Almost Remembered

by Marilyn Tracy

  Chapter 4

  Allison thought Taylor’s wedding day dawned as if her sister had ordered it straight from her dreams, bright and clear, and unseasonably warm.

  “You look stunning,” she said honestly.

  Beautiful as her sister was in any garb, she’d never looked lovelier nor more radiant than she did in her simple, full-length, cream linen gown flecked with shots of teal and gold. She had the grace and poise of a woman of years and the joy and sparkle of a girl.

  Taylor laughed. “I feel more comfortable in jeans, but what the heck, I thought Steve should see me in a dress just once. Besides, with you looking like that, I doubt anyone will notice me.”

  Allison shook her head, smiling, not believing her sister’s words for a second, though she loved the simple teal gown her sister had selected for her maid of honor.

  Someone knocked on Taylor’s bedroom door. The knock was followed by the door opening a crack.

  Allison was struck by the fact that both she and Taylor turned in unison and called, “Yes?” Maybe it was simple genetics, or maybe some things from the past were so ingrained that they would always surface.

  Carolyn, the sister-in-law she’d never known before she’d come back home, mother of her two nieces, slipped through the doorway, shutting it behind her.

  “It’s just me. Are you ready?” Carolyn stopped and broke into a slow, soft smile of real appreciation. “You look lovely. Both of you.”

  Watching her, Allison thought that Carolyn, wearing the same style of dress in the same shade of teal, seemed far more at home with the sister role than she herself did. This woman should have been the “matron” of honor. Carolyn was far more a sister to Taylor than she had been.

  She tensed a little as Carolyn moved forward to stand between Taylor and Allison before the beveled, three-tiered mirror that had always stood in Momma’s bedroom. It now reflected all three Leary women—two by blood, one by marriage.

  There was no mistaking the fact that Taylor and Allison were sisters; both had the same blond-haired, delicate features from their mother and the dark, mobile eyebrows of the Leary clan. But Carolyn could have been a taller one of them, as well, with her honeyed gold hair, her clear blue eyes and her narrow chin.

  “I wish Daddy could have been here today, to give me away,” Taylor said, fluffing one of her flounces.

  Allison couldn’t help it. She looked away, but not soon enough to miss the look of concern on Taylor’s face, the puzzlement on Carolyn’s.

  It was Carolyn who broke the slight pall. “I’ll go tell Martha Jo she can start the music...okay?”

  “Good idea,” Taylor said absently.

  Allison turned away from their dual reflections, wishing her sister had less news sense and would let the subject of family drop. But she knew it was a forlorn hope...wedding days were dates to be etched in memory, times to remember the past, say farewell and move on to a beautiful future.

  Carolyn slipped out of the room, and the silence seemed to chastise Allison for having made Taylor uncomfortable about anything on her wedding day, however unintentionally.

  “Allison...”

  “Yes?” she asked, trying to sound bright, as if she were wholly unaware of anything amiss.

  Her sister wasn’t fooled, of course. She never had been.

  “What did Daddy do or say to you that makes you uncomfortable to even talk about him?”

  Allison waved her hand as if brushing away her sister’s words. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  Instead of heeding that advice, Taylor crossed to lean against her dresser. “Are you ever going to tell me about it?”

  “About what?” Allison stalled, not meeting Taylor’s eyes. She picked up their mother’s gold-and-teal evening purse, Taylor’s “something old” and handed it to her sister.

  Taylor took the bag, which had determined the color scheme of her wedding, as it had been their father’s rather unusual wedding gift to their mother all those years before. She caught Allison’s hand before she could snatch it away.

  “Whatever it is, is it the reason you stayed away all these years? The reason you didn’t even come back for Momma and Daddy’s funeral?”

  “Taylor,” Allison began, agonized. “Your wedding... Steve...”

  “I’d like to know,” Taylor said. “Make it a wedding gift, if you like.”

  Allison felt trapped. Of all terrible things to want for a wedding present. But a far worse one to give. Luckily her years in the news business had given her plenty of practice at slipping out of awkward situations.

