Between Sisters - Kristin Hannah [38]
“What do you want?” Harriet asked finally.
“I don't know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Well, if you know the answer, why ask the question?”
“You want to stop feeling so alone.”
A shudder passed through Meghann, left her chilled. “I've always been alone. I'm used to it.”
“No. Not always.”
Meghann's thoughts spooled back to those years, so long ago now, when she and Claire had been inseparable, the best of friends. Then, Meg had known how to love.
Enough. This was getting Meg nowhere.
Harriet was wrong. This wasn't about the past. So Meg felt guilty about the way she'd abandoned her sister, and she'd been hurt when Claire rejected her and chose Sam. So what? That water had flowed under the bridge for twenty-six years. She wasn't likely to drown in it now. “Well, I'm alone now, aren't I? And I sure as hell better figure out how to get my shit together. Thanks for the help with that, by the way.” She grabbed her purse off the floor and headed for the door. “Send tonight's bill to my secretary. Charge whatever you want. Good-bye, Harriet.” She said good-bye instead of good night because she didn't intend to come back.
She was at the door when Harriet's voice stopped her.
“Be careful, Meghann. Especially now. Don't let loneliness consume you.”
Meghann kept walking, right out the door and into the elevator and across the lobby.
Outside, she looked down at her watch.
9:40.
There was still plenty of time to go to the Athenian.
CHAPTER
NINE
IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF AN EIGHTEEN-WHEELER, JOE SAT slumped against the window. The truck's air conditioner had gone out about forty miles ago, and it was as hot as hell in the cab.
The driver, a long-hauler named Erv, hit the Jake Brakes and shifted gears. The truck groaned and shuddered and began to slow down. “There's the Hayden exit.”
Joe saw the familiar sign and didn't know how to feel. He hadn't been here in so long. . . .
Home.
No. It was where he'd grown up; home was something else—or, more accurately, someone else—and she wouldn't be waiting up for him to return.
The off-ramp looped over the freeway and flattened out onto a tree-lined road. On the left side was a small shingled gas station and a mini mart.
Erv pulled up in front of the pump and came to a creaking stop. The brakes wheezed loudly and fell silent. “The store there makes some mighty fine egg-salad samiches, if you're hungry.” Erv opened his door and got out.
Joe wedged the handle down and gave the door a good hard push. It creaked wearily open, and he stepped down onto the pavement of western Washington for the first time in three years. He broke out in a cold sweat—whether from the fever or his arrival home, he didn't know.
He looked at Erv, who was busy pumping gas. “Thanks for the ride.”
Erv nodded. “You don't talk much, but you were good company. The road can get lonely.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “It can.”
“You sure you don't want to go to Seattle? It's only an hour and a half away. There ain't much here.”
Joe looked down the long, tree-lined road. Though he could only make out the barest hint of town, his memories compensated. “You'd be surprised,” he said softly.
His sister was just down that road, waiting for him in spite of everything, hoping he'd knock on her door. If he did, if he found that courage, she'd pull him into her arms and hold him so tightly, he'd remember how it felt to be loved.
The thought galvanized him.
“Bye, Erv.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder and started walking. In no time, he came to the small green sign that welcomed him to Hayden, population 872. Home of Lori Adams, 1974 State Spelling Bee Champion.
The town where he'd been born, where he'd grown up and moved on from, hadn't changed at all. It looked precisely as he remembered, a pretty little collection of Western-themed buildings dozing peacefully beneath this warm June sun.
The buildings all had false fronts, and there were hitching posts stationed here and there along a wooden boardwalk. The stores were mostly the same—the Whitewater Diner and the Basket Case