Tara glanced at her mother, who’d been quiet on the drive home. She hadn’t even grilled Tara about her choice of casket and flowers, which wasn’t like her mother at all. “You okay?” Tara asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” her mother said, jerking her gaze from the side window to the front, chin high.
So much for a tender moment of support. “No reason, I guess.” Tara looked up at the huge colonial on the hill. Laughably out of place in the desert, it was still home, and she felt a rush of tenderness seeing it again.
She was ridiculously emotional.
As she pulled under the porte cochere, Judith Rand, the longtime housekeeper, came down the terrace steps to meet them.
“You came,” Judith said to Tara in the same sarcastic tone her mother had used.
“How are you, Judith?” The woman had mirrored Tara’s mother’s attitudes toward Tara’s rebellious ways, but she’d always done Tara secret kindnesses.
“Sheets are fresh on the bed,” Judith said, helping Tara’s mother out of the passenger seat. “Park in the garage. The Tesla’s gone and the Mercedes is in the shop.”
Her mother gasped and sagged, no doubt remembering what had happened to the Tesla. Judith caught her arm and glared at Tara, as if Tara were the one who’d brought it up. She started up the steps with Rachel. “Breakfast is at seven,” she said over her shoulder. “If you sleep in, you’re on your own.”
“I run at five, so I’ll just grab some fruit,” Tara called out. She assumed Judith was still making the hearty breakfasts Tara’s father preferred—biscuits and gravy, steak and eggs or huge, cheesy omelets.
The gardener opened the garage and Tara parked, then rolled her bag along the path to the kitchen door.
The kitchen smelled of tomato soup, a Judith staple, which added to the homey effect of the buttercup walls, pale soapstone counters, stone fireplace and copper pots hanging over the dark-wood island.
Tara crossed the gleaming oak floors and lifted the suitcase’s wheels onto the Persian rug in the sitting room, which was painted dove-gray with white molding.
Growing up, Tara found the antique furnishings, the elaborately carved staircase and mantel fussy and old-fashioned. Now it comforted her—especially the steady tick of the grandfather clock that had been in her father’s family since the Civil War.
The grand piano gleamed in the light from the many-paned arched windows. As a girl, Faye had been an accomplished pianist, starring in every recital and playing for the high school jazz ensemble. Tara had taken lessons, but quit after three months. No one had objected. No one expected much from Tara. Faye had been the perfect daughter. That gave Tara the freedom to make her own way. It had been a gift, but a lonely one.
Moving closer to the window, she could just make out the hummingbird terrace tucked to one side of the property. She and Dylan had spent hours there, lost in each other arms. When she got a chance, she’d go out there for a break, to breathe easier, to watch the birds and listen to the fountain.
And remember Dylan?
What would be the point of that?
Reaching the wooden staircase, Tara rested her hand on the square newel post, as she’d done a million times bounding up or down the steps, her mother snapping at her to walk like a lady, not gallop like a horse.
The stairs creaked. She’d memorized which to avoid when sneaking in or out at night.
Her bedroom at the end of the hall was decorated like a luxury hotel room. As soon as Tara had left for college, her mother had thrown out Tara’s band posters, social-issue bumper stickers, stuffed animals, crazy jewelry and the clothes she’d left. Her mother used to shudder over the vintage looks Tara created from the Lutheran church’s used-clothes store. Tara had liked supporting the charity, being frugal like her father and, yes, irritating her mother.
She winced. She used to do things just to get a reaction. Born ten years after Faye, Tara had clearly been an accident her parents wanted to pretend hadn’t happened at all. Faye had done her best to make up for her parents’ neglect. She swore that they’d treated her just as absently, but Tara knew better. Even as a kid, she’d been good at reading people, and her parents plainly adored Faye.
Should she unpack? She didn’t know how long she’d be here. It all depended on Faye. How soon she recovered. What if she...died?
That idea took Tara’s breath away. Don’t die, Faye. Please