The sob I’d been holding in burst out of my chest, and I went running to meet her.
Caroline threw her arms around me and absorbed my impact.
“Ronan just told me,” she said. She was in silk pajamas with an overcoat thrown over her shoulders. Her feet were stuffed into Hunter boots. I saw in my mind what must have happened. She came downstairs for coffee and the newspaper only to find Ronan there, unreadable with news of the fire.
And she came running.
This was the part of Caroline that Zilla never understood. Never got to see.
“Are you all right?” she asked, cupping my face.
“Fine. We got out before the fire spread to the house.”
“We?”
“Zilla was there.”
“Where is she now?”
“I sent her back to the city. She...” I wasn’t going to put my suspicion into words. And with one look at Caroline’s face I saw that she understood.
“Do you know that for sure?”
“No,” I said quickly. And even managing to laugh, like—oh my god, how silly we are to even be talking about this.
“But it does feel like... something she might do?”
To that I had no answer, and the weight of the evening rested on my neck and on my heart. I hung my head.
“Okay. You’re here.” She turned us towards the compound, and together we started walking across the grass. “You’re safe. For as long as you need.”
There was coffeeand scrambled eggs. Granola and fresh fruit, but I couldn’t sit down.
“I smell like smoke,” I said, sniffing my hair.
“Of course. Denise will show you to your room,” Caroline said, squeezing me one last time. She’d had her arm around my shoulder the whole walk up the hill to the house, and she’d kept it there through the house. The support was wonderful.
But I hadn’t had so much in so long, it was almost too much.
I followed Denise through the house upstairs to the wing of guest rooms. She stopped in front of the furthest door. “This one is the most private,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“There are towels and a robe in the bathroom. Would you like me to send someone to get clothes?”
Everything at my house smelled like smoke. Or was ruined by the water from the hoses. I shook my head. “I’ll handle everything later.” That seemed like a good answer even though it was pure bullshit. Denise nodded and walked back down the hallway. Morning sunlight came in through the bay windows, illuminating everything.
The bedroom was cream and pale blue, the bed a raft of comforters and pillows. A monument to sleep. I pulled the blinds and the room went dark, and the exhaustion filled me up from my toes to the top of my head.
Shower. Shower and then sleep and then... well, whatever comes next, I suppose.
I washed my hair three times and scrubbed the top layer of skin off my body in a hope that I could get the smell off and the fear. The fear that my sister was coming unhinged again. Fear that Ronan had done this to scare me away. Fear. Fear. Fear.
What in the world would vanquish this fear? What mantra could I recite? What research could I do? How could I pluck this like a cancer right out of my head, so I could sleep? So I could plan and think of what to do next?
Part of me wanted to let Caroline handle this, the way she’d handled my life when it fell apart last time. But as soon as I thought it, put it into concrete terms, I recoiled.
I’d spent the last two years letting fear rule my life. Letting it shove me in corners and walk in the shadows hoping to be unnoticed. Not again. Not ever again.