  She forced a bright smile to her stiff lips and shook her hand still caught in her sister’s. “What is this, last-minute jitters? Steve’s going to think you’re backing out.”

  “Allison...”

  “Taylor...” Allison met her sister’s eyes with an unflinching stare. Then she forced a small chuckle and posed dramatically. “Come on! It’s time. The past is the past. Your future awaits.”

  Allison waited with her arms outstretched, as if embracing the universe, until Taylor relaxed, apparently accepting her sister’s words at face value.

  “The future does await,” Taylor said softly. “Doesn’t it? There were times I never thought it would be possible.”

  It was possible for people like Taylor, good people, nice people, Allison thought. People who weren’t going crazy.

  “But I still wish you would tell me whatever it was that kept you away so long.”

  “Let it go, Taylor. Don’t spoil anything,” Allison urged, drawing her hand free and crossing to the door to open it with a flourish.

  In a way she was sorry she hadn’t just told Taylor about the hurts from the past, just lanced that old and festering wound and spilled it into the clean, bright and healing concern her sister felt for her.

  It seemed so minor now, so old a hurt when compared with the turmoil of the past two months. Especially since in the past few days, nothing untoward had happened. A few struggles with panic, but nothing terribly worrisome.

  Maybe she should switch from reporting to psychology, she thought. Give a person a- huge, horrible problem to make them see that the problems that troubled them before weren’t quite so huge.

  “Won’t you please tell me about the past?” Taylor asked again.

  Allison had never talked about any of the past with any human being. She frowned, thinking about that. She had told someone, sometime, hadn’t she? No. She shook her head as if shaking the errant thought away.

  Taylor, misunderstanding her frown and the shake of her head, reached out to touch her face.

  Allison withheld the shudder of horror that swept through her. But she sighed in relief when the panic attack didn’t burst into full bloom. All she felt was the love and tenderness of Taylor’s touch on her cheek.

  “Go out there and get yourself hitched to that Texas Ranger,” she told her sister.

  And as a radiant Taylor swept past her, Allison knew a moment’s desire to catch her sister’s arm, to just blurt out her guilt and the reasons she’d stayed away so very long. To ask Taylor to just stay a moment longer, to talk to her, to listen for a moment as she tried to smooth over the past fifteen years of absence with a few long-overdue words. And maybe, if they were spoken, she’d be able to confide her recent fears, the memory lapses, even her concerns for her sanity.

  But she didn’t know her sister anymore and perhaps had never known how to talk about such things. Most of all, however, she didn’t want to spoil Taylor’s wedding day, and any explanation of the past or present would do just that.

  Taylor paused at the end of the hallway, seemingly waiting before stepping into her living room, the guests and Steve.

  She turned suddenly to clasp Allison’s hand. “It’s so good to have you back home,” she said, unknowingly echoing Chas’s words of a couple of days before.

  “It’s good to see you again, too,” Allison responded, changing the meaning slightly.

  Taylor looked at her for a
moment, as if tasting her sister’s shift in words. Then she nodded and raised Allison’s hands to her lips. Her eyes filled with tears. “I love you, little sister. Never doubt that. Ever.”

  Allison felt her own eyes prick with tears.

  “I love you, too,” she said, meaning it with all her heart, but aware how strangely the words sat on her tongue. It was as if she’d never said them before.

  Taylor nodded again. “That’s all that matters, then, isn’t it?”

  Martha Jo, who ran Almost’s only boardinghouse, started playing a remarkably adept version of the traditional wedding march, and Taylor gave Allison a slight nudge.

  Carolyn stepped up beside them. “You two ready?” she asked.

  “I’m ready,” Taylor declared. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more ready for anything.”

  Allison drew a deep breath as Martha Jo started the second play-through. It was her cue. Her entrance. She drew a deep breath and, after a backward glance at her smiling sister, stepped into the living room and proceeded slowly to the front where the minister from the Almost Methodist Church waited by the softly glowing fireplace.

