Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1)

by Babette de Jongh

  “He could hang out by the pool, talk to me or my parents... Maybe he needs a little quiet time, a dog to cuddle, somebody to talk to without the crowd around. I’ll bring him back after dinner, on my way home.”

  Ben met my eyes long enough for me to watch him make his decision, then gave a brief nod of agreement. “Okay.”

  “Thanks.” I wanted to hug him, but held myself back. We were both holding it together by the skin of our teeth, and the slightest amount of comfort given or received could tear into our hard-won composure.

  And then there was the ambiguity of our relationship to each other. Without Melody standing between us, without the jealousy and guilt—and let’s face it, bitterness and resentment—that I had used to build the wall between Ben and me, what were we? Friends? Ex’s? Or something new?

  I spoke to my parents, quietly told Jake to get a swimsuit and a change of clothes, then went to find Maryann and Amy to tell them goodbye. Maryann hugged me, sniffing back tears. I stroked her dark hair. “I’ll see you soon, sweet girl,” I whispered. “Call me if you need me. Anytime, day or night. Promise?”

  “Promise.” Her voice sounded muffled because her face was pressed against me. Poor girl. I’d have to make a point of taking her out with me to get pedicures, haircuts, and all the other girlie things Melody had done with her. I wasn’t big on girlie things myself, but I could learn.

  I found Amy in her room. Ben’s dad was rocking her to sleep. He looked up and put a finger to his lips to signal me to silence. I turned to leave, but in the uncanny way of sleepy three-year-olds, she sensed my presence and turned in her grandpa’s lap so she could see.

  She wiggled down and ran to me. “Rock me, Aunt Casey.”

  I knelt down in front of her. “Oh, baby, I was just about to leave.”

  She clutched the shoulders of my black dress. “You have to stay. Stay with me until my mommy gets back.”

  Amy needed me to stay as badly as Jake needed to leave. I looked up at Ben’s dad, who had stood so I could take over rocking-chair-duty. He shrugged an I-can’t-help-you shrug.

  “Okay, Amy. I’ll stay.”

  “Good.” Amy took my hand and pulled me toward the rocker. “You rock me now.”

  Ben’s dad turned to leave; I caught his eye. “Tell my folks and Jake to go on without me. Daddy can come pick me up later.”

  He nodded then closed the door softly behind him.

  I cradled Amy in my good arm and rocked until she fell asleep, then kept on rocking until my arm fell asleep, too. My bruised-not-broken bone wasn’t up to lifting Amy. Even if I could, I wouldn’t be able to transfer her to her toddler bed. If I called out for help, she’d wake up, so I held her soft weight and rocked while needles of numbness skittered from my fingertips to my armpit and back again.

  After what seemed like hours, Irene opened the door and peeked in. “Oh, honey.” She came into the room and gathered Amy into her arms. “Why didn’t you holler?”

  I wiggled my fingers and winced in relief. “I didn’t want to wake her.”

  “You sweet thing.” Irene settled Amy into her toddler bed then turned up the ceiling fan before leading me out the door and closing it softly behind us.

  And there was Ben, standing in the hallway staring at a framed photo of Melody.

  He looked... beaten. Defeated. Past enduring anything else. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he turned and wrapped his arms around me.

  It was the first time we had touched like this in a dozen years.

  *

  Meredith and some of the other ballet moms had set up a phone tree and canceled all my classes after the wreck and through the week of Mel’s funeral. They’d offered to cancel through the whole month of September, but I couldn’t afford to lose a month’s tuition. I had worked out the math. Every penny I didn’t need for survival, I had to save to get through the summer months when I’d have no income.

  My first day back the next Monday was tough. At the end of the day, I felt limp, physically and emotionally drained. Even though I had worn a sling, my left arm throbbed, and the bruised, swollen area was hot to the touch. I’d have to ice it when I got home.

  Maryann and Amy hadn’t come to their ballet classes. I hadn’t expected it, but I decided to give Ben a call from the studio phone to see how they were doing.

  No answer.

  I called Melody’s mother.

