A Sister Would Know

by C. J. Carmichael

  Amalie set the table, picturing yet more dollars flying out from her savings account. This trip was going to cost her much more than she’d expected, putting her goal of owning a house even further into the future.

  And yet she couldn’t regret having come. Despite all the disturbing reports she was getting about her sister. Or maybe because of them.

  THE NEXT DAY Amalie cleaned the apartment and stocked the cupboards and refrigerator with enough food to last a couple of weeks. She stopped at the local hardware store to pick up a few items, including a foam mattress for Davin’s sleeping bag.

  A phone call to her parents, after dinner, confirmed their opinion about this trip.

  “You’re wasting your time and money,” her father said, on the upstairs extension.

  “And what about your job and Davin’s education?” her mother asked.

  “I’ve taken a leave of absence from the hospital and I talked with Davin’s teacher before we left. I’m going to make sure he keeps up with the curriculum.” The sound of shattering glass had her twisting toward the kitchen counter. Davin had been drying the dishes and a bowl had slipped from his fingers to the floor.

  She covered the mouthpiece. “That’s okay, hon. I’ll clean it up later. Why don’t you go in the living room. It’s almost time for your program.”

  Back on the phone, her parents were wondering how long they’d hold her job at the hospital with the way she was behaving.

  “Frankly, I don’t even care right now. You have no idea how Helena was living here, Mom. She had barely anything in her apartment.” Except drugs and beer.

  It still didn’t make sense to Amalie. At twenty-nine, she’d assumed her sister had been making something of her life. Although she’d never given specifics, Helena’s letters had hinted at jobs, friends, a normal existence.

  “Look, Mom, Dad, I’ve got to go. Davin needs my help. I’ll call back in a few days and tell you what’s happening.”

  She hung up from the duty call with relief, then went to the cupboard for the broom and dustpan. Just as she was dumping the smashed glass into the garbage, the phone rang.

  No doubt her parents. What had they forgotten to warn her about?

  But it was Grant Thorlow on the line. Immediately, she was on her guard. The man’s brusque manner had definitely wounded yesterday. And yet, she couldn’t say she was sorry to hear his voice again.

  “I was wondering if Davin would like a tour of the Avalanche Control Center tomorrow. He seemed pretty interested in our program the other day. Plus there’s that video I was telling you about…”

  Snow Wars, she remembered, impressed by the offer but slightly suspicious, as well. Why was he suddenly being so nice? “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Yeah, well…” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to be rude yesterday. Especially in front of the kid.”

  Amalie’s opinion of the man went up a notch at his apology. She liked people who had soft spots for children. “I guess you were pretty plainspoken, but I came here wanting the truth about Helena.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then his voice, a little more tentative this time. “Are you sure about that? Maybe you and the boy are better off not knowing….”

  Amalie felt a buzz of anxiety. “Not knowing what?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that you two seem like nice people.”

  “And so was Helena.” Amalie turned to face the wall, lowering her voice so Davin couldn’t hear her above the sound of the television in the next room.

  “She may have made some bad choices in her life, but basically Helena was a good person.”

  “A good person?” Grant’s incredulity was clear, even over the phone. “Look, she was your sister, and you can believe what you want. But if it wasn’t for her, Ramsey Carter would still be alive today. Denise Carter would still have a husband. Her kids would have a father.”

  There was something so inherently unfair about Grant’s judgment. Amalie twisted the telephone cord and fought for self-control. “It works both ways. Nobody forced Ramsey Carter to go up that mountain with Helena. Did it ever occur to you that the ski trip could have been Ramsey’s idea? That it might be his fault that Helena died?”

  “THERE ARE OVER 130 avalanche slidepaths that intersect with the Trans-Canada Highway along the Rogers Pass route through the Selkirk Mountains,” Grant told Davin later the next day, after Amalie and Davin had sat through the Snow Wars video in the information center theater.

