The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [71]
She knew he had been about to say “body,” and was glad he had caught himself in time. She didn’t want to hear that word.
It took them a long time to make their way back up the hill to the road. Rebecca was waiting on the macadam, her arms crossed against her chest, her long hair stringy and wet. She rushed Janine as soon as she saw her.
“I couldn’t find anyone,” Janine said, winded. She struggled to get her breath. “No Sophie. No Holly. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for trying,” Rebecca said, as she wrapped her arms around her.
Janine held her tightly. At least one of them had lost a child today. And within a few hours, either she or Rebecca would have no more reason to hope.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Janine lay beneath the sheet on the double bed, staring blindly at the motel room’s fuzzy television. Jay Leno was on, but she’d muted the sound, unable to tolerate the laughter and levity. She watched Jay talking, posturing, nodding. From the bed, she could see her reflection in the mirror above the standard-issue motel dresser. Her expression was drawn, sunken, her mouth downturned. Her eyes were puffy and heavy-lidded. She looked like an old woman.
She was only vaguely aware of the throbbing in her leg. Somehow, while she’d been making her mad foray into the underbrush, she’d cut her thigh. It was a deep, wide laceration she had not even noticed until she was back on the road, when Lucas spotted the blood trailing down her leg, soaking her white sock above her tennis shoe. She’d been unable to stop the bleeding, and everyone had insisted she go to the nearest emergency room. Joe drove her there, while she protested. The wound had required eight stitches to close, and she didn’t even wince when the needle pierced her skin. This was nothing compared to what Sophie had endured, she told herself. Nothing.
They had all taken rooms at the motel. Rebecca and Steve were in a room on the second floor. Joe and Paula were on the third floor, sharing a room with two double beds. Janine knew about the beds because Joe had made sure to mention that fact in front of her. As if she cared. Joe was a fool to turn his back on the comfort she knew Paula would be more than happy to offer him
Janine would have loved to share a room with Lucas, whether it had two beds or not, but he was the one who had advised against it.
“Not with Joe here,” he’d said. “This is hard enough on him without throwing our relationship in his face.”
Jay Leno was bringing out a guest—some perky young woman with long blond hair and a dress that dipped low over her breasts. Her smile was irritating, and Janine clicked off the TV and lowered herself deeper beneath the sheet.
The rain had stopped sometime in the last hour or so, and the only sound now was the tinny, wheezing hum of the feeble air conditioner.
She was afraid to try to sleep, to close her eyes. Sure enough, as soon as she lowered her lids, the images came back to her: the black belly of the overturned car beneath the bubble of the helicopter, the small body bag. She would have known, she thought. She would have been able to tell, if only they’d allowed her to look inside that bag.
Joe had called her parents. Or, actually, she had called them, but her mother had instantly and not surprisingly told her to put Joe on the line. She’d handed the phone to him, and Lucas had chastised her.
“Make her talk to you,” he’d said. “Make her act like an adult for once.”
But Lucas didn’t understand. It was easier to let Joe deal with her parents than it was to face her mother’s wrath and her father’s disappointment. She’d had a lifetime of that already. Right now, she didn’t have the strength for it.
None of them had been prepared to stay the night. They’d gone to a small market in the nearest town to buy toothpaste, toothbrushes and shampoo, and she’d bought a man’s cheap white undershirt to sleep in. She was glad she