For a woman who had always exuded confidence and haughtiness, Meg seemed the slightest bit uncertain. “Are you sure you want to get into all this now?”
Kimmie crossed her arms. “I’m sure.”
“Really? Because I know you had a hard night last night, and you probably still need to catch up on your rest. Why don’t you take a nap first or something?”
“I just had all that coffee. Now tell me. You and Mom made plans for her to escape. That’s what you told Taylor.”
“Who?”
Kimmie rolled her eyes. Really? For as long as Meg had been flirting with the trooper after setting him up on a forced date, she had already forgotten his name?
Typical.
“Taylor,” she repeated with emphasis. “The trooper.”
Meg grinned. “Oh, yeah. Him. I still think you need to find out what meds he’s taking before you let things get too serious. But he’s crazy hot. I’ll admit that. I could totally see the two of you together.”
Then why in the world did you have your paws all over him? Kimmie wanted to yell, but she held her tongue. She wasn’t charging into this conversation to get news about Taylor. She needed to hear about Mom.
Now.
“What happened? What haven’t you told me?”
Meg took in a deep breath. “Well, I can tell you, but I still think you should rest a little bit and we can talk when you’re feeling a little better. I could wake you up once we get to Eureka …”
“Just get it over with,” Kimmie snapped.
“Fine.” Meg was clearly annoyed and saw no need to hide it. “Mom called me a couple weeks ago. Asked if I knew of any good lawyers, someone who could help her fight for custody of Pip. I told her Dwayne’s got connections. We could figure something out.”
“How did she even get in touch with you?” Kimmie asked.
“On her cell. The one I got her last Christmas.”
“Mom had a cell?” For a minute, Kimmie wondered if they’d stopped talking about the same person.
“Yeah. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.”
Apparently, there were plenty of things Mom hadn’t told her. Kimmie found herself yet again facing pangs of jealousy when she thought about her sister and the secret conversations she had with their mom.
“I thought you two were still fighting over Chuck.”
Meg waved her hand in the air dismissively. Kimmie wished she’d keep it on the wheel. “What, that? Water under the bridge. We talked once or twice a week. Even more once I got her that phone.”
None of it made sense. “When did she find a way to call you? Where did she go to get reception?”
“You really haven’t been keeping up with the times, have you?”
Kimmie blinked at her sister.
“Coverage isn’t what it was three or five years ago. The whole trailer’s a hot spot. Mom even got herself a Facebook account. Used it on her phone all the time.”
“What? You’re serious?”
Meg chuckled. “I know. It was ridiculous, someone her age learning Facebook. But it was adorable, I swear.”
“Why didn’t she tell me any of this?”
“She probably didn’t want you to get in trouble with that jerkface she was with. Oh, by the way, is the kid asleep?”
Kimmie glanced back again. “Yeah, he started dozing off right after we passed Mendeltna.”
Meg let out her breath. “Good. I mean, I know he doesn’t talk and all, but I’d hate to have him hear what I’ve got to say about his dad.”
“You can skip that part,” Kimmie said curtly. “I’m pretty sure I know more about that than you.”
“Right. Well, so I got Mom that cell phone at Christmas …”
“What’d you do?” Kimmie interrupted. “Hide it in the fruitcake?”
Meg looked appalled. “No. I told her I’d left it with Mrs. Spencer next door.”
“Mrs. Spencer knew Mom had a cell phone?” Kimmie thought back to all the times she’d trekked to her neighbor’s house to make a call. What kind of dysfunctional family did Mrs. Spencer think she was living next to?
“You’re missing the point,” Meg complained. “The point is once Mom got her phone, she and I were able to stay in touch. She’d call me whenever Bozohead was taking a nap, and that’s how I found out just how bad things were.”
Kimmie stared out the window at the mountains in the distance. Right now, their snow-dusted peaks felt closer to her than either her sister or her mom.
“Hey, it’s not like she wanted to keep secrets from you.” Meg sounded defensive. “You know how things were at that home. Everyone had to keep everything from everybody. That’s just the way it was for you guys.”
For you guys. Kimmie wondered how easy it was for her sister to throw around those kinds of phrases. For you guys.
Apparently taking Kimmie’s silence for further offense, Meg ran her hand through her hair and huffed. “It’s not like it was easy for me either, Cinderella. You think I liked to hear about the things that creature was doing to you?”
Kimmie bristled. Whatever happened to her under Chuck’s roof wasn’t her sister’s business. And the fact that Mom blabbed everything to such a snotty, stuck-up, plastic Barbie doll like Meg doubled the sense of betrayal.
“Finally, Mom called me and said she wanted my help getting away.”
Kimmie bet Meg just loved that. The chance for her big sister with the huge bank account and just as massive messiah complex to whisk in and save her wretched family from the clutches of evil. How grandiose. It must have given Meg quite the rush to be involved in anything more important than filing papers for her snotty husband.
“Why are you glaring at me like that?” Meg finally demanded.
“I’m not glaring.” Kimmie glowered out the window.
“Yes, you are. You asked me a question. Now I’m telling you the answer, and you’re acting all hurt and depressed. It’s not like it’s something I like to talk about.”
“You certainly had no problems telling everything to that trooper,” Kimmie blurted.
“So that’s what this is about?” Meg had a bad habit of flaring her nostrils when she got angry, one of her only physically unattractive qualities. Kimmie reveled to see that her picture-perfect sister wasn’t quite as put together as she wanted everyone to believe. “Listen, if you’re upset because I went to the authorities to get you the help you obviously needed …”
“I’m upset because you never cared!” Kimmie raised her voice, surrendering to the anger that gave her entire psyche a sense of power she’d rarely felt before. “You never cared. You ran off as soon as Mom got together with Chuck, and you never looked back.”
Meg swerved to avoid hitting two ravens pecking at roadkill in the middle of their lane. “Is that what you think happened?” Her nostrils flared even more wildly.
“That’s not what I think happened. That’s what I know happened.”
Each time Meg spoke, her volume escalated. “You know nothing. Hear me? I died when I found out what that oaf was doing to Mom. I literally died. Want me to prove it?”
She yanked up her sleeve. “See? That’s what I did when I heard. By the time Dwayne called the paramedics, I didn’t have a pulse. So don’t even think about talking to me about who’s suffered more or who put up with what or who hurts the most now that Mom’s gone. Because you don’t even know the half of it.”
Meg gasped for breath as tears rolled down her cheeks. For what felt like minutes, Kimmie was too stunned to say a word. Finally, she forced herself to open the glove compartment where she found a travel packet of Kleenex. She pulled one out and offered it to her sister as a gesture of goodwill.
“Thanks.” Meg blew her nose loudly then dabbed at her eyes. “I knew I shouldn’t have put on all that mascara.” She choked out a laugh. Kimmie joined in, feeling even more awkward and embarrassed than she’d been the day when she was ten and got caught trying on her sister’s pushup bra.
“Mom never told me,” Kimmie finally confessed.
Meg shrugged. “Of course she didn’t. She never knew.”
Kimmie didn’t know what else to say. Staring at the snow capping the mountains ahead, she imagined how lonely and isolated it would feel to be up there looking down at a single car edging its way down a deserted highway.
The termination dust glistened in the sunlight.