  He was still a little angry with himself. Even though he’d claimed to have arranged this outing for Davin’s sake—he knew the truth. He’d wanted to see Amalie again.

  “Maybe some parts of the world aren’t meant to be lived in,” she said now, studying a picture of the 105 mm howitzer used to trigger avalanches in designated situations.

  “The trains need to travel through the mountains somehow,” Grant said quietly. “So do motorists. This corridor was the best available.”

  “But it’s so dangerous.” Despite her thick wool sweater, Amalie looked chilled. She hugged her arms around her body, her gaze caught by the view from the glass entranceway. She didn’t seem to appreciate the scenery.

  “Yes, it’s dangerous,” Grant agreed. “In an average year we have about 1,500 slides along this highway. Can you imagine how many are happening out in the wilderness?”

  Davin whistled. “But you control the avalanches, don’t you, Mr. Thorlow? With the howitzer.”

  “That’s my job, but avalanche control is hardly an exact science.” Grant shoved his hands into his dark-blue nylon pants. Amalie had moved on to another exhibit.

  Don’t stare, man! This is one woman who’s definitely off-limits.

  “We monitor air temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation and relative humidity,” he continued. “Then we perform field tests to check the layers in the snowpack. But people who think they can predict the timing and size of an avalanche with certainty are just kidding themselves. Even the avalanches we trigger intentionally sometimes surprise the heck out of us.”

  “Why are there so many avalanches on this part of the highway?” Davin asked, his attention on a large model of the mountain pass that dominated the main room of the information center.

  “Steep slopes, lots of snow.” Grant shrugged. “Those are the basic ingredients.”

  Amalie was now walking around the three-dimensional replica of the mountain pass. She was about to ask him a question, when he noticed someone at the main doors.

  Denise Carter stood there, her brown hair tied back in a ponytail and cheeks pink from the cold. She spotted him right away and he stepped forward to engulf her in a hug.

  “Denise. How are you? How are the kids?”

  She shook her head at the first question, only answering the second. “The kids are coping…Mom and Dad are with them.” She leaned into his chest, crumbling like powered snow in a harmless sluff.

  And then she noticed Amalie.

  “Helen?” First shock, then hatred transformed her features and stiffened her body.

  “No. I’m her twin sister. Amalie Fremont.”

  “You didn’t tell me Helen had a sister. That she would be coming…That she looked so much like…” Denise glared at Grant as if he’d betrayed her in some way.

  “Amalie lives in Toronto. I didn’t expect her to travel all this way.” Grant began explanations, then halted. “I’m sorry, Denise. I should have prepared you. I was shocked, too, the first time I saw her.”

  Amalie had her hands to her face, as if trying to conceal the features that reminded them all of a different woman.

  “You shouldn’t have come here.” Denise made a move toward Amalie, whipping off her mitten to point her finger.

  “Denise.” Grant took hold of her arm. “There’s someone else you should know about. A child. His name is Davin.”

  At the sound of his name, Davin glanced up from the model. “Hi there,” he said uncertainly, eyeing the pecu
liar expression on this new stranger’s face.

  Denise looked back at Amalie. “Your son?”

  “I adopted him and raised him from birth,” she answered. “But he’s really…he’s really Helena’s child.”

  “Helen had a child?” She whipped around to Grant. “Did you know this?”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Denise. Come on, let me take you home. Or maybe you’d like to go have a cup of coffee. We can—”

  Denise shook off his hand. Spinning back to Amalie, she pointed her finger once again.

  “Ramsey was a good husband until he met your sister!”

  In a flash, anger became despair. Denise began to sob. Grant pulled her against his body, but his gaze stayed on Amalie.

  YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE COME. Amalie read the message in Grant’s face as clearly as if he’d spoken the words.

  Helena was a person, too! she wanted to cry back at both him and Denise. Her sister deserved to be mourned, deserved to be missed, deserved to be cared about.

