She tried to recall exactly how she had left their bedroom the day she left for the mainland. The bed was unmade; she remembered that much. It’d been Rosa’s day to wash the linens, so she had not bothered making up the bed. And she remembered thinking this as she hurriedly packed for her so-called weekend getaway. What had happened to the Louis Vuitton luggage she had packed? And all the necessities she had packed for her daughters? It had been evidence—she hated using that word—she knew this, but wasn’t it supposed to be returned to the family? Had Sam packed it away with the rest of their personal belongings? She stepped out of the closet and stood in the middle of the room.
Never had she imagined she would return to her former home once she had been convicted. If she had ever dwelt on returning, she was sure she would have gone utterly mad. Disciplined after years of confinement, Tessa struggled with this new reality, a reality that allowed her thoughts to return to the past.
Inside prison, for the first few years, it was all she could do to not think about her freedom, and now that she had been given a sort of freedom, albeit temporary and with harsh conditions that constrained her in a different way, she didn’t like the path her thoughts had ventured on since she had learned that her conviction had been overturned and she had been granted a new trial.
Before, she had accepted the fact that Liam had gotten away with murder and it truly didn’t matter where she lived because there was no life without her family. Now she wasn’t so sure about her future. At least inside prison, she knew the rules. There had been no reason for her to think about the what-ifs and maybes.
All of a sudden, a dozen thoughts were swirling in her mind. She needed something concrete to focus all her nervous energy on. At least until the trial, a date which still had not been determined. Tessa had never been happy being idle. She should see if Sam could find Lara, and possibly she could come for a visit. Maybe she could stay here with her. They could get to know one another all over again, like when they were little, and their mother was still alive. Before they were forced to live apart.
Maybe she could . . . she didn’t know, what, be a big sister to her again? Tell her all about her prison life? No, that wasn’t a topic Lara would want to discuss. Money, drugs, and the latest fashions were her little sister’s passions. In that order. Without money, there were no drugs or fancy designer dresses.
“Are you okay?”
Whirling around, Tessa almost jumped out of her skin. “Damn, don’t sneak up on me like that!” she shouted at Sam, who stood in the doorway holding two glasses of iced tea. “Remember where I came from,” she reminded him, but neglected to tell him what could happen in prison when someone sneaked into the showers, behind you in the cafeteria line, when a guard’s attention was elsewhere. No, he didn’t need to know about that.
“Sorry. You looked like you were a million miles away,” he said, and handed her the glass of tea.
She took a drink of the tea, reveling in its icy sweetness. “It’s been so long,” she observed, and she took another gulp of the tea. “The ice, I mean. We don’t get ice in prison.”
Sam appeared uneasy. “It’s the little things, I guess,” he said as he stood in the entryway to the bedroom, eyes downcast.
Tessa picked up on his awkwardness, and it took a few seconds for her to realize why. They were in her and Joel’s bedroom; obviously, he would feel uneasy here. Or she assumed that was the cause of what she decided was his uneasiness, but she didn’t really know him on that level, so she could be wrong.
Disturbed by his interference, she would have to put off going into the girls’ rooms for another time, when she was alone. She didn’t want him or anyone else around when she entered their rooms. “Let’s go downstairs,” she said. Though she dreaded doing so, she had to get used to the idea of living in her former home. The changes could not block out her memories of the life she had shared here with Joel and the girls or the scene she had come home to on that long-ago day.
Downstairs, Tessa was at a loss as to where she could sit and not see the pool area, so she plopped down on the bottom step. She needed to know why Sam had not gutted the pool area. Of all the spaces to leave untouched, it was the worst.
Sam sat beside her, and she scooted as far away from him as the step would allow.
“I don’t bite,” he said.
“Of course you don’t. I’m just making room for you,” she explained, then patted the extra few inches her moving gave him. Clearing her throat, then taking a deep breath, before she lost her courage, she asked, “Why didn’t you fill in that goddamned pool?” Anger spewed from her mouth, surprising her.
Sam shook his head. “I wanted to, Tessa, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
His face clouded with an emotion she couldn’t name.
“It’s a crime scene,” he explained. “I just couldn’t. It would have meant giving up all hope.”
A crime scene? All hope?
“But, it’s
