by Nicole Baart
They all were.
Liz and Walker didn’t talk as they waited. They sat next to each other in the molded plastic chairs of the waiting room, knees touching, and listened to the clock tick on the wall. It was enough for Liz. Too much, in some ways, for she felt as if she had been turned inside out. Her skin prickled at the cool whisper of the air-conditioning, at the knowledge that everything she believed to be true only hours ago was … what exactly? A lie? Maybe Liz just wasn’t who she always thought she was.
At one point, Walker got up and came back with a cup of coffee from the hospitality table. He handed it to her without bothering to ask if she wanted it, and Liz accepted gratefully. It was scalding and acidic, bracing.
When Quinn finally came around the corner, there was a shadow of a smile on her face. Walker put out his arms and she sank into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. He put his forehead against her temple and closed his eyes. “So?” he asked.
“She’s fine.” Quinn shook her head. “No, not fine. I mean, she’s physically unharmed. She’s scared. Crying for her mother.”
Liz put her hand to her throat and slipped the chain of her necklace between her fingers. Quinn’s words released something visceral in her, a longing to take charge, to make things right as only a mother can. But she wasn’t Everlee’s mother, and she had no idea if Tiffany would ever be given the opportunity to hold her baby again. The thought made her so nauseous she had to sit very still and will her stomach to obey.
“There’s a social worker with her now,” Quinn told them. “And they’ve called in a child psychologist from the mental health clinic in New Ulm.”
The reality of what Everlee had endured was sobering.
“Was she …” Walker stalled, tried again. “Was she happy to see you? Or Nora?”
Quinn released a shaky sigh. “She let me hold her. I think she’s in shock? I mean, she’s really upset.”
“Of course.”
Walker was rubbing circles on Quinn’s back, erasing the tension between her shoulders with the heel of his hand. “She’ll stay the night for observation,” Quinn said, leaning into his touch.
“And then what?” Liz asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, we’re her family, right? We might …” But Quinn trailed off, unable to finish.
“What about Tiffany?”
Quinn gave her head the slightest shake. Don’t ask.
They looked up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway and watched as Nora came to join them. “Bennet’s on his way,” she said.
“And?” Liz was sick to death of waiting and wondering. “What happened?”
“He wants to talk to us in person.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Liz spat.
Nora raised one shoulder as if she didn’t have the energy to fire back. She looked so weary. There were purple smudges beneath her eyes and her skin was pale and waxy in spite of the warm summer sun. When she was a teenager, late August meant arms the color of toasted almonds, hair bleached so blond it was almost white. Of course Nora had always pretended not to care about her looks, but Liz knew that her daughter often felt awkward, self-conscious. Quinn was the beauty of the family and JJ was the brains—where did Nora fit? It was a question she had spent many years trying, and failing, to answer. The thought made Liz unaccountably sad, because, of course, Nora was the whole package: whip-smart and lovely, bighearted and wise. Why hadn’t Liz ever told her so? Or had she? She couldn’t quite remember, and in some ways that was even worse.
They didn’t say anything more as they waited for Bennet to arrive. It had been almost two hours since Tiffany’s cryptic text messages, and Liz marveled at how the whole world could unravel in such an insignificant amount of time. What now? she thought. But the future was determinedly opaque.
When he came, Bennet pulled a chair up to their circle and sat on the very edge of it so that he could rest his elbows on his knees and lean close. The set of his mouth was serious and he clutched a small black backpack in his hands as if it contained something precious. Liz wanted to shake him, to rip the bag from his hands so she could upend it on the floor and see what was inside. But she crossed her arms over her chest and forced herself to remain still, silent.
“Donovan Richter is dead,” Bennet said without preamble. “There was a car accident about a mile down the road from where we found Everlee Barnes in the ditch.”
Liz stole a glance at Nora. Her daughter’s face was smooth as a statue and just as emotive. This was not the news she was waiting for, and she didn’t so much as flinch when Bennet hung his head for a moment. The entire room seemed to hold in a frightened breath.
“Tiffany is gone,” he told them, looking up. His gaze was a sword, and Liz watched as it pierced right through Nora’s defenses. She crumpled.
“What?” she whispered, her lips trembling.
“No one else was in the car.”
“What?” Nora’s hand snaked out and seized Bennet’s wrist. “What does that mean? Is she okay?”
“We don’t know. If she was in the car, and if she was critically injured, she couldn’t have gotten far.”
“I don’t understand.” Quinn looked between them all, searching for the answer. “Where is she?”
Bennet avoided her gaze as he answered: “It has not yet been determined that a second passenger was in the vehicle at the time of the accident.”
“But—”
“She’s not there,” Bennet said. “Tiffany was not in the car when we found it. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“She’s gone.” The words were so absolute, so final, that Nora should have sounded devastated. But Liz could see that though her daughter looked stunned, her mouth was curving in a faint, improbable smile. “She survived, and she’s gone …” Nora trailed off, shooting Bennet a quick, nervous glance.
“Look,” he said carefully. “I don’t know what happened this afternoon. But it looks like there was a rollover on a gravel road with a single fatality. If there was another passenger, we don’t know why she would have run.”
