Return to Emmett's Mill

Her coworkers knew she treasured her private time, and since she’d never established herself as the social type, they left her to it.

She drew a deep breath against the sudden tightness in her chest and looked down at the few items she’d managed to grab and groaned. The list was a page long. How much food could one old man eat? She had a sneaking suspicion Natalie had loaded the list in the hopes that she’d run into a friend or two. She sighed. Her sister wasn’t as sly as she thought. Tasha’s problem wasn’t Emmett’s Mill or the people; it was the memory. She’d seen countless counselors, psychiatrists and even a shaman or two in the hopes of dealing with that one incident, but her own brand of therapy prescribed avoidance. And it worked. She didn’t see the point of messing with a method that wasn’t broken.

Almost finished and grumbling under her breath about retribution, she rounded the corner and almost swallowed her tongue when she came face-to-face with someone she’d hoped to never see again.

Diane Lewis, Bronson’s wife, stood not more than four feet in front of her, an uncomfortable expression on her pinched face. For a paralyzing moment, Tasha thought Diane knew what had happened, but when she calmed, she realized Bronson would never have admitted his guilt. Still, Diane’s reaction to her wasn’t kind, which made her wonder what story Bronson had given for her sudden departure.

“Hello, Diane,” she ventured, offering a smile.

“Natasha.” Diane returned with her given name instead of the shortened version everyone else used. “You look well.”

“Thank you.” She struggled to find neutral ground but her insides were trembling. A condolence was in order for Bronson’s death but she couldn’t find the words. When Natalie wrote to tell her, Tasha had read the letter multiple times and crumpled it to her chest as she allowed grim satisfaction to roll through her. It wasn’t right, certainly wasn’t Christian-like, but she hoped he rotted in hell. And it wasn’t something she could tell his wife. Diane solved the dilemma by speaking again first.

“I heard about your mother. Give Gerald my best.”

Tasha nodded, and Diane, stiff-backed and elegantly coiffed, kept moving. It was several moments before Tasha could breathe without great effort. Wiping at her eyes, she glanced quickly to see if anyone had caught the uncomfortable exchange. Once satisfied she’d suffered alone, she hastened for the checkout lane.

TASHA RETURNED TO HER dad’s place and heard her sisters’ voices, one raised and one exasperated.

“What’s going on?” she asked, and placed the groceries on the kitchen counter. Nora immediately crossed her arms and sent a stony look her way, while Natalie simply exhaled, the breath lifting her bangs as frustration laced her features. “What now?” She followed her sister’s gaze outside. Their father was on the porch swing without benefit of a jacket or sweater and the wind was kicking up. “What’s he doing? It’s freezing. Someone needs to get him to come inside.”

“What a novel idea. Why didn’t we think of that?” Nora quipped sarcastically, continuing with a snort. “Like we haven’t already tried. He won’t budge. It’s like he’s gone crazy or something.”

“Cut him some slack. He just lost his wife,” Tasha reminded her sister sharply, and moved past them. What was Nora’s problem? Everyone in the family was hurting. Was it asking too much for her to be a little more sensitive? Bracing herself against the cold, she stalked out the side door to the porch swing, still annoyed at Nora for her callousness but not quite sure what to say to her father. They’d pretty much avoided each other since she returned, and while it hurt to be treated like the plague, she didn’t have the courage to push it.

As she came closer she saw his eyes were bloodshot and softly swollen from tears, and her heart stuttered. She slowed her step and gingerly sat beside him.

“Dad?” She tried to discern what he was looking at, but she saw nothing except pine trees and bracken. She turned to him. “What’s going on? You need to come inside. It’s too cold.”

His bottom lip, blue from the frigid mountain air, trembled as if he were about to answer, but nothing came out. Instead, he lifted his chin just a bit higher as he focused on a point just beyond the pines.

She tried again, ignoring the goose bumps rioting across any exposed skin and the rush of memories that threatened to rob her of her ability to speak coherently. Once, this man had been her hero. Until the day he failed her when she needed him the most. Notthe time. Focus on the now before the man froze to death. “Dad, please come inside. Natalie’s made your favorite for dinner. Meat loaf, I think.”

“Not hungry,” he retorted hoarsely.

Stubborn man. “What are you doing? Trying to die of exposure? Don’t be like this. Mom’s gone. We don’t need to lose our father in the same week because he was too foolish to come in before a storm.”

“Don’t talk to me about losing your mom,” he said, startling her with his sharp, angry rasp. His mouth tightened and his hand trembled as he lifted it to wipe away a sudden glint in his eye. “You weren’t here when she needed you. You don’t know what she went through.”

Stricken by the vehemence in her father’s voice, she tripped on her own words as she tried to defend herself. “Dad, I—”

“Bah!” he spat. “Go save a goddamned tree. It’s all you seem to care about.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” she gasped. “Why would you say that? I came home as soon as I found out.”

“She was already dead!”

Tasha sucked in a sharp breath and tears sprang to her eyes. Once again her own father was against her. How could he possibly believe she wouldn’t have been here if she’d known sooner? “I came as soon as I could,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice level when she wanted to scream.

