Her Sister (Search For Love series) (4 page)

Clare's
living room usually invited her into its comfort.  When she'd finally managed
to scrape together a down payment for a house of her own, a house Shara could
grow up in, she'd had a very tight budget but lots of imagination and the
intense desire to create a place that really felt like home.  Although she'd
bought secondhand furniture and made slipcovers from material bought at Wal-Mart,
the dark blue and beige colors, the surplus of plants, the repainted and
refinished wood furniture beckoned to Clare at the end of her work day.

The
rancher had two bedrooms.  Shara's was at the end of the hall.  Her door was
open, and music—Clare used that term loosely—blasted from inside.

Clare
knew that for the rest of her life, as she pushed Shara's door open, the scene
in front of her would be indelibly printed on her brain.  Shara and Brad were
naked.  Her daughter's brown hair lay tousled across her pillow, while she
looked up at a boy that Clare believed she didn't really know, her hands
gripping his shoulders.

Rage
propelled Clare forward first.  She wanted to throw the kid off her daughter,
knee him where it would hurt most, and shake him until he understood that Shara
was too young to know what she was doing.

Reason
told Clare that confrontation in anger never turned out well.

But how
could she be reasonable when her daughter was having sex in front of her eyes?

Shaking,
holding onto her temper with both hands, biting back words before they could
spill out, she finally shouted, "Get off of her.  Now!"  Her voice
seemed to get lost in the song lyrics, so she yelled louder.  "Get off of
her before I call the police."

The two
kids on the bed froze.  Their heads swung toward her.

Then in
fast forward, Brad scrambled to the side of the bed.

Shara
squeaked, "Mom!  What are you doing home?" and pulled up the covers
while Clare went to the iPod dock and switched it off.

Her
insides churning, her head pounding although the music had stopped, she pointed
a finger at Brad.  "I could have you arrested for rape.  You're eighteen. 
She's sixteen.  Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"She
wanted it," he snapped defensively.

"Statutory
rape," Clare declared, her voice rising.  "My father's a lawyer.  Do
you think I don't know the law?"

Brad
slid off the bed and reached for his jeans that were heaped on the floor.  He
didn't seem at all embarrassed and that made Clare even angrier.  "This
isn't the first time," he declared to Clare, looking her straight in the
eye.  "And it's up to Shara whether it's going to be the last."

Clare
had felt powerless before.  Having a stranger sneak into her house and steal
her sister had taught her what violation felt like...what lack of control felt
like...what uncertainty felt like.  She'd tried so hard to make Shara feel
secure, safe and protected.  Staring at her daughter now, however, she knew
Shara didn't want to be protected by her.  And that hurt.

"Get
out.  I'll be calling your parents."

He
shrugged into his shirt.  "I only have a dad.  He lets me do what I want. 
What else can he do?  I'm over eighteen."  After he slipped on his boots,
he looked at Shara.  "My condolences, kid.  Call me when you get out of
jail."

When he
exited the room, the smell of testosterone was strong.  The silence that
permeated the bedroom held everything in the world that Clare had ever said to
Shara, everything in the future she might say.  She knew if she didn't do this
right she could lose her daughter.  She didn't want the degrees of separation
that she felt between her and her mother come between her and Shara, though she
was afraid they'd already started piling up.

While
she peered out the window and took a calming breath, she heard the vroom of Brad's
bike start up.  Why hadn't God sent a manual with every child born?

"So
I'm grounded, I guess?" Shara asked with a look that was a tad too
guileless, a tad too light.

"Will
grounding do any good, Shara?  Will handcuffing you to your desk, locking the
door, barring the windows teach you anything about what you should be doing as
a sixteen-year-old?"

"Mom..." 
Frustrated teenage impatience was evident in Shara's voice.

Well,
Clare was just as frustrated.  "You didn't just stay out past your
curfew.  You didn't just go to a movie that I thought you were too immature to
see.  You didn't just forget to hand in an assignment.  You were having
sex
—an
act that's supposed to happen between a man and a woman when they care about
each other, when they're committed to each other, when they love each other and
want to spend their life together."

"I
guess that's what you believed when you had sex before you had me?"

The
barb cut.  "I was stupid, Shara.  I was trying to get attention from a
boy.  And not just attention, but love, because I didn't feel my father loved
me.  Is that what you want to hear?  If I thought telling you all about my
mistakes would keep you from making them, I'd lay it all out.  But you don't
listen to me.  And if you do listen, you don't hear what I say."

Shara's
eyes had widened and she looked speechless for a moment.

Clare
waved at the kitchen door.  "That boy doesn't care about you.  Oh, he
might want to have sex with you again because it felt good.  But three minutes
after he's done, he couldn't care less about you."

"You're
wrong."

"No,
I'm not.  But as I said, you're not going to hear what I'm saying.  That's a
sign of you not being adult enough to do what you were just doing.  So, yes,
you're grounded, until I can figure out how to make you grow up a little bit. 
You belong in school, learning what you need to learn so you'll have a future. 
Do you want me to call the school every hour to check if you're still there? 
Do you want me to take you to school and pick you up?  Do you want me to come
and sit in your classes beside you to make sure you pay attention, you learn
and you study?  Push me any farther, Shara, and that's exactly what I'll
do."

Her
daughter looked horrified at the thought, and Clare felt elated that she'd
finally made a dent in her daughter's blasé attitude.

Shara
got out of bed, plucked her robe from the chair and slid it on.  "You can't
come sit beside me in school.  You have to work."

"If
I have to, I'll get my shift changed to evening.  And I'll find a babysitter
who can stay here with you to make sure you don't step out of this house."

