Diedre breathed a sigh of relief when Twojoe shut the door behind the Colonel, Emmaline, and Sam.
Even though it had only been three days since she and Carlene had arrived—the day Vernon Houston had held a shotgun on them in Twojoe's living room—Diedre had become increasingly attached to the Elkhorn family and their friends. The Colonel doted on both her and Carlene; little Sam was a wonderful, sensitive, loving child; and Emmaline was an earth mother who embraced everyone who came within reach. Meg and Twojoe could have been her own big sister and brother, the way they had treated her. Still, despite her growing love for all of them, Diedre had shifted restlessly in her chair throughout dinner, wishing they would all just disappear.
She needed to talk with her sister. And there was much she couldn't— or wouldn't—say during dinner with everyone present. She had simply listened as everyone had discussed the fire, speculating on who could have done such a thing, and why.
Twojoe was clearly in love with Amber. He had sat next to her all evening with his arm across the back of her chair, gazing at her as if he couldn't take his eyes off her. Amber could have been watching a tennis match, the way her attention bounced between his face and Diedre's. Whenever she looked at Diedre, an expression passed over her countenance that seemed to be a mixture of love and pain. Diedre forced herself to focus on the love and tried to rationalize the pain, but she couldn't help feeling as if her presence made Amber edgy.
Well, what did she expect? It had been more than twenty years, and if she was honest, Diedre herself had to admit to a little anxiety of her own. But there were too many questions yet unanswered. She was not about to let a little nervousness get in the way of the reunion for which she had waited so long.
Once the Houstons were gone, Meg excused herself to clean up the kitchen. The priest, whom Amber jokingly called "Father Susan," joined her. Twojoe made an excuse about checking on the llamas, and Carlene retrieved her jacket and Sugarbear's leash and took the dog for a walk.
The moment she had longed for had finally come. But when Diedre finally faced her sister, the two of them alone in the living room, reticence overtook her and she found herself tongue-tied.
She bit her lip and stared at the hooked rug on the hardwood floor. "Ah, if you need to rest, I'll understand. This can wait—"
"This has waited long enough."
Diedre looked up at her sister's serious face, surrounded by dark hair and punctuated by those large, brown eyes—a face so like her mother's, years ago before the cancer took its toll. So like her own would be in another fifteen years. "Sis—ah, Amber—," she began, struggling over the name. "Sorry. It'll take me a while to get used to calling you that."
"It's all right. You were so young—I don't suppose you ever knew that Amber was my middle name."
Diedre shook her head. "No. I didn't know. But I understood immediately why you had taken Mama's maiden name as your own."
Amber let out a sigh. "I still miss her. It's so odd, thinking that someone you love is still alive after they're gone. It was breast cancer, you said?"
"Yes. We all thought she had beaten the cancer, but when it came back, she refused further treatment. She took drugs for the pain and died peacefully. Her last gift to me was what brought me to you." Diedre closed her eyes for a moment and fought against the emotions that assailed her. "I thought you were dead, Amber. If I'd known you were alive, I would have found you sooner."
"I expect Daddy wanted you to think I was dead."
Diedre raised her head and stared at Amber, startled by the anger and raw pain that filled her sister's face. Then Amber's expression cleared, and she waved a bandaged hand. "Please, go on. Tell me the whole story, from the start."
"From the time I was very young—four or five years old," Diedre began, "I couldn't get you out of my mind. I had this recurring vision—I called it the Spinning Dream—" She paused and smiled. "The dream that was re-created in your sculpture of the Two Sisters. Until I saw the statue, I didn't know it was an actual memory, not just something my imagination had conjured up. But it always seemed so real. And whenever I would try to get anyone to talk about you, Mama would dissolve into tears, and Daddy would shut me up."
"That figures," Amber muttered.
Diedre shot her a puzzled glance and continued. "Anyway, on my twenty-fifth birthday, Mama gave me this." She reached into her bag and drew out the battered cigar box. "I'm pretty sure she knew she was dying and couldn't bear to go into the next world with all this on her conscience."
She retrieved the old photograph from the box and extended it in Amber's direction. Amber reached for it, but with her bandaged hands she couldn't grip it properly, and it slid to the floor. Both of them leaned forward to grab it, and their arms touched. Diedre felt a gentle shock, like static electricity, flow through her veins.
She sat back, breathless. "This picture raised a lot of questions for me. It's so obvious how much Daddy adored you. Although he provided for me and tried to love me, he was never able to—"
She stopped suddenly as one side of Amber's mouth turned up in an odd twist. "Is something wrong?"
"No. I just—" The bandaged hand that held the picture shook a little. "I want to hear the rest."
