Lu hissed and jerked, her head snapping back, exposing her long bare throat, her body bowed out away from the headboard. She swallowed and swallowed, a trickle of tears trailing from the corners of her eyes. Then she gritted her teeth and tipped her face forward again, the movement full of stops and starts, as if the person running her body wasn’t used to the controls yet.
She sat straighter, smaller jerking motions as she pressed her back against the headboard again. Every line of her showed the pain she contained. The struggle.
She opened her eyes.
And that was not Lu.
I had forgotten. Forgotten how hard it was to see her like that, a passenger in her own body. Forgotten how angry it made me. How I wanted to rage and destroy and tear that invading spirit out of her with my bare hands.
“Steady,” I said to myself, needing someone to say it, needing to hear it. We had all agreed to this. Agreed the price of Stella talking to Dot was worth the book she’d led us to. “Steady, man.”
Lu opened her mouth, stopped, closed it again and cleared her throat. She nodded, one jerky little move, and tried again.
“Heya, Dotty.”
Dot made a small sound, her hand flying to her mouth, fingers pressing her lips. Just as quickly, she pulled her hand away and settled, remembering that she had very little time.
“Stell? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I never meant what I said. I was just angry about you dating Paul. I was such a selfish child.”
“No, that’s why I’m here,” Stella said. Her intonation was wrong, slightly longer in the vowel than Lu. It was unsettling. “Stop blaming yourself. I wasn’t all that mad when I drove off.”
“You were,” Dot insisted. “You were so angry at me.”
“All right, yes. I was angry when I left. But I was halfway to Chicago and having a good time. A good drive. I was going to come home and tell you I was going to marry Paul, just to make you squirm at every family get-together.”
“Oh,” Dot said, nodding. “That would have been fine. Really, it would have been wonderful.”
Stella smiled and leaned forward, a smoother motion than all the others. “Oh, don’t buckle after all these years. Paul was a jerk.”
Dot choked on a laugh. “He really was. You deserved so much better than him.”
“I know that now. I think I knew it then. But he wasn’t on my mind when I…when I crashed the car. I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t angry at you.”
“You should have been. I was horrible to you. I can’t believe the last thing I said to you was in anger.”
“You were worried. You had good reason to be. But you weren’t the reason for my accident. Or for my death.” She smiled, and I sucked air in through my teeth. She had a nice enough smile, loving and forgiving and a little sad, but it was not Lu.
I wanted to slap that look off her face. Wanted to pull her out of Lu and throw her into the next county.
Instead, I clenched my hands into fists, tight enough my knuckles cracked.
“If I could take it back, everything I said, all those awful things, I would,” Dot said. “I love you. I miss you. I gave my daughter your name because I wanted her to carry a part of someone who is so special to me. My only sister.”
“Poor girl,” Stella said, “I’ve always hated my name.”
Dot absently wiped the tears off her cheeks with the backs of her hands and laughed. “She doesn’t like it either.”
Stella chuckled. Then she held out her hands, Lu’s arms raising, the wrists bent, fingers dangling like a marionette before Stella corrected and straightened her hands.
Dot scooted closer, crossing her legs so her knees touched Lu’s, and grabbed her hands eagerly.
“I don’t have a lot of time, but I need to tell you a few things. So just listen, okay?” Stella said.
Dot nodded.
“I love you. I love Mat and am so glad you married him. I love your kids. I’ve seen them as they grew up here, watched them move away. I love that you raised them here in our house, in our home. And I think renting the place out is perfect. Plus, whoever you put in this room I can spy on—so make sure you book all the hot guys in my room.”
Dot snorted, it was a little wet and sniffly, but it was still a laugh. “Promise.”
