adopted you.”

  Nothing. Lila felt absolutely nothing. The words were not real to her. They sort of hung in the air like a strange fog, and in a moment, the wind would come and blow them away.

  Her parents stared at her with an expectancy about ten times as intense as when report cards came in the mail. “Sweetie,” Mom began.

  Lila’s arm shot up like a raised sword. Dad held on to Mom’s shoulder. He, unlike Mom, understood what lay in the valleys of the silences. Lila appreciated that about him. She couldn’t hear this, not now. She needed silence, complete silence, in order to take in this thing her mother had thrown at her. She would have to inhale it like germ warfare, or swallow it like a foreign body, and later take it out, poke at it and study it like a lab specimen, cut it open and find out what lay at its heart. But right now, she rejected what she’d heard on every level.

  It simply couldn’t be. That’s all there was to it. Adoption was for people who couldn’t have babies. Her mother had babies all the time. Lila had seen it with her own eyes. Mom’s belly got huge, and out came a baby, and the whole house smelled like diapers and throw-up for months afterward. That’s how it happened in this family.

  Wasn’t it?

  She swallowed once, twice. Found her voice. “What are you saying? Are you crazy?”

  “I’m saying I’m not your birth mother. Daddy and I adopted you. It’s not really a secret and there’s nothing shameful about it. But years ago we all agreed that you are our daughter in every way that matters, so it never really came up. It’s not something we even think about. It’s simply not an issue.”

  Adopted. That was what you told your brother when you wanted to make him cry. Lila tried to make sense of this totally bizarre development. She’d always known that her parents had only been married a few months when she came along. That was no big deal. But the fact was, her family took pictures. Every event, from the time Mom got her first camera at the age of ten, had been carefully recorded by Mom or Aunt Jessie. And now that she thought of it, they didn’t have one single picture of Mom, pregnant with her.

  She looked from one parent to the other. This was impossible. She was a Benning. She looked like her mother. She looked like her brothers. Some people even said she looked like her father. She had the same red hair and green eyes as Miss Glenny, as her mom, as—

  “Sweetheart,” Mom said, “your birth mother is Aunt Jessie.”

  With a vicious twist, Lila reopened the mascara. Swiveling around on the stool, she leaned toward the mirror and applied the thick, sticky mascara to her eyelashes. She caught a glimpse of her face in the vanity mirror. She could hear them speaking—her adoptive parents—and none of the things they said surprised her. Jessie had been young, unattached, all set to travel the world, they said. Mom and Dad were settling down, starting a life.

  “You fulfilled us in every way,” Mom said, with that little hitch in her voice. “You made us a family. We’re sorry we went so long without telling you. Jessie wanted it that way. I kept thinking it didn’t matter. How could it matter? From the first moment we made this decision, I thought of you as mine in every way.”

  Lila hardened her heart. They had kept her from knowing the biggest secret in the world. Who she was.

  She swiveled back on the stool. Her face felt like stone, her chest hollowed out. “Who’s my father?”

  “Back when you were born,” said Dad, “Jessie put ‘unknown’ on the birth certificate.”

  Unknown.

  “Lila, sweetie.” Mom crossed the room and took her hand. “Just before she left in November, she finally told us.”

  Dad went down on one knee in front of her, like he was genuflecting, and turned the vanity stool so she had to face him. “Listen, a long time ago, before I ever met your mom, I went out with Jessie a few times and then quit seeing her. I never knew—”

  Oh God oh Jesus. Lila stared at him, wide-eyed, and slowly blinked, the fresh mascara gumming her lashes together. “You mean…you and Aunt Jessie—” She couldn’t continue. She was gagging on the words.

  Lila took her hand away from her mom’s. Not rudely. This wasn’t the sort of thing you were rude about. This went so far beyond rude, she couldn’t imagine how to respond.

  “We want you to be okay with this,” her dad said.

  Her dad? Which dad? The one who’d married her mother or the one who’d screwed her aunt?

  How could she look at them now, either of them, with out wondering about the other part of her, that biological part that belonged to one but not the other. Aunt Jessie—her mother—wante
d no part of her. Aunt Jessie had gone away and had a fabulous life, and she only came back when blind ness destroyed her.

  “You want me to be okay with this,” she repeated slowly, hoping to bring out the absurdity of the request. “Sure, I’ll be okay, knowing you never trusted me enough to tell me the truth.”

  “It’s not a matter of trust,” said Mom. Then she said something totally unexpected. “I was afraid, Lila-girl.”

  No way, thought Lila. Her mother was the most fearless person on the planet, everyone knew that. “Afraid of what?”

  “That you would turn to Jessie, be dazzled by her lifestyle and feel deprived.”

  “Yeah, right. You must think I’m shallow as a mud puddle, to turn my back on my real parents and fall for somebody who walked away from me the day I was born.” Lila spoke in anger but she could see her meaning beginning to penetrate.

  She heard a car pull up in the drive and knew it was Andy, giving her a lift to the fire station to set up for tomorrow’s pancake breakfast fundraiser. It was something her mother would do, organize a pancake breakfast, but Lila surprised herself by enjoying it.

  “Anyway,” she said, “you’re crazy if you ever thought I wouldn’t love you the same, respect you the same, trust you to be there to catch me when I fall.” She stood, put the mascara in her purse. “I’ve got to go now.” Impulsively she kissed her dad on the cheek and hugged her mom, feeling their astonishment. “What?” she said. “Did you think it was going to rock my world? I’ll be back by suppertime.”

  She ran downstairs and outside, half diving into Andy Cruz’s pickup truck. “Go,” she said. “Hurry.”

  He eyed her sideways as he pulled out of the drive. Just being with him made her feel good about herself. Different from Heath Walker. With Heath, she’d had to be “on,” had to appear a certain way. With Andy, she didn’t have to worry.

  “You all right?” he asked. “Is it something with your folks?”

  “I’m fine. Everything’s just fine.” And then she looked out the window and watched the landscape smear past. She wondered if the new mascara was waterproof.