My Sister, Myself

“And the guy did?”

Tory nodded, turned to meet Phyllis’s incredulous eyes. “Christine went through the windshield,” Tory said, trying not to remember the one brief glimpse she’d had of her sister in the morgue. “Her face was barely recognizable, even to me. She’d just had her hair cut short like mine, said she was embarking on a new life and wanted a new look.”

Tory’s sigh was ragged. “Apparently when I first came to and they asked me if I knew who I was, I said Christine.” She looked at Phyllis again. “I can’t remember that at all, but knowing me, knowing how I get when I’m hurting, I would’ve been calling for Christine….”

Her sister had been her balm her entire life, as far back as Tory could remember. Which was pretty damn far. She’d been only three the first time her stepfather had thrown her against a wall. She could still remember the stars she’d seen. The confusion that had kept her immobile long enough for him to do it again.

“This is incredible,” Phyllis said. She took hold of Tory’s shoulders, turning Tory to face her.

“They think you’re dead, that you’ve been cremated.”

Tory nodded wearily, her eyes overflowing with tears. “The death certificate I have is my own.”

CHAPTER TWO

BEN LASTED until midway through Saturday morning. His ground-floor apartment was clean and quiet and comfortably furnished, but now he was at loose ends, and it was only ten o’clock. That was how long it had taken him to get his few pots and pans and dishes and glasses moved in and put away in the appropriate cupboards. And get his computer set up. He’d have done better if he hadn’t already put his clothes away and hooked up his stereo the night before.

He’d called Alex last night, too, thankful that she’d answered on his first try. The week before, he’d had to claim a wrong number three times before his daughter had been the one to answer his call. His daughter—not his daughter but the little girl he’d raised and loved as his own. Now that he had a number of his own, the subterfuge wouldn’t be necessary. He’d had Alex write down the number, complete with step-by-step instructions on how to call collect, and then made her repeat everything back to him several times. He’d given her his address, too, but didn’t expect her to be able to use it. At seven, Alex was bright enough to write him a letter and address the envelope, but she’d have to go to her mother for a stamp, and Mary would certainly deny the request. Ben wasn’t Alex’s real father—her birth father—though Mary had neglected to tell him so until recently. Now she wanted Ben out of their lives. Out of Alex’s life.

Damn her for putting Alex and him in this situation. Besides, the courts had said he and Alex should remain in contact, despite the fact that he was divorced from her mother and had no biological claim on her.

He headed out and spent an hour and a half at the local grocery store, stocking up not only on food but on every single household item he thought he might need at some point in his life.

Cleansers, a mop and bucket, sponges, a couple kinds of dishwashing cloths, several kitchen-towel sets, shoe inserts, extra laces and polish, bandages and antiseptic. Aspirin, cold tablets, cough syrup, paper towels. Toilet paper, tissues and a sewing kit, too.

Anything and everything that seemed to belong in a home, he bought.

The girl at the checkout made eyes at him as he went through.

“You new in town?” she asked with an appreciative smile.

“I am.” Ben glanced around for the name of the store, scribbling it on a check.

“Looks like you’re planning to be here a while.”

“Yes.” He signed the bottom of the check and waited for the total.

After a few more failed attempts to snare his attention, she finished ringing him up.

He was glad to collect his bags and be gone. The girl had been cute. Friendly. Twenty or twenty-one. If he’d met her in another life, he might even have smiled back at her.

But not in this life. At least not until he had his college degree and a career that satisfied him. He’d wasted eight years already. There were no more to waste.

After a brief detour to visit his great-grandfather, Ben was home again, slowly and methodically unloading his purchases. The first-aid stuff had to go in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Everyone knew that. And the kitchen towels in a drawer by the sink. One he draped over the oven door handle. He’d seen that on television once.

Down to just the sewing kit, he wasn’t sure where to put it. He finally settled on a drawer in the bathroom. Chances were, if he ever needed it, it would be when he was getting dressed and pulled off a button. Wouldn’t be much call for it otherwise. Sewing on buttons was about the only thing Ben could do with a needle and thread.

Not even noon yet, and he had a day and a half to kill before school started. Ben rearranged some things in the kitchen—and then moved them back to their original places, deciding he’d made the best choice the first time around.

George Winston’s Autumn piano music drifted through the apartment, but as he made one more trek from room to room to make sure there wasn’t anything more he could do, Ben felt the quiet—the absence of life—a weight pressing down on him.

He was used to noise—childish laughter and shrieks, blocks tumbling, play dishes being washed. And a woman’s whines trailing behind him with every step he took.

Ben got his keys again, and went back out to his truck. He had a home now. His own home. One where he’d be spending the next few years. Where he could call the shots.

It was time to get a dog.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL the authorities they’d made a mistake? That Christine was the one who died in the accident?” Phyllis asked Tory later that morning.

She’d had a phone call earlier, and then Tory had asked if she could shower off the grime of the drive. She’d been too exhausted, mentally and physically, to do so the night before. When she’d come out of the shower, Phyllis had placed Tory’s suitcases on her bed and was standing by with an empty hanger, ready to help her unpack.

Now they were sitting at Phyllis’s kitchen table, the remains of a late breakfast neither of them had really wanted, or eaten much of, in front of them.

Why hadn’t she told the authorities? Tory had known the question was coming.

“I started to,” she said, sweating in spite of the air-conditioned kitchen. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, regardless of Phyllis’s warning about the Arizona heat, but it wasn’t the clothes that were making her uncomfortable. It was the task ahead of her.

She was about to find out just how insane she was. And what little chance her half-born hope of freedom really had.

“I fully intended to tell them, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. At first, everyone just figured I was too distraught to speak. Whenever I tried to tell them the truth, they’d tell me to get some rest, or they’d pat my arm and say they understood.”

Phyllis’s hand covered Tory’s. Tory gently pulled her hand away.

“Then it hit me,” Tory said, her gaze pleading as it met Phyllis’s. “As soon as I told them and word got out, Bruce would be right back on my tail. I only wanted a couple of days to rest, to think, to plan. So I let them think I was Christine. But as one day turned into the next, I couldn’t make myself become Tory again and…and take on all that fear.”

“I don’t know how you lived with it as long as you did.”

Tory smiled bitterly. “What other choice did I have?”

Phyllis moved the salt and pepper shakers. “So what are you thinking now?”

“That as long as I’m Christine, I’m safe.”

“Christine has a job to do starting Monday.”

“I know,” Tory said, her throat dry.

“Christine said you never finished college.”

“I never even went to college. Bruce didn’t want me on campus with all the college boys.”

Both women were silent, the words they weren’t speaking hanging in the air. How could Tory possibly be Christine? Christine was a college professor.

“You could always quit the job.”

“And go where? Do what? My résumé says I’m a professor.”

Every possibility had already occurred to Tory. She knew there was no way this could work. No way she could convince herself this was even a little bit right. She was just too weak to face the alternative.