"All right." Diedre cast around for her train of thought. "As I was saying, Daddy never loved me like that—" She pointed at the photograph. "And I never knew why. I assumed, when I thought about it, that losing you was so painful and difficult that he simply never recovered enough to be able to be vulnerable again. But then I found these, hidden in the bottom of the box—" She held up the birth certificate and letters.
"In the letters of yours that Mama saved, you implied you knew the real circumstances of my birth. Even apart from that, I would have come to find you anyway, once I knew you were alive. But since nobody else could tell me, I knew you were also my only hope for finding out the truth. When I realized that Daddy wasn't—" She hesitated. "Wasn't my real father—"
Amber's head snapped up. "What did you say?"
"The birth certificate," Diedre repeated. "It lists my mother as Cecilia McAlister, and my father as 'unknown.'"
"Jack," Amber muttered, shutting her eyes tightly.
A thrill shot through Diedre as her sister uttered the name. "That was my guess," she whispered. "He always doted on Mama so . . ."
But Amber wasn't listening. Without warning, she leaped to her feet. "Diedre, you—you have to excuse me," she stammered and fled the room.
Diedre sat there, stunned, as she watched Amber's back retreating through the doorway that led through the dining room to the kitchen. She didn't know what to do—or what to think.
Was it possible she could have offended her sister by suggesting that Mama had an affair with Uncle Jack? But the letters were pretty clear: Amber knew the circumstances of Diedre's birth and understood—or at least did not condemn—her mother.
Maybe Amber was angry that Diedre had come in the first place, dredging up old unpleasant memories that were best forgotten. But Amber hadn't forgotten—she had created the sculpture of the Two Sisters from her memory of Diedre as a child. And unless the statue lied, it was a happy memory, a welcome one.
Against her will, tears sprang to Diedre's eyes. Maybe—
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. She heard the clicking of Sugarbear's toenails across the hardwood floor, and the dog barreled into the room and leaped onto the sofa. Within seconds Carlene followed, shrugging off her jacket and tossing Sugarbear's leash onto an empty chair.
"It's absolutely beautiful here!" she said, her face flushed pink by the night air. "You should see the moon over the canal. What a view—"
Then she caught sight of the expression on Diedre's face. "What happened?" Her eyes flitted around the room. "Where's your sister?"
"She left." Diedre could only manage the two words before her throat clogged with tears. She swallowed hard. "I said something wrong—I don't know—"
Carlene sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. "What did you say?"
"I was just telling her about the stuff Mama gave me before she died—you know, the birth certificate and letters." Diedre gulped and fought for air. "When I said I knew Daddy wasn't my real father, she just jumped up and ran out of the room."
"Did she say anything—anything at all—before she left?"
Diedre nodded. "She said, 'Jack.'"
Carlene leaned against the back of the sofa and let out an exaggerated sigh. "Whew. Well, that answers one question."
"Yes." Diedre regained control of herself now and cleared her throat. "I guess I always suspected it was Uncle Jack. Now I know—but I don't have the faintest idea what to do with the information."
"Go home, throw yourself into his arms, and yell, 'Daddy!'?"
"I don't think so." Diedre managed a halfhearted smile. "But thanks for the laugh."
"So what do we do now? Do you want me to go get her?"
Diedre shook her head. "I don't want to push her if she's not ready to talk. I'm sure this is painful for her, as well. I've had some time to prepare, but my appearing out of the blue must be a real shock to her."
"Maybe we should just go back to the Houstons, get a good night's sleep, and try again tomorrow."
"That sounds like a sensible plan." Diedre shut her eyes tightly and buried her face in her hands. "I don't know what else to do."
Carlene snapped the leash onto Sugarbear's collar, held out a hand to Diedre, and pulled her up from the couch. "Come on."
"You're not leaving, are you?"
Diedre looked up to see Twojoe standing in the doorway. He stared around the room and frowned. "Where's Amber?"
Diedre pointed toward the kitchen. "I must have said something that upset her, but I'm not quite sure what it was. Carlene and I—well, I think we should go for now. Thank Meg for the dinner, will you? And tell my sister we'll be at the Houstons' at least until tomorrow. If she wants to see me—"
Twojoe took two strides across the room and laid a hand on her arm. "Please, stay for a minute." He cut a worried glance toward the dining room. "I'll be right back."
"So, should we stay or should we go?" Carlene asked when he had left the room.
Diedre sank back down on the couch. "Let's stay, at least for a few more minutes." She leaned over and retrieved the photograph from the floor, where it had fallen when Amber had made her escape. For a few seconds she looked at it longingly—the loving picture of father and daughter, an image trapped in time. "What's a few more minutes when I've waited twenty years?"