A Sister's Forgiveness (10 page)

Tea
—
green tea
, Emma thought, remembering that just a few weeks earlier Sadie had announced that she was on a strict diet to eat healthier. “Green tea,” she had told Emma. “It contains antioxidants that are very good for the immune system.”

“Iced or hot?” Emma had asked her, and Sadie had been stumped.

“I’m not sure it matters,” she had said uncertainly, but then she’d grinned. “But from now on, it’s milk or green tea or water. No soda. No coffee. And no juice drinks. Those are so incredibly loaded with sugar.” She’d made a face as if disgusted that the beverages that had been her choice for most of her sixteen years had suddenly left a terrible taste in her mouth.

Emma gave Hester a weary smile then shook her head. “Perhaps later,” she said. “Thank you.” She fixed her gaze on the doorway. “What am I going to say to Jeannie?” she asked.

Hester hesitated and then sat in the chair next to Emma and took her hand. “Jeannie and Geoff will need a little time, Emma. Right now all they can think about is Tessa.”

Emma heard the rustle of someone approaching and glanced back toward the door. Geoff was standing in the doorway, looking as if he might shatter into a thousand pieces at any second.

She started toward him, feeling as if the distance between them was far greater than just the width of a small waiting room. And just when she was within two steps of her brother-in-law, Geoff walked past her as if she were an apparition. He went to the far end of the room, where he turned a chair to face the window and literally collapsed into it.

The aide who had accompanied him stood in the doorway, as if unsure of what her next move should be.

“My sister? Mrs. Messner?” Emma asked.

The young woman pointed to a closed door marked with the skirted silhouette used to indicate female. “Shall I check on her?”

“No thank you. The family is here now. We’ll be all right.” She looked back and saw Hester and John standing next to the chair where Geoff sat slumped forward, his large hands dangling helplessly between his knees.

“We were just fooling around. “

That was what Sadie had said, and suddenly Emma understood that they all had to accept the reality that whatever had happened to Tessa, Sadie had played a major part in it.

Out in the hallway, Emma tapped lightly on the restroom door. From inside she could hear sounds that were heartbreaking and terrifying at the same time. Those sounds were so foreign to her, and yet there was no question that they were coming from her sister—the carefree woman who could bring a smile to anyone’s lips.

“Jeannie? It’s Emma. Open the door.”

The silence that replaced the sobs was almost more distressing than hearing Jeannie wailing. Emma tried the knob and found the door locked.

“Jeannie?”

After what seemed forever but was in fact only seconds, Emma heard the click of the lock. She pushed in on the door at the same time that Jeannie pulled, and the door flew back, banging against the wall as Jeannie stumbled forward and into Emma’s arms.

Emma lost her battle to choke back the tears. She let them flow freely now. And the sisters stood locked in each other’s arms—one of them dressed plain with her prayer covering knocked sideways by her sister’s embrace, the other dressed in jeans and a T-shirt three sizes too large for her, her flaming red curls flattened into clumps against her cheeks by the rain and her tears.

“What happened?” Jeannie sobbed. “I don’t understand.”

Oh, the questions they must face in the days to come. Even if Tessa made a full recovery, Emma knew that once the relief passed, there were bound to be questions. The truth was that she was beginning to have a pretty good idea about what had happened.

The position of the driver’s seat had told its own story—too close for the long legs of Dan Kline. It had been the passenger seat that had been pushed back to its full depth—and reclined. Sadie would never recline a seat. Sadie had once told Lars that she thought that was so dumb. Why wouldn’t people want to see where they were going?

Had their impetuous, adventurous daughter persuaded Dan Kline to let her drive them to school? Or was it Dan who had suggested the switch in drivers? The roads were wet and slick with the heavy rain—a rain that followed weeks of drought. Surely the boy would have taken that into consideration. Surely he would have reminded Sadie that he was only eighteen and that Florida law required a driver on a learning permit to be accompanied by another driver over the age of twenty-one. He was a responsible kid—most of the time.

Oh, there was going to be blame enough to go around for all of them, Emma thought. But they would weather that and whatever else came their way as they always had—as a family of strong faith.

“Come on, Jeannie,” Emma said as she guided her sister across the tiled hall and into the carpeted waiting room. “Geoff needs you.”

Chapter 11

Sadie

S
adie, my name is Lieutenant Benson. I need to ask you some questions about what happened earlier today.”

Sadie kept her gaze fixed on the wall opposite her. She was in a hospital room. She could tell by the whiteboard on the wall that announced: “Your nurse is Marcie.”

She had little memory of how she’d gotten here. Her dad was standing by the window while her mom fussed over her, adjusting her pillow and rearranging the covers. They were nervous.

“I’m with the Sarasota police,” the man in uniform continued.

“Dad and I will be right here, Sadie,” her mom murmured. “There’s no reason to be afraid, okay?”

Until that moment, Sadie hadn’t really felt much of anything, but now as details of the morning came back to her, she felt heat rush to her face, and her stomach lurched. The clock read 10:25. At night? No. Morning. She could hear the rain beating against the window the way it had been scratching at the car windows when she was driving. She glanced toward the light and saw that it was still daylight outside.