“She cried your name over and over, wanting to know why you weren’t here.” He buried his head in his hands, raking his fingers through the wild knot of white hair on his head, his breath catching as he continued. “And there was nothing I could do. Nothing! Natalie called and left messages with your supervisor. She wrote letters… Why would you hurt your mother like that? She needed you so much,” he ended with a bereaved moan, his shoulders shaking silently as he cried into his hands.

She’d never received any messages. A million different things could’ve happened to them, none of which were anyone’s fault specifically, but the communication gaps were wider in underdeveloped countries. She squeezed her eyes shut and hated her sisters for sending her outside to be crucified. But she couldn’t argue the facts. Tasha hadn’t been here when her family needed her the most. She risked rejection and gently placed her hand on her father’s shoulder. “I’m sorry it wasn’t good enough. Sorrier than anyone will ever know,” she added in a whisper. “I can’t take it back. I’d do anything if I could. Deep down somewhere, you have to believe that, Dad. I loved her, too.”

His throat worked convulsively as he raised his head, searching for the truth in her eyes. Pleasebelieve…

After a long moment he nodded and tears of relief sprang to her eyes, but she choked them back for her father’s sake. He was drowning in a sea of his own heartache, and she wouldn’t do anything to further drag him under, but she yearned to hear something else from him—something she was not likely to get.

“Oh, Tasha… My Missy…she died in so much pain.” He looked away, but not before she caught the open anguish in his heart. Fresh guilt washed over her. She tried to speak, to offer something to ease the burden he carried, but nothing short of a watery croak came out. Say something, her brain urged, but she didn’t know what to say. She knew nothing would ease his sense of loss, because she knew nothing anyone could say to her would mend the jagged hole in her heart. So it was better to just sit there andfreeze your ass off? “Dad, please come in out of the cold. Everyone is worried you’re going to catch pneumonia out here. Please.”

A long moment passed before her words reached that closed-off space blocked by his grief, then he turned slowly, a measure of his old personality asserting itself in his gruff voice. “You go on. I’ll come in when I’m ready,” he said, dismissing her.

She blew a hard breath in mild frustration. “Dad, Nat and Nora sent me out here to bring you in. If I go back in there without you, either they’ll just send me out again or Nat will send Nora, and trust me when I say that girl is not big on saying things nice. She’s likely to have you declared mentally unfit and put in one of those old-folk homes where they feed you nothing but Jell-O and Ritz crackers. You don’t want that, do you?”

A part of her was joking, but another part had to admit that sometimes Nora was unpredictable. She wouldn’t put it past her sister to do something so rash, if only to make a point.

Her father’s chuckle sounded dry and rusty but she welcomed the sound. He rose on stiff limbs from the old porch. “That girl has balls the size of Texas sometimes,” he said.

“She reminds me of someone else I know,” she retorted under her breath, fatigue suddenly pulling at her eyes and forcing a yawn despite the chatter of her teeth. She followed her father into the house, glad to be out of the cold and to have accomplished her objective.

The minute they came inside, Natalie fussed around their father, trying to put a shawl across his shoulders until he waved her away and announced he was going to bed, leaving Nora to stare after him in hard-edged annoyance and Natalie to groan over all the food she’d just prepared.

“Tasha, can’t you talk to him? He needs to eat,” Natalie implored, ignoring Nora’s muttered comments even as she looked in the direction their father had disappeared. “I’m worried about him. He hasn’t eaten a good meal in days.”

She sighed wearily and grabbed her coat. “Nat, I think he needs a little space. He’s dealing with a lot right now. It’s not every day your life is destroyed, you know. You can’t expect a raging appetite when everything you’ve ever known is gone.”

“I understand how he feels…” Somehow, Tasha doubted that, but there was no point in arguing and even if there was, she didn’t have the energy. Natalie ignored Tasha’s sigh and continued, “But even so, he needs to eat.”

“He’ll eat when he’s hungry. Just wrap everything up and leave it in the fridge,” she suggested, sliding her arm into her coat, eager to seek the solitude of her hotel room.

Nora came into the room and eyed Tasha’s state of dress with a gathering frown. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my hotel,” she answered.

“I don’t think so. We have details to discuss.”

Natalie stepped forward but Nora ignored her, her voice rising as she crossed her arms across her chest. “You’re not running out on us again when we need you the most.”

“I’m not running out on you,” she returned brusquely, rubbing at her eyes with the flat of her palm. “I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”

“We’re all tired, Tasha. But we need to talk about a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Like who’s going to go through Mom’s things, who’s going to help Dad with the day-today stuff, you know, things like that.” Foreboding tingled at the edge of her thoughts as she waited for her sister to get to the point. “And—” she lifted her chin, as if knowing what she was about to say was going to go over like something icky in a punch bowl “—we need to decide how to split up the shifts.”

“Shifts? What are you talking about?”

Natalie jumped in even as she shot Nora a look that said she wasn’t happy with her delivery, clarifying, “Tasha, what Nora is trying to tell you is we need you home for a while—”