A Time for Us

by Amy Knupp

“Are you still working on your condo?” his mom asked, managing to sound slightly outraged with a side of scolding. “I assumed that was finished long ago, Cale.”

  “I’ve...” A rock lodged itself in the bottom of Cale’s gut. “I had to take a break from it when Noelle died.”

  Sympathetic looks from Clay and Evan made him sit up straighter. “As soon as I get done here, it’s probably time—okay, past time—for me to get back to it. It’s been so long that I don’t really remember everything I have left to do.” Time and a mental block had taken care of that for him. All he knew was that the last time he’d gone there, he’d left, well, a mess, to put it mildly.

  “How can you live in a place and not remember what needs to be done, son?” Ted nodded toward the box of hamburger pizza and waited for his daughter to push it his way.

  “He’s been living with me,” Mariah said. “I needed the help on the rent, and he needed to get away. Believe it or not, we do pretty well as roommates.”

  Cale sent her a look of thanks for making it sound like no big deal.

  “You pay rent at your sister’s and a mortgage on your place?” his dad asked in disbelief.

  “Just a little rent.” And it’d been worth every damn penny. After Noelle’s death, just walking into the beach condo they’d planned to share as soon as they were married had been like a knife to his chest.

  “It works, Dad,” Mariah said.

  “I’m glad you two can get along. There were days when you were little that I wondered,” their mom said.

  Bunking with Mariah had worked—too well. It’d been the easy way out for him, he realized now. Cale mentally kicked himself for taking her hospitality for granted. He’d overstayed his welcome, no matter how gracious his sister acted.

  He felt as though he’d been through hell, but more importantly, he’d made it “back.” After spending more than a year grieving Noelle and wondering when he would be able to return to some semblance of normalcy, he’d made a lot of progress and started moving toward getting his life on track. He’d made an effort to be more social, to go out with the guys from the station when they invited him, to stop hiding out in his private quarters at the station all the time. He’d even been set up on a couple of dates, although he had no intention whatsoever of getting further involved with either of the women he’d gone out with. Or any woman, for that matter. It’d be years before he could even think about that—if ever. But the dates had been a major step for him.

  And yet, with all the positive action he’d taken in an attempt to settle into his life without Noelle, he’d ignored one of the biggest aspects.

  His first obligation was to get his parents’ projects done as he’d promised, but then...maybe it was high time to face the memories he’d been avoiding and get to work on his own home.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RACHEL CONSIDERED HERSELF a lot of things—and not all of them were good things—but a coward was not on the list of traits she’d ever claimed willingly.

  Early Sunday afternoon, after her mom had fluttered off to a dolphin cruise with her sudden group of friends, Rachel stood outside the door. The closed door to her childhood bedroom. Noelle’s bedroom. She grasped the knob but then dropped her unsteady hand as if she’d been burned.

  Damn her brother for pointing out her preference for avoidance. Though he hadn’t mentioned her untouched bedroom out loud, this intricately grained, six-panel plank of oak had become like a living, breathing enemy for Rachel. One she could mostly ignore as long as no one accused her of being scared of it.

  She wasn’t going to be scared of it anymore. It was just a room, a hundred and fifty square feet of stuff. Things. Items that she’d assigned too much importance to. The room only had as much significance as she gave it. Noelle was not in that room.

  With a frustrated grunt at herself, she straightened and stepped back up to the door. She inhaled deeply and held the air inside her lungs.

  Just a slab of wood leading to a room.

  She twisted the knob and pushed the door open with so much force it bounced off the wall and back at her. She smacked the door back to the wall, funneling all her freaked-out anticipation into it.

  As she took in the room and its contents, she felt as if she had all the air knocked out of her.

  Nothing had been touched.

  The twin bed to the left—Noelle’s—had the hot-pink-and-purple polka-dotted sheets strewn about and the pillow cattywampus, as if Noelle had just crawled out of it twenty minutes ago. The heel of one beaded flip-flop stuck out from under her bed, and her countless makeup containers littered the dainty vanity table along the wall that Noelle had long ago outgrown but had continued to use.

