Faithless

  “I’ll pick you up at ten thirty.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  When Tessa opened the front door, Sara was lying on the couch with a wet rag over her face.

  “Sissy?” Tessa called. “You home?”

  “In here,” Sara managed around the cloth.

  “Oh, Christ,” Tessa said. Sara felt her hovering near the end of the couch. “What did Jeffrey do now?”

  “Why are you blaming Jeffrey?”

  Tessa turned off the CD player mid-harmony. “You only listen to Dolly Parton when you’re upset with him.”

  Sara slid the rag up to her forehead so she could see her sister. Tessa was reading the back of the CD case. “It’s a cover album.”

  “I guess you skipped the sixth track?” Tessa asked, dropping it into the pile Sara had made as she rummaged for something to listen to. “God, you look horrible.”

  “I feel horrible,” she admitted. Watching the autopsy of Abigail Bennett had been one of the most difficult things Sara had done in recent memory. The girl had not passed gently. Her systems had shut down one by one, until all that remained was her brain. Abby had known what was happening, had felt every single second of the death, right up until the painful end.

  Sara had been so upset that she had actually used the cell phone to call Jeffrey. Instead of pouring out her heart to him, she had been drilled for details on the autopsy. Jeffrey had been in such a rush to get off the phone that he hadn’t even told her good-bye.

  “That’s better,” Tessa said as Steely Dan whispered through the speakers.

  Sara looked out the windows, surprised that the sun had already gone down. “What time is it?”

  “Almost seven,” Tessa told her, adjusting the volume on the player. “Mama sent y’all something.”

  Sara sighed as she sat up, letting the rag drop. She saw a brown paper bag at Tessa’s feet. “What?”

  “Beef stew and chocolate cake.”

  Sara felt her stomach rumble, hungry for the first time that day. As if on cue, the dogs sauntered in. Sara had rescued the greyhounds several years ago and, in return for the favor, they tried to eat her out of house and home.

  “Get,” Tessa warned Bob, the taller of the two, as he sniffed the bag. Billy went in for his turn, but she shooed him away as she asked Sara, “Do you ever feed them?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Tessa picked up the bag and put it on the kitchen counter beside the bottle of wine Sara had opened as soon as she got home. Sara hadn’t even bothered to change her clothes, just poured the wine, drank a healthy swig and wet a washrag before collapsing onto the couch.

  “Did Dad drop you off?” Sara asked, wondering why she had not heard a car. Tessa wasn’t supposed to drive while she was taking her antiseizure medication, a rule that seemed destined to be broken.

  “I brought my bike,” she answered, staring at the bottle of wine as Sara poured herself another glass. “I would kill for some of that.”

  Sara opened her mouth, then closed it. Tessa wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol with her medication, but she was an adult, and Sara was not her mother.

  “I know,” Tessa said, reading Sara’s expression. “I can still want things, can’t I?” She opened the bag, taking out a stack of mail. “I got this for you,” she said. “Do you ever check your mail? There’s about a gazillion catalogues in there.”

  There was something brown on one of the envelopes, and Sara sniffed it suspiciously. She was relieved to find it was gravy.

  “Sorry,” Tessa apologized, taking out a paper plate covered in tinfoil, sliding it over to Sara. “I guess it leaked.”

  “Oh, yes.” Sara practically moaned as she removed the foil. Cathy Linton made a mean chocolate cake, the recipe going back through three generations of Earnshaws. “This is too much,” Sara said, noting the slice was big enough for two.

  “Here,” Tessa said, taking two more Tupperware containers out of the bag. “You’re supposed to share with Jeffrey.”

  “Right.” Sara grabbed a fork from the drawer before sitting on the bar stool under the kitchen island.

  “You’re not going to eat the roast?” Tessa asked.

  Sara put a forkful of cake in her mouth and washed it down with some wine. “Mama always said when I could pay to put a roof over my own head I could eat what I wanted for supper.”

