Embers (54 page)

That pretty much set the tone for their conversation.

"What happened?" he dared to ask.

"My sister lost control of her car and rolled it," Meg said tersely, telling him exactly nothing he didn't know.

"Where were you?"

"When I got the news? Doing laundry. Is that any of your business?"

"Meg!" her father said, surprised.

But Wyler was relieved; she'd been nowhere near the scene. He kicked himself for not having taken the time to check out the police report. He'd dashed straight to the hospital because he thought
—
God only knew why
—
that he'd be accepted as family. But Meg was like a snarling bobcat circling her wounded kitten and fending off a turkey vulture. The turkey vulture, that would be him, apparently.

"
Meg ...
we have to talk," he implored.

"Fine. Shoot."

She resumed her stride, her arms folded tightly across her chest, as defensive a position as he'd ever seen in a woman. He was scandalized to see faint black-and-blue imprints, obviously his, on her arm from when he'd tried to stop her from chasing after Allie. Clearly she wasn't aware of the marks; she'd never have put on a sleeveless sundress if she were.

"Can't we go somewhere quiet?" he asked.

"Anything you have to say, say it in front of my family," she said in a taunting voice. "We come as a package."

"This is unnecessary," he said in a voice low with warning, but she only glared at him. "I want to know
—" He sighed exasperatedly and tried again. "Did you see Allie after I did?" he asked, as obliquely as he knew how.

"Tom! Allie was drinking!" Comfort burst out, and instantly broke down into tears.

"What?"
Wyler could picture many things, but he couldn't picture Allegra Atwells, bright and lively as a neighbor's child, falling from her wagon. She had too much energy, too much grace.

"There was an open bottle of gin in the car,"
Everett
explained in a hushed, somber voice. "Not so much was gone," he added with a look of reproof at his daughter-in-law. "Legally I'm sure she was
fine."

"Half the bottle was gone!" cried Comfort, contradicting her father. It was a full confession, to be sure. Wyler had the sense that Comfort was trying to nail down absolution for Allie, and then everything would be fine. God would make her all better.

He turned to Meg; her look was as cold and as icy as a distant star. "This is what we do to drown our big-time sorrows, Lieutenant," she said with dark meaning. "We
drink."

"That's ridiculous, Meg," said Comfort gravely. She reached in her beige handbag and pulled out a big white handkerchief and blew her nose into it, then wiped her nose left to right, right to left.
"You
don't drink.
I
don't. Dad doesn't. Okay, Uncle Billy has a tendency
—
but he don't have any sorrows! And Lloyd has sorrows, but he hardly ever drinks. So why are you saying that?"

Meg plunged her hands into the big front pockets of her dress and took two steps toward her sister-in-law, then leaned over until she was eye to eye with Comfort. "To piss you off, Comfort," she said. "For no other reason."

"Margaret Mary, that is
enough!
What's the
matter
with you!" her father said angrily, jumping up from his chair.

Meg turned on her father. "Oh, for God's sake, Dad! Allie's lying on an operating table with her life in the balance, and we're sitting around measuring alcohol content! Who
cares
how she ended up in surgery! She's
there;
that's all that counts! Are you too blind to see it?"

Everett Atwells recoiled visibly from his daughter's whip and fell back in his seat, his cheeks red and smarting from her fury.

Meg was flailing at anything that moved because she couldn't flail at herself. Wyler understood that perfectly well, but no one else knew that. He had to do something, and quick.

He took her arm, the black and blue one, to give her an excuse later for the marks, and said, "C'mon. We're going outside for some air."

"Don't
you tell me what to do," she said, seething.

"I'm not impressed by these hysterics," he said in her ear. "You pride yourself on being the adult in this family. Act like one."

He'd pushed the right button. She brought herself under control with a deep, shuddering sigh and said to her father, "We're going outside for a minute. If anyone comes out, come and get me. Right away, Dad," she
demanded
. "Don't wait one second."

The two of them went outside without exchanging a word. Meg led the way to a bench at a picnic table in the shade on the hospital's east side, and they sat down next to each other, carefully not touching.

Wyler began at the beginning. "What happened after the two of you left the cabin?" he said in a voice deliberately stripped of emotion.

Meg made an effort to match his tone. Without looking at him, she said, "I tried to catch up to her, but she lost me. She drives like a maniac; you know that. I drove around for a while, checking out her old haunts, but couldn't find her. Then I went home. She never came back."

"All right, okay," he said, relieved. "Then you didn't catch her and engage in some confrontation that set her off."

Meg turned and looked at him with amazement, then said, "I'd say we confronted just fine in your cabin."

"Don't start on that, Meg," he warned. "It's absolutely pointless to play the blame game. You were right to tell your family that the only thing that matters right now is Allie. What you have to understand is this: Allie did what she wanted to do, and so did you, and so did I."

She heard him; but he wasn't sure she understood him.

"She doesn't have car insurance, of course," Meg said dully. "Except for liability. I just found that out."

He winced. "How about separate medical?"