  Rachel’s half of the room was neat, as always, her bed made and a reading lamp and digital alarm clock the only items on top of her nightstand. Everything in the two-toned room—on both sides—had a thick layer of dust covering it.

  It was amazing how their two lives and their sisterhood were so accurately summed up and displayed in this one room. The room was an L shape, and three walls, those on Noelle’s side, were painted electric green, but the color was barely visible with all the wall hangings—a couple of movie posters starring one of Noelle’s celebrity crushes, a wildly colorful print of a Brazil street during Carnival, a two-years-out-of-date beefcake calendar of male dancers given to Noelle by her friend Trina and a bulletin board full of candids of Noelle and her friends from over the years.

  Rachel’s three walls were a light, mellow, coral color interrupted only by a single item on two of them—a print of one of Monet’s lily-pad scenes done in muted colors and a photo Rachel herself had taken of the glasslike bay at dawn. A window took up much of the third wall. She and Noelle had separated the space with an invisible diagonal line down the center, from one corner to the other. The door was on one of Noelle’s walls, and Rachel remembered the time they’d been arguing about who knew what and Noelle had informed her the door was off-limits since it was in her part of the room. Rachel had just as stubbornly declared the single window to be her property and had made a point of lowering the blinds and closing the windows to lock out the incessant island breeze—exactly the opposite of the way her sister had liked it. The standoff had lasted until Rachel had needed to go to the bathroom and had threatened to pee just over the line on Noelle’s side. And she would have, too, because all was fair and reasonable when it came to an argument between the twins. And yet, neither one of them had ever petitioned to move to the extra bedroom that had always served as their mother’s home office because, when you got down to it, in spite of all their differences, they were a unit. They were “the twins.”

  Rachel fought to swallow, then she slowly backed out of the room and gently closed the door.

  She’d been right about one thing—her sister was not in the room. But that victory was hollow, because what was there was something even harder to face...it was the leftovers of a life that should still be going strong. A freeze-frame view into Noelle’s existence on that awful day. Rachel wondered if her sister would have left things differently had she known it would be the last time she was walking out of the room. Would she have straightened her shoes? Made her bed? Lined up the makeup neatly?

  Squeezing her eyes tightly closed, Rachel struggled against the tsunami-force wall of emotions trying to level her. She shook her head and repeated to herself that she wasn’t letting it in. Not today. Not for as long as she could hold it at bay.

  When she was able to breathe evenly, without the telltale shakiness, she walked away, down the stairs, out the back door. Though she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, she did a shallow dive into the family pool, which was seldom used but painstakingly maintained by a weekly pool boy, and swam underwater to the opposite end. When she surfaced, her back to the house, she hitched her elbows on the side of the pool and forced her mind back into the present moment.

  Opening that door and peering into the bedroom from a distance was all Rachel could handle for now.
That was going to have to be enough for today.

  * * *

  IF RACHEL HAD been the one to die and Noelle had lived instead, Noelle would have handled things so much differently. So much better. Noelle would never have failed her sister so completely.

  Those were the words Rachel repeated to herself as she stood on the seashell welcome mat outside Cale and Mariah’s apartment waiting for someone to open the door.

  There were multiple voices from within, becoming louder, and then the knob turned. Mariah Jackson, a willowy redhead whom Rachel had met only a couple of times before, looked momentarily shocked at the sight of Rachel. She caught herself quickly, though, and smiled. “Hi, Rachel.”

  There was no mistaking the surprise in her voice.

  Before Rachel could respond with anything besides a hello, Cale came barreling into the entryway.

  “Hey, Rachel. What are you doing here?”

  “She’s here for the meeting, you twit,” Mariah said.

  “Did I get the time wrong?” Rachel asked in a rush of anxiety.

  “No, no, come on in. Eddie, our third...fourth member, is in the other room. We just got started. It’s good to see you. Other than the meeting, it’s been a long time....”

