A January Chill. Rachel Lee

at her duplicity was filling her. Her legs feeling weak, she went into the dining room and sat in a chair where she could watch her mother bustle around the kitchen preparing to make the garlic bread.

      Hannah put the loaf of French bread on the cutting board and sliced it in two, putting half the loaf back in its plastic bag. Then she paused, her knife hovering over the bread and, without looking at Joni, said, “Why did you give Hardy that bid package?”

      “Mom…” But Joni couldn’t speak, neither to tell the truth nor to prevaricate. Her heart slammed hard, and she sat mute.

      Hannah turned her head and looked at her. “That’s what you did the night you said you were going to see your friend. When we had the snowstorm? Why did you do it, Joni?”

      All the explanations she’d given herself when she made up her mind to draw Hardy into this were gone from her brain as if they’d never existed. Empty, anxious, shamed, she simply looked at her mother.

      “I don’t suppose,” Hannah said after a moment, “that we need to tell Witt that. He’s mad enough as it is. I can’t see what good it will do to have him angry with you. What’s done is done.”

      That didn’t make Joni feel any better. She watched as her mother began slicing the bread diagonally.

      “I suppose,” Hannah said presently, “that you’ll give me an explanation eventually.”

      When Joni finally spoke, her voice was a thick, tight croak. “I had reasons.”

      Hannah nodded, putting her knife aside and going to the refrigerator for butter. “I’m sure you did, Joni. You always do.”

      Joni couldn’t tell if that was a mere statement of fact or a sarcastic comment. And, honestly, she didn’t really want to know. She just wished she could remember why it had seemed so important to her to give that bid package to Hardy a week ago. And wondered why all that determination seemed to have deserted her.

      Nothing more had been said by the time they began to dine. Hannah offered no information about the bids she had seen, her silence telling Joni as clearly as any words that her mother wasn’t happy with her.

      Well, she hadn’t expected anyone to be happy with her. Even Hardy hadn’t been. But she didn’t like feeling cut off from her mother. Hannah’s disapproval had always cut her like a knife.

      Finally, unable to bear the silence any longer, Joni put down her fork. “It’s wrong, Mom, Witt hating Hardy all these years. He didn’t kill Karen.”

      “Mmm.” Hannah said no more.

      Feeling almost desperate, Joni said, “Witt’s never going to heal if he keeps on hating Hardy.”

      “Really.” It wasn’t a question and carried the weight of disapproval. “Have you considered that Witt is grieving in his own way?”

      “It’s been twelve years!”

      Hannah’s dark eyes fixed her. “Joni, do you think I miss your father any less because it’s been nearly fifteen years? Do you?”

      “I…” Joni’s voice trailed off, and her eyes began to burn.

      “I think,” Hannah continued, “that you’ve been arrogant. You have no right to decide when someone else’s grief should end.”

      “But…” Again words escaped her.

      “Grief isn’t measured by calendars. And I thought you understood people better than that, anyway. Witt’s anger at Hardy is the way he keeps himself from being torn up inside.”

      Joni looked down, her throat tight and her chest aching. “Karen wouldn’t like it, Mom.”

      “No, she probably wouldn’t. But Karen isn’t here, and that’s the whole problem.”

      Joni couldn’t even bring herself to raise her head. She was suddenly hurting so deep inside that she didn’t know if she could bear it. “We all miss her, Mom,” she said thickly. “Including Hardy.”

      Hannah sighed. “Yes,” she said presently. “We do. But opening up the wounds this way isn’t good for anyone, Joni. Not for anyone.”

      She felt like a stupid child who should have known better, and somehow she couldn’t reach into herself and find the force that had compelled her to rush headlong into this situation. Couldn’t feel again the fire that had pushed her. And that left her feeling defenseless.

      But still, despite that, she felt that the situation was wrong, that Witt’s anger was a poison not a cure. And that Hardy was being treated unfairly.

      “Hardy was my friend, Mom,” she said finally. “He was my best friend, next to Karen. And when she died, I shouldn’t have had to lose him, too.” Then, having said all she could, she went up to her room and sat in the quiet, staring out the window at freshly falling snow.

      It hurt, she thought. It still hurt like hell. And maybe that was what had compelled her to reach out to Hardy.

      Because, dear God, even after twelve years, something inside her was still bleeding.