The Heart of Memory (26 page)

“Of course. I’m staying with you—aren’t I? I mean, I assumed …”

His words died off as they blinked at each other in awkward surprise. The thought of sharing her bed with him made her skin crawl. “Um, that’s fine … I guess. I just thought …” She sighed. “Never mind. Bring your bag.”

Maybe Tabitha had a cot he could sleep on.

S
HAUN THREW HIS BAG INTO
the back of the taxi. “So you’re coming back Wednesday, right?”

She cringed. “Actually, I changed my flight again.”

Great. Another $75 down the drain.
“But you’ll be back for Thanksgiving at least, right?”

“I—well—you know, that’s two weeks away, we can talk about it later.”

He shook his head but said nothing. She kept her mouth shut so nothing snarky could slip out. He slid into the back seat of the cab and shut the door without saying goodbye.

Savannah watched the cab kick up dust down the long driveway, and willed the tension in her shoulders to finally release. It had been the most awkward two days of her life, having Shaun here; but even though she was glad it was over, she wasn’t glad to see him go. Not because she missed him, or for any reasons at all affectionate or intimate, but because of what he was going to do once he got home.

She went back up to her room and crawled under the covers of her bed to continue reading her book. It was an autobiography about a heart and lung transplant recipient who had experienced drastic changes in her personality after her surgery. It was one of the most well-known and well-documented instances of cellular memory, and Savannah found comfort in the author’s familiar struggles. She was making a list of things the woman had done to cope with the bizarre experience, hoping to create a roadmap to follow as she tried to figure out life while sharing Charlie’s heart. When she’d first found the book she’d researched the author, hoping they might be able to connect and Savannah might glean some wisdom from her. But the first article she’d found had been the woman’s obituary.

She read through lunch, not feeling up to socializing with the other Refugees or Aniyah, and only stopped when her cell phone rang in the early afternoon. Marisa’s name came up on the screen, which was the only reason she answered. “Hi, Marisa.”

“Savannah, hi. Is Shaun still there?”

“No, he left a few hours ago. How did you know he was here?”

“Brenda told me. I talked to her earlier. That’s actually why I’m calling. She phoned me this morning because she wanted to know if I knew anything about A&A shutting down.”

Savannah sat up, confused. “What? Why was she asking about that?”

Marisa’s stalling sigh made Savannah ill. “Apparently a couple people’s paychecks bounced over the last couple days. She tried calling Shaun about it, but he never answered his cell.”

She thought back to his visit and realized she’d never even heard his phone ring. Would he really have turned it off? Or not even brought it? He never did that.
He knew before he came out that A&A was going to close.

“Anyway, people over there are in a panic and no one knows what to do or what’s going on. That’s why Brenda called me; she was hoping I’d heard something from you, or could at least get some information for them.”

Savannah hung her head and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Oh, Marisa … yes, we actually are closing A&A. But we just decided that yesterday. Shaun didn’t tell me how desperate things were right now; I thought we were closing it because the future was so uncertain. I had no idea things were already as bleak as they are. I feel awful. Listen—tell me whose checks bounced and I’ll pay them out of our personal account.”

Marisa gave her the names, and Savannah swallowed back her tears as she wrote them down. The guilt and depression she’d managed to keep at bay while on her sabbatical came crashing down on her as she stared at the names of people she’d worked with for years.

“There’s something else,” Marisa said. Savannah could hear the delicate note in her voice that told her how uncomfortable she was bringing this up. “I never told you about this because … well, I figured there was a reasonable explanation and I didn’t want to make any assumptions. But now …” She sighed. “Months ago, when I’d given Shaun your receipts from the tour, I ended up finding a few more that had fallen out of the pile in my car. I brought them back in and he was already gone, but the other receipts and a reimbursement form were sitting on his desk. I figured I’d make it easy on him and list them on the form myself, and when I did I saw items on the form that weren’t from the tour. I had never seen the charges before, they didn’t ring any bells.”

Savannah remembered doing the same thing, and how she’d held on to the information to use as a weapon should she need it. She’d forgotten about it. But she wasn’t about to admit she already knew and hadn’t done anything about it. “Thanks for telling me, Marisa. I’ll ask Shaun about that.” She made an excuse for leaving and hung up as quickly as she could.

Messing around with receipts …
She couldn’t think of any reasons for doing such a thing that didn’t involve some sort of financial scheming. But that made her consider something else. What if closing A&A wasn’t entirely her fault? The thought gave her a brief shot of relief, until it sank in that Shaun was then guilty of something that was likely to be unethical, possibly even illegal.

Oh, Shaun. What have you done?

S
HAUN’S WORLD CRUMBLED A LITTLE
more when he came home from the office two days later. Jessie’s car was in the driveway, and that wasn’t a good thing in the middle of the week. He didn’t have to see the bank statement to know why she was there.

He hated himself. He’d been hating himself for a while, but just not dwelling on it. He’d redirected the brunt of his loathing to Savannah, though she didn’t know it — mostly the hating was done in his head. But the inevitable had finally happened, and now his daughter was caught in the net. What kind of father was he? What kind of husband, what kind of business manager?

The walls were closing in. It made it hard to breathe.

He snuck in quietly, hoping to establish a defense before facing Jessie. He prepared his speech, then walked the house in search of her. The sooner he got this over with, the better.

She was crying in her room. He knocked gently on the door, then opened it. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

His sympathy brought on a fresh round of tears. She buried her head in his chest, which surprised him—he’d expected her anger. After a few minutes the sobs died down and she said, “Adam broke up with me.”

It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “Wh-what? Why, what happened?” He began plotting Adam’s demise.

