Faultlines

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  Nothing. When she was growing up, the idea of nothing had scared her more than the idea of eternity.

  How long did she stand there, waiting, for what, she would never be sure. Fate to show its hand? Another driver to come along, a hero who, magically, divining the situation, would stop and peacefully resolve it? It was probably only moments, but it felt like the fearful eternity of her childhood. The sound of a car engine cranking to life—Patsy’s car engine—jerked her gaze around. Her awareness now was of her vulnerability, the vast open space around her and how easily Patsy might run her down. Sandy retreated, taking backward steps, breath coming in shallow dips, feet tangling in the grass. But when Patsy dropped the car into gear, she reversed, giving herself room to clear Sandy’s tailgate, and then without a glance at Sandy, she drove away, leaving Sandy to stare after her, immobile, for long, disbelieving seconds.

  After a while, feeling chilled despite the heat, she hugged herself. The fear that Patsy might come back or that she was parked off the road up ahead, lying in wait, kept her motionless. It was the thought of Jordy, that she needed to be with him, that got her moving. And after all that she’d learned from Libby Hennessey, she had to get hold of Roger, too, she thought, heading to her truck. And Jenna. She had to talk to Jenna. Sandy didn’t care what it took. She got into the truck and shut the door. She was trembling; she didn’t feel safe. But there was no place safe right now, and there wouldn’t be until she got Jordy clear of this, whatever this was. She was shaking so badly she had trouble keying the ignition. Then she gave the engine too much gas, and it nearly died. She glanced at herself in the rearview and almost didn’t recognize the half-panicked woman looking back at her. Settle down, she told herself. Breathe breathe. Just breathe.

  After a minute, feeling calmer, she drove onto the road, checking her watch, fumbling for her phone, thinking of the client waiting for her. More than an hour now. She looked in the rearview at the plants she’d bought at Inman’s, wilted over, unhappy in the heat. Sandy drove, hunting the roadsides for any sign of the light-colored sedan, brain churning. She managed to key in Roger’s number, and when he didn’t answer, she left a message that she had a hunch that involved Jenna, and she was going there. She tried Jordy, too, but when his voice mail picked up, she only asked him to call her, saying it was important. She didn’t want him to worry.

  Clicking off, she thought of calling Emmett, and instead dialed her client Martha Langston, making her apologies, pleading a family emergency. Martha was gracious; she didn’t ask for details. Given the Cline-family notoriety, Martha probably didn’t want to know unless she was a fan of reality TV. Sandy dialed her mother’s cell phone after that, but clicked off before the call could go through. She didn’t want her mother to alert Jenna she was coming.

  She was jittery, gripping the wheel, hunched over it like an old woman. Every time she crossed paths with a light-colored sedan, her heart stopped. She had no idea what might happen when she got to Jenna’s. She would bull her way into the house if she had to; she would put her sister down and sit on her if that’s what it took to make her listen. Sandy snorted. Dream on, she thought. She could scarcely breathe, she was so on edge.

  Jenna’s neighborhood, her street, her bungalow, in an older subdivision of Wyatt, looked the same as it had in the days when Sandy had come here routinely. But it felt alien now. It felt scary. She pulled to the curb and stared at the front yard. She and Jenna had put in the flower beds, planting them with a mix of mostly native perennials that were drought tolerant and deer resistant. Jenna never minded the deer, though. She had bottle-fed more than one motherless fawn. She’d nursed injured rabbits and raccoons, too, and once rescued a fox that had caught its leg in a tangle of rusty barbed wire. Travis and Jordy had grown up tramping through the woods with Sandy and Jenna, learning its lore, its dark, loamy secrets. It killed Sandy, remembering those days, the boys with their heads together, comparing the bounty scored on their treks—a feather, a nest, chunks of quartz that glittered in the sun like diamonds, pink-veined granite, the odd arrowhead, a fossil, and once the completely intact skeleton of a whiptail lizard. Thinking of those days made Sandy want to cry, and she tightened her teeth to keep from it.

