Home Before Dark (19 page)

“Look,” he said, “if I seem in a hurry, maybe it's because I've been waiting so long.”

Her fingers trembled as she took his hand and rose to her feet. “You're very sure of yourself.”

“It's the pilot in me. I make quick decisions and I can't afford to be wrong.” He pulled her through the doorway into the bedroom, pressing her against the wall as he undid the row of buttons down the front of her tank dress.

“And what are your instincts telling you?”

He skimmed the dress down over her shoulders, letting it pool on the floor. “That you're the one.”

She felt trapped, vulnerable, pressed between the paneled wall and his body, between his expectations and her impossibilities. What was it that he saw in her, two years after the most wrenching tragedy a man could suffer, that made him capable of looking her in the eye and saying those words? She realized that she wanted to know him, yet even so, she felt compelled to warn him off. “I'm not good for you.”

“I'll be the judge of that.”

“I'm a disaster waiting to happen. Trust me, it would be a mistake to get involved with me.”

“What do you mean, you're a disaster?”

“I'm— I have plans, and there's no room for anything else. I can't stick around. You need to know that about me. You see…I tend to keep my distance from people. I never set out to do it, but I…leave things behind.”

“I've never been put off by a challenge.” He unhooked her bra and discarded it, then bent down to kiss her exposed flesh. “Nice tattoo.”

“I don't want to challenge you.” What she wanted was to fall for him with every ounce of her body, but she couldn't be that cruel. She'd be gone soon. She had no choice. “I'm not kidding,” she said, her voice growing fainter. “I can't stay around—even for you.”

“I'll make you a deal. You quit worrying about that and I'll shut up and get down to business.” He took out a packet of condoms and dropped it on the bedside table.

“I can't quit worrying.” But even as she spoke, she shut her eyes and took in the exquisite sensation imparted by his mouth, his hands. It was more than mere wanting; it was discovery. And not only of him—his taste and smell and intense physical presence. She was also learning things she'd never known about herself, or things that were perhaps lost in her youth. She cataloged every texture and taste and smell of him, his unique essence, and it had a devastating effect on her. She felt him turn her, lower her gently to the bed.

“Fine, then just lie there and let me make love to you. Trust me, you'll like this.”

Jessie shone. Luz could see a certain aura about her sister as Jessie walked into the kitchen. “Good morning,” said Luz, setting out four lunch bags assembly-line style on the counter. “You're in a good mood.”

Jessie's dazzling smile percolated into a laugh. “It's a good day.” She wandered over to the coffeepot and helped herself to a cup, adding sugar and enough cream to spill on the counter. Without seeming to notice the spill, she went and stood at the bay window overlooking the lake. Sunrise painted the flat water pink and gold, and mist haunted the low spots and clung to the water's edge. Across the lake, a truck sped away.

With automatic movements born of long practice, Luz assembled lunches as she watched Jessie. “That grin of yours wouldn't have something to do with a certain pilot who spent the night with you, would it?”

“It would. But he wouldn't be the first guy to leave me at first light.”

“He'll be back. I was watching him last night. I know.”

Jessie turned, and the sunrise outlined her slender form.
She wore exotic silk pajamas—low slung bottoms and cropped top—and when lit from behind, she looked as fresh and carefree as she had years before, a college girl in search of a life.

Luz struggled with an old, familiar demon. Envy. Jessie wasn't beautiful; she was luminous. Her gifts were so many, and they came with such ease. But as always, Luz battled the demon with her most powerful weapon. She loved her sister. How could you let envy interfere with love?

The sound of the shower drumming upstairs, the radio blaring Nelly Furtado, told her Lila was up, and evidently serious about going to school today. Another issue—Jessie was waiting for an answer. The discussion about Lila's adoption hadn't gone away. It hovered, waiting to land. As life returned to relative normalcy, the lingering questions would recur. When would they tell Lila? What would they tell her? How?

Yet this morning, Jessie's mind seemed to be elsewhere, turned inward, perhaps. With the ease of a blackjack dealer, Luz laid out slices of bread. “He was that good, huh?”

Jessie hugged herself. “Boy howdy. You have no idea.”

Twiddling a butter knife around in a jar, Luz extracted the last of the peanut butter. She made no comment as she thought about the last time she'd awakened with that peculiar, unmistakable glow that followed a night of incredible sex. Last June, maybe?

“On a scale of one to ten,” said Jessie, “it was about a ninety-eight.”

Luz dropped tiny bags of chips into each standing lunch bag, along with fruit—apples today—and a cup of pudding and a plastic spoon. Four bags, four lunches, four kids, four reasons to tell Ian, “Not tonight, dear.”

Jessie leaned against the counter where Luz was working. “Looks like everyone is headed to school today.”

“Even Scottie. He's got playgroup until noon. I make him
a lunch like the others so he'll feel grown up.” She bent over, scrawling on paper napkins with a ballpoint pen.