  “The kids are staying with us,” Lois said, a shade of exasperation in her voice. “Ben has taken time off work, but he isn’t up to caring for himself, much less his children.”

  The guilt that lived in my gut rose up to choke me. “I’m so sorry, Lois.” Tears stung the back of my nose as I struggled once again with the beast that wouldn’t die. Its sharp scales scraped against my insides. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  A mean, small voice whispered in my brain. Yes, Casey. Offer to help. You can help and help and help, and soon enough, Ben will be yours. But you’ll be his second choice. You’ll always be his second choice. I didn’t want Ben to be mine by default.

  “Thank you so much for asking, honey. I could use a little help with some of the driving. Picking the kids up from school and such—I mean, whenever we can’t do it. It would be great if we could add you to the kids’ emergency contact lists at school. We have an extra car seat for Amy that you can keep in your car.”

  “Sure. That’ll be fine.”

  Lois sighed, a sound of exhaustion and relief. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “No thanks necessary, Lois.”

  “Let me make you lunch tomorrow?”

  “That’s really not necessary.” The last thing I wanted was be alone with Lois and Herb and Melody’s ghost. I still hadn’t told anyone about Mel’s last moments, that she had died in unimaginable pain, drowning in her own blood, terrified for her life, worried for her children, begging me for help I couldn’t give. No one had mentioned it, but I knew they all wondered whether Melody had suffered. No one had asked—yet—but I had a sneaking suspicion Lois had conjured up this lunch idea for exactly that purpose.

  “I insist, honey. It’s the least I can do. Come at twelve-thirty.”

  “Lois, really—”

  “You could pick Amy up at preschool on your way. I’ll remind Ben to leave that extra car seat at the daycare. Lunch will be on the table when you get here.”

  Well, hell. “Okay, Lois. I’ll pick Amy up tomorrow and have lunch with y’all.” I hung up, wondering why I’d called in the first place.

  Well, I knew why.

  Apparently, I was just plain stupid.

  On the walk home, Lizzie seemed to sense my mood, and reflected it in her own posture as she slumped along beside me. She pushed her nose into my hand, and I patted her head, thankful for her quiet company. “Such a good dog.”

  She raised her face, her eyes shining with adoration.

  I gazed at the cool, starry sky, instinctively turning toward the river instead of heading straight home. Maybe the unconscious decision was a good one. I was tired in soul as well as body, and the river offered its own comfort.

  I rolled my aching shoulders and tilted my head side to side, trying to relax my knotted muscles. We walked past the town square, where the halyard banged rhythmically against the flagpole in the evening breeze. It had been clanking like that for years, a steady clink-clink-clink that never ended, even as people lived and died, and those left behind picked up the pieces and went on. The flag was taken down every evening and put up again each morning. But the halyard kept up its relentless chant, no matter what happened.

  What would I tell Lois tomorrow when she asked me about Melody’s last moments? Part of me wanted to lie, to say Mel’s death had been easy. But I knew that if I told the lie once, I’d have to keep telling it to everyone, forever.

  I didn’t know if I had the strength to keep the truth to myself without it eating me up from the inside. “Help me,” I whispered out loud, but I didn’t expect an answer. I felt as if
a veil separated earth from heaven. I was pretty sure God was watching but not planning to get involved.

  The thick, earthy smell of the river rolled toward us on the wind, and Lizzie’s nose lifted to sniff the air. I breathed in the scent of freshly mowed grass, tannin-rich water and the faint, elusive scent of peace.

  Stepping off the paved road onto a wide grassy field where picnickers spread their blankets on sunny days, we walked through the damp grass toward the river’s edge. Years ago, the city had poured a concrete footpath along the water, with park benches bolted to it every hundred feet or so. I trudged to the nearest bench and sat, draping my good arm over the armrest so I could reach down and caress Lizzie’s ears.

  I hadn’t been sitting there five minutes when a sleek car slid to a stop at the road’s edge. I knew it was Ian even before I looked over my shoulder to see him illuminated by the glow of the interior light. I could hear the faint beep-beep of the alarm until he slammed the door and strode toward me.

