Sanctuary

told him all of it tonight, because I thought it was only right and fair.” Weary now, she rubbed her forehead. An owl was hooting monotonously somewhere in the cool dark. She wished she could find its tree, climb the branches, and just huddle there in peace.
    “Do you want me to go over it all again now, Brian? Do you want chapter and verse and all the little details?”
    “No.” He let out a sigh and sat beside her. “No, you don’t have to go over it again. I guess you’d have told me before if the lot of us weren’t so screwed up. I’ve been thinking about that while I’ve been sitting out here working myself up to pound on you.”
    “Couldn’t have taken much. You were already mad at me. Kicked me out of the house.”
    He let out a quick, rough laugh. “Your own fault you let me. It’s your house too.”
    “It’s your house, Brian. It always has been more yours than anyone’s.” It was said gently, with quiet acceptance. “You’re the one who cares most, and tends most.”
    “Does that bother you?”
    “No. Well, maybe some, but mostly it’s a relief to me. I don’t have to worry if the roof’s going to leak, because you do.”
    She tipped her head back, looking up at the glossy white paint of the veranda, then out over the moonlight-sprinkled gardens. The wind chimes were tinkling, the fountain quiet for the night, and the scent of musk roses floated poignantly on the breeze.
    “I don’t want to live here. For a long time I thought I didn’t ever want to be here. But I was wrong. I do. Everything here means more to me than I let myself believe. I want to know I can come back now and then. I can sit here on a warm, clear night like this and smell the sweet peas and the jasmine and Mama’s roses. Lexy and me, we just can’t stay here the way you do. But I guess we both need to know that Sanctuary stands on the hill like always and nobody’s going to lock the door on us.”
    “No one would.”
    “I dreamed the doors were locked and I couldn’t get inside. No one came when I called, and all the windows were dark and empty.” She closed her eyes, wanting it to play back in her mind, wanting to know she could stand against it now. “I lost myself in the forest. I was alone and scared and couldn’t find my way. Then I saw myself standing on the other side of the river. Only it wasn’t me at all. It was Mama.”
    “You’ve always had strange dreams.”
    “Maybe I’ve always been crazy.” She smiled a little, then looked out into the night. “I look like her, Brian. Sometimes when I see my face in the mirror, it gives me such a jolt. In the end, that’s what pushed me over the edge. When those pictures came, all those pictures of me. I thought one of them was Mama. Only she was dead. She was naked and her eyes were open and staring and lifeless as a doll’s. I looked just like her.”
    “Jo—”
    “But the picture wasn’t there,” she said quickly. “It wasn’t even there. I imagined it. I’ve always hated seeing pictures of myself, because I see her in them.”
    “You may look like her, Jo, but you’re not like her. You finish what you start, you stick.”
    “I ran away from here.”
    “You got away from here,” he corrected. “You went out to make your own life. That’s different from leaving a life you’d already started and all the people who needed you. You’re not Annabelle.” He draped an arm over her shoulder and let the swing slide into motion. “And you’re only about as crazy as the rest of us around here.”
    She laughed. “Well, that’s comforting, isn’t it?”
     
     
    IT was late when Susan Peters marched out of the rented cottage and stalked toward the cove. She’d had a nasty fight with her husband— and had had to do it in undertones so as not to disturb their friends who’d taken the cottage with them for the week.
    The man was an idiot, she decided. She couldn’t even think why she’d married him, much less why she’d stayed married to him for three years—not to mention the two they’d lived together before making it legal.
    Every time, every single time, she so much as mentioned buying a house, he got that closed-in look on his face. And he started going on about down payments and taxes and maintenance and money, money, money. What the hell were both of them working their butts off for? Was she supposed to live in an apartment in Atlanta forever?
    The hell with the conveniences, she thought, and tossed back her curly mop