"Nope. She let it lapse the last time they raised the premium. I couldn't talk her out of dropping it. Allie thinks
— thought
—
thinks
—
she's invincible," Meg said in confusion.

She crossed her arms on the picnic table and bowed her head.

"I remember the day my mother told me she was pregnant with Allie," she said softly. "I was eleven, and we didn't have any money then either. It was the same old struggle with bills every month; there never seemed to be enough money left over to buy me the right toys or the right clothes or for all I know, a pony
—
whatever it was that was important to have at that age.

"I remember how
angry
I was that there was going to be another drain on the money; how irresponsible my parents seemed to me. I threw this gigantic tantrum
...
I was horrible. And then, after Allie was born, we all just
...
fell in love with her. She was the light of our lives. She would crawl up on your lap and
...
and
squeeze
you
...
and you would squeeze her back. It was the best feeling in the world."

Meg straightened up and, smiling, wrapped her arms around herself. "As soon as Allie was able to stand, she took off. She never walked, always ran. She'd fall and cry and get up again on her little legs and run. She loved to be chased, just loved it. She'd just
...
shriek
...
for joy, for the fun of it. The house was such a happier place after she was born
..."

Meg's lip began to quiver; a
single
tear rolled out the corner of one eye. "It
's ...
ah
...
just
...
incredible," she said, struggling to keep control. "All those times in high school
...
when she was driving around with that crowd
...
and she never got a scratch, never got a ticket. And now,
just
because of me
..."

"You cannot control your sister's behavior,"
he said softl
y. "You can't."

She closed her eyes. "Then I'd like to find the package store that sold her the booze, and cut out the owner's heart."

"Meg
—
you can't control him either. Don't you understand? Your codependency
—"

"Oh, please," she snapped. "Spare me your buzzwords."

"Skip
the buzzwords, then!" he said impatiently. He jumped up from the bench, too frustrated with her to sit still. "You are not responsible for your sister's thoughts or feelings or destiny.
Understand
that and learn to live with it, dammit!"

She was so blind. How could he make her see? He stopped mid-pace and looked down at her, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, and said bluntly, "This situation between Allie and you
...
it's not healthy, Meg. It's a common one — more common than people ever guessed
—
but it's not healthy."

Meg was quiet, dangerously so. "So you're saying, what? That I need counseling?"

"Maybe when things settle down a bit."

Again she seemed to mull it over. He held his breath.

"You're telling me this
now?"

"I wanted to before. I've wanted to ask, have you ever been to Al-Anon?"

"But it's
Allie
who was rolled over in a car crash. Why do you keep bringing the subject back to
me?"
Meg asked, bewildered.

"Because
you
need help as much as Allie!" he said.
"You
need to break free of her!
Can't you see that?"

When he thought about it later, he realized that that was the exact moment he knew he loved her
beyond all hope
. But that came later, after his rage and hurt died down.

Meg got up almost casually from the bench and stood facing him. She slipped her hands into the big square pockets of her sundress of pale pink, a color oddly flattering to the deep flush in her cheeks. He could see, through the fabric of the pockets, that her hands were balled into fists. No doubt about it: Meg Hazard was getting ready to blow up her last bridge.

"If there's anyone who needs counseling, it's got to be you," she said with a calmness that was belied by her high color. "You're the one with the failed marriage. You're the one from a string of loveless homes. After all, when you finally did land in the arms of
two
people who cared, what did you do?"

She was a terrorist, a terrorist in a pink sundress. "I'd rather not have to listen to this, Meg," he said in a low and dangerous voice.

"You ran away. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"
I explained why. 
Leave it alone, Meg."

"It tells me everything
I
need to know. It tells me you're incapable of forming
—
or keeping
—
a relationship."

"Don't, Meg," he warned, his face flushing with anger. "We'll both regret it."

"It's not your fault," she said pityingly. "You had a horribly screwed-up childhood. I understand that now; now that you've told me about it. I mean, my God
—
your mother abandoned you in a Sears Roebuck!"

Wyler laughed at his own stupidity: in a moment of intimacy, he'd handed her the ammunition, handed her the fuse, and now she was blowing his life up in his face.

His laugh infuriated her. "So what the hell do
you
know about family love?" she said, exploding at last. "What the hell do
you
know about relationships
—
good, bad, or indifferent? You've never stuck around long enough to figure one out! If there's anyone around here who could use some counseling, it's
you!"

She folded her arms across her chest and turned her back on him.
"How
I curse the day I met you!"

He grabbed her by her shoulders and swung her around to face him. He was short of breath, reeling from her attack. "Listen to me, Meg. What I said to you last night I never told anyone
—
not
Lydia
, not anyone. But I told you. You're right," he said, his eyes blazing with anger. "I'm
not
quick to trust. And you want to know something, lady?
Now I see why.
So curse all you want, Meg, but get counseling, and get it quick — because your guilt is making you vicious."

She gasped, speechless with rage, and slapped him, hard; there was nothing halfway about it. It was as low a moment as he'd ever experienced with any woman, anywhere. Meg's face was ashen. He hoped she was strong enough to forgo fainting as he tur
ned and walked away to his car.