He’d built up a deep resentment of his father for not putting an end to the petty meanness. To this day, they weren’t speaking.
Fortunately, Elizabeth had slowly gained the strength she’d needed to stand up to their stepmother. When she was seventeen, she’d run away herself and refused to go back. She’d graduated from high school while living with a girlfriend and spending most weekends sleeping on the floor of Isaac’s dorm room. Once he’d obtained his degree, he’d tried to help her get through college, but she’d left school to become a stewardess, which she seemed to really enjoy. That was when she met Keith. They’d married, had two children, and Liz had been happier than Isaac had ever seen her.
Which was all about to change.
Isaac shifted to his back and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Who was the poor schmuck Keith’s new lover was cheating on? Did he have any idea what his wife was doing?
Sleep, he ordered himself and tried to stop thinking. But it was no use.
Finally he snatched the phone from its cradle and leaned back against the headboard to dial. A call this late would probably wake Liz. But he had to talk to her, if only to remind himself that she was older and stronger than she’d been before, that somehow she’d be okay.
“Hello?” Her sleep-filled voice seemed to reach across the line and grab him by the throat.
“Hello?” she repeated when he didn’t answer right away.
“It’s me.”
“Oh good, you got my message.” Her last word thickened with what sounded like a yawn.
“Your message?”
“On your answering machine. I wanted to make sure you got in safely.”
“I’m fine.” Isaac hated lying to her. She thought her husband was in Phoenix. She thought her brother was in Chicago. Yet they were both in Idaho, of all places. But, guilt or no guilt, he wasn’t about to admit the truth yet. First, he needed to understand more about what was going on, figure out a way to soften the blow. “Have you heard from Keith?”
Isaac knew she had to wonder at his sudden preoccupation with her husband. Other than the usual felicitations, they didn’t talk about Keith a whole lot. But Isaac couldn’t help asking. He wanted to know who Keith really was. Obviously, his brother-in-law wasn’t the man Isaac thought he knew. Hell, he wasn’t even the man Liz thought she knew—and she’d been living with him for eight years!
“Unless there’s a problem with the kids and I leave a message that I need him to call me, I usually don’t hear from him till he gets home, remember?”
She’d already told him that, but she didn’t sound impatient.
Isaac watched the lights from passing cars flicker behind the drapes, thinking that Keith’s calling habits seemed pretty damned convenient. “Where do you leave a message?”
“On his voice mail.”
“Could you give me that number?”
“You want to talk to Keith?”
It wasn’t going to help anything at this point to further rouse her suspicions, so he tried to defuse her surprise. “I have a friend who’s planning a visit to Phoenix. I thought maybe Keith could tell him a little about the area.”
“He should be able to tell him plenty. He goes there often enough. You got a pen?”
Isaac turned on the lamp, then squinted against the sudden brightness. “Go ahead,” he said when his vision cleared and he’d located the pad and pen provided by the motel.
She rattled off the number, then yawned again. “I’m beat. I’ll let you go.”
“Liz?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever think about Luanna?”
His sister sounded more awake and slightly wary when she answered. “I try not to. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
A pause. “Has Dad tried to call you or something?” she asked.
“Not recently. Have you heard from the asshole?”
“Don’t call him that, Isaac. He wasn’t the best father, but…we’re not kids anymore.”
“You’ve forgiven him?”
“I don’t see the point in holding a grudge. I’m older now. I have Keith, the kids. All’s well that ends well, right?”
Isaac wished she’d become a little jaded so he wouldn’t have to worry about her as much. All’s well that ends well…. It hadn’t ended yet.
“I mailed Dad a picture of the kids for Christmas,” she was saying.
“How’d he respond?”
“He sent them each twenty bucks.”
“Generous of him.”
“It’s an acknowledgment,” she replied defensively.
Isaac dropped the sarcasm. “I guess.” Another pause. “What about Luanna? She have anything to say?”
“She wasn’t part of the exchange. Dad’s note was brief. A simple ‘Merry Christmas,’ and the money.”
“Well, she’s got her own precious child to worry about, right?”
Some rustling came through the line before she spoke again. “I bumped into Joe Stearns a few weeks ago.”
“Marty’s best friend?”
“Yeah. He said our stepbrother’s getting divorced.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”
“We haven’t talked to Marty for eight years. Maybe he’s not so bad anymore.”
Isaac doubted that. It’d take someone like Marty forever and a day to change enough to become tolerable, but he didn’t want to get into an argument with Liz. Better to change the subject. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“What would you do if things suddenly…went wrong in your life?”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. Say…you and Keith split up.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“Don’t you ever imagine worst-case scenarios? What you might do if you faced a sudden reversal?”
“No, Isaac, I don’t. I’m trying to bury the old fear. To trust. To believe in good things. I’ve had enough nightmares.”
Isaac
