Chapter 11 #2
Summer tucked her feet beneath her and tried to smell the tea to see which healing potion her mother was feeding her, but smelled nothing but herself and the smoke still in her skin and nose.
And Joe. She smelled Joe.
“Talk,” Tina said.
“Yeah.” She didn’t suppose Tina meant the part where Joe had put his talented fingers and mouth on her, or how he’d drawn her out of herself, so far out that it would have terrified her if she hadn’t sensed he’d been just as swept away.
Who’d have thought Joe Walker would have grown up to be such a passionate, demanding, giving, incredibly magnificent lover?
“Summer? Can you tell us?”
She shrugged off the memories of Joe and tried to figure out where to start with the fire, but the thought of saying it all out loud made her heart pound heavily.
“Well…I was closing up, and had to go downstairs to turn off the lights. The beanbag was there, looking comfy, and…” And I felt so alone.
“I sat down for a minute. I guess I fell asleep.” And woke to the smothering feeling of choking on smoke. Her chest tightened.
Oh, damn.
“Oh, darling.” Tina got up and stood behind her, stroking her hair, rubbing her shoulders. “I’m so sorry you had to go through this again. It’s not right.”
Her mother’s grip on the teapot became white-knuckled. “She doesn’t remember the first fire.”
“I remember more of it,” Summer admitted.
Her mom’s eyes widened. “You do?”
“Some.”
She looked as if maybe she wanted to say more, but instead she pinched her lips together.
Tina didn’t share her restraint. “What do you remember?”
“Opening the door. Hearing—” Overcome by the memory, Summer dropped her face into her hands.
Tina made a sound of sympathy and stroked Summer’s hair. “Oh, darling, I’m sorry. Don’t think about it anymore, okay? Let’s just stick with this fire.”
“It wasn’t so bad, really.” She swallowed the horror. “I just can’t stand the smell of myself. It makes my eyes water.” Liar, liar. She wiped her eyes on the napkin Tina handed her. “Anyway, when I woke up, I was surrounded by smoke and was a little disoriented, that’s all.”
“Anyone would have been,” her mom said quietly, giving the outer appearance of being as tranquil as the tea she began to pour.
And yet, there was worry and sheer terror in her eyes.
Summer absorbed both and knew she couldn’t tell them how she’d panicked, how she’d gotten lost in her old nightmare.
She couldn’t tell them that she’d had to call 9–1–1 blindly because of the smoke, or that by the time the firefighters had found her, she’d given herself up for lost for the second time in her life.
“At least they stopped the flames in time to save the building. That’s good news. ”
“No, the good news is that you’re alive and relatively unscathed.” Tears made Tina’s voice thick as she wrapped her arms around her niece from behind.
Her mom began to add sugar to Summer’s tea with fingers that shook so violently Summer was surprised the sugar even made it into the cup. “The insurance company is not going to be happy with us.”
“They can go to hell,” Tina said fervently, placing a noisy kiss on Summer’s cheek. “We pay a fortune for that coverage, and we’ve done nothing wrong.”
Her mom just kept adding sugar to Summer’s tea.
“In fact, they’ll be lucky if Summer herself doesn’t sue us,” Tina said.
“What? I’m not going to sue you,” Summer said, horrified. “The whole thing is my fault. The candles—” She broke off as her mom let out a choked sound and dropped a sixth teaspoon of sugar in Summer’s tea.
Tina exchanged a worried look with Summer. “Maybe we should talk about something else.”
But in Summer’s opinion, that was the problem.
No one had ever forced her mother to face anything that bothered her.
Including Summer. “I think we should get it all out.” She leaned close to her mom.
“I’m so sorry, Mom. God, so sorry.” Her voice caught.
“But I think I forgot to blow out a candle. I think I burned the place down.”
“No. Oh, darling, no,” Tina said fiercely. “I lit those candles, because I loved watching them burn.”
Her mom’s teaspoon clattered to the table as she covered her mouth.
Socks, sensing her mistress’s distress, jumped into her lap and butted her head against her belly.
Summer scooted closer. “Mom?”
“I’m okay.”
“We all are, thank God,” Tina said firmly, taking each of their hands. “Because no one got hurt. Anything we lost can be replaced.”
“I know you’ll still want to leave today,” her mom said to Summer. “No one’ll blame you for that.”
Summer looked into her mom’s jade eyes, usually soft and relaxed, now dark with emotion. “You’ll need help through all this new investigation and insurance fiasco. I gained all that experience with the warehouse fire. I’m too good at it now to pass the torch.”
“Honey, no.”
“I want to.”
“You have your work.”
“I’m going to call in and explain why I need more time.” She set a hand over her mother’s, stilling the tenth teaspoon of sugar from going into her cup.
Her mom stirred her tea and didn’t say a word.
Summer exchanged a helpless glance with Tina. “I thought maybe it was helping you, Mom, having me around.”
“It is,” Tina said for her sister. “It is.”
Summer wanted to believe that, but she wanted a lot of things.
She also wanted to find her place in a world that she used to belong to.
Ironic that she could find her way through a jungle, over a mountain, down a river, and yet right here in her own hometown, she felt so lost. “I’m so sorry about the store,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I wish—”
“No. No regrets,” her mother said so forcefully it surprised everyone. “Trust me. Living with them is too hard.” She turned over her hand and squeezed Summer’s. Once, twice.
Love you.
Summer let out a half laugh, half sob, and squeezed back three times.
Love you back.
And could only hope this was a sign of good things to come.