  Remembering Davin, Amalie reached for the boy and wrapped her arm around his shoulder. He was staring at the crying woman, watching as Grant urged her out the door and into his truck.

  “Why does everyone hate Helena so much?” he asked finally. “Was she a bad person?”

  Resentment tightened Amalie’s chest as she turned her back to the door, to the people who had just left. True, Denise was in pain, but she was a mother, too. How could she have said such things in front of Davin?

  “They just didn’t know her, Davin. That’s all.” She gave him a hug and made a second, silent deduction.

  And neither did I.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “YOU KNOW RAMSEY was in the middle of renovating our basement, don’t you?” Denise asked.

  She’d stopped crying at last. Now she was sitting in Grant’s living room, holding the cup of tea he’d made her out of desperation. He hadn’t known where else to take her. She hadn’t wanted to go home, couldn’t face a restaurant. So he’d brought her here.

  Grant was prepared for a lot of emergencies. He’d led many a search-and-rescue operation, could provide basic first aid better than many doctors and had even survived a couple of unexpected encounters with grizzly bears.

  But what to do with a crying woman? That wasn’t one of his fortes.

  Now he sat on the very edge of his reclining chair and thought about the question Denise asked. Of course he’d known Ramsey was finishing the basement of the house he shared with Denise and their two children, Colin and Chrissy. He’d helped Ramsey haul in a load of drywall two weekends ago.

  “What am I going to do, Grant? I’ve got a half-finished basement I can’t afford to hire someone to complete, mortgage payments due every month and two children who adored their father and can’t understand why he was out skiing with a woman when he told us he was going to be working on a special assignment.”

  The pain in Denise’s eyes was too naked to look at. Grant cleared his throat and glanced instead at the cup in his hand. He thought about the issues she’d raised, and picked the easiest to deal with.

  “Don’t worry about money. There’ll be insurance.” Ramsey was the type to have arranged provisions for his family. Which only made his death that much more of a puzzle. What was he doing out on that mountain with Helen Fremont? Had the man totally lost his mind?

  To Grant, it was incomprehensible. Especially considering the flak Ramsey had always given him about getting a wife, having some kids. Apparently, family life wasn’t as idyllic as Ramsey had made it out to be.

  “I can’t believe he took her there, to the Asulkan Hut.” Denise’s mouth twisted bitterly. “That’s where we went the day he asked me to marry him. It was his special place, our special place. Whenever he had an important decision…”

  She choked back a sob, took a stabilizing breath. “Did you know, Grant? That he was seeing that woman?”

  He was relieved that he could honestly shake his head no. “I didn’t have a clue.”

  No one had been more surprised than him to find out Helen Fremont had accompanied Ramsey to that mountain retreat. The two of them had obviously spent Saturday night together. And the ramifications were now tearing Denise apart.

  Grant, too, felt betrayed. Ramsay had lied to him, as well as to Denise, concealing a relationship that went against every principle the young doctor had presumably believed in.

  “Who’s going to take Colin to his hockey games now?” Denise asked, more tears pooling in her eyes. “My car needs an oil change—Ramsey was supposed to do that last weekend….”

  Grant’s impulse was to tell her he would do all these chores. He’d finish the basement; he’d drive Colin to his games; he’d service the cars and do whatever else had to be done. After all, he’d been Ramsey’s closest friend. Ramsey would expect him to help his family. And Grant would be happy to do so.

  But something told him Denise was looking for more than a handyman to help pick up the pieces. She needed emotional support, a confidant. He wasn’t so sure he could fit that role. Watching her cry now was so hard. He just didn’t know what to say.

  “Is your tea sweet enough? Can I get you anything to eat?” In the freezer he had some miniature pizzas he could heat in the microwave.

  “The tea is fine. I’m not hungry.” Denise leaned closer toward him, setting her cup down on the plank table between them.

  “You’ve been such a good friend, Grant. I really appreciate having your shoulder to cry on. I can’t talk to the kids, obviously, and my parents are too old for me to burden with my heartache. I told them Ramsey was skiing with someone from work. Fortunately, they haven’t heard any of the gossip that must be circulating around town.”