  Suddenly it made her so goddamned angry—that fucking accident, the blind fucking stupid idiocy of it, and the horrible consequences, twin horrors of unfathomable loss and endless grief. And what for? What was the fucking point? What was the use of life when it was this fragile and over so soon? Sandy knew without Jenna even telling her that she wished the cancer had killed her. Then she would have been spared this cruelty, the worst one of all, outliving your own child, the one you carried beneath your heart. Ah God, Sandy thought. She could just howl with the pain of it.

  Instead she bailed from the truck, wiping her eyes, sniffing back a nose full of crud. She knew Jenna was home; she’d left her garage door up and her SUV was inside. Walking up the long, sinewy driveway to the back door—they never used each other’s front doors—Sandy wondered if Jenna was watching her, if even now she was running through the house to bolt the back door, barring Sandy’s entrance.

  It caught her off guard to find Jenna standing in the doorway behind the closed screen, and even though the shadows under the covered porch were deep, Sandy knew her eyes were hard and her mouth set in a forbidding line. But she was there; the door was open. It must mean something.

  “Hey,” Sandy said, and the syllable came out croaky and tentative on what was little more than a puff of air.

  “Mom and Dad aren’t here,” Jenna said. “I told them to pack up and go home.”

  “They were hovering,” Sandy said, because she knew.

  “I was suffocating.” Jenna held the door open, but even as Sandy’s relief and the leap of her jubilation lifted her heart, Jenna was sidestepping her hug, and the look on her face was dark and forbidding.

  Sandy followed Jenna though the mudroom into the kitchen. Sandy paused at the marble-topped island. Jenna walked around it, going to the opposite end as if she needed not only distance but also a physical barrier between them.

  “I’ve packed up Jordy’s stuff. I want you to take it when you go.”

  Sandy had the sense that Jenna would welcome a fight, that she would grab at the chance to distract herself from her agony. How did she do it—pass by Travis’s empty bedroom? Open a kitchen cabinet to see the mug he had decorated for her when he was five? If she ever gave in to it, Sandy thought, if she were to slip over the black edge of her grief, she’d be gone forever. She looked so exhausted; she’d lost so much weight, ten or fifteen pounds, Sandy guessed. “Why won’t you let me help you?” she asked.

  “You? I don’t even want you in my house.”

  “You don’t mean that.” It took every ounce of Sandy’s self-control to keep her voice level.

  “Yes, I do,” Jenna insisted, even as Sandy raised her voice, talking over her.

  “Jordy wasn’t driving. I’ve got proof.”

  “You’ve got nothing but a head full of delusions about Jordy, a head full of the lies you tell yourself about him so you can sleep nights.”

  “That’s almost funny, Jenna. Jordy says he’d rather take the blame for the accident—anything to save your delusions about Travis. Jordy can’t stand for Trav to be remembered as having been responsible for something so horrific.”

  “So he’s falling on his sword, is that it? That’s a great way to play it.”

  “He’s not playing, Jenna. There are witnesses.”

  “Every one of whom has identified Jordy.”

  “I don’t know about all of them, but I do know Huck pressured Nat Blevins somehow into changing his story.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “To protect you. Because he loves you. He can’t stand that this has happened. It was awful enough for you, losing John. And now Travis, too? It’s unthinkable. All you have is your memory. It’s the last thing, the only thing now, Huck can save for you.”

  “You’
re wrong.” Jenna traced her eyebrows, shoved her hair behind her ears.

  It needed washing. And it was seeing that—and how broken Jenna was, how fragile and vulnerable—that kept Sandy from launching herself at Jenna, as she’d done a few times in their childhood, with the intention of bringing Jenna down and causing her bodily harm. Their mother was right. Jenna was incapable of sorting out her emotions, much less controlling how they were expressed. I mean, my God, said the voice in Sandy’s brain, she can’t even wash her hair.

  Jenna went to the kitchen sink and stared out the window. Sandy went through the house to Jenna’s bathroom and found her shampoo. Bringing it and a towel back into the kitchen, she stood next to Jenna, bumping her gently aside with her hip. She turned on the tap.