“What are you doing?”

“Love notes to go in the lunch bags.” She spoke as she wrote, illustrating each one-liner with a happy face and heart. She stuffed a napkin note into each bag, labeled the bags with the kids' names, and felt Jessie's attention on her. “What?”

“You do this every day.”

“Every day there's school.”

“Four lunches.”

“One for each kid. Sometimes Ian gets one, too.”

“You amaze me, Luz. You always have.”

Luz couldn't help herself; she laughed. “For this I had three-and-three-quarter years of college.” Walking to the bottom of the stairs, she yelled, “Is everybody up?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Scottie's shrill voice. Ancient pipes quivered and shrieked as Lila shut down the shower.

Lunches complete, Luz prepared breakfast, putting out pitchers of milk and juice, boxes of cereal.

“You know, Amber's in Scottie's playgroup at the church,” she said. “Dusty signed her up for the toddler room. Maybe you'd like to drop Scottie off this morning.”

Jessie turned quickly away to refill her coffee mug. “Amber's going to her grandma's in Austin today.” She sloshed coffee onto the countertop as she poured, creating her second spill of the day. “I'm not totally at ease, driving. I got so used to driving on the other side of the road overseas.”

“Okay. It was just a thought.” Luz wiped the counter.

Jessie sipped her coffee and stared unfocused across the room. “So what do you think of Amber?”

Luz considered her sister. Jessie had never made a lasting commitment, not even to Simon. Maybe, just maybe Dusty would be the one. Lord knew, if he and Amber couldn't win
her heart, nothing could. “An angel. And those two guys treat her like one. Can you grab the canister from that cupboard on your right? The sugar bowl needs refilling.”

“Sure.” Reaching up, she grabbed the aluminum canister and slid it across the counter. As Luz measured out the sugar, Jessie took something else from the cupboard.

“Is this what I think it is?”

Luz felt an odd prickle of foreboding, as though Jessie had unearthed something private. Forcing her hands to keep steady, she filled the sugar bowl and carried her coffee to the table to enjoy it during the lull before the breakfast stampede. Jessie followed her, bringing the treasure she'd found.

“I'd forgotten all about this,” Jessie said.

“Me, too,” Luz admitted. “Sort of.”

“Our wishing jar.” Jessie lifted the lid of the old engraved metal container and stuck in her hand.

Just that image brought memories rushing back through Luz's mind. Their mom had brought the trophy cup home after a tournament. It was inscribed with Longest Drive and the date and place: Fandango Woods, September 9, 1974. It was arguably the ugliest trophy their mother had ever won and no doubt would have wound up in the attic except that it had a lid. Mom hadn't been fond of it because she hadn't won the tournament.

That year had been particularly hard. Their mother's winnings were slim and she'd missed qualifying for the tour. Luz could still remember standing in the school cafeteria line with the light blue perforated tickets for free lunches.

Of the three of them, only Luz knew how to face facts. Their mother managed to find a dozen reasons not to go to Social Services and stand in line for food stamps. Although only a child, Luz was the one who had to swallow her pride and take the forms to the welfare office. She made excuses for
her mother, saying she was out of town, ill, unavailable. At school, she gritted her teeth and used the blue tickets. Jessie was more likely to skip lunch and shoplift Twinkies and cans of Dr Pepper from the 7-Eleven.

One morning, all those years ago, Luz was mending her favorite shirt right here in this kitchen, seated at this old battle-scarred table, when their mother had taken down the not-quite-a-trophy and said, “This is a wishing jar.”

Jessie, always the more whimsical of the sisters, instantly said, “Can I make a wish?”

“That's what it's for.” Mom handed them each a slip of paper, a pencil and a coin. “But it'll cost you. You write your wish on the paper, wrap it around a penny and drop it in. Next time I get a check, we'll pull one out and make it come true.”

And so the tradition was born. The girls put their coins, wrapped in wishes, into the jar. Jessie took the exercise to heart, even adding a whispered prayer and kissing the wish before secreting it away. Sometimes when their luck came around, Mom remembered her promise. They got to close their eyes and pick a wish.

The things they wrote on those little slips of paper were sometimes specific—a Nikkor adjustable tripod. Sometimes whimsical—a unicorn. Sometimes irrelevant—a Captain and Tenille album. Sometimes poignant—a daddy. And often impossible—world peace. Even into their adolescent years and early adulthood, they'd kept up the tradition.

It had been Luz who had come home from her after-school job cutting fabric at Edenville's Heavenly Haven of Cloth one day and written, “a college education.”

“So do you still do it?” Jessie asked, yanking her back to the present. “Do you still make wishes?”

Luz took a sip of black coffee. “Sometimes. But with four
of them, the wishes always outnumber the chances to come true. Ian doesn't win prizes. He brings home a paycheck, and that's generally spent by the time he gets to the bank.” It was staggering, how much simple day-to-day living consumed.

