Free Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas Page B

I’m fine.” My sister’s voice was high and wavering. The voice of a young child. The sound brought back a thousand memories. I remembered the child she had been. I remembered reading to her those days and nights when we had been left alone for far too long, when there wasn’t enough to eat and we had no idea where our mom was. I had read books about magical creatures, intrepid children, adventurous rabbits. And Tara had listened and listened, gathered tightly against my side, and I hadn’t complained even though we were both hot and sweaty because there was no air-conditioning.
    “Hey,” I said softly. “What’s going on with you?”
    “Oh . . . not much.”
    We both snickered. I was relieved that even if my sister had possibly lost her mind, she still had a sense of humor.
    “Tara Sue . . .” I wandered to the bed to glance at Luke. “You’re the only person I know who hates surprises as much as I do. Is a little advance warning too much to ask? You could have called me. E-mailed. Sent me a ‘what I did over summer vacation’ essay. Instead, I get a call from Mom the night before last.”
    A long silence passed. “Is she mad at me?”
    “She’s always mad,” I said reasonably. “If you want to know how she reacted to Luke . . . well, I think if it had ever occurred to her that either of us would have ever committed the unpardonable sin of making her a grandmother, she would have had us both sterilized before puberty. Luckily for Luke, Mom’s not much of a long-term thinker.”
    Now Tara sounded tearful. “Is he all right?”
    “He’s great,” I said at once. “Healthy and eating well.”
    “I guess . . . I guess you’re wondering why I dropped him off with Mom.”
    “Yes. But before you tell me about that, where are you? At that clinic Liza told me about?”
    “Yes, I got here last night. It’s a nice place, Ella. I have a private room. I can come and go any time I want. They’re saying I should probably stay at least three months.”
    I was struck silent. Why three months? How did they know that was the necessary amount of time to deal with Tara’s problems? Had they taken stock and concluded she was only three months’ worth of crazy? Surely if she were suicidal or psychotic, they’d want to keep her longer. Or was it possible they didn’t want to reveal the truth to Tara, that she had been enrolled in their extended residency program? There were about a dozen questions I wanted to ask at once, all of them so urgent that they bottlenecked and I couldn’t get out a sound. I cleared my throat, trying to relieve it of clotted words that tasted like salt.
    As if she sensed my helplessness, Tara said, “My friend Mark bought me a plane ticket and made the arrangements.”
    Mark. The married man.
    “Do you want to be there?” I asked gently.
    A whisper. “I don’t want to be anywhere, Ella.”
    “Have you talked to anyone yet?”
    “Yes, a woman. Dr. Jaslow.”
    “Do you like her?”
    “She seems nice.”
    “Do you feel like she can help you?”
    “I think so. I don’t know.”
    “What did you talk about?”
    “I told her how I’d dropped Luke off with Mom. I didn’t mean to do it, just leaving the baby there like that.”
    “Can you tell me why you did it, sweetie? Did something happen?”
    “After I left the hospital with Luke, I went home to the apartment with Liza for a couple of days. But everything was weird. The baby didn’t seem like mine. I didn’t know how to act like a parent.”
    “Of course not. Our parents didn’t act like parents. You had no example to go by.”
    “It was like I couldn’t stand one more second of being in my own skin. Every time I looked at Luke, I didn’t know if I was feeling what I was supposed to feel. And then it was like I was floating outside my body and I was fading away. Even after I came back into myself, I was in a fog. I think I’m still in it. I hate it.” A long silence, and then Tara asked tentatively, “Am I going