still so young, but she and Christine had. With the lives they’d lived, the home they’d grown up in, death had been a constant possibility.
“You can’t do that without a death certificate.”
“I had one,” Tory admitted, biting her lip. “Just not Christine’s.” Her head hurt and her face was numb as she silently spun in the unending loop of terror inside her mind.
“Christine and I look so much alike….”
Chin resting on her knees, Tory studied the bed through blurry eyes. Tears dripped off her face, rolling slowly down the sides of her knees, but her voice was almost steady as she related what she’d been told so compassionately by the clergywoman who’d visited her in the hospital.
Tory’s bed sank on one side with Phyllis’s weight. She tried to concentrate on the comfort of the other woman’s hands rubbing slowly back and forth along her back.
“My driver’s license was brand-new. Christine’s was six years old….”
The hand on her back slowed, stopped moving, hung there suspended.
“We were both pretty messed up in the crash….”
“Tory—”
“She’d gotten cold, my monogrammed sweater was the only thing within reach for her to put on without stopping and—”
“Oh, my God.”
“When word got out that the woman who died in the crash was presumed to be Tory Evans, Bruce, who was apparently beside himself, sent one of the family staff to identify me. Her.”
“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
