"We contacted him at his girlfriend's."
"So he wasn't even home?"
"No one was in the home at the time."
"Thank God," Daisy sighed. Her sister wasn't going to fry for murder. This was Texas. If you were going tocommit murder, Texas wasn't a good state to do it in. On the other hand, juries filled with Texas women didtend to sympathize with the wife of a cheating dog.
"Has she been suicidal?" Neal asked.
That gave both Daisy and her mother pause. Lily was depressed and pissed off, but Daisy didn't think shewanted to kill herself. Just Ronnie.
"No," Louella answered. "She just got a job working at Albertsons's deli. Things are looking up for her now."
"I was with her last night, and she was fine," Daisy told the officer. And it was the truth. Lily had been fine thenight before. Daisy had only had listen to "Earl Had to Die" twice. Once on the way to Slim Clem's and once onthe way home.
Neal asked a few more questions and when he left, Daisy asked her mother, "Do you think she tried to killherself?"
"Of course not," Louella said through a frown.
"Do you think she tried to kill Ronnie?"
"Daisy Lee, your sister's foot slipped, is all." And that was the end of the discussion.
Except that wasn't all. Not for Daisy. With Lily in the hospital and potentially homicidal, she couldn't possiblygo home tomorrow. Nathan was not going to be happy.
She excused herself and found a bank of phones next to the Coke and candy machines. She used her callingcard, and when Nathan got on the phone she tried to sound cheerful. Why, she really didn't know - other thanthat's what she was supposed to do.
"Hey there, Nathan."
"Hi, Mom."
She hesitated for a heartbeat, then cut right to the chase. "I have some news you're not going to like."
There was a tong pause. "What?"
"Your aunt Lily was in a bad car accident this morning. She's in the hospital. I won't be coming hometomorrow."
He didn't ask about Lily. He was fifteen and concerned with his own problems. "You can't do this to me."
"Nathan, Lily is really hurt."
"I'm sorry about that, but you promised!"
"Nathan, I didn't know Lily was going to drive her car into Ronnie's living room."
"I got my hair cut! No way. No way, Mom. I am not staying here. They tried to make me eat Swedish meatballslast night."
They probably hadn't tried to make him do anything, but Nathan detested Swedish meatballs and those to see itas a conspiracy. One more reason why he didn't like staying with them. Daisy sighed and wedged herselfbetween the pay phone and the deep blue soda machine. "I don't know what to do, Nate. I really can't leave yourgrandmother and Lily right now. It isn't like I'm down here partying it up while you're consigned to hell."
"I want to come down there, then."
"What?"
"Mom, I hate it here. I'd rather be there with you."
She thought of Jack.
"You can't do this to me." Over the phone line, she could hear Nathan's voice crack with emotion he tried tohold back. "Please, Mom."
What were the chances he'd run into Jack before she spoke to him? Next to none. He'd probably just hang outand watch TV at his grandmother's house. And even if the two did accidentally meet, so what? They didn't lookanything alike. They wouldn't know who the other was. Nathan never asked about Jack, and she doubted heeven remembered Jack's last name. "If that's what you really want, I'll call around and get you a flight downhere."
His sigh of relief carried over the line. "I love you, Mom."
"Funny how you only remember to mention it when you're getting your way." She smiled. "Get your aunt Junieon the phone."
After she hung up from talking to Steven's sister, she called around and got a flight out of Seattle for the nextday. It departed at six in the morning, had a three hour and forty minute layover in Dallas, and didn't arrive inAmarillo until almost five P.M. She thought about maybe driving to Dallas and picking Nathan up there. It wasa six-hour drive, one way. Maybe they could spend the night in the big D. Go to Fort Worth and Cow Town andhave barbeque. The more she thought of it, the more it appealed to her. She needed a vacation from hervacation, but when she called Nathan back, he told her that he'd rather sit for three hours in the Dallas-FortWorth airport than eat barbeque and drive for six hours the next day. So much for getting away from the chaos.
But she supposed that no matter how tempting, she couldn't leave her mother and Lily right now.
She booked his ticket, and as she walked back to the waiting room, she wondered if her family had always beenthis insane, or if they were diving headfirst into crazy creek on her behalf.
By the time she made it back to her mother, the doctor was sitting beside her on the short sofa. Daisy moved tostand by Louella.
"Is she awake?" her mother asked.
"She woke up about fifteen minutes ago. Her CT scans are clear. There isn't any brain trauma or injury to herinternal organs. It's a good thing she was wearing her seat belt and that the car had air bags." He glanced up atDaisy. "Her ankle is broken and she's going to need surgery to pin the bones back together. An orthopedicsurgeon is on his way from Amarillo."
After the doctor left, Louella stayed with Lily at the hospital and Daisy left to take care of Pippen. She put himdown for a nap and finally changed out of her mother's Winnie the Pooh dress. With nothing else to occupy hermind, she thought of Jack. Even in that stupid dress, you turn me on, he'd said, which was just absurd.
She changed into a khaki skirt and white blouse and scrounged around in the kitchen for something to eat. Shemade a toasted cheese sandwich, some tomato soup, and a glass of iced tea. She took it to the breakfast nook,where the sun lit up the yellow table.
Having sex with Jack on the trunk of a car had been a mistake. No, having sex with him at all had been amistake. But at the time, she hadn't possessed the will power to do much more than put up a halfheartedobjection. She'd known she would regret it, but that hadn't stopped her.
She dunked her sandwich into her soup and took a bite. She'd had sex with Jack. It had been bad. No, it hadbeen wrong. The sex had been good. Fabulous. So fabulous she'd burst into tears and embarrassed herself. Herface got hot just thinking about that - about that and the desire in Jack's green eyes when he'd looked at her, hotand alive touching her all over. Just the thought of it warmed her up.
She blew into her soup. She hated to admit it, but if her mother hadn't called, it was likely that she would haveended up in his bed. She'd probably still be there.
She took a drink of her tea. But what now? She didn't know, and with everything else going on in her life, shedidn't have to think about it until everything settled a bit.
After Pippen got up from his nap, she took photographs of him out in her mother's garden. She shot him pickingforbidden flowers while standing amongst the pink flamingos. For that short time, while she gazed at the worldfrom behind her camera, her problems receded to the background.
Later when Louella came home, she noticed her mother looked about ten years older than she had that morning.
The creases around her eyes seemed deeper, her cheeks paler. Daisy made her and Pippen some soup andsandwiches then left to go visit with Lily.
Her sister was asleep when she walked into her hospital room. The cut on her forehead had been closed andbandaged. One side of her face was still swollen, her eyes were turning varying shades of black and blue, butthe blood had been cleaned away.
Daisy wanted to ask her sister what had happened that morning, but Lily was heavily drugged and drifted in andout of consciousness. And each time she woke up, she started to cry and asked where she was. Daisy didn't evenattempt to ask her about the accident.
She did the next day, though.
"Have the police talked to you yet?" she asked as she flipped through a People magazine she'd brought with her.
Lily licked her swollen lip. Her voice was a scratchy whisper when she said, "About what?"