Sisters - By Patricia MacDonald Page 0,58

the house, Garth Colson’s black truck sat idling. Alex could see someone at the wheel though she couldn’t swear that it was Garth. Seth stole one more kiss from her before he jogged out to the car in the driveway.

She waved as he pulled out and drove down the street. Then she went back inside. Dory was coming down the staircase, awkwardly hefting the polka dot suitcase and a couple of tote bags.

‘I can’t take the dog,’ she said abruptly. ‘My mother still won’t have a dog in the house. You’ll have to keep him here until Regina gets back.’

‘Dory, you don’t have to leave,’ said Alex. ‘You can stay here.’ She hadn’t expected those words to pop out of her own mouth, but suddenly her heart was so light that she couldn’t begrudge Dory anything. In fact, she felt positively inclined to be generous to this difficult sister.

‘Oh, don’t worry about me. I want to leave,’ said Dory. ‘I didn’t realize what you were up to.’

‘What do you mean?’ Alex asked uneasily.

‘You said you didn’t have a boyfriend. But obviously, you do.’

‘Really, no, I didn’t,’ said Alex. ‘We just . . . started . . .’

‘Maybe it was because you could see that I was just getting to know him. You didn’t want that, did you? Him liking me, and not you. I guess I really didn’t have much of a chance, did I?’

Alex sighed. ‘Dory, that is not what happened at all.’

Dory gazed at her. ‘Don’t tell me that’s not what happened. Don’t lie to my face. I have eyes.’ She hauled her things to the door and started out.

‘Do you need a hand?’ Alex asked.

‘From you?’ Dory asked. ‘No. I don’t need anything from you.’

‘Dory, don’t,’ said Alex. But she might as well have been talking to the wind. Dory had stepped off the front porch step into the darkness and was gone.

TWENTY-ONE

Alex ate a grilled cheese sandwich, ran a bubble bath and submerged herself. And the whole time, her heart felt like it was going to burst with happiness. Seth, she thought. She had felt the attraction to him from that first night at Laney Thompson’s party, but it hadn’t seemed possible. He lived in Chicago and, for all she knew, was involved with someone else. He was six years older, and she told herself that he probably still saw her as one of the little kids from the neighborhood. And yet she had felt breathless each and every time she saw him. And now, to know that he felt the same way . . . That it was real! That he was coming back here to live. That they were going to start a relationship. It wasn’t a feeling you had that often in life. That glorious tipping sensation when you were first falling in love. Yes, she thought. Falling in love.

She dried off from her bath, put on her oversized T-shirt and bathrobe, and whirled in her bedroom, hugging herself. For maybe the first time since she had set foot in this house after the accident, she felt happy. Hopeful. Alive. And they knew it. She felt sure that they knew it. She could feel her parents’ love for her like a glow around her, and she almost felt, impossible though it was, that they had had a hand in it. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered to the silence in the house which now seemed not depressing, but benign. And even though she knew rationally that this could not have been the case, she still said, ‘Thank you for Seth.’

She went downstairs and tried to read, to calm herself down, but it was no use. For a little while she thought about Dory. She couldn’t help feeling vaguely guilty about Dory’s disappointment over Seth. She felt that Alex had deceived her. It would be difficult to convince Dory that there was nothing between her and Seth until this very night. But it wasn’t up to Alex to persuade Dory of that, she reminded herself. It wasn’t as if Seth had led Dory on. Alex knew better. He’d just been nice. Alex wasn’t sure that Dory knew the difference.

Alex thought about Elaine calling the police to come and interrupt the celebration of Dory being officially cleared in the case of her sister’s murder. It was almost as if she could not bear the idea that Dory wasn’t guilty. Why? Alex wondered. How could a mother feel that way? She should have been delighted that Dory was