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“They were in Daddy’s car. She had her hand on his leg. I yelled at her to let go, but she never heard me. I’m still mad at him,” Chloe added, her voice dropping to a whisper.
When? When had Chloe been with Court and Whitney, if, indeed she was the w
oman? Was it true? Or a fantasy? What, if anything, did it have to do with Chloe’s “spells” where she seemed out of it for minutes at a time? And the fainting spell, according to her teacher, the reason Elizabeth had kept her home from school.
Dread settled into her heart. What was wrong with her child? She had to find out. First from a medical doctor, then a child psychologist or—
“Damn,” she whispered under her breath. Elizabeth was so rattled she nearly missed the turn-off to Vivian’s neighborhood. Wrenching the wheel hard at the last minute, she made the corner, then told herself to calm down. She would deal with whatever was going on with Chloe.
Another glance in the rearview showed nothing out of the ordinary. As she drove upward past McMansions with wrought-iron gates and manicured lawns, the street winding to the crest of a hill that housed the neighborhood park, Chloe was doodling on the condensation of the window, once again blithely unconcerned about anything.
Elizabeth nosed the car downward to the street leading to the Eachuses huge home with its sculpted landscaping and exterior lights burning bright in the night.
Pulling into the drive, she switched off the ignition and yanked on the emergency brake before swiveling in her seat to regard her daughter. Rain pounded onto the roof and she had to raise her voice to be heard. “Honey? When you fainted before, those other times? At school? Do you remember?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you have dreams then, too?”
Chloe stared at Elizabeth through the darkness, then nodded slowly.
“What were they about?” Elizabeth could scarcely form the words, her throat was so dry. And her heart was pounding painfully in her chest.
“He said he loved you, but I think he did some bad things.”
“Your . . . daddy?”
Chloe hiked her shoulders to her ears. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I’m just worried that—”
”We’re here!” she cut her mother off as she quickly unbuckled her seat belt.
“Chloe, wait!”
“No,” she declared, throwing open the door and running through the swirls of windblown rain across the wet grass toward the massive front door.
Elizabeth scrambled after her. She caught up with her daughter at the porch, but Chloe had already pounded on the bell seconds before Lissa opened the door.
“Wait!” Elizabeth said again.
Chloe shot inside like a bullet.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to call her daughter back, but the two girls were already pounding up the stairs as she entered the foyer, the shoulders of her jacket wet, her skirt actually dripping. The moment for a heart-to-heart with her daughter had passed, she realized. She’d have to continue the conversation later, when she and Chloe were alone again.
Vivian, dressed in one of her ubiquitous jogging suits, appeared from the direction of the kitchen. “Ready?” She stopped by the coat closet where she grabbed a longer jacket and umbrella. “God, it’s nasty out there. I hate this weather.”
“Me, too,” Elizabeth admitted.
“We’ll deal. Bye, honey!” she sang up the stairs to her daughter, then toward the kitchen, “Bill, you’re on! See you later.” As she reached for the doorknob, she said, to Elizabeth, “Let’s go, before someone decides they need me.”
Outside, Vivian and Elizabeth ducked their heads against the rain as, unlike Chloe, they took the sidewalk to Elizabeth’s Escape.
“I’m going to have to make it a quick night,” Elizabeth told her as Vivian buckled herself into the passenger seat. Starting the engine and pulling into the street, she explained about Chloe falling asleep in the car, omitting what she’d said about her dream. “The kid’s just beat, so I’ll need to get her home.”
As she drove, she sensed that Vivian wanted to argue, but those protests died in her throat. Instead, she directed Elizabeth two exits south on the 405, then to a commercial building whose back offices had obviously been converted from storage to a community room for rent. Elizabeth found an empty parking spot and she and Vivian dashed through the rain and the parked cars.
Once inside the room with its tile floor and suspended fluorescent lights, Elizabeth took a seat in the semicircle of chairs, but felt dissociated from the other women. The group called themselves Sisterhood, though Vivian had explained it was a loose term without any registered name or number.