“Because of A&A shutting down. He said he couldn’t imagine marrying into the family that screwed his over so bad.”

She began to cry again. Shaun flagellated himself in his head. “Jessie, I’m so sorry. We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t have to; I hope you know that. We just couldn’t keep it afloat.”

“I know, Dad, I know. I’m not blaming you.” She sniffed and disengaged herself from his embrace to flop onto the bed. “It’s not your fault Mom went off the deep end. If she’d just get her act together, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“She can’t help it either, Jess. I don’t think we can fully understand what she’s going through. This whole cellular memories phenomenon —”

“I don’t buy it.” She shook her head emphatically. “I asked one of our professors about it. He said it’s pretty much all a crock. People just hear things being talked about in the OR while they’re anesthetized, it gets into their subconscious, that sort of thing. She’s just using it as an excuse. Don’t let her dupe you, Dad.”

Shaun sat beside Jessie, scrambling for a response. He hadn’t expected her to lay all the blame on Savannah. It was tempting to let her take the fall.
Let Jessie hate her from afar — at least I won’t lose my daughter, too.
But as he watched her mop her tears, he knew she needed a mother, and to drive a wedge even further between them would eventually hurt Jessie as well. He didn’t want to be the one that caused that if he could help it. “Look, sweetheart … I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. But your mother doesn’t deserve all the blame. Other issues were at play here.”

“Like what?”

He hadn’t thought that far. “Well, confidentiality restricts me from saying anything,” he said quickly. “But I just wanted you to know that. It’s not entirely her fault.”

“But if she hadn’t gone crazy, it could have stayed open, right? Even if there were other issues — that’s the main one.”

He sighed. “She hasn’t gone crazy, Jess. But yes, I guess you’re right, it could have stayed open.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, and on top of this, guess what I got in the mail today? A letter from the registrar, saying my tuition isn’t paid. So now I get to deal with that mix-up. Like I have the time.”

Shaun closed his eyes. He’d been right. “Actually—I had a feeling that might happen.”

“What? Why?”

“Because your tuition
isn’t
paid.”

Incredulity seized her expression. “You knew? You knew this might happen and you didn’t tell me?”

“I was hoping to get it all sorted out before it came to this. I didn’t want you to lose sleep over something that might not even happen.”

Her features were pinched with bitterness. “Unbelievable. The ministry
and
your personal finances are shot. How can you keep defending her?”

“Because it’s not all her fault.”

“How do you figure?” She threw down the soggy tissue. “It doesn’t matter, I’m a pariah at school now anyway. I probably would have dropped out after finals were over.”

“No, Jessie, you can’t —”

“I can’t stay, Dad, not if we can’t pay for me to be there. I don’t qualify for any of the scholarships, and financial aid doesn’t just kick in like that. We’d have to fill out paperwork and applications and all that stuff. And they’re not going to let me back if I don’t have it all in place before the semester starts. Fat chance of that right now. So what choice do I have?” She shook her head, then speared him with an angry stare. “Dad, I think we need to cut and run.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You need to leave Mom—before she completely ruins you and drags us both down.”

Shaun was astounded. “Jessica Faith, how can you say that? She’s my wife, I made a promise. I can’t just leave her.”

“You’re not leaving her, Dad! She left you already. Is she coming back for Thanksgiving? She’s not, right? She’s already run away; and even if she hadn’t, she’s not who she was. You didn’t make a promise to her, not to this Savannah.”

Shaun stood, needing to distance himself before she actually talked him into it, and headed for the door. “This is ridiculous. I’m not going to have this conversation. For the last time, I’m not leaving her. If she leaves me, then so be it; but I won’t have the failure of our marriage be on me.”

“So what, you’re just walking away from me?”

“I’m walking away from this conversation. You’re entitled to your own thoughts and emotions, but I don’t have to be party to them.”

“See? She’s pulling us apart even when she’s not here. It used to always be you and me, Dad. And now I don’t have you either.”

He groaned. “Jessie—”

“Forget it.” She grabbed her keys from the dresser and stormed past him and down the stairs. He heard the door slam a moment later.

Anger and frustration and self-loathing drove his fist into the wall beside her door. The drywall caved beneath his knuckles. He let out a howl that did little to relieve the pressure inside. He hated himself. He hated Savannah, too, and, if he was honest, God.

But mostly he just hated himself.

J
ESSIE POWER-WALKED, HEAD DOWN, FROM
her car to the dorm. The rational side of her brain didn’t really believe everyone was staring and talking behind her back the way the rest of her suspected, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Someone, somewhere was likely talking about her, or at least her family, and everyone who saw her likely knew who she was — and what had happened. For once she hated being at such a small school. The grapevine was lightning fast, and she had nowhere to hide.

She should have been in her child psych lecture right now. The second midterm was in two days. Next week she had a presentation due for her 21st Century issues class. She’d actually been looking forward to both of them. She’d always enjoyed tests and speeches and projects — she loved school, loved learning, loved showing off what she’d learned. Never in a million years would she ever have dreamed she would drop out of college. But she couldn’t stay now. Even if her Dad did come up with the money, she didn’t want to keep running into Adam, or deal with people talking about her family.

I’ll come back,
she thought as she taped together a box from the back of her closet.
No, scrap that— I’ll go somewhere else. I can’t come back here.
At least not until everyone she knew had graduated. And she didn’t want to wait that long. Maybe she’d try one of their extension campuses — she thought there might be one in Denver. She could move out, go find a job and an apartment up in the city somewhere.
Because I’m not living at home. Even if Mom is in Georgia.