The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [134]
Sophie looked at the seed pod again. “Okay,” she agreed.
“Hooray, Sophie!” Gina clapped her hands together.
“I’m so glad, honey,” Janine said.
Sophie offered the smallest possible grin she could manage, then wrinkled her nose. “Can I get out of this chair now?” she asked.
A few minutes later, Joe turned off the tape, but he remained seated on the sofa, staring at the dark television screen, still seeing the images there. He saw the love in Janine’s face for Lucas and the amazing strength she seemed to draw from him. He saw Lucas’s ploy to get Sophie to take the medicine he had created, that he knew would make her well. Medicine that could make any number of children well.
He’d blamed Sophie’s illness on Janine. He’d blamed it on her selfish enlistment in the reserves, her tour of duty in the Gulf War. He’d never for a moment thought that he might be to blame—that something in his genes might have caused her to be sick, that something in his stubborn, self-righteous nature might have interfered with her getting well. He owed Janine. He owed her much more than a simple apology.
Getting up from the sofa, he walked upstairs and out the front door. He turned in the direction of the trail that ran through the woods surrounding the town homes. He knew there were tulip poplars along that trail. He needed to find a courage tree of his own.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
It had rained during the night, and there were puddles of rainwater in both the bedroom and the living room. Zoe tore one of her many sheets into rags, and she and Marti spent most of the morning plugging the leaks in the ceiling of the living room. They would have to do the bedroom later; Sophie was still sleeping.
They’d worked in silence, taking turns balancing on the wobbly chair to reach the cracks between the boards of the ceiling. Marti was still angry over the night before, when Zoe had built a fire to cook the fish. Sophie, although admitting to not generally liking the taste of fish, devoured two of the flaky fillets, but Marti had stalked off into the woods with a can of cold ravioli. She’d returned hours later, after the sun had gone down. Still sulking, she had sat in the living room in the dark, flicking her lighter on and off, while Zoe read in the bedroom. Pretended to read, actually. She could hear the sound of Marti’s cigarette lighter, and with each flick, her fear for her daughter intensified.
Once she had blown out the candle in her lantern and shut her eyes, she’d found herself unable to sleep. Sophie’s breathing was loud and labored, but that was not all that was keeping Zoe awake. Her thoughts were on the telltale triad of behaviors about which the boarding school counselor had spoken so many years before. Whether or not that counselor had truly been in the habit of asking those provocative questions of all parents, she had clearly seen something in Marti that Zoe had tried hard to ignore. One more time, Zoe had failed her daughter by denying that Marti had any problems. If anything had been wrong with Marti, Zoe had hoped the boarding school could fix it, quietly. The world should never know that Zoe Pauling and Max Garson had a troubled daughter. If Zoe had admitted to her daughter’s problems and obtained help for her, would she be all right now? Would she be a happy, normal, productive young woman? Would she still have been capable of murdering the warden? Would she have been capable of murdering anyone?
It was her turn on the rickety old chair, and Marti held it steady for her as she raised a piece of the lavender sheet toward one of the cracks. Steeling herself, Zoe took in a breath, ready to ask the question that had plagued her during the night and was still dogging her this morning.
“There’s something I need to ask you, Marti,” Zoe said, as her fingers pushed the sheet into the crack. “And I want you to be completely honest with me.”
“About what?”
Zoe hesitated, but only for a moment. “Did you kill Tara Ashton?” she asked. She kept her eyes on the ceiling, pressing the sheet into