  While Grant had cautioned the initial rescue party to keep details of the situation private, he had to agree that there would be talk anyway. It was unavoidable in a town the size of Revelstoke.

  “Seeing her sister this afternoon at the center—for a moment I thought it was Helen. That she’d somehow survived.”

  “I know. I had the same reaction when she came into the office yesterday.” The resemblance was uncanny. And yet, already he’d stopped seeing Helen when he looked at Amalie. There was a difference, in the way she carried herself, the way she spoke….

  Much as he’d been predisposed to dislike the woman, it was impossible. She had a certain dignity that made him feel guilty whenever he said something particularly harsh about her sister. Still, she claimed she wanted the truth about Helen, so he wasn’t about to sugarcoat the facts.

  “You’ve told her it’s too dangerous to recover the b-bodies?”

  “I have.”

  “Then she’ll be leaving soon?”

  The look in Denise’s eyes was almost pleading. Grant wished he could reassure her. “I can’t say. My impression is she plans to stay until we can go in there.”

  “But that could be weeks, even months!”

  Grant shrugged. He realized that. But what could he do?

  Denise’s gaze slid off to the side, her mouth set in a bitter line.

  “I’m sorry for all you’re going through, Denise. You and the kids meant the world to Ramsey. I know you did. Helen…” Grant cast his eyes about the room, searching for words that never came easily in the best of circumstances.

  “She was nothing, compared with you and the kids,” he said finally. “Ramsey would have straightened out. I’m sure he would’ve.”

  “For me right now, that’s the hardest part. Not knowing if Ramsey really did love me. How am I supposed to mourn a man who was cheating on me, Grant? Can you tell me that?”

  He shook his head. No, he couldn’t tell her that.

  Denise was crying again, behind cover of her hands. Feeling awkward, Grant moved closer and stroked her shoulder. Before he knew it, her face was tucked against his chest, her arms were clutching him desperately. The sobs came out so harshly now he was afraid she might get sick.

  “Shh, shh…” God, he
felt so helpless.

  “You would never do something like that to a woman, would you, Grant?”

  Denise’s breath was hot and moist against his ear, and Grant felt a sweat of his own break out on his brow.

  “I could change your oil for you, Denise. I have time right now, if you like.”

  She stilled in his arms. After about a minute, she lifted her head and examined his face.

  He felt too embarrassed to meet her eyes. “And why don’t I come round and case out your basement. There’s probably not as much work left as you think.”

  Denise brushed the hair at the side of his head with her hand. “You’re a very good-looking man, Grant. I’ve always thought that about you.”

  “Thanks. So are you. A beautiful woman, I mean.” It seemed like the right thing to say, although Grant had never viewed Denise in that way and really had no opinion on the matter. She was the wife of a good friend. That had been enough.

  “Why don’t I get you home now, before your parents start to worry.” Then he remembered her vehicle was still at the information center. “I’ll get one of the guys to help me bring your Jeep back after I change the oil.”

  Somehow, he’d eased them both into a standing position. Now he bent to retrieve the cups from the table and carried them to the dishwasher. When he came back, she had her coat on and was picking up her purse.

  That was good. He started to whistle, then stopped when his lips were too stiff to cooperate. Swallowing quickly, he pulled his truck keys out of his coat pocket and then opened the door for her. On the way out, she managed a weak smile.

  He felt an instant tug of sympathy. For all she had lost, for all she had left to face. And his anger toward Helen Fremont flared higher. They would have all been so much better off if she’d never moved to town.

  And he’d never met her sister, Amalie. From the moment he’d found out she intended to come to Rogers Pass, Grant had expected Amalie to be a thorn in his side. Pressuring him to mount a recovery mission before the mountain had stabilized; reminding him, by her very presence, of the woman who’d caused all this trouble in the first place.