“No.”
Tara shoves it back in her bag. “You seem kinda pissed.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“You don’t need to be sarcastic.”
“I kind of do. I’ve been waiting…” A swell of emotions surges inside Taylor, which she quickly checks. “I’ve been waiting to hear what’s happened with everyone.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here, to talk with you.”
“Did someone send you?”
“Nah. I’m here on my own. Sorry, I don’t always have the best way with words. I just want to talk to you. I’m trying to make things right in my life.”
Taylor resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Where’s Vivian? I haven’t heardanything.”
Tara nods. “Jerry said she’s at some private facility, getting the care she needs. I guess she’s doing okay; I heard they think she’s gonna make a full recovery.”
Taylor exhales; it feels like she’s finally set down the sack of worry she’s been lugging around all week—at least, the one about Vivian. There are still the unresolved feelings Taylor has about her mom—but she can’t get to those. Not yet. “I’m so glad about Vivian,” she admits, and then scowls at Tara. “Well, no thanks to you. I came across your Facebook student nurse post.”
“Oh shit. Really?”
“Really.”
“Look, I know I kinda fucked up with Viv—”
“Kind offucked up?”
Tara’s cheeks color. “Okay, Ireallyfucked up with her. I was following the house doctor’s orders. But I realize now I wasn’t giving good nursing care. I know you probably don’t believe me, but I thought I was helping her.”
“How could holding someone captive be helping them?” Taylor’s voice rises a notch, and a man jogging down the paved walkway gives an alarmed look.
Tara waits until he passes to continue. “Rose said someone at the Knox was trying to harm Vivian and pushed her down the stairs, so we needed to keep her hidden and safe.”
Taylor scoffs. “And you believed that?”
“Yeah. I kinda did at first. And then, when I started to suspectsomething wasn’t right, I still wanted to believe it…I was scared. I mean, they knew everything about me and Jerry. Where our parents lived, where they worked. Rose was coming and going all the time, back and forth from her room at the Knox to mine next door. I felt like sometimes I couldn’t breathe, you know?”
Taylor says nothing.
“And I had the baby to think about,” Tara says, pressing her hand against her belly, which Taylor now notices is slightly rounded. Tara’s eyes start watering. “Sorry,” she says, wiping them. “Jerry says I cry at the drop of a hat these days. Must be the hormones, right? Once I have the baby and get them all outta me, then I’ll be better.” She gives a little laugh. “Well, notbetter, but better. You don’t have a tissue, do you?”
“No, sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Tara smiles half-heartedly. Her teeth are big, taking up a lot of real estate.
“So they threatened you?” Taylor leads; she’s desperate to know more.
“Well…not exactly. We had an agreement. Rose said I could keep living at the servants’ quarters and going to nursing school if we kept our mouths shut. If we all did—Jerry, Eduardo, and me. Tell no one. They were paying for my school, and Rose even arranged for me to do my clinical rotation with the house doctor.”
“Wow,” Taylor manages.
“It was supposed to be temporary. Jerry was figuring out a plan to get us out of there. He hated what was going on. My brother can be kind of a pain sometimes, but it’s just because he’s looking out for me, you know?” She looks earnestly at Taylor, who nods.
As an only child Taylordoesn’tknow, but she wants to hear more. “What about Eduardo?”
“Eduardo? He just looked the other way—you know how he is. He never wants to make trouble. But I don’t blame him. It was just a such weird situation we were all in, you know? It’s like…like when you watch a movie, and you think, ‘Oh, that person’s so dumb, I’d never do that.’ But guess what? You don’t know. You don’t know what you’d do.” She takes a shaky breath, then continues. “And by the time I realized everything, the whole shebang, it felt like it was too late to do anything about it. I was in it, you know? But trust me—if you can,” Tara says, her eyes welling again, and her lower lip now trembling, “when I say if I thought they were gonna hurt Vivian I would’ve stopped them. I don’t know how, but I would’ve.”