“Well, that's the idea,” Jessie said. “You always need to have more wishes than you can possibly grant. That's what gives wishes their power.” She took the lid from the trophy. “So let's have a look.” She reached in, withdrew a tightly folded scrap of paper, carefully unfolded it and pushed it across the table.

Luz glanced at it. “Wyatt's hundredth request for a Sony PlayStation. I keep thinking if we put it off long enough, he'll outgrow his need for it, or they'll invent something cheaper. But judging by the handwriting, this is a fairly recent addition.”

“Let's try another.”

It was a mystifying tribal symbol, probably scrawled by Scottie. “Not sure,” Luz said. “It's either a pet rat or a Krazy straw.”

The next wish they unwrapped made Luz blush. “That's just Ian being…Ian.” Before she could crumple it up Jessie snatched it away, holding it to the side, reading it at an odd angle. “It says B J. Does this mean what I think—” She burst out laughing. “Typical guy. He never stops trying.”

Was Ian typical? Luz couldn't be sure. He was the first and only man she'd ever loved. In high school, boys had found her studious, diligent ways off-putting. She used to see sixteen-year-old mothers toting squalling babies through the Country Boy Grocery and vowed she'd never get knocked up and trapped. Keeping that vow meant staying away from boys and partying.

Instead Jessie got knocked up, but it was Luz who got
trapped. The thought made her feel guilty and she quickly wiped it away. “Next.”

Jessie stopped giggling and opened another. “Something from Lila.” Luz recognized the flourishes of her daughter's calligraphy.

“What does it say?”

“A real tattoo.”

“That's simple enough.”

Luz glanced at the amber-colored scroll peeking over the edge of her sister's pajama top. “Uh-huh.”

Unaware of her scrutiny, Jessie extracted another wish.

Luz recognized her own scrawling handwriting. “My B.A.”

“As in the degree?” asked Jessie.

“Yup. As in Bachelor of Arts, preferably summa cum laude. Eleven more credits and I'd have it. I bet that thing has been sitting for ten years. Lately this jar's a place to park my spare change, that's all.”

“You parked your dreams there. You should go back and finish,” Jessie said.

“College? Just like that?” Luz laughed. “Sure. I'll get Ian to cancel all his court dates so he can watch the kids, board the dog at a kennel, forbid Scottie to get an ear infection, grab a few grand out of thin air and head for the city to be the world's oldest living coed.”

“If it's important to you, you'll do it.”

“I've got four kids—”

“And how did that happen, Luz? By accident?”

“As a matter-of-fact, not all of them were planned.”

Jessie nearly choked on her coffee. “Hey, I can believe one accident. God knows, one was mine. But you've got three boys, Luz, and you're not stupid. You wanted babies more than you wanted some piece of paper.”

Luz had no answer for that. Her response to each pregnancy
had been shock, followed by a rush of joy so intense it almost knocked her over. She'd even loved being pregnant and giving birth, regarding swollen ankles and varicose veins as badges of honor. She loved nursing, loved being immersed in the warm, milky scent of herself, and the sense that her body had the power to produce exactly what the baby needed, making no mistakes.

“I guess I thought I could have both,” Luz said. Her coffee had turned cold and bitter and she pushed the mug away, reaching across the table to stick her hand in the jar. The sheer volume of folded-up wishes startled her. She dug to the bottom and pulled one out.

“A trip to Mexico. Hmm. It's in your handwriting, Jess.”

“Yeah?”

“You must have written it before you took off.”

“I never took that trip.”

“That's why it's still in the jar. But there's still time.”

Jessie crumpled the wish and tossed it aside. Luz started to do the same with the B.A., but at the last minute, folded it around a penny, pressed it to her lips in the age-old ritual and put it back in the jar. She grabbed a pen and the grocery list pad. “Let's make a wish right now, Jess.”

“All right.” Jessie scribbled something, her pen running off the edge of the page and scoring the old pine table.

“Jeez, you ought to think about getting your eyes checked, Jess.”

“As a matter of fact, I—”

“I'm going to be late,” Lila said, clomping down the stairs. “No time for breakfast.”

Luz shot up, folding the lunch sack and dropping it into Lila's bookbag.

Lila looked pretty. Beautiful, actually, with her hair damp and slick from the shower. Despite the perpetual disarray of
her room, she always managed to look as though she'd stepped from the prom pages of a Delia's catalog.

“You've got seven minutes before your bus.” Luz knew instantly it was the wrong thing to say. She knew even before her daughter hunched up her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. Lila did not take the bus. Since the start of the school year, Heath Walker had picked her up. She always went to school in his red Jeep, riding a wave of prestige and acceptance that meant far too much to her.

“Maybe you'll make new friends on the bus.” A lame attempt, but Luz couldn't stifle herself.

“Great, Mom.”

“Good morning to you, too, doll-face,” Jessie said.