Tracie Peterson (31 page)

Harry picked up the telephone and dialed Sarah’s number. Mattie was right. He’d let this whole thing go on for far too long. Sarah deserved the truth, and Harry needed to be free from guilt—guilt of keeping Sarah hanging on when he knew he didn’t love her, and guilt of caring for another woman and allowing her to consume his thoughts when he was engaged to Sarah.

“Sarah, it’s Harry,” he said when she answered the phone.

“I need to come over for a few minutes.” Pause. “Yeah, I know it’s getting late, but it’s important that we talk now.”

Chapter 27

“Are you sure you want to stay?” Brook asked Ashley.

“I can’t go back to Denver. Not knowing that Jack is lying to me. Not remembering what really happened. Jack’s already packed the boys off to church camp, and there’s no reason for me to be there.”

“No reason but your marriage,” Brook replied.

Ashley hugged her arms, stroking her pink cashmere sweater. “I just can’t go back yet.”

Brook studied her for a moment, then nodded. At least Ashley was talking openly, which was more than she’d done in the beginning of their stay. Brook could honestly say that Ashley looked better physically during the week they’d spent together, and that she even sounded better mentally and emotionally. But there was still a hardness to her that frightened Brook.

“What about groceries and anything else you need? You won’t even have a car here,” Brook commented.

“The neighbors are good friends. They’ll pitch in if I need something. Besides, once Jack knows I’m not coming back for a while, he’ll no doubt hightail it up here. I’ll decide then what I need. Who knows? Maybe I’ll buy a new car since the other one was totaled.”

Brook shook her head. “I still feel bad about just leaving you here.”

“And I feel bad because we’ve hardly had time to discuss your problems,” Ashley said, surprising Brook. “Why don’t we talk about you while we still have a chance? You won’t have to leave for the airport for at least another hour.”

Brook smiled. “I came here to help you.”

“I seem to remember you saying something about needing this trip to sort your own thoughts out. Were you able to?”

Brook walked to the window and looked out on the grandeur. For the first time she realized it was going to be very hard to leave it all behind. “I don’t know if I sorted them out or if I just stacked them on a back burner. I’ve enjoyed the break, that’s for sure.”

“That’s not a real answer,” Ashley replied.

Brook turned and watched as Ashley made her way to the bed. Sitting down rather stiffly, Ashley folded her hands together. It was easy to recognize her sister’s determination. “I don’t suppose,” Brook said lightly, “that you’d like to just let this drop?”

“Not a chance. I know I’ve been wrapped up inside myself. I know that I’ll go back to being consumed with grief and misery and the struggle to regain my memory, but right now I want to help you.”

Brook smiled. “I wish you could. But the one thing I need, you can’t give.”

“And what’s that?”

“Time.”

Ashley nodded. “You’re right. I can’t give you that.”

“It’s just not fair,” Brook said, allowing herself to give in to Ashley’s questioning. Maybe it would actually be good for Ashley to have something else to focus on for a while. Even for a short time.

She sat down in the window seat. “I have some very real choices to make, and it won’t be much longer before I’ll have to deal with them head on. Maybe even as early as my return to New York. My manager was furious with me for coming out here. I canceled on a big modeling assignment and she went ballistic.”

“You did that for me?”

Brook heard the guilty tone in Ashley’s voice. “I did it for both of us. I needed this and the thought of going back is probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to face since your accident. I don’t want to go back.”

“Then don’t,” Ashley said as though it were that simple.

Brook smiled. “You make it sound easy.”

“Well, I guess I just don’t see that it should be that hard.” Ashley met her twin’s gaze without so much as blinking. “The accident taught me that we have precious little time on this earth. What if you go back to New York and you’re miserable and then someone comes along and kills you next week or you find out you’re dying of some horrible disease? There you’d be. You would have wasted all this time doing something you hate.”

Brook knew she was right. “But I don’t know what else to do. I have no real skills—no one would hire me.”

“So hire yourself,” Ashley replied. “You’ve surely put aside a good nest egg. Buy yourself a business—something you like.”

“A business?” Brook questioned. She’d never given any serious thought to such an idea. “What kind of business?”

Ashley shrugged. “What kind of business would make you happy? A restaurant? A florist shop? A clothing store? Just give it some thought.”

“But even if I had something like that in mind,” Brook replied, feeling a bit of excitement, “where would I do this? I can’t stand New York.”

“So come here or go back to Council Grove or Kansas City. The sky’s the limit. Nobody says you have to settle in any particular place. Think of some place where you were truly happy and go there.”

“I was happy on the farm with Grammy,” Brook replied. “But I suppose thirty-year-olds aren’t supposed to run away
to
home.”

“Why not? If that makes you happy, I know Grammy would take you back in a heartbeat. Maybe you and Harry could fall in love.”

Brook laughed and shook her head. “Harry and I would end up in abject despair. We are about as unsuited to each other as you two were. I see Harry as a big-brother type—nothing else.”

“You see every man that way.”

“That’s not true,” Brook replied. “I see every man as a threat.”

Ashley smiled ever so slightly. It did Brook good to see this, even if the smile was in regard to something she’d said. “You don’t believe
me?” Brook questioned.