  Since the funeral, Rachel silently filled in.

  “I thought you had to work today,” Cale said as the three of them walked through the living room into the open dining area.

  “I thought I did, too, but apparently the schedule god is determined that I stick with the slowest, most mind-numbing shifts. He nixed the extra shift and gave me a lecture about overdoing it. I suspect my brother paid him to do it.”

  “Really?” Mariah said, her voice sounding scandalized.

  “I doubt it, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Isn’t brotherly love just...fabulous?” Mariah said drily. “Rachel, this is Eddie Vandermeyer, our fearless leader and the only one of the three of us who really has any clue about publicity. Eddie, Rachel is—”

  “Noelle’s sister,” he said as he stood and shook her hand. “Honored to meet you, Rachel.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Rachel said, a little flustered over his use of the word honored. It was little stuff like that that made her really squirm at the idea of working on any part of this fundraising project.

  Noelle would do it for you in a heartbeat—with a genuine smile on her face.

  The thought reminded Rachel to force a smile of her own. “Sorry I’m late. It took me a while to sort through my mom’s notes to find out where you guys were meeting.”

  “Help yourself to a drink from the fridge,” Mariah said. “We were just talking about ticket sales. It’s been two weeks since we announced the event and it looks like the initial rush to purchase is over. We’ve sold just under five thousand tickets. Not bad considering the population of the island, but we have the capacity for more than double that.”

  Rachel went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of iced coffee, listening to the others discuss ideas to broaden awareness of the event beyond San Amaro. Eddie was a marketing consultant, and apparently was involved with Mariah somehow, judging by the way the two kept touching. He had a boatload of ideas, making Rachel wonder why her mom had thought this committee needed another member. Or maybe the fact that they didn’t really need an engaging, idea-filled member was exactly why her mother had stuck her here.

  “Did you find out if we can set up a booth at the Thursday free concerts?” Cale asked Mariah as Rachel wandered back to the dining room.

  Mariah flipped the page in her planner and perused it. “I’m supposed to get the final word tomorrow but it looks like it’ll be approved. If so, I’ll be there this week with flyers and tickets.”

  Opening her bottle, Rachel took the fourth chair at the table and told herself this was just another meeting. Just another project. Nothing personal. Nothing to make her feel as if she was about to be presented to the firing squad. “What can I do to help?” she forced herself to ask.

  “I like this girl,” Eddie said, eagerly tapping on his electronic tablet. “Let’s see...we’ve got a few flyers up but we need to get more posted. Anywhere. Everywhere you can get the okay. Mariah, hand her a stack. Then there’s the radio shows. I’ve got dates with all the morning shows in the area, but I could always stand to have someone come with me.”

  “Flyers sound good,” Rachel said without hesitation. There was an expectant silence as they seemed to wait for her to say more. “I’m not really your radio girl. Consider me the socially challenged of the group.”

  She held her breath, but her reasoning was apparently accepted by Eddie, as he nodded once and checked his notes again. Mariah, on the other hand, continued to watch Rachel, making her fidget with her bottle cap.

  “I can go with you on the days I’m not working,” Cale said to Eddie. As was his way, he smoothed things over for Rachel, compensating for her insecurities. Just like he had that first night she’d met him and she’d been nervous about the party full of strangers. She’d liked that about him from the first moment. “Just email me the schedule.”

  “You know what would be great...?” Mariah said, still looking at Rachel, her mind obviously going full speed. Some kind of premonition hit Rachel a split second before Cale’s sister continued. “What if you were to say a few words at the actual concert?”

  “Me?” Rachel said, a dozen alarms screaming in her head.

  “Kind of a mini memorial speech. A couple lines about your sister, like whether Noelle would have enjoyed the concert or the beautiful night, or whatever would be appropriate. Something personal, as her twin sister. That would have an impact on a lot of people.”

  Iced coffee and sugar churned in Rachel’s stomach and threatened to come back up.