  Once the water was the right temperature, Jenna wordlessly lowered her head under it, and Sandy moved the sprayer around, gathering and releasing Jenna’s shoulder-length hair to thoroughly wet it. Then, working in the shampoo, she gently massaged Jenna’s scalp, her temples, the back of her neck, giving herself to the ritual, letting herself be soothed by the sound of the running water and the citrusy scent of the shampoo rising on the steam. She closed her eyes, blindly mapping with her fingers the shape of Jenna’s skull, the mystery of its uneven knotty surface. It was when she was rinsing the soap from Jenna’s hair that she became fully aware of Jenna’s distress, the heave of her shoulders, her grating, uncontrollable sobs, and without a second thought, she pulled Jenna up and brought her around, wrapping her in a tight embrace.

  Heedless of the wet soaking their shirts and puddling the floor, they sank to the floor, backs to the cabinet, clinging to each other, rocking together. Sandy made the little humming noises their mother had always made when she held them, crying and inconsolable, as children. She had made these noises, holding Jordy, and even Travis, when the boys were small.

  Minutes passed; gradually, Jenna grew quiet.

  There was only the rough hiccup of her breath when Sandy at last reached up, groping for the towel. Pulling it down, she blotted Jenna’s face, wiped the soft, nubby terry cloth over her hair. “Mom said you haven’t cried very much.”

  “Couldn’t,” Jenna said.

  “It’s good, then. You needed to.”

  Jenna smiled ruefully. “I need a tissue.”

  “Use the towel; it’ll wash.”

  Jenna did, and they settled back against the cabinet, shoulders touching.

  “Have you heard anything about Michelle?” Sandy asked after a moment, and it seemed odd, but they had to start somewhere. They had to find the way to say all the hard stuff, to try and fix what they could, and now was the time, when Jenna’s defenses were down.

  “She’s still in a coma. Why?”

  Sandy told Jenna about her two confrontations with Patsy. “Earlier, when I stopped, I don’t know what I was thinking. It was totally possible she had a gun, that if her daughter died she might want to kill me. Or Jordy.”

  “Wouldn’t you, if Jordy had died and Michelle had been driving?”

  “Probably. But, Jenna, Jordy wasn’t driving.”

  She started to get up, but Sandy went up on her knees, putting her hand on Jenna’s arm, stopping her. “Please listen to me. You remember when I told you how I thought Huck was dogging Jordy, ticketing him for no reason.”

  “Oh God, Sandy, not that again.” Jenna got to her feet. “It’s such a load of horseshit.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Sandy stood up, too.

  “You need to get Jordy’s stuff and go, okay?” Jenna sounded as if she were running out of the patience it took to be nice. She left the kitchen, finger-combing her still-damp hair back from her face. In the bathroom, she made a ponytail and fastened it with an elastic band.

  “I met Libby Hennessey, Beck’s wife.” Sandy spoke from the doorway. “We talked out at Inman’s for an hour this morning.”

  Jenna turned to look at her.

  “Jordy told Libby he slept with Coleta. He thinks that’s why Huck is after him.”

  “Jordy and Coleta?” Jenna’s voice registered some note between stupefaction and disgust.

  “She seduced him, and you’d better watch what you say, because according to Libby, Jordy isn’t the only young guy in town she was entertaining.”

  “Travis would never—” Jenna stopped, breaking Sandy’s glance. Even she knew better than to include the word never in some comment you were making about your kid. Turning back to Sandy, Jenna asked how it was she and Libby had come to meet and talk. Sandy had counted on it, Jenna’s curiosity, and as quickly as she could, she filled Jenna in, telling her that Jordy had taken the matter into his own hands and gone there, that he was now working for Libby. “Emmett said the only way he can ever know his birth dad now is through Libby.”

  “But why confide in her? She’s a total stranger.”

  “Maybe precisely for that reason. Or maybe he thought we wouldn’t believe him, that no one would.” Sandy wiped her face. “I think it’s reached a point where he had to tell someone. He’s pretty scared with Huck breathing down his neck—”

  “I don’t see why Huck cares who Coleta slept with. All he can talk about is finding a way to get out of his marriage to her. He’s requested an annulment, and if that doesn’t work, he’s going to call her family in Honduras and ask if he can give the money back. Give Coleta back.”