“Do you think … ?”
“We have no reason to suspect foul play.”
Nora gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Now if there was a witness, someone who was in the car at the time of the accident, that person is definitely someone we would like to have a chat with.”
“Will you issue a warrant?”
Bennet pushed a hand through his hair as he gave her words consideration. He finally said, “If there was a passenger—and that’s still an if at this point—this is a bit unprecedented. We usually deal with the other end of the spectrum. People want to sue for damages, not flee the scene.”
“So what now?” Liz didn’t even realize she had spoken aloud until they all turned toward her.
“The sheriff’s department is processing the scene, but it looks pretty straightforward. If the investigation determines that the driver lost control and rolled, there are no charges to file.”
“And Tiffany?”
“I don’t know, Nora. You tell me.”
“Are you suggesting that I had something to do with this?”
“I never said that.” Bennet shook his head. “But I do have some questions for you.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
“Okay.” Bennet unzipped the backpack and pulled out an evidence bag. Inside the clear plastic was what appeared to be a scrap of fabric. It was bright and beautiful, a pattern of flowers and splotches of color that looked like great dollops of fresh paint. He held it up in front of Nora. “We found this on the ground near the vehicle.”
Liz recognized it instantly. It was the scarf that Tiffany had been wearing when she showed up at the cabin door and took Everlee. Liz opened her mouth to say as much but then clamped it down so hard her jaw ached. She didn’t dare to sneak a peek at Quinn but was grateful that her daughter chose to hold her tongue, too.
“I’ve never seen that before in my life,�
� Nora admitted, and Liz had no doubt that she was telling the truth. Nora had never been a very good liar.
“You’re sure.”
Nora nodded, and Bennet stuffed the evidence bag into the pack. He took out another one. “What about this?”
It was a cell phone with a gaudy pink case that was adorned with sequins in the shape of a skull.
“That’s Tiffany’s phone,” Nora said reluctantly.
Bennet nodded. “There’s an unsent text message on it.” He pushed the home button through the plastic bag and then turned the phone so that everyone could see it. “Do you have any idea what this means?”
Liz squinted as she drew close, trying to make sense of the words that glowed on the screen. And then they came into garish, shocking focus.
You should know: JJ is the wrong Jack.
HE FOUND ME. Or, rather, I found him.
When did I realize that this would never be over? That he would chase us and fight for us and never let us go? And not in a good way. Not in the “where you go, I’ll go” way of those sappy romance novels Lorelei used to love.
The will was my insurance policy. Really, I just wanted my aunt to meet her great-niece. No, her granddaughter. Just once. And if we survived this thing, if we made it out the other side safe and sound, yes, I believed that my girl deserved her inheritance. When she came of age, of course. Lord knows I would have been a walking disaster with a fortune at sixteen. Fine. I still would be. But it was a template last will and testament, easy to change. Mr. Estes was happy to help.
I direct that my residuary estate be distributed to my niece, Tiffany Barnes. And below that we added: And great-niece, Everlee Barnes.
I should have known that I was painting a target on our backs. Making everything infinitely worse than it had to be.
But I took care of it. I did what I had to do. And you can think I’m evil, the worst kind of person, but I dare you to put yourself in my shoes.
The truth? I didn’t think I’d make it.
I didn’t want to. But I’ve been saved twice now, and I’d be a terrible liar if I told you I wasn’t down to my bones grateful. For life. For things turning out nothing like they were supposed to.
“What did you just do?” Donovan shouted when I pushed Everlee from the car. But the door was already wrenched closed and his foot was still on the gas pedal. Surprise? Disbelief? Maybe he couldn’t grasp what I had done. It didn’t really matter. I ignored him and threw myself over the back of the seat to grab for the wheel.
Hands and arms. Fingers clawing. He hit my face. I tasted the sharp, salty tang of his damp skin in my mouth, my teeth grazing the bones of his thick wrist. But he was still accelerating, and when I finally held that steering wheel in my hands, there was nothing he could do. We swerved, jerked left so hard I lost my footing and slammed against the headrest.
The car flipped.
For one jagged breath I rose above it all, a spectator as the world fell away. I could see the breeze dance warm and indifferent through perfect rows of corn. The sharp glint of sunshine off the hood of Donovan’s car. And then, for just a second, Everlee as she rolled down into the ditch far behind us. Of course I couldn’t really see her, but in my mind’s eye she was caught in the soft embrace of prairie grass and a sea of summer dandelions so bright they rivaled the sun. The perfect place to land. To rise. To be reborn. She’ll be okay, I thought, and for just a moment it made my soul float light, lifting from a body I had already dismissed.
But then: impact. The windshield shattered into a million tiny pieces and showered down, a hailstorm of light. Hissing, popping, a metal scream, eerie and final as an unholy requiem.
What is death supposed to feel like? A sigh, a shriek, a letting go? Nothingness, I thought, until I realized that it hurt and that my heart still raced in tandem with the drip-drip-drip of something that I could hear but would not identify.
I wasn’t dead.