Lieutenant Benson pulled a straight-backed chair closer to the bed and sat down. “Before I begin, there are some things I need to be sure you understand.”

Sadie found that the man’s voice was not unkind—not bossy like she might have expected. Or angry with her. She had really steeled herself for everyone to be so very angry. It was confusing that her parents weren’t upset with her for driving with Dan when they’d been so very clear about the rules.

“You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”

Her mom gasped and looked at her dad, but the officer continued, “Tell me what you think that means.”

“It means that you—” Emma began speaking to Sadie.

“I need your daughter to tell me, ma’am.”

Sadie swallowed, but there was no saliva in her mouth. “It means that I don’t have to talk or answer your questions if I don’t want to,” Sadie said. Her voice sounded like one of those automated message voices. “I don’t want to.” She did not blink or break her focus on the whiteboard:
Your nurse is Marcie
.

Lieutenant Benson cleared his throat. “Got that. You have the right to have an attorney present now and during any future questioning and—”

“It is not our way,” Lars interrupted, but Lieutenant Benson ignored him.

“If you cannot afford an attorney, then one will be appointed for you.” He waited for Sadie to respond.

“We’re not poor,” her mother said. “Just plain. My husband makes a good—”

Sadie saw her father’s hand move, and her mother stopped speaking in midsentence.

Lieutenant Benson spoke to her. “Sadie, do you understand that you can have an attorney—a lawyer—if you want one?”

“We don’t know any lawyers,” Sadie said. She pushed herself a little higher onto the pillows and locked eyes with the lieutenant. “I understand my rights—you just Mirandized me, right? Well, I don’t want to answer any questions, and we don’t do lawyers.” She glanced at her mom. “My stomach hurts.”

“Okay. Well, that’s your choice,” Benson said as he put away the notepad and pencil he’d taken from his shirt pocket. He looked up at her father. “My advice, sir, is that you consider hiring a lawyer to represent your daughter.”

Sadie sighed and focused once again on the whiteboard.

Her parents followed the officer into the hall, and she heard him talking to them. “…right now culpable negligence but…”

Sadie’s eyes darted toward the door, and for the first time it dawned on her that she was possibly going to be arrested and charged. She listened harder.

“Dan Kline,” she heard her father say.

“He’s been ticketed for allowing your daughter to operate his car.”

“So you’re telling us that Sadie might be arrested while Daniel…”

Sadie felt a wave of panic. She didn’t want to cause trouble for Dan. He had a full college scholarship. If he was arrested, that could ruin his whole future. She pushed back the covers ready to go to Lieutenant Benson and tell him everything.

“Dan Kline wasn’t driving the car, sir,” Lieutenant Benson said. “There are witnesses that saw your daughter at the wheel.”

Sadie tried to swallow around the lump that suddenly seemed to fill her throat. Uncle Geoff had seen her. So had Tessa. “I was the one,” she whispered as once again she saw Tessa’s face in the instant before she was struck, her eyes wide and questioning as the car careened toward her. I
was the one
, repeated in Sadie’s brain as she climbed back into bed and pulled the covers around her, covering her ears to block out everything that had happened. But even there she heard the drumbeat of the words. I
was the one
.

Seemingly out of nowhere, her mother’s arms came around her, holding her, protecting her. “Shhh,” she whispered. “Everything will work out.”

“Dr. Booker has admitted your daughter for observation,” she heard Lieutenant Benson tell her father. “But once she is discharged…”

Sadie’s choking sobs blocked out the rest of his words.

“And then?” she heard her father ask moments later as her sobs tapered to a whimper. His voice was shaking in a way that Sadie had never heard before.

“She’ll be taken downtown for booking. Again, sir, right now the case against her is borderline.”

All of the air seemed to go out of her mother as if someone had pierced her with a needle, and Sadie realized that she had been listening to what the officer was saying as well. “No,” she whispered and held Sadie tighter.

“Mr. Keller, take my advice and do your daughter a favor. Hire a lawyer,” Lieutenant Benson repeated.

“That is not our way,” Sadie heard her father reply, and then she heard the quiet click of the door as her father came back inside the room and closed the door, leaving Lieutenant Benson out in the corridor.

She pulled away from her mother and found her voice. “Am I being arrested?”

“No,” her father assured her through gritted teeth. Then very softly, he murmured, “Maybe.”

“It’s what they have to do, apparently, when there’s been a serious accident,” her mom explained.

“But Tessa’s going to be all right?”

“She’s in surgery,” her mother said. “The doctors are…”

There was a tap at the door, and Sadie’s dad opened it to Hester Steiner. Her mom’s friend looked really awful, as if she had just heard the most horrible news ever.

“Hester? Are you… What is it?” her mom asked in a voice that sounded like she couldn’t find the breath she needed.

Hester glanced at Sadie and tried a smile that didn’t come close to working. She motioned for Sadie’s parents to follow her into the hall.

“We’ll be right outside the door,” her mom said as she gently shut the door.

Sadie strained to hear what Hester was telling her parents. “…did everything they could but…”

Then she heard her mom moan, “Tessa? Please, God, no.”

And in that moment, she knew. Tessa was dead.

And it was her fault.

Part Two

The beginning of strife is like
letting out water…
P
ROVERBS 17:14

Chapter 12