  She was quite used to people looking at her; she was essentially on stage every day for a living, just behind a few brighter lights and cameras. But this felt different, far more in view than any coast-to-coast broadcast. These were all faces she knew, people who had grown up with her, cried with her, scolded her.

  She nodded at Aunt Sammie Jo as she passed and at Uncle Cactus, who grinned broadly. She gave a smile to Pete and her nieces. She winked at the triplets flanking a very handsome Steve and his best man, and avoided meeting Chas’s brown eyes and only half nodded in the general direction of the left side of the living room where he stood in a Western-cut suit beside his son in the crowd of familiar faces.

  She took her place to the left of the minister and was joined almost immediately by Carolyn. On the right side stood the triplets, a beaming Steve Kessler, and his best man, Tom Adams, a short, stocky man with ruddy face and bright, laughing eyes.

  Once Carolyn was in place beside Allison, Tom lifted his hand and gave Martha Jo a signal and she began the wedding march with vigor as Taylor walked into the room.

  A collective sigh of pleasure emanated from the assembled crowd of friends and family. And as one, all eyes followed Taylor’s slow progression down the center of the room. Even Allison’s.

  But unlike the rest of the crowd, Allison was trying desperately not to break and run. Not because of Taylor, never that. In fact, it was only the sight of Taylor’s lovely face, flushed slightly with joy and anticipation, that kept Allison rooted to her place as attendant.

  Her heart scudded in painful, too rapid beating. Her fingers felt numb and shaky. If Taylor handed her the bouquet at this point, she would simply drop it from her lifeless fingers. Her head spun in waves of dizzying fear. She wanted to run; dear God, she needed to run. To escape. Because if she didn’t, she didn’t know what would happen but it would be the worst possible thing imaginable.

  Not now, she begged of her chaotic mind. Not now. But knowing her fear was irrational, knowing there wasn’t a single danger in the world for her to be frightened of in this warm, cozy living room filled with loving family and friends, didn’t matter one iota in the face of her abject terror.

  Why now? What had triggered this? Not even trying to concentrate on that all important question could quell her fear.

  Dimly she heard the wedding march continuing. Through a haze of wild dread, she saw Taylor approaching Steve. If only she could remain where she was. Inside she was screaming. Outside she was shaking. She begged all the gods combined to just be able to remain where she was, not to have the black fog of blind panic descend upon her. She wanted nothing more on earth than not to break away and run screaming from the room. But her legs were moving before she could stop them. And a scream was building in her throat.

  Suddenly strong, warm hands wrapped around her shoulders. She started violently and would have uttered a yelp of protest had Chas not leaned close to her ear. “Shh. It’s okay. I’m here.”

  He pulled her back against his chest, keeping his hands on her shoulders, pressing them slightly, impressing himself on her. Letting her feel his warmth, his strength, his awareness that something was terribly wrong with her, holding her there by sheer force of will.

  His lips at her temple moved, brushing her hair with his warm breath. “It’s okay, honey. Just draw a deep breath and relax. Everything’s fine now.”

  Everything wasn’t fine, she wanted to cry, but Martha Jo had stopped playing and the minister had taken both Taylor’s and Steve’s hands in his own, folding them over each other, turning his gentle, nonthreatening gaze from one to the other in smiling approval.

  “There’s nothing to be scared of,” Chas murmured. “I’m right here.”

  Allison leaned against him slightly, feeling the waves of panic subsiding, trusting him for that moment to ward off whatever it was that haunted her so. She blinked back tears of relief and let her eyes wander to the crowd facing her to see how much of a spectacle she’d made of herself.

  She needn’t have worried. Tears filled many a pair of eyes in the crowd, but they weren’t for her; they were, as they should have been, for Taylor, for the beauty of the ceremony before them. No eyes held any curiosity for the anxiety that had nearly propelled her from her sister’s wedding. Not one pair rested on her.

  Only Chas had apparently witnessed her near flight. Even Carolyn, right next to her, appeared unaware of her hysteria, though she glanced a bit curiously at Chas’s unexpected presence behind her sister-in-law.

