wipe it off, her sister’s hand twitched. Tara froze. “Faye? Did you do that? Are you awake? Move your hand again.” She’d made that request so often, getting nothing back, she was totally blown away when Faye’s finger lifted again.
“Oh, my God! You did it. You moved. On purpose!” Tara grabbed her hand, holding it loosely. “Can you squeeze?”
There was the tiniest bit of pressure, but it was there.
Faye was waking up. Tara didn’t need Rita and her flashlight to know that. She pushed the call button. When a voice asked what she needed, she yelled the news. Nurses came running. Rita checked the responses, then grinned at Tara. “She had to come back, girl, to turn off that bad music.”
“Whatever it took,” she said. “I can’t believe she’s waking up.”
Faye groaned and turned her head.
“Faye? Can you hear me?” Tara said.
Nothing.
“Will she be able to talk?” she asked Rita.
“It happens different ways,” Rita said. “Be patient.”
“I can do that. I can be patient. You bet.” She grabbed her phone and called Joseph. He was so silent at first she thought he’d hung up on her. Then she heard a gasp and knew he was crying.
“She loves you, Joseph. Come see her. You’ll start fresh. You’ll try harder. You’ll ask more questions and listen more closely.”
Why can’t you do that with Dylan?
Next, she called her mother. “Faye’s awake, Mom. She’s coming back to us.” Her mother made a choked sound. She almost sounded more upset than relieved. So odd. Tara told her that Joseph would be picking her up, then clicked off.
Finally she called Dylan and told him.
He got choked up, too, but in a happy way. “Thank God, Tara. I’m so glad. Dad’s here, too. We’re both glad. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She was relieved he’d assumed she’d want him here. He’d supported her from the beginning. He should be here for the happy ending.
She clicked off the phone.
The neurologist arrived and told Tara some sobering things about Faye’s recovery—the difficulties she might have with speech, memory and mobility. It wouldn’t be easy, but Faye had fought her way back to life. She would fight her way back to full function.
“I knew you would make it. You’re the strongest person I know.” Faye was coming back to her. This time, she would listen, be there for Faye the way Faye had always been there for her.
When Joseph arrived, he lunged for his wife. “Faye,” he choked out, pushing back her hair, kissing her forehead, looking at her with pure adoration. Tara had underestimated Joseph by miles.
Had she underestimated Dylan? Herself?
Tara noticed her mother hadn’t come in. “You picked up Mom, right?”
“Still in the hall.” He kept staring at Faye, as if he feared that he might miss a word or a look if he turned his head for even a second.
Tara went to find her mother. She stood a foot from the door, frozen, a terrified look on her face.
“It’s okay, Mom. Come talk to her.”
“I don’t know what to say...how to make it right.”
“Make what right? Your quarrel? Faye won’t care.”
Her mother didn’t move.
“The neurologist said she likely won’t remember the accident or the hours before it for a while, maybe never,” she said to jolt her from her trance.
“She...might not...remember?” her mother said haltingly, hopefully.
Tara pulled her arm. “Come and see her.”
Slowly her mother came into the room. Joseph stood and motioned for Rachel to take the bedside chair.
She sat stiffly. “Faye...” she said so softly Tara could hardly hear her. “I’m so sorry. More sorry than I can say.” Her mother did not sound happy at all.
Tara had the terrible feeling that rather than praying for Faye to wake up, her mother had been dreading the possibility. Tara’s instincts flared.
“What’s going on, Mom?” Tara asked. When she shifted her body to better see her mother, the movement knocked the Sunset Crater photo down. Picking it up, she noticed Faye’s foot near the heart-shaped dent in the fender of the powder-blue Mercedes. Powder-blue.
She pictured her mother’s car in the garage, where she saw it each time she pulled in and out. There was no dent, heart-shaped or otherwise. When Tara had arrived, her mother’s car had been in the shop. She’d assumed it was an auto shop. “The Mercedes was at the body shop, wasn’t it?” she asked abruptly.
Her mother blinked at her, her muscles so tight that her hair shivered.
“You were the one,” Tara said, her mouth so dry her tongue stuck to