  A little thrill of excitement fizzed through me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ian stooped to give Lizzie a pat and sat next to me on the bench, one arm draped across the back. “Not planning on drowning yourself, are you?”

  “No.” I gave him a weak smile.

  “That’s just as well.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I’m wearing my good shoes and wouldn’t want to have to fish you out.”

  A huff of laughter escaped me, and I immediately felt ashamed. I couldn’t believe I had actually laughed, when Melody was no longer alive to laugh as well.

  Ian touched my shoulder. “It’s not disrespectful for you to get on with your life.”

  I couldn’t think what to say to him, so I clamped my mouth shut and stared out over the night-dark water that whispered before us. He seemed content with the silence, and eventually I was the one who broke it. I said the thing that had been sitting in the back of my mind for days, a sharp-toothed thing waiting to pounce. “It should have been me. Melody had so much to live for. So many people to live for. I should have been the one to die.”

  “It’s not your place to judge which one of you should have lived.” His voice was low, soothing, reasonable. For some reason, that quiet tone made me want to hit him. A tidal wave of antagonism came flooding into me, and I embraced it. It was the one emotion I could feel without it tearing me apart.

  I wanted to make him as angry and hurt as I was.

  I wanted to make him hate me as much as I hated myself.

  I wanted to show him the darkness inside me and make him so disgusted he would walk away and leave me to my misery. “I was jealous of Melody,” I said out loud for the first time. “I wanted what she had.”

  He sat there looking at me with that same compassionate expression on his face.

  “Did you hear me?” I shouted. “I wanted Mel’s husband. I wanted her kids. I wanted her life.”

  I realized that tears were streaming down my face when Ian quietly handed me a handkerchief—the real deal, a soft cotton square of comfort.

  I wiped my eyes and took a shuddering breath. “Ben was my boyfriend first; did you know that?”

  Ian shook his head but didn’t speak, giving me the time I needed to barf-up the whole damn hairball that had been stuck in my throat for twelve long years.

  “We were high school sweethearts, but I was determined to be a ballerina, so I auditioned for City Ballet then moved to New York. Ben stayed back home and we talked on the phone every day, but it felt like I was losing him, you know?”

  Ian nodded.

  “I convinced Ben to apply to NYU, and when he got accepted, he came to New York and we picked out an apartment in Greenwich Village. He went home to pack his shit, but he didn’t come back right away—one excuse after another—then I got the sorry-Casey-we-didn’t-mean-to-hurt-you phone call. That was twelve years ago. Twelve! A dozen years, and I still couldn’t forgive her. Him, yes. But not her.”

  “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “For Ben’s sake, and the sake of my own stupid pride, I pretended to forgive her. I pretended she was still my best friend. I pretended so well, I think even she believed me. I pretended so well, I started to believe it myself. But all the time I’ve been her best friend, I wanted him back. I wanted him to be mine instead of hers.”

  Ian didn’t draw back in horror. His face didn’t turn cold with disgust. His soothing tone didn’t even change when he responded to my tirade. “So, you lured her on a shopping expedition so you could crash her car into a truck and drive it off a ravine?”

  “Of course not. You know I wasn’t driving.”

  He took my face in his warm palms and pinned me with his amber gaze when I would have looked away. “So help me figure this out. How, exactly, is her death your fault?”

  “I wanted...” I squeezed my eyes shut against the burn of tears that felt like a hard knot behind my eyeballs. “I loved Mel, and still I wished...” I had yearned for the impossible, to have what she’d taken from me, without taking anything from her. But I hadn’t wished for her to die. My jealousy hadn’t made this happen.

  So why couldn’t I get out from under the crushing rock of guilt I carried everywhere?

  “Wishing doesn’t make things like this happen, Casey.” Ian stroked my hair, then my cheek, with a touch so tender it made my lips quiver, made the tears flow even faster.

  He had uncovered a soft, scared part of me that didn’t want to be dragged into the light. I sprang up, clutching his handkerchief, wanting to run but rooted to the concrete beneath my Keds.

  “Shhh,” he said.