With
that threat hanging between them, Clare crossed to Shara's door, stepped into
the hall and closed it behind her.

She was
shaking all over.

Still,
she went to the kitchen, pulled her address book from the drawer and found her
gynecologist's number.  She'd make an appointment for an examination for her
daughter.  Maybe the doctor could give her some guidance.

Along
with a prescription for birth control pills?

Clare
dialed the number, shut her eyes and wished she could talk to her mother about
this.  But she couldn't.

She'd
just have to talk to a stranger instead.

****

Amanda's
doorbell rang Monday evening.  She looked around the kitchen in the apartment
above her shop as if she were seeing it through someone else's eyes.  It was
ten p.m. and everything was out of the cupboards—all the spices, all the canned
goods, all the packages of pasta, all the bags of beans.

She'd
called Natalie and left a message.  She'd known her friend would be out with
the Red Hat Society tonight, but she'd had to talk to someone.  Natalie would
understand that when she heard the message.

Fully
expecting to see her old friend, she stared through the peephole onto the
stair's landing and almost jumped back.  Max's face stared at her.

She'd
actually thought about calling him yesterday and earlier tonight, but had
rejected the idea both times it had popped into her head.

When
she pulled open the door and he stepped inside, he didn't seem surprised by the
condition of her kitchen.  "I should have known you'd be reorganizing. 
You always do that when you're shook up."

"I'm
relining the shelves."

"You're
trying to take control of something you
can
control."

Max was
six-foot and mostly silver-haired now...but thickly silver-haired.  His
hairline hadn't receded one little bit.  His eyes were as dark brown as they'd
ever been.  Just looking at him—"

Just
looking at him brought back too many memories.  "Don't psychoanalyze me,
Max.  It won't do either of us any good."  Crossing to the counter, she
began to stack spices on the shelf she'd just lined.

"Have
you heard from Clare?" he asked her.

She
shook her head.  "Have you?"

"No."

"She'll
deal with this in her own way, just like she's dealt with everything
else."

Amanda
knew that wasn't right.  She knew the three of them should be handling this
together, should be holding onto each other, should be praying for the best. 
But when she and Max had fallen apart, Clare had been the casualty.  Neither of
them had realized it until she'd become an angry teenager—rebellious, defiant,
and intent on getting her way any way she could.

"An
FBI agent named Jacobs called me this morning.  He told me basically the same
thing Grove did.  He said he wants to keep me informed.  Did he call you?"

"Yes. 
This afternoon."

The
silence stretched way too long between them, creating the awkwardness that was
always there now.  Max was dressed in black sweats tonight and she wondered if
he'd been working out to control his stress level.

"Did
you work today?" she asked, just to make conversation.

He
raked his hand through his hair and unzipped his jacket, as if he intended to
stay.  "This morning.  But I spent most of this afternoon on the phone.  I
called contacts to see what more they could find out about Luther Brown."

That
would be just like Max, needing to be in the center of what was going on.

"I
couldn't get any more than what Grove and Jacobs told us.  If I thought driving
to Pittsburgh or flying to Texas would do us any good—"

"You've
got to let the authorities handle this."

"Like
they did before?  Maybe I could get those records unsealed faster. 
I'm
the expert in juvenile law."

"Maybe
Grove doesn't need an expert.  Maybe he just needs a little time."

"Time? 
We've waited twenty-seven years!"

Her
ex-husband's voice was sharp.  At one time his tone would have hurt her.  Now
it didn't.

They
stared at each other—long, hard moments as they remembered other words...other
times.

"I
shouldn't have come.  I thought it would do us both some good, but I was
wrong."  He strode to the door.

"Max."

With
his hand on the knob he turned to her.  "What?"

"Why
can't we just be people together?  Why can't we just be parents together?"

"Because
we still blame each other for losing Lynnie."

Before
she could say, "But I
don't
blame you anymore," he was gone. 
Just like that.

Arranging
the spices in alphabetical order just didn't have the allure it had fifteen
minutes before.

Trying
to ignore the mess, she went to the refrigerator, took out the carton of orange
juice, found a stray glass on the counter and poured.  Max had always stirred
up more emotion than she ever wanted to feel.

Crossing
to her living room, a feminine haven of cream roses, fern-green drapes, a pale
pink and white Aubusson rug, she headed straight for the mahogany end table and
opened the drawer.  She removed a round tin with the picture of a saddle on the
lid.  Opening it, she took a whiff of the candle inside.  Leather.  Actually,
it was more than the smell of leather.  Mingled with it was a scent like old
wood.

She'd
found the candle on a buying trip last winter.  It had been tucked into the
corner of a hutch in a little shop that had sold secondhand items.  As soon as
she'd uncapped it, the scent had taken her back to a time and place where
happiness was still a butterfly that could land on her shoulder.

Sinking
down onto the sofa she took another whiff, and there she was, eighteen, helping
her dad with the summer crop of tobacco.  She'd lived on a farm in Pine Hill
with her parents.  Her dad had raised tobacco for many years, along with corn
and hay.  He'd also raised turkeys, and every Christmas opened his fields for
anyone who needed a Christmas tree.  Farming had been tough even back then.

The
summer after her senior year in high school she'd been helping her mom make
sticky buns when Max had come into the kitchen with her father.  She'd
recognized him, of course.  They'd taken an advanced geometry class together. 
Physics, too.  There were lots of stories buzzing about Max, but she didn't
know which ones were true and which weren't.  She'd heard his mother had died
in childbirth.  She'd heard his mother had left when he was just a little boy. 
She'd heard his dad drank a lot and couldn't hold a job.  That day she hadn't
cared what she'd heard.