  “When he first went after Jordy, Huck threatened him. He said if he ever heard Jordy talking about having sex with Coleta, he’d find a way to put him in jail. I think, then, Huck meant to put the fear of God into him.”

  “Why? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does if you figure the money Huck was getting paid by Coleta’s family depended on her getting citizenship, and for that to happen, she and Huck had to look convincingly married. If INS found out their marriage was a sham, Coleta would get deported, and who knows—Huck might lose his badge. He had a lot riding on that little venture, but it’s turned into something else now, since the accident. Now it’s about you.”

  “He’s not in love with me, Sandy.” Jenna left the bathroom.

  Sandy followed her into the kitchen. “Yeah, I agree. Obsession is not love. It’s a mental, an emotional, disease.”

  “Oh, give me a break. Obsession? Really? I hardly think the guy’s obsessed. Like I’m what? Irresistible? Like he can’t get enough of me? Days go by and I don’t see the man. Besides, look at me. I’m a wreck. Is this something to get obsessed over? Even Troy doesn’t come around much anymore.”

  “Think about it, Jenna. Who quit the force in San Antonio, uprooting what was a pretty successful career to come back here—basically the ass end of nowhere, for a cop, anyway—to look after you and Trav? He’s been like a husband, like a dad ever since John was killed. Who fixes the toilet when it runs? Who takes the car in for its checkup? Who did you call in the middle of the night when Trav ran a fever and you needed someone to make a drugstore run?”

  “Well, yeah, okay. But not—I haven’t really called on him since Troy and I got serious.” Jenna sat at the table in the breakfast nook.

  Sandy came up to the chair adjacent to Jenna’s and paused, balancing her hands on the back of it, thinking, working it through. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s what happened, what pushed him over the edge.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Sandy came around the chair and sat down, leaning forward on her elbows, her eyes on Jenna’s intent, searching. “All this time, Huck was fine as long as he had you to himself, as long as he could care for you and Trav, you know? The way a husband would—”

  “He wasn’t—there are no fringe benefits. We’re just friends.”

  “In your mind. I think Huck was okay with it, too. A friendship was better than nothing. But then Troy came along, and he realized that in addition to fixing the toilet and running the car in, Troy was getting benefits.”

  “That’s crazy,” Jenna said, but Sandy could tell she was considering it.
>
  “He’s wanted you for years, since you were in high school. But you chose John, and he loved John, too.” Reaching across the table, Sandy took Jenna’s hand in her own, and it was cold in her warmer grasp. “You remember how horrible Huck felt when John was killed.”

  “He blamed himself. I wanted to blame him, too.”

  “But you always knew the risk, knew it could happen. You said you were prepared—”

  “I lied.” Jenna smiled ruefully. She wiped her face, sniffed.

  Sandy leaned back. “Huck wanted to be your savior. I think he figured, eventually, if he hung around long enough, you’d let him in—all the way in. He’d take John’s place, get the bennies—the bed and board, so to speak.”

  Jenna was looking at Sandy and shaking her head. “I’ve never felt that way about him and never will.”

  “I know.”

  “I love him the way John loved him.” She got up, turning away from Sandy, groaning softly.

  “He’s setting Jordy up, Jenna. For you, so you don’t have to look at what really happened—”

  Jenna held up her hand, and the gesture was a warning, but it was also a plea. Sandy could see from Jenna’s expression that something hard and resistant was giving way inside her. It was all coming together, the truth she didn’t want to know, that she couldn’t deny.

  “A detective we hired has found a witness, Ricky Burrows. The night of the accident, Ricky was driving on CR 440 when the Range Rover came out of nowhere around a curve right at him. Ricky told the detective he saw Travis. They were eyeball to eyeball. You know how they say your mind will crystallize an image when you’re in danger like that? Everything slows down; your brain registers every minute detail, and it remembers them; it prints them like photographs. That’s what happened to Ricky. The image of Travis in the driver’s seat is printed on his brain as clearly as a photograph.”