“We’ll be praying,” Ted whispered into her ear. “You go rest.”
Sarah nodded and slowly walked down the hallway, her aunt’s arm around her, holding her up.
“Janie said you were staying with her. Shall I take you there?”
Sarah shook her head. Right now, she just wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Alone with her regrets.
“I’ll call her and tell her to meet us at the house with your car. I presume it’s still at the coffee shop?”
“My keys. I have my keys.”
Dot motioned to her husband, took the keys from Sarah and instructed him to bring them to Janie so she could take Sarah’s car back to Frank’s place.
An hour and fifteen minutes later, she and her aunt pulled up in front of her father’s house and beside her cousin’s car. Her car was parked there, showing that Janie had already arrived. A light from the living room glowed, sending a falsely comforting image of a family at home, doing family things.
Janie came to the door and, as Sarah came in, her cousin reached out to take her coat. “I brought your suitcases. They’re up in your old room.”
Sarah thought of the airline tickets on her phone. Her entire itinerary blocked out.
Thought of her father’s prognosis.
Three months.
Tomorrow, she thought, repressing a shiver. Time enough to deal with that tomorrow.
“It might take a few minutes for the house to warm up. Your dad keeps the thermostat turned way low,” Janie continued.
“I’ll wait outside, Janie,” Aunt Dot said. “I’ll be back tomorrow if you want, Sarah. Tilly said she would be willing to drive too. Just say the word.”
“Thanks, Aunt Dot. Thanks for everything you did today.”
Dot just smiled at her. “That’s what family is for.” Then she leaned over and dropped a light kiss on Sarah’s head. “It’s good to have you here, again, Kitten.” And then she left.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Janie asked as the door closed behind their aunt. “Do you want me to stay with you?”
“Thanks for the offer. I really need some alone time.”
“Don’t blame you. Your wish to get eased into family life didn’t exactly happen, did it?” Janie stroked Sarah’s hair back from her face in a motherly gesture. “Do you want me to take you to the hospital tomorrow?”
Sarah just shook her head, stifling a yawn. “I’ll drive myself.”
“I’m sure Mom and Dad and Uncle Morris and Aunty Dot are going.”
And Sarah was sure she didn’t want to depend on someone else’s schedule. “I like to have my own transportation.”
“I hear you,” Janie said. “I hope you can sleep.”
“Thanks.” Sarah followed Janie out the door and stood on the step, waving as Aunt Dot and Janie drove down the driveway, then closed the door on the outside world.
Silence, heavy and dark, fell on her.
As Sarah dragged her feet up the stairs, exhaustion fuzzed her mind and blurred her eyes. Driving overnight to get here had been a very bad idea to start with. Had Sarah known what lay ahead, she would have taken more time. Started earlier. Had Sarah known what would happen, she would have gotten up off the chair at Janie’s coffee shop and gone outside to talk to her father.
Unfortunately, no one knew what the repercussions of their decisions would be. Not until events played out.
Just as they had those many years ago.
Sarah’s steps slowed as she came to the door to her sister’s bedroom. A door that had stayed closed and locked for the last few months she had lived here.
On impulse, Sarah grabbed the cold metal handle but froze as she saw, etched into the frame, lines marking out Marilee’s height, her age and the year behind each one. The last one was dated eight years ago. Four days before the accident. Four days before Sarah found out that her sister had sneaked out to meet the boy Sarah had just broken up with.
Logan Carleton.
Sarah swallowed down the unexpected pain.
The wrong daughter had died…
Sarah twisted the knob. To her surprise, it wasn’t locked. Slowly she nudged the door open. The light of the hallway fell into the room and Sarah’s heart leaped into her throat.
It was as if she had stepped back in time.
Marilee’s favorite pink shirt was draped over the back of the chair, her blue jeans bunched up in a crumpled heap on the floor. A schoolbook lay open on the desk, a notebook beside it, Marilee’s scrawling handwriting was visible even from where Sarah stood just inside the room. A closed laptop beside that.
Gooseflesh rippled down Sarah’s arms as she looked from the bed to the desk to the assorted clothes scattered on the floor. She half expected her sister to stick her head out of the closet and bark at her for not knocking.
Sarah rubbed her arms again, an old, familiar sorrow pressing down on her chest, and, following that, guilt. If only…
Sarah pushed the thought aside and in a fit of anger at the resurrected feelings, snatched her sister’s shirt from the back of the chair. She didn’t know her father had done this. When they came home after the funeral, he had locked himself away in his study downstairs. Sarah couldn’t go into the room and her father had told her that one of his sisters would take care of cleaning it out. She was fine with that. She couldn’t face dealing with her sister’s stuff.
Obviously, no one had ever been here.
This felt wrong, twisted, to not have her sister’s things attended to.
But as she folded the shirt and hung it back over the chair, a puff of dust and the faintest hint of Marilee’s perfume were released and her heart stuttered. Sarah clutched the shirt and allowed, just for a moment, the scent to surround her, eking out memories of her older sister.
Marilee helping Sarah with her hair as she got ready for a date. Marilee screaming with abandon from the stands whenever Sarah played. Marilee bouncing down the hallway of the school, admiring people trailing in her wake. Marilee—sunshine and laughter and open, unabashed rebellion. Her father’s favorite.
For years, Sarah had tried to emulate her bubbly, fun-loving sister, but she could never come close to bringing a smile to her father’s face the way Marilee could. Sarah could never catch her father’s attention the way Marilee had so effortlessly.
As they grew, Sarah tried to find her own place in Millars Crossing, in the family. She thought she had when she started playing basketball, but her father was always more interested in Marilee’s dance recitals.
The favoritism wasn’t lost on the family and often her uncles and aunts would try to compensate by showing up at her games en masse, cheering her on.
Frank Westerveld had come to some of her games but she could tell he wasn’t really that interested.
Sarah closed the door on her sister’s room and strode down the hall, past the door to her father’s room to her own bedroom. As she opened the door, nostalgia assailed her.
The same posters hung on the wall. The same flowered bedspread still covered the bed. But, while Marilee’s had the curious stopped-in-time feeling, Sarah’s had the tidy order of an occupant that had moved on.
And as Sarah dropped her suitcase on the floor, it was as if she had stepped back in time again.
Once again she was a young girl, waiting to hear if Marilee was going to sneak home in time or if her father would catch her this time.