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.
“Bruce will probably keep tabs on Christine for a little while. If she’s alive, she has to be teaching college. Anything else will make him suspicious.”
“The bastard should be in prison.”
Tory couldn’t travel that road. If she did, her bitterness would destroy her.
“I have two choices,” she said, pushing congealed eggs around on her plate. “Either I come clean and spend the rest of my life trying to hide from Bruce and wearing his bruises every time I fail, or I show up at Montford University on Monday morning and teach English.”
She used to believe there was a difference between right and wrong. That for every situation there was a correct choice, the right choice. She’d even vowed, when her married life had first become a living hell, worse than the life she’d had growing up, to always make that right choice. She’d believed it would eventually deliver her from cruelty, from pain.
She didn’t believe that anymore.
“The boxes Christine shipped are in the closet in the spare bedroom,” Phyllis said. “I’m using it as an office.”
Tory watched the other woman scrape their uneaten food into the garbage, and then stack the two plates.
“Her lessons plans are in there,” Phyllis continued, speaking unemotionally, as though they were discussing nothing more serious than what movie they were going to see. “They’ll be clear, concise and very detailed. You’ve got thirty-six hours before school starts.”
Heart pounding, Tory said, “You don’t think I should even consider trying this, do you.”
Phyllis looked Tory straight in the eye, her expression grave. “I don’t see that you have any other choice.”
Tory held Phyllis’s gaze for as long as she could stand it, then dropped her eyes.
“What would Christine think?” she whispered, the guilt rising up to choke her. She should be dead, not Christine. She’d have gladly given her life if it meant saving Christine’s.
“She’s watching over you, Tory. Can’t you feel her?” Phyllis lowered her voice to a rough whisper, but the sharp conviction behind her words was unmistakable.
Tears in her eyes, Tory shook her head. She wanted so badly to believe that Christine was still with her. She could hardly even breathe when she thought about facing the rest of her life without her sister. But she couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. Did Christine really want her to do this? Or was Tory’s mind, influenced by her cowardice, playing some sick game with her?
“Christine told me once, not too long ago, that you were her only reason for living,” Phyllis said.
“You were the only good thing in or about her life.”
“She told me that, too, but she was just being kind. It didn’t really mean anything. How could it? She was an incredible woman, had the whole world at her feet.”
“She didn’t think so.”
The sincerity in Phyllis’s voice grabbed Tory, holding her until she had to admit that Phyllis might know more about her sister’s mental state in the past few years than she did herself.
“She would insist that you do this, Tory,” Phyllis said firmly. “And she’d want me to help you in any way I can.”
“WILL—DR. PARSONS—only met Christine once. Months ago. She’s had her hair cut since then. Lost some weight…”
The two women were in the bedroom Phyllis had turned into an office, sitting on the floor and surrounded by opened packing boxes. They’d been at it most of the day, Phyllis administering the fastest teacher-education course in history.
“Our eyes are what people notice most about us,” Tory said, trying, for Phyllis’s sake if nothing else, to get into the spirit of the plan.
“They’re