“Oh, I believe you,” Ashley replied. “I just think we’re finally getting to the bigger problem. You’re lonely. You have no one to care for you. No one to know if you’re late coming home. No one to meet you at the end of the day.”

Brook felt her stomach tighten. She hadn’t thrown up since she’d left New York, and she’d vowed she wasn’t about to give in to those feelings of panic and anxiety. But Ashley’s words had hit the nail squarely on the head.

“I
am
lonely. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed our time together simply from a selfish need for companionship.”

Ashley nodded. “I know. I probably would never have agreed to come otherwise.”

“Why do you say that?” Brook questioned.

“When you showed up on my doorstep with the idea of this ludicrous scheme to come to Estes, I know I dug my heels in and refused to come at first. But I could see in your eyes your confusion and pain, and I knew I couldn’t allow you to return to New York without somehow first dealing with your problems. The only trouble was, I didn’t expect the revelation of finding out that Jack is lying to me about the accident. I’m afraid that consumed more of my time than I had intended.”

“I’m so sorry this has happened to you.”

“Don’t be,” Ashley replied. “It’ll all come together in due time. But I’m begging you for a promise. No, two promises.”

Brook felt her mouth go dry. “Promises?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of promises?”

“You know, the kind where I ask you to do something and you agree to do it.”

Brook laughed nervously. “Are you playing on my sympathy? Do you think just because I nearly lost you that I’ll be so grateful to have you safe and alive that I’ll just up and agree to any old thing?”

Ashley smiled again and looked down at her hands. “Maybe I am
being pushy in this instance, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel it was important.”

Brook realized there would be no getting out of at least hearing Ashley’s request. “Okay, so what are the promises you want me to make?”

“First of all, and we discussed this long ago at Grammy’s, I want your word that the next time someone nice comes into your life, you’ll give him a chance. Of course, I don’t mean that you have to date someone you’re genuinely turned off by, but neither do I want to hear about how you went running in the opposite direction when a stranger smiled at you from across the room.”

“You don’t ask for much,” Brook replied softly. There were tears in her eyes, and it was hard to see her twin through the blur.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.”

“I know. I just don’t know if I can do what you ask. I’m afraid.”

“I know you are,” Ashley said, getting up and going to sit beside Brook. “I am too. But that leads me to the second promise. I want you to promise me that you’ll be accountable to me in regard to your feelings. That you’ll let me help you deal with the loneliness and the fear you have stashed up inside. In turn, I promise to make myself accountable to you. To allow you to help me deal with this painful journey of regaining my memory, and of letting go of that which I cannot change.”

“You’d do that?” Brook asked, barely able to speak.

“Haven’t we always done that in the past?” Ashley questioned. “We’re two sides of the same coin. Both of us driven by so many of the same things. Rachelle influenced us more than we ever wanted to admit, but now that she’s gone and now that I know how quickly life is stolen from us, I can let that part of my life go. At least I think I can. Maybe I’m just fooling myself, but I’d like to try.”

Brook nodded. “Me too.”

“So will you promise?”

Brook wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ll try.” She reached over to embrace Ashley. “I’ll try my hardest.”

Ashley held on tightly to Brook. “You’ll always have a place wherever I am. Don’t forget that. No matter what happens in New York—you’re always welcome to stay with me.”

“I appreciate that,” Brook said, pulling back, “but I have to get my act together. Thirty seems a very appropriate age to stop blaming my miseries on my parents and to move ahead with a more meaningful life. My spirit is sorely empty, and Grammy would say I need to feed on the Word.”

Ashley smiled. “Yes, she would. Maybe that’s the only kind of food that will really help us now.”

Mattie looked at the five brown paper parcels on the table. Inside each one was the individual quilted wall hanging from her and a letter from Rachelle. On the outside, each was addressed to one of her granddaughters.

She would mail them today. Five separate pieces going to five separate addresses. She had decided against putting any note inside with the hangings. She didn’t feel the need to explain herself. Would they understand? Would they know what it meant—what she was trying to say to them?

She looked upward. “It’s in your hands,” she whispered. “There’s nothing more I can do but pray that they will listen to the message in these pieces—better still, that they will listen to you, Lord. It’s going to take a miracle—maybe five of them—to pull this family back together, Father, but that’s the business you’re in. I trust it’s not too late.”

Gathering up the packages, Mattie headed out of the house and climbed into the minivan. God was never too late nor too early, her mother used to say. And in all of her years of life, Mattie knew it to be true. Sometimes it seemed like God had forgotten or that He had let things go wrong for too long, but it always came together in perfect order, and Mattie was left to witness how the pieces fit back together like a jigsaw puzzle or a perfectly ordered quilt.

If anyone was in the business of mending broken hearts—hearts hanging by nothing more than a thread, it would be the loving Father who had created them.
Now
, Mattie thought with a smile,
if only I can remember to keep my hands off long enough to let God work it out
.

Chapter 28

Brook went home to a cold, empty apartment. The only living thing, a potted plant that she’d been given by her next-door neighbor, had wilted in her absence. It wasn’t the first time she’d neglected the poor thing. Pushing her suitcases to one side, Brook juggled the armload of mail she’d picked up from the apartment superintendent. There wasn’t too much to worry about. Some pieces of junk mail, a few bills, and a rather bulky package from Grammy.