Evidence of Life. Barbara Sissel Taylor

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      “Very funny.” Nick hefted his briefcase and laptop into the back of Abby’s Jeep Cherokee, shifting it to fit, muttering what sounded to Abby like, “Who needs this?” Or, “Why am I doing this?”

      She said, “Why don’t you leave that stuff here? You don’t have to work every weekend.”

      “I gave you the keys to the BMW, didn’t I?” he asked as if he hadn’t heard her, and maybe he hadn’t or didn’t want to.

      “Oh, my gosh!” Lindsey’s eyes were round in mock amazement. “Dad’s letting you drive his precious BMW?”

      “I know,” Abby said. “I’m astonished, too.”

      He straightened. “Hey, funny girl, maybe I’ll let you drive Mom’s Jeep.”

      “For real?” She only had her learner’s permit, wouldn’t turn sixteen until August.

      “Do you think that’s wise?” Abby was instantly anxious. “She’s never driven on the highway.”

      “She has to learn sometime.”

      “But they said it might storm.”

      “Like they know.” Nick dropped his arm around her shoulders. “You worry too much.”

      “Just promise me you won’t let her drive if the weather’s bad.”

      “Jesus, Abby, I’m not stupid.”

      “No, Nick, I didn’t mean—”

      But he was stepping away, telling Lindsey to get in the car. He wanted to get to the campsite before dark.

      She came over to Abby and hugged her. “Never mind, Mommy. You know how stressed he gets before a road trip. If he lets me drive, I promise I’ll be careful.”

      Abby clung to Lindsey for a moment, breathing in her scent, leftover maple syrup and something citrusy, a faded remnant of little girl, the color pink, a lullaby. She said, “I know you will.” She walked with Lindsey to the car.

      “We’ll be back on Sunday.” Lindsey settled into the front seat. “Unless we’ve starved to death from Daddy’s cooking.”

      “I’ll make a big dinner, barbequed chicken and corn on the cob. Chocolate cake for dessert. How’s that sound?”

      “I just hope I’m not too weak to eat it.”

      “I think you’ll survive,” Abby said. She looked at Nick over the hood. “Don’t be mad because of what I said about Lindsey driving, okay? I didn’t mean anything.”

      “She has to learn, Abby, and it’s best if one of us is with her.”

      “I’m glad it’s you.” Abby meant it. Nick’s nerves were steadier. She went around to him. “I hope you can relax and have some fun.”

      “Yeah, me, too.”

      She wanted his gaze and touched his wrist. “Nick?”

      “We should probably talk when I get home.”

      “About?”

      “Things. Us. You know. Isn’t that what you’re always saying, that I should be more open with you?”

      “Yes, but—” What’s wrong? She bit her lip to stop herself from asking.

      “Thanks for making the French toast.” His eyes on hers were somber.

      “Sure, of course. I was glad to. You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

      Instead of answering, he cradled her face in his hands and kissed her, and his kiss was so gentle and tender, and so filled with something she couldn’t define. Later she would think it was regret she felt coming from him, maybe even remorse. But then she’d wonder if she’d read too much into it, if her sense of that had been created in hindsight.

      He touched her temple, brushed the loose wisps of hair from her forehead. “I don’t want you to worry. We’ll be fine, okay?” His look was complicated, searching.

      “Okay,” she said, and she might have questioned him then, but he left her and got into the car too quickly. They reached the end of the driveway, Lindsey waved, and they were gone.

      Chapter 2

      The first time Abby had visited the Texas Hill Country was during the summer after third grade when she went to camp, the year she turned nine. Her mother got the idea from a magazine article that said a summer camp experience could boost a child’s self-confidence and help them feel more independent. But the psychology behind it wasn’t how she convinced Abby to go. No. What Abby’s mother did was to invite Kate Connelly, Abby’s best friend, to join her. The girls didn’t know it—Kate still didn’t—but Abby’s mother paid Kate’s way.

      Camp Many Waters—Many Manures, the girls had dubbed it that first year screaming with laughter—was on the Guadalupe River, near Kerrville. Kate loved it from the first day. Abby struggled with homesickness but not after their first year. Camp was where they learned to swim and ride horses and do the Cotton-Eyed Joe. Camp was where they napped together in a salt-sweat tangle of limbs in a hammock strung between a couple of ancient live oaks.

      The rest of the year they lived a block apart in the same Houston neighborhood and shared almost the same birthday. Kate was older and never minded saying so until they hit thirty. They’d been in most of each other’s classes through school and went on to start college together. Mr. Tuttle at Tuttle’s Rexall Drugs two streets over from theirs, where they’d bought Jujubes and Superwoman comic books and then their first lipsticks together, had labeled them the Stardust Twins. But where Abby’s childhood had been predictable and sure, Kate’s had been uneasy; it had wounded her in an unreachable way, like a too-deeply buried splinter. Camp in the Hill Country had been her escape, the one place where every hour was wholly welcome.

      So it didn’t surprise Abby that when they were grown and married, Kate went there to live. She said there was just something about that part of Texas. She could never define it. Neither could Abby. But then people had been flocking to the Hill Country since pioneer days, and most came away at a loss to describe what set it apart, what made it so special.

      But there was one thing everyone did agree on, one thing for sure: It was dry.

      Unlike Houston, where Kate and Abby had grown up, where the land began a flattened, flood-prone slide into Galveston Bay, the Hill Country region, near the center of the state, encompassed miles and miles of rumpled, rough-dried terrain. It had been submerged once, eons ago, beneath a shallow, urchin-filled, inland sea, but then the sea leaked out and left behind the skeletal remains of countless marine animals in layers like cake.

      That’s when the soil became stony and dry.

      So dry you could scarcely scratch it with your fingernails.

      There were the rare exceptions, the record-making torrential downpours, like the one Nick was driving Lindsey straight into at that very moment. Of course he wouldn’t know that for СКАЧАТЬ