I was wedged on the floor of the back seat, hip caught at an excruciating angle beneath the bench frame and the floor, legs bent unnaturally, left arm broken. It had to be, for it dangled into the empty space below me, swaying from the momentum of the crash like a pendulum that would forever keep splintered time. From where I was suspended, trapped upside down on the floor of the car that had crumpled like a tin can, I could see Donovan. Or the impression of him. My mind skittered away from recognition and reduced him to fragments. Shirt. Seat belt. Arm raised high. Torn. I didn’t have to touch him to know that he was gone.
Will you hate me if I said I loved him once? That I could have wept for what I had done? All I had lost? Hope is a tenacious thing, everlasting and stubborn, refusing to give up, to let go. To stop.
And I know him better than you do. I held his face in my hands and looked so deep into those big brown eyes I thought I could see to the very bottom of who he was. I once loved to trace the scars on his back, the places where the skin was puckered and pink, exactly the size of the burning tip of a cigarette. His mother didn’t love him the way that she should have, but isn’t that always just a little bit true? I thought I could make up for all that pain, read those scars like a constellation and find the star that pointed home. But there were other hurts, too, wounds that dug deeper than skin. Scars aren’t always visible. But I still wish I could have kissed each mark and made it new. For him. For Everlee. For me. But some hurts never quite heal.
I have a deep affection for broken things.
When the world stopped spinning like the needle of a smashed compass, I crawled out the back window of the car. It was still intact but warped and crisscrossed with cracks like a wilting spiderweb. I didn’t even have to kick at it, not really. I just put both my feet against the glass and pushed. It sagged at my weight, bubbling out, and I pressed until it gave.
My own sort of rebirth.
Here is what I know: I should have died. I think I wanted to. But something threw me to the floor when that car hit the field driveway and decided to spread its wings and fly. Maybe it was a coincidence. Something that could be explained away by a crash test dummy and the quick flip of a car in some factory. I don’t know. But I do know that I have now stood in an empty field twice and grasped that my life would never be the same.
And twice, I found salvation.
The first time the grass stains were on my jeans, the back of my favorite shirt. Jack Sr. wiped his hands on a handkerchief that he took out of his pocket, and then he touched his mouth real careful, dabbing the spot where I bit his lip. “Nobody will believe you,” he told me. “Not a girl like you.”
And he was right.
Who would believe me?
I left the dance to hook up with JJ. We’d danced that night, so close I could have flicked out my tongue and tasted the sweat in the hollow beneath his ear. I knew he was in a serious, here-comes-the-bride relationship, but what does that matter to a girl like me?
The truth? My heart ached at the thought that I was second best, that JJ’s arms holding me tight were bold with whiskey and lust, nothing more. But sometimes second best is better than nothing.
JJ didn’t show up at the spot we agreed on.
Jack Sr. did.
It was a practical joke. Mr. Sanford was confused at first, irritated that JJ had called for a ride (too drunk to drive) and that the only sign of life in the dark grove beside the cornfield was me. Dirty little Tiffany Barnes. Slut. Skank. White trash, cheap, easy, I’ve heard it all. And in the second before he realized the opportunity before him, Jack Sr. was quick to dismiss me. I could see it written all over his face: bitch. Because that’s what men like him call women like me.
Who am I kidding? I was no woman; I wasn’t even twenty years old. I was a girl.
Is it rape if you don’t cry out? If you lie back and take what’s coming to you?
I blame myself. I don’t need your sympathy or that look in your eyes that tells me you don’t just feel sorry for me, you thank God every day that you’re not like me. I’d rather be despised than p
itied, thank you very much.
What good is compassion if a chance at redemption is on the table?
Nora was the first to make me believe in second chances. I lied to her because I couldn’t stand to tell her the truth, and though she didn’t respond the way that I expected her to, she saved me from myself. Everlee is the best thing that ever happened to me from the worst thing that ever happened to me, and isn’t it unbelievable that things could work out that way? My darkest hour and my saving grace were all played out on the bridge to Everly. Don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t.
But when I stood in that field beside Donovan’s mangled car, chest heaving and shirt glued to my back from sweat and horror, it struck me that maybe we get more than just a second chance. A third? A fourth? How many times forgiven? How many new beginnings? At least one more for Tiffany Barnes, because there I stood in spite of it all: whole.
I shed myself. Phone dropped, scarf that had hid what I’d done to my signature dark waves unwrapped and left to the wind. The air raked fingers through my short hair and cooled my damp skin, and I was new. Again. In my bag: $10,000, a new life, a new me. And though leaving my girl is the hardest thing I have ever done, this is her redemption, too.
I love you, sweet girl. Love deep. Work hard. Your life is just beginning. You have to be brave.
I’m trying to be.
After
*
“THIS IS A LITTLE MELODRAMATIC, don’t you think?” Nora held up the bottle of champagne and needled Quinn with an exasperated look. But it was halfhearted and insincere, the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, betraying how she really felt. Which was serene. Anyone could see that. It was in the casual jut of her hip, the way Ethan’s arm wrapped around her waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Walker is nothing if not melodramatic.” Quinn sighed.
“What’s melodramatic?” Everlee slipped her hand into Quinn’s and swung their arms together, pulling her in the direction of the boathouse door, where Walker had strung a black sheet across the worn boards.