Dandelion Wishes. Melinda Curtis

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      CHAPTER FOUR

      EMMA WAS BACK in Harmony Valley.

      Tracy closed her bedroom door and scowled at the princess bedroom set she’d picked out when she was eight.

      On days when she was scared, Tracy wished she’d died in that car accident.

      She had no memory of the crash itself, but she did remember what had happened afterward in flashes. Emma taking off her white bra and using its padding to staunch the bleeding on Tracy’s head, her voice high and thin as she told Tracy everything was going to be all right. Emma asking a passing motorist for a blanket to keep Tracy warm. Emma begging Mediflight to let her ride along, and after they refused, squeezing Tracy’s hand with one last bit of reassurance before she’d left on the high-flying roller coaster that had had her throwing up on herself.

      Emma had lied. Everything wasn’t all right.

      Tracy hadn’t woken up again until a week after the accident. The doctors had put her into a coma until the swelling in her brain decreased. And when she’d come out of it, Emma hadn’t been there. Tracy had been unable to ask about her friend, not with a tube down her throat and a morphine drip clouding reality. It wasn’t until a highway patrolman had shown up to ask her about the accident and they’d lowered her morphine dose that she’d found she could scribble out words. He’d told her Emma had survived. The bigger question: Where was Emma?

      Tracy sat on her full-size bed next to the window and stared out at the moonlit night, at the acres of chest-high corn her father took such pride in growing.

      After she’d stabilized, they’d moved her to a rehabilitation hospital, where they had a no-cell-phone policy.

      Still no Emma.

      Her father and Will alternated their visits.

      Still no Emma.

      Tracy grew tired of bedpans and flash cards, well-meaning therapists who sang goofy kids’ songs and wanted her to sing along. Emma would have understood, would have busted Tracy out for a much-needed afternoon of playing hooky. They’d have hit the mall or found one of those small shops that made their own ice cream. They’d have gotten a scoop of something fattening and decadent, like coconut cream cheese or turtle truffle.

      Still no Emma.

      And nothing seemed right.

      Oh, it was right in Tracy’s head. She had mental conversations with herself as quickly and smoothly as before the accident. She’d surprised her doctors by being able to silently read and write fluently. And her broken bones had healed. She could walk and run and, although she hadn’t tried, she suspected she could dance.

      But resuming her job at an ad agency was out of the question. Tracy couldn’t sit with her peers and shout out ideas. She couldn’t contribute to a fast-paced conference call. And she could no longer smoothly present storyboards to advertising clients.

      But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of Tracy’s situation was that everyone treated her like an invalid. Her father wanted her to rest more. Her brother finished her sentences. Doctors, nurses and specialists patted her knee and told her things would get better if she just obeyed every request they made and tried to speak. Again and again and again. Until Tracy hated the sound of her own faltering voice.

      She pressed her forehead against the cool window and fingered the cell phone that had no network. Maybe that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst of it was that the doctor had recommended shock therapy as a next step in her treatment, which in laboratory experiments had increased blood flow to the brain and helped reconnect synapses so that speech was smoother.

      Attach electrodes to her brain and start zapping her?

      No flippin’ way!

      She’d stopped cooperating with her therapist. A few weeks later she’d been discharged, which annoyed the heck out of Will. He kept talking about her needing more therapy. Didn’t he realize what they wanted to do to her?

      And now Emma wanted to see her? Tracy was so upset she could scream. Only her scream would probably come out like a trebly Tarzan wail and upset her father.

      Tracy both wanted and didn’t want to see Emma.

      Truth was, she didn’t want to see anyone, not like this. Maybe she’d cloister herself away in her room, with its pink ruffled bedspread and pink flowered walls and only have conversations with herself. For the rest of her life.

      * * *

      “YOU THINK WILL took it upon himself to protect Tracy from you? I had hoped it was doctor’s orders. I never could get Ben to say exactly.” Granny Rose poured a cup of coffee and carried it over to the breakfast nook where Emma sat.

      It was barely six in the morning and Granny was already dressed in olive slacks, a faded blue denim shirt and scuffed work boots. Her snowy hair was caught up in an intricate chignon. She paused before setting down Emma’s coffee, taking in her bike shorts, tank top and messy ponytail. “Going for a bike ride?”

      “Up Parish Hill.” The main road through Harmony Valley wound along the river and then at the northern tip of town ribboned its way up the hill.

      Her grandmother nodded approvingly, straightening the morning paper. “But why keep you away? It’s not like you’re the devil.” Granny sighed. “Well, piffle. We’ll just see about that today, won’t we?”

      “It’s been so long. Tracy probably thinks I’ve abandoned her.” She hadn’t. She hadn’t been able to get past Will. But Harmony Valley didn’t have security guards. “I’m going over there later in the morning and hopefully Will won’t have her locked up in the attic.”

      “Now I wish I’d never let that computer nerd into my house on Sundays, although he did like show tunes. I caught him singing along once.” Granny Rose slid into a chair across from Emma, so clear and normal that last night’s long-john dance and fatigue seemed like nothing to worry about. “No matter. Tracy’s here and Harmony Valley is a small town. You’re bound to bump into her sometime and then you can have a nice long talk.” Granny Rose reached across the table and touched Emma’s hand. “Speaking of talking, let’s talk about your fears regarding your art. No one ever got through an artistic block by ignoring it.”

      The beginnings of a dull rumble filled Emma’s ears. She clutched her warm coffee mug. “I’m not—”

      “You’re not blocked? Or you’re not ignoring being СКАЧАТЬ