  And still he held her against him, subtle pressure from his hands thrumming a soothing rhythm through her shoulders. And he didn’t turn her loose until it was her turn to hug and kiss the new bride and groom, though he stayed very close beside her.

  Throughout the short reception following the ceremony, Allison felt Chas’s questions burning into her mind. It was as if he were yelling the queries at her, his very silence pounding at her like an incessant hammer. As always after one of the inexplicable panic attacks, a rough headache swamped her and thundered in her head. Chas’s careful surveillance of her didn’t help to abate the pain, for all that he’d saved her by preventing her flight.

  And she was equally careful not to find herself alone with him. Of all people, she didn’t want to try to explain to him that she was suffering from some strange and bizarre ailment, a mysterious haunting that left her nearly mindless with fear and sick afterward with a blinding pain and a general sense of malaise. For him in particular she had to remain the cool, tough television reporter, the woman of glitz and glamour.

  No matter how much she might want to confide in him, to lean against that broad chest and just pour out the fear, the despairing sense of doom she felt, she had to remain aloof, strong. Because whenever she was around him, all she wanted to do was to simply be held and reassured, as he’d done during the wedding ceremony.

  But no amount of reassurances would really matter, because the terror was irrational and without pattern. It would come back, and he wouldn’t be there to stop it the next time. She’d needed him once before in her life, desperately and futilely. She’d never allowed herself to need anyone again since, and she wasn’t about to turn to the one person who had let her down so monumentally once before.

  She wasn’t looking forward to the moment when Taylor and Steve would be leaving for their honeymoon and she would be left alone with the boys. And Chas would surely linger in the expectation of talking with her, of discovering what had happened that afternoon.

  Chas kept his eyes on Allison as he joined the crowd in waving farewell to Taylor and Steve. Allison looked about as ready to collapse.

  He’d stuck to her like glue throughout the seemingly endless afternoon, dying to ask her what happened, what had frightened her so, but had thought better of it when she studiously avoided his eyes and turned a shoulder against him more than o
nce.

  He was no physician, no psychiatrist, only a country vet in a little dot of a town in the Panhandle, but he knew stark terror when he saw it. And Allison had been ready to bolt.

  He’d caught hold of her just before she sprang into action. He’d felt the impact of her shoulders against his palms as she was already leaping forward. If he’d been a weaker man, a man unused to exercising a firm hand on such animals as cattle or horses, he wouldn’t have been able to ground her.

  He’d felt the waves of fear rippling through her and, as closely as he’d stood behind her, he’d been able to feel every nuance of her ragged breathing, her trembling body, and had known she still ached for flight.

  He was sure some people wondered why he’d suddenly walked up behind Allison and half hugged her right in the middle of her sister’s wedding ceremony, but he was pretty certain he was the only one who had caught sight of her fear. But then, unlike the rest of them, he hadn’t been watching Taylor; he’d been staring at Allison.

  He’d seen her poise, her grace and, despite her limp, her lovely walk to the front of the room. He’d seen her soft smile for Sammie Jo and Cactus Jack. He’d witnessed her wink at the triplets. She hadn’t been frightened then. And she’d smiled when she’d nodded at Steve and Tom. It had only been after Tom Adams gave Martha Jo the signal to begin to play the wedding march for the second time through that her eyes had widened, that her breath had become hitched.

  Like a horse caught in a thunderstorm, she’d been ready to bolt, to run blindly out of the room, desperate to escape and neither knowing nor caring what greater danger she might be running toward.

  She wouldn’t talk to him about it; he knew that much. And he would be leaving soon himself, unable to think of an excuse to stay beyond the short round of cleanup. So how to stick close enough to be able to be there should that panic rise again?

  As if in answer to his silent plea, less than a half hour after Taylor and Steve left, Sammie Jo bustled into the kitchen, her wig askew, dragging two of the triplets by an ear into the kitchen with her. The third one trailed behind them, one hand on his own ear and dangling a piece of broken video equipment with the other.