Page 41 of Before the Storm

Josie braced herself. “I tried to call Mom. I mean, I did call Mom.”

Tara’s face turned pale. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s why I bought the tickets in the first place,” Josie stammered. “She sounded off, Tara. Like she sounded likesomething was really wrong. I panicked. I felt like we needed to go immediately.”

Tara was on her feet. She was looking at Josie as though she didn’t recognize her. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I just was worried you wouldn’t want to come.”

“Did you ask her what was wrong?”

“She hung up before I could figure out how,” Josie said.

Tara sank back into the chair and put her face in her hands. An announcement blared from the speakers. “Mike Randall, please report to the lost and found near Gate A4.”

The name Mike reminded Josie of her date with Mike, the one that had ended with Donnie sleeping off his drunkenness at a motel. Sometimes Josie wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t caught Donnie cheating on Tara. Would Donnie still be living at the house by the sea?

“I don’t know if we should go,” Tara muttered to the table. “I don’t know if I can go.”

“Nothing has changed,” Josie said. “We still have a flight to Seattle. We still don’t have to see them when we get there.”

“Everything has changed. Now, I know something is wrong with Mom. And I can’t ignore that.” Tara smashed her fist on the table and muttered, “I thought it would be easy. A kind of game. We could go out there and decide one way or the other if we really wanted to see them. But now, it’s real. It’s too real.”

“She sounded sick or something, Tara.” Josie wet her lips. “Need I remind you, I’m sick, too. I want this. I want to see her. It’s the last thing I want.”

Tara blew air through her nose and closed her eyes. “Now that things are coming out into the open, I want you to say you’ll do the experimental treatment. I want you to consider what it means to me. Right now, you’re all I have left of the past.”

That’s why I want you to see our parents again, Josie wanted to say.

But instead, Josie grabbed her phone and dialed her mother’s number again. She was resolute this time. She would say something. She would inform their mother that her only two daughters were coming west; it was time to make an effort and see them.

Tara looked so terrified that tears filled her eyes, and her arms shook.

The first two tries, nobody answered the phone.

“Whatever’s wrong with her, she doesn’t want to talk to us,” Tara insisted. “We should go back to the parking lot, drive back to Nantucket, and go immediately to the hospital. We should…”

But Josie had already begun to make another call. This time, a woman answered. But it wasn’t Cindy’s voice.

“Hello?”

Josie’s soul nearly leaped from her body. “Hi! Um. Hi. I’m trying to get ahold of Cindy Steiner. Is she there?”

“She’s here, but she really isn’t available right now,” the woman said tenderly. “Will you be here later? I think it’s best to talk to her in person.”

Josie’s eyes widened. It felt as though this woman knew who she was and why she was calling. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?

“I’m sorry. What’s happening later?” Josie asked.

The woman sounded surprised. “Didn’t you hear? Bob died. The wake is here at the house from five to eight.”

Josie’s heart slammed to a stop.

Across the table, Tara gaped at her. She could sense something was very wrong.

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry to hear that.” That was all Josie could think to say. It sounded like an alarm was going off in the airport, but really, it was just her ears ringing like crazy.

Their father was dead.

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