“You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, Em.”
There was abutcoming and then the event she dreaded with every fiber of her being each time she visited. Emily settled her hands atop the linen napkin in her lap and braced for thetalk.They were about to enter thedeeply troubledzone.
“But your mother and I are worried about your reasons for taking this abrupt vacation.” He searched her eyes as if he hoped to see the answer he sought there. Evidently he didn’t find it, so he went on. “We know how you feel, honey.”
Impossible. The word resounded inside her, but she didn’t allow it to cross her lips. Any argument from her would only accelerate the disintegration of the already unstable climate. What she felt was dead. When she didn’t feel dead inside, she felt guilty and angry. Like now. They couldn’t possibly know.
“What your father is trying to say, dear,” Carol Wallace jumped in, as if they had assigned parts and had carefully rehearsed, “is that it’s a crying shame that man is not still in prison, but nothing you do is going to change the facts. Em, you’re twenty-eight years old; it’s time you paid attention to yourself ... to your future. We don’t want you going backward.”
Carol was a lovely woman no matter that she shopped in the plus-size departments these days and wore the gray invading her black hair like a badge of honor. Despite a nursing degree, she’d spent her life serving her family, her church, and her community—in that order. The same could be said for Ed Wallace. Long hours at his investment firm had never once prevented him from being a loving, devoted father.
As much as Emily’s parents loved her and wanted to believe they felt just as she did, they didn’t. Holding that against them wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t their fault.
It was hers.
They waited expectantly for some revelation that would show progress on her part. A mere smidgen of hope that she intended to divert her life toward some more conventional course could close this argumentright now. Tension would recede and the parental scrutiny zone would drop back down tocuriously indulgent.
But Emily couldn’t give them what they wanted.
“I have to do this.” Emily placed her napkin on the table next to her scarcely touched plate. Inside she was shaking, but outside she held on to her calm to avoid inciting their suspicions further. She’d gotten really good at that kind of deception over the past few years. “If I don’t do what I know in my heart is right, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to move on. I realize you can’t understand, but that’s the way it is.”
Another visual exchange in that unspoken language gained through thirty-five years of marriage transpired before her father took the next turn at battle. “Dr. Brown would really like you to come back to counseling. He believes that’s the best way, Em. Your mother and I agree.”
Counseling. It was like a bad penny; it showed up every time. She’d tried therapy. It hadn’t worked. Once Dr. Brown had released her, a whole year after her four-week stay at the Calhoun Treatment Center, she’d never gone back to him. She didn’t intend to now. Wouldn’t that be doing exactly what her parents feared? Going backward?
“You’ll have to excuse me.” Emily stood. “Thank you for dinner,” she said to her mother, then managed a tight smile for her father before putting her plate away and leaving the room.
Deeply troubled.She didn’t have to look back to know, Emily could feel the weight of their troubled gazes on her back as she left the room. The house phone rang—her family still had one—but she didn’t slow her retreat. It wouldn’t be for her. She hadn’t been here long enough in the last decade for anyone to associate her with the address or the number.
She no longer belonged in Pine Bluff.
She didn’t actually belong anywhere.
Her mother’s voice drifted down the hall behind Emily. The caller was obviously Emily’s brother, James. The change from troubled to elated in her mother’s tone related the identity of the caller without the mention of a name.
James was in medical school, was on the dean’s list. James hadn’t prematurely self-destructed. Too bad his success couldn’t be enough for Emily’s parents.
Emily went into her room and closed the door. She leaned against it and surveyed the space she barely recognized. It felt more like a hotel. She’d spent her senior year in this room, but there was no connection ... nothing. She’d slept here and dressed here and that was about it.
Her mom had gone out of her way to try to ensure this new house ... this new room ...Emily’sroom was nothing like the old one. Some of her stuff was carefully arranged on shelves or pieces of furniture. Cheerleading trophies. Junk. Nothing that mattered. The items that were important had been hidden away. Packing away all those other mementos of the past had been her mother’s idea of moving on. Unfortunately, nothing new had filled the emptiness. No higher education degree matted and framed for bragging rights. No wedding pictures or snapshots of grandchildren to show off to visitors.
Just a room. With beige carpet. And beige walls.
There was nothing that stood out or defined the space or ... Emily. She was beige ... almost to the point of being invisible.
The panic started its dreaded creep beneath her skin. Her heart reacted, bouncing into a faster rhythm only to flail helplessly like a fish dropped on the bank right next to the river’s edge. Relief was in sight, but you couldn’t quite reach it no matter how hard you tried.
The overwhelming sense of doom would descend next, and then there would be no stopping a full-blown anxiety attack. She’d had her first one six months after the murder and they just refused to go away. Day in and day out they seized her. She’d taken several different types of antianxiety medications until she’d gotten fed up with the futile efforts and/or dependency and she’d stopped.
The feeling of doom continued to mount. She couldn’t be here right now.
Her purse and fob were in her hand before second thoughts could slow her. A drive would help. Give her a chance to think without anyinterference or static, no matter how well-meaning. Her mother was still on the phone with Emily’s brother. Her father had settled into his recliner with the news blasting from the TV.
They wouldn’t even know she’d gone.
Outside, the suffocating July heat and humidity still hung in the air even at quarter of eight. Emily wrenched the SUV door open and dropped behind the steering wheel. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back, and struggled to regulate her respiration, to slow her heart’s frenzied pounding.
When she could breathe normally again she opened her eyes and stared out at the street where her parents lived ... in a house that had never been home to her. They’d sold the house on Ivy Lane right after Heather’s death. No place had felt like home since. Regret closed around Emily’s chest in ever-tightening bands triggering another rush of adrenaline.