  “I wish I could pay for my own roof,” Tessa mumbled, using her finger to scoop some chocolate off of Sara’s plate. “I’m so sick of not doing anything.”

  “You’re still working.”

  “As Dad’s tool bitch.”

  Sara ate another bite of cake. “Depression is a side effect of your medication.”

  “Let me add that to the list.”

  “Are you having other problems?”

  Tessa shrugged, wiping crumbs off the counter. “I miss Devon,” she said, referring to her ex, the father of her dead child. “I miss having a man around.”

  Sara picked at the cake, wishing not for the first time that she had killed Devon Lockwood when she’d had the chance.

  “So,” Tessa said, abruptly changing the subject. “Tell me what Jeffrey did this time.”

  Sara groaned, returning to the cake.

  “Tell me.”

  After letting a few seconds pass, Sara relented. “He might have hepatitis.”

  “Which kind?”

  “Good question.”

  Tessa furrowed her brows. “Is he showing any symptoms?”

  “Other than aggravated stupidity and acute denial?” Sara asked. “No.”

  “How was he exposed?”

  “How do you think?”

  “Ah.” Tessa pulled out the stool next to Sara and sat. “This was a long time ago, though, right?”

  “Does it matter?” She corrected herself, “I mean, yes, it matters. It’s from before. That one time before.”

  Tessa pursed her lips. She had not made it a secret that she didn’t think there was any way in hell Jeffrey had slept with Jolene just once. Sara thought she was going to renew her theory, but instead Tessa asked, “What are y’all doing about it?”

  “Arguing,” Sara admitted. “I just can’t stop thinking about her. What he did with her.” She took another bite of cake, chewing slowly, making herself swallow. “He didn’t just . . .” Sara tried to think of a word that summed up her disgust. “He didn’t just screw her. He wooed her. Called her on the phone. Laughed with her. Maybe sent her flowers.” She stared at the chocolate running off the side of the plate. Had he spread chocolate on her thighs and licked it off? How many intimate moments had they shared leading up to that final day? How many came after?

  Everything Jeffrey had done to make Sara feel special, to make her think he was the man she wanted to share the rest of her life with, had been a technique easily employed on another woman. Hell, probably more than just one other woman. Jeffrey had a sexual history that would give Hugh Hefner pause. How could the man who could be so kind also be the same bastard who had made her feel like a dog kicked to the curb? Was this some new routine Jeffrey had come up with to win her back? As soon as she was settled, was he going to use it on someone else?

  The problem was, Sara knew perfectly well how Jo had managed to snatch him away. It had to have been a game for Jeffrey, a challenge. Jolene was much more experienced at this kind of thing than Sara. She had probably known to play hard to get, balancing just the right amount of flirting and teasing to get him on the line, then reeling him in slowly like a prize fish. Certainly, she had not ended up at the end of their first date with the balls of her feet braced against the edge of the kitchen sink as she writhed in ecstasy on the floor, biting her tongue so that she would not scream his name.

  Tessa asked, “Why are you smiling at the sink?”

  Sara shook her head, taking a drink of wine. “I just hate this. I hate all of this. And Jimmy Powell is sick again.”

  “That kid with leukemia?”

  Sara nodded. “It doesn’t look good. I
’ve got to go see him at the hospital tomorrow.”

  “How was Macon?”

  Unbidden, Sara’s mind flashed onto the image of the girl on the table, her body flayed open, the doctor reaching into the womb to extract the fetus. Another child lost. Another family devastated. Sara did not know how many more times she could witness this sort of thing without cracking.

  “Sara?” Tessa asked.

  “It was as awful as I thought it would be.” Sara used her finger to swirl what remained of the chocolate sauce. Somewhere in all of this, she had eaten the entire piece of cake.

  Tessa walked to the refrigerator and took out a tub of ice cream, returning to the original subject. “You have to let this go, Sara. Jeffrey did what he did, and nothing’s going to change that. Either he’s back in your life or he’s not, but you can’t keep yo-yoing him back and forth.” She pried off the top to the ice cream. “You want some?”