  “Mariah,” Cale said sharply, protectively. “It’s Rachel’s first meeting. Why don’t we try not to scare her away.” He said it with a half grin, but there was no mistaking that he was genuinely worried. And while there was a corner of Rachel’s mind, or maybe her heart, that reveled in his innocent protectiveness, the rest of her—every fiber—saw the truth in his eyes. He didn’t think she could handle it. The meeting, the concert, any of it. She’d seen the same expression in Sawyer’s eyes on more than one occasion, and she hated it.

  But they were right—no matter how much she was loath to admit it.

  The silent doubt of others may have pushed her to go to that first planning meeting last week, but there was nothing in the universe that could get her to stand up in front of thousands of people and speak about her sister.

  “Just a suggestion,” Mariah said, filling the silence. “A genius idea if I do say so myself, but Cale’s right. No pressure.”

  Again, a heavy expectance hung in the room—they were waiting for her to respond. Rachel made the mistake, as she placed the lid back on her bottle and slid it away from her nervously, of meeting Cale’s gaze. Of seeing his sympathy. That set off her defenses like nothing else could, and she mentally recoiled from even pondering the possibilities.

  “I...I don’t think so.” She shook her head emphatically one time. “I just don’t think I could do it. Not without losing it and embarrassing myself completely.”

  “It would be so amazing,” Mariah gushed, as if she hadn’t heard Rachel’s answer. “It’d be hard but we’d be there with you. Behind you all the way.” She reached across the table and grabbed Rachel’s wrist lightly. Overenthusiastically.

  “She said no, Mariah.” Cale leaned forward, steel in his voice.

  “Okay, okay.” Mariah released Rachel’s arm and sagged into her chair like a chastised puppy. “Got it, big brother. You can relax.” To Rachel, she said with an embarrassed half grin, “Sorry. I get carried away sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?” Cale said. “Like a shark sometimes goes after a drop of blood?”

  “It’s okay,” Rachel said quickly, hoping to prevent an ongoing battle between them. She just wanted the subject dropped completely.


  Thankfully, Eddie seemed to grasp her intentions and moved on to discussing TV appearances and other god-awful things. Cale and Mariah were easily swayed into changing the subject, but Rachel was unable to pay attention to much of anything. She’d hit overload at the mere thought of Mariah’s suggestion.

  On the bright side, she checked her watch and realized her work shift started in less than five hours. She could get away with going to the hospital an hour early or so, under the pretense of getting ready for her shift. With any luck, maybe the emergency room would be hopping tonight—it was a full moon, after all—and she could enjoy a good twelve or thirteen hours of escape from the nagging thoughts that she was somehow failing her sister.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  EMERGENCY MEDICINE WAS a live, ongoing demonstration of the saying “You win some, you lose some,” Rachel thought as she got into her car after her shift ended Tuesday morning.

  She had become well acquainted with that reality as a resident and had received all kinds of advice on how to handle losing patients. Generally speaking, she was able to swallow a patient’s death more easily if she was secure in the fact that she’d done everything possible and had made no mistakes in her treatments. She knew she wasn’t God. The kids were the hardest to take, though. Even if she’d done every procedure called for and administered treatments that nine times out of ten would work, she couldn’t walk away from a child who’d lost his or her fight without feeling as if she’d had a reminder from the universe that “fair” had nothing to do with anything.

  The seven-month-old girl who’d suffered a venomous bite had been particularly hard to take last night. Didn’t matter that too much time had passed before her parents had brought the baby in, or that the treatments Rachel had given the baby had only a slim chance to succeed. After calling that beautiful girl’s death a few hours ago, Rachel couldn’t reason her way out of the anger or the sadness that had weighed her down ever since.

  She started the car but couldn’t bring herself to put it into Reverse to go home. These days, home offered no comfort, a fact that was especially true when Rachel found herself there by herself. It was too quiet. She was too sensitive to the fact she hadn’t so much as looked at the door since she’d opened it on Sunday morning.