  I hadn’t said anything, but I guess he knew I was screaming inside.

  “Sit back down.”

  He grabbed me by the hips and pulled me back. I put out a hand for balance, and his wide chest under my fingertips emanated more BTU’s than a space heater. When I was sitting beside him again, he relaxed, like a lion relaxes, in a way that still makes a gazelle keep its distance.

  I tried to relax too, but all my nerve endings were buzzing in Ian’s presence. “I seem to have lost the ability to be around people.”

  “It’s all right.” His voice turned warm and rich as melted butter. “I understand what it’s like to be afraid—”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Yes, you are.” His tone lowered to a confiding whisper. “You’re afraid that if you let go of feeling guilty, you’ll be free. And freedom is a very scary thing.”

  “I’m not afraid.” I was way past being afraid.

  “Prove it.”

  I channeled my inner Black Swan, the powerful seductress archetype I used to give myself confidence and courage when I had none. I turned toward him, tucked my injured arm in its sling between our bodies, and leaned in close. I let the fingertips of my right hand caress his lean, tanned cheek and trail down his strong neck, then come to rest on his broad shoulder. I lowered my lashes. My mouth dropped open as I came in for the kiss, and I watched his gaze follow the movement.

  I was going to kiss him until he couldn’t breathe.

  I was going to kiss him like he’d never been kissed before.

  The moment our lips touched, all thought ceased and pure sensation took over. The inside of his mouth was hot, wet, sweet. He slicked his tongue along my teeth, then into my mouth, lightly teasing. I tried to keep the upper hand but the seducer had quickly become the seduced. My nipples tingled where they brushed his chest, and other parts of my body wept with wanting.

  He stroked my back, pushing the thin straps of my leotard aside. Finally he broke the kiss and pulled back to look into my eyes.

  I hoped the moonlight wasn’t bright enough for him to see how dazed I was.

  *

  I showed up at Melody’s mom’s house just after noon the next day. Amy had fallen asleep on the way, so I had a struggle getting her out of her car seat then hoisting her onto my hip one-handed. But I managed.

  Lois answered the door. The raw grief in
her eyes confronted me like a punch in the face. Her eyes were dark, like Melody’s, but now they were deep pools without color, deep pools of endless pain. Her hair had been tortured into an old woman’s over-permed salt-and-pepper cap of curls. She’d been doing her hair this way for years, and it had always looked carefree and casual. But now, the dated style made her look old.

  “Casey, honey.” Lois took Amy from me, transferring her easily from my shoulder to hers. “You shouldn’t be holding Amy like that. Your arm won’t heal right if you don’t let it rest.” She turned her face away to hide the sparkle of tears I saw anyway. “I’ll put Amy down for her nap. You go on in the kitchen.”

  Walking into the old house, I felt like a teenager again, enveloped in the familiar smell of furniture polish and disinfectant overlaid by the aroma of roast beef and Lois’s famous red velvet cake. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Melody had come bouncing down the stairs, seven years old and wearing the hideous brown shift we’d been so proud of as Girl Scout Brownies. Or maybe she’d be fifteen, in her orange and white cheerleader outfit, her dark ponytails tied with matching ribbons.

  I walked through the cedar-paneled den to the large, bright kitchen. Ran my hand along the top of a ladder-back chair, remembering how the scratchy cane bottoms always left an imprint on the backs of our bare thighs in the summer.

  The dark mahogany table was set with vinyl placemats edged in a bright strawberry print. I lifted the edge of one in particular, and peeked underneath to see if a pale oval of bleached-out varnish still marred the dark wood.

  “It’s still there.” Lois came into the kitchen. “I swear, I wanted to kill that child when—” She choked on the words, swallowing the thought too late.

  “It wasn’t just Mel,” I reminded her. “We were both painting our fingernails.” We’d set the bottle of polish remover directly on the wood table, never imagining that the liquid dripping down the sides would collect along the bottle’s rim and eat away the varnish on Lois’s new dining table. We’d tried to wipe it away, compounding the problem, leaving a big smear instead of a small one.