  “I shouldn’t,” Sara told her, holding out her plate.

  “I’ve always been the cheater, not the cheatee,” Tessa pointed out, taking two spoons from the drawer, closing it with her hip. “Devon just left. He didn’t cheat. At least I don’t think he cheated.” She dropped several spoonfuls of Blue Bell onto Sara’s plate. “Maybe he cheated.”

  Sara held her other hand under the paper plate so that it wouldn’t fold from the weight. “I don’t think so.”

  “No,” she agreed. “He barely had time for me, let alone another woman. Did I tell you about the time he fell asleep right in the middle of it?” Sara nodded. “Jesus, how do people stay interested in each other for fifty years?”

  Sara shrugged. She was hardly an expert.

  “God, but he was good in bed when he was awake.” Tessa sighed, holding the spoon in her mouth. “That’s one thing you have to keep in mind with Jeffrey. Never underestimate the value of sexual chemistry.” She scooped more ice cream onto Sara’s plate. “Devon was bored with me.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I mean it,” she said. “He was bored. He didn’t want to do things anymore.”

  “Like go out?”

  “Like, the only way I could get him to go down on me was put a television on my stomach and wire the remote control to my—”

  “Tess!”

  She chuckled, taking a big bite of ice cream. Sara could remember the last time they’d eaten ice cream together. The day that Tessa had been attacked, they had gone to the Dairy Queen for milk shakes. Two hours later, Tessa was lying on the ground with her head split open, her child dead inside of her.

  Tessa braced her hands on the counter and squeezed her eyes shut. Sara bolted from her chair, alarmed, until Tessa explained, “Ice cream headache.”

  “I’ll get you some water.”

  “I got it.” She put her head under the kitchen faucet and took a swig. She wiped her mouth, asking, “Yeesh, why does that happen?”

  “The trigeminal nerve in the—”

  Tessa cut her off with a look. “You don’t have to answer every question, Sara.”

  Sara took this as a rebuke, and looked down at her plate.

  Tessa took a less generous bite of ice cream before going back to the subject of Devon. “I just miss him.”

  “I know, sweetie.”

  There was nothing more to say on the matter. In Sara’s opinion, Devon had shown his true colors at the end, slinking out when things got tough. Her sister was well rid of him, though Sara understood that was hard for Tessa to grasp at this point. For Sara’s part, the one time she had seen Devon downtown, she had crossed the street so that she would not have to pass him on the sidewalk. Jeffrey had been with her, and she had practically ripped his arm off in order to keep him from going over and saying something to the other man.

  Out of the blue, Tessa said, “I’m not going to have sex anymore.”

  Sara barked out a laugh.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you have any Cheetos?”

  Sara went to the cabinet to fetch the bag. She tried to tread cautiously when she asked, “Is it this new church?”

  “No.” Tessa took the bag. “Maybe.” She used her teeth to open the package. “It’s just that what I’ve been doing so far isn’t working. I’d be pretty stupid to keep on doing it.”

  “What isn’t working?”

  Tessa just shook her head. “Everything.” She offered the bag of Cheetos to Sara, but she refused, instead tugging open the zipper of her skirt so she could breathe.

  Tessa asked, “Has anyone told you why Bella is here?”

  “I was hoping you’d know.”

  “They won’t tell me anything. Every time I walk into the room, they stop talking. I’m like a walking mute button.”

  “Me, too,” Sara realized.

  “Will you do me a favor?” Tessa asked.

  “Of course,” Sara offered, noting the change in Tessa’s tone.

  “Come to church with me Wednesday night.”

  Sara felt like a fish that had just been thrown from its tank, her mouth gaping open as she tried to think of an excuse.

  “It’s not even church,” Tessa said. “It’s more like a fellowship meeting. Just people hanging around, talking. They’ve even got honey buns.”

  “Tess . . .”

  “I know you don’t want to go, but I want you there.” Tessa shrugged. “Do it for me.”

