Charlotte's Homecoming. Janice Kay Johnson
fast-pitch or basketball but wasn’t interested in the tedium of weight lifting. His hair was just a little longer than she suspected some of his constituents would like, a brown that was streaked bronze and gold by the sun. Calm, gray eyes—what else, considering his name? A face that should have been ordinary-handsome, but was somehow more than that, maybe because his nose looked like it had been broken at some point, maybe because of those hooded eyes that were thoughtful but also tinged with humor. She didn’t see Mayor Van Dusen as being volatile. He’d be the kind to mull over his options for a good long while before he made decisions.
And stubborn. She just knew he’d be stubborn. The traffic thing, according to Faith, was an example. He’d made three visits now to discuss it, including one yesterday. Charlotte had seen him walking into the barn and had slipped out the back. Instinct had told her to evade him, jolting her into motion before she even knew what or whom she was running from.
It was just common sense, she told herself. Letting herself be attracted to a man in West Fork wasn’t logical, considering how short her stay was likely to be.
She probably hadn’t had to bother slipping out today. If he’d had traffic on his mind, it was Faith he wanted anyway, not her. But somehow, she didn’t quite believe he’d been motivated to stop by the Russell farm a second day in a row because he was determined to talk about cars merging onto Highway 519. No, he’d been interested in her. The way he’d gently suggested she walk him out to his car, and she’d obliged without a second thought … If she gave him any toehold at all, he’d be as relentless as a tiny, ceaseless drip of water that eventually hollowed out granite.
Which was why she was not going to think about him, and would continue to slip out one door when he came in the other. He’d get the message, and she wouldn’t have to bother for long.
Without turning on her bedroom light, Charlotte got out of bed, slipped on the shorts she’d worn that evening and groped with her toes for her flip-flops. Because of the heat, she’d worn panties and a tank top to bed, so she was now decent. She had a sudden craving to step outside, savor the cool night air, maybe walk away from the house, listen to the silence, and tip her head back to see the stars in a way she never could in a city.
Home smelled different, too. So, okay, part of what she’d smell was manure, but that beat automobile exhaust, didn’t it?
Faith’s bedroom was right across the hall, where it had been ever since they’d turned ten and Charlotte had insisted on having her own room. Faith, she’d known, was unhappy when she moved out and started shutting her bedroom door, but she had needed that space and privacy with a desperation she couldn’t explain, that felt like a fever reaching dangerous heights. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Faith, but she would if that was the only way she could separate herself. She’d been as miserable as if they were conjoined, condemned to share a life unless they chose the huge risk of surgical sunderance. Charlotte had read up on identical twins when she was eight or nine, and she remembered staring with fascination and horror at pictures of conjoined twins.
I could not bear it, she’d thought, and meant it.
She would have chosen in a heartbeat to have the surgery to divide them, even if she didn’t survive it. Her need had been that great, and that irrational.
Today was the first time in years that she could remember talking to Faith and laughing and forgetting, for moments at a time, that they were more than just sisters. She’d looked at Faith’s face without seeing a reflection of her own.
Maybe, at last, her efforts to define herself were working. Or maybe she had just put aside her discomfiture because Faith—and Dad—needed her.
And maybe, she thought with a twinge, it had something to do with Gray Van Dusen, who had been surprised when she told him she and Faith were identical twins.
You and Faith aren’t that much alike, are you?
No, she had thought sadly; Faith’s the strong one, and I’m the coward. Running, always running.
What she didn’t know was where she thought she was going. Just lately, it was a question she’d begun to ask herself. A need for the answer just might be one reason she hadn’t started job hunting more aggressively.
From long habit, she skipped the third step from the bottom, which always squeaked. Not that she was sneaking out, exactly, but she was in a solitary mood.
She’d put her questions out of her mind, too. Right now, she didn’t want to think about why she felt something was missing from the life she’d carved for herself. She just wanted to be.
Rather than go out the front door, which looked toward the highway, Charlotte went through the kitchen. Rows and rows of jars still sat along the countertop, the glass reflecting glints of moonlight falling through the kitchen windows. Without turning on the overhead or porch light, she stepped out the back door, the screen door creaking as she let it snap shut behind her.
The night air was as cool as she’d hoped, but with her first breath, she smelled smoke. Her head turned sharply. What was burning? Even as she hurried toward the corner of the house, her mind tried to find a good reason for a midnight fire. A woodstove? Not on a hot August day. Slash burning on cleared land, even just a neighbor who’d cut out blackberry vines. No, she’d seen the sign announcing a burn ban out in front of the fire station. And besides, she hadn’t smelled a fire when she’d gone to bed at ten or so. She rounded the house and stopped dead.
Flames crawled up the side of the barn.
Charlotte gasped, whirled around and ran back the way she’d come, stumbling once and barely noticing the pain. She flung herself up the couple of steps and through the kitchen.
At the bottom of the stairs, she bellowed, “Faith! Wake up! The barn’s on fire!” She wheeled again and raced for the kitchen, grabbed the phone and dialed 9-1-1. “Barn’s on fire,” she gasped and gave the address before dropping the telephone and bolting back outside. Heart pounding, she ran.
The fire had already leaped higher, toward the roof, but it wasn’t huge yet. Oh, God—as old as this barn was, the wood was the perfect tinder. She’d done the watering tonight, and knew exactly where she’d dropped the nozzle and where the faucet was. She turned it on full blast and aimed the nozzle toward the barn wall. Even when she pulled the hose out taut, the stream barely reached the fire, and she could see that it wouldn’t be enough, but she kept spraying, above, around, below.
The house lights had sprung on behind her, and Faith wasn’t a minute behind her, running in some kind of thin nightgown and flip-flops like Charlotte’s.
“You called 9-1-1?” she yelled as she ran past, and Charlotte yelled back, “Yes!”
There was another faucet round back, Charlotte remembered, but a minute, two minutes, passed before a second stream of water joined hers. Faith had probably had to hook up a hose.
The scream of the siren wasn’t far behind. They were lucky, so lucky, that the volunteer fire station was less than half a mile away. The first truck roared in, the headlights spotlighting Charlotte but not her sister, who was behind the barn. She kept the stream of water aimed at the barn even as the firemen ran toward her pulling a hose that made hers look like a child’s toy.
“Get back, ma’am, please get back!” she was told, and she let the nozzle fall from her shaking hand.
Adrenaline roaring through her, she backed away and kept backing until she felt mown grass under her feet again. She was hugging herself when Faith reached her and they grabbed each other and held on, neither of them looking away from the fiery scene and the eerie sight of water soaring in great arcs to cascade down over their 100-year-old barn and the licking flames.
“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no,” Faith moaned.
“Everything inside will be wet,” Charlotte whispered.
Faith whimpered and buried her face briefly against her sister’s neck, then lifted her head again as if she couldn’t stand not to watch her dreams burn.