  This had been Cathy’s device for guilting her two daughters into attending Easter and Christmas services for the last twenty years.

  “Tessie,” Sara began, “you know I don’t believe—”

  “I’m not sure I do, either,” Tessa interrupted. “But it feels good to be there.”

  Sara stood to put the roast in the refrigerator.

  “I met Thomas in physical therapy a few months ago.”

  “Who’s Thomas?”

  “He’s kind of the leader of the church,” Tessa answered. “He had a stroke a while back. It was pretty bad. He’s really hard to understand, but there’s this way he has of talking to you without saying a word.”

  The dishwasher had clean dishes from several days ago, and Sara started to empty it just to give herself something to do.

  “It was weird,” Tessa continued. “I was doing my stupid motor exercises, putting the pegs in the right holes, when I felt like someone was staring at me, and I looked up and it was this old guy in a wheelchair. He called me Cathy.”

  “Cathy?” Sara repeated.

  “Yeah, he knows Mama.”

  “How does he know Mama?” Sara asked, certain that she knew all her mother’s friends.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “I tried to, but she was busy.”

  Sara closed the dishwasher and leaned against the counter. “What happened then?”

  “He asked if I wanted to come to church.” Tessa paused a beat. “Being up there in physical therapy, seeing all these people who are so much worse off than I am . . .” She shrugged. “It really put things into perspective, you know? Like how much I’ve been wasting my life.”

  “You haven’t been wasting your life.”

  “I’m thirty-four years old and I still live with my parents.”

  “Over the garage.”

  Tessa sighed. “I just think what happened to me shouldn’t go to waste.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened at all.”

  “I was lying in that hospital bed feeling so sorry for myself, so pissed at the world for what happened. And then it hit me. I’ve been selfish all my life.”

  “You have not.”

  “Yes I have. Even you said that.”

  Sara had never regretted her words so much in her life. “I was angry with you, Tess.”

  “You know what? It’s like when people are drunk and they say they didn’t mean to say something and you should just excuse them and forget it because they’d been drinking.” She explained, “Alcohol lowers your inhibitions. It doesn’t make
you pull lies out of your ass. You got angry with me and said what you were thinking in your head.”

  “I didn’t,” Sara tried to assure her, but even to her own ears, the defense fell flat.

  “I almost died, and for what? What have I done with my life?” Her hands were clenched in fists. Again, she shifted her focus. “If you died, what’s the one thing you would regret not doing?”

  Instantly, Sara thought but did not say, “Having a child.”

  Tessa read her expression. “You could always adopt.”

  Sara shrugged. She could not answer.

  “We never talk about this. It happened almost fifteen years ago and we never talk about it.”

  “There’s a reason.”

  “Which is?”

  Sara refused to get into it. “What’s the point, Tessie? Nothing’s going to change. There’s no miraculous cure.”

  “You’re so good with kids, Sara. You’d be such a good mother.”

  Sara said the two words that she hated to say more than any others. “I can’t.” Then, “Tessie, please.”

  Tessa nodded, though Sara could tell that this was just a temporary retreat. “Well, what I would regret is not leaving my mark. Not doing something to make the world better.”

  Sara took a tissue to blow her nose. “You do that anyway.”

  “There’s a reason for everything,” Tessa insisted. “I know you don’t believe that. I know you can’t trust anything that doesn’t have some scientific theory behind it or a library full of books written about it, but this is what I need in my life. I have to think that things happen for a reason. I have to think that something good will come out of losing . . .” She stopped there, unable to say the name of the child she had lost. There was a tiny marker out at the cemetery with the girl’s name, tucked between Cathy’s parents and a much-loved uncle who had died in Korea. It pained Sara’s heart every time she thought about the cold grave and the lost possibilities.

  “You know his son.”

  Sara furrowed her brow. “Whose son?”

  “Tom’s. He went to school with you.” Tessa took a mouthful of Cheetos before folding the bag closed. She talked while she chewed. “He’s got red hair like you.”