Danielle Steel - Full circle

“You know she was almost delirious that first night … in fact she was…” She still remembered the ridiculous tale about Billy that Tana had tried to tell. The girl really wasn't all there and Arthur looked worried too.

“Have her looked at again.” But when Jean tried to insist, Tana refused. Jean almost wondered if she was well enough to go to New England for her summer job, but on the night before she was due to leave, she quietly packed her bag, and the next morning, she came to the breakfast table with a pale, wan, tired face, but for the first time in two weeks, when Jean handed her a glass of orange juice, she smiled, and Jean almost sat down and cried. The house had been like a tomb since the accident. There were no sounds, no music, no laughter, no giggles on the phone, no voices, only dead silence everywhere. And Tana's deadened eyes.

“I've missed you, Tan.” At the sound of the familiar name, Tana's eyes filled with tears. She nodded her head, unable to say anything. There was nothing left for her to say. To anyone. She felt as if her life were over. She never again wanted to be touched by a man, and she knew she never would again. No one would ever do to her what Billy Durning had done, and the tragedy was that Jean couldn't face hearing it, or thinking it. In her mind, it was impossible, so it didn't exist, it hadn't happened. But the worst of it was that it had. “Do you really think you're up to going to camp?”

Tana had wondered about that herself; she knew that the choice was an important one. She could spend the rest of her life hiding there, like a cripple, a victim, someone shrivelled and broken and gone, or she could begin to move out again, and she had decided to do that. “I'll be all right.”

“Are you sure?” She seemed so quiet, so subdued, so suddenly grown up. It was as though the bump on her head in the car accident had stolen her youth from her. Perhaps the fear itself had done that. Jean had never seen such a dramatic change in such a short time. And Arthur kept insisting that Billy had been fine, remorseful, but almost his old self by the time he left for his summer holiday, which was certainly not the case here. “Look, sweetheart, if you don't feel up to it, just come home. You want to start college in the fall feeling strong.”

“I'll be all right.” It was almost all she said before she left, clinging to her single bag. She took the bus to Vermont as she had twice before. It was a summer job she had loved, but it was different this year, and the others noticed it too. She was quieter, kept to herself, and never seemed to laugh anymore. The only time she talked to anyone at all was with the campers themselves. It saddened the others who had known her before, “something must be wrong at home.…” “Is she sick … ?” “Wow, she's like a different girl.…” Everyone noticed, and no one knew. And at the end of the summer, she got on the bus and went home again. She had made no friends this year, except among the kids, but even with them, she wasn't as popular as she'd been before. She was even prettier than she'd been in previous years but all of the kids agreed this time, “Tana Roberts is weird.” And she knew herself that she was.

She spent two days at home with Jean, avoided all her old friends, packed her bags for school, and boarded the train with a feeling of relief. Suddenly, she wanted to get far, far from home … from Arthur … from Jean … from Billy … from all of them … even the friends she'd had at school. She wasn't the same carefree girl who had graduated three months before. She was someone different now, someone haunted and hurt, with scars on her soul. And as she sat on the train and rolled through the South, she slowly began to feel human again. It was as though she had to get far, far from them, from their deceptions, their lies, the things they couldn't see, or refused to believe, the games they played … it was as though ever since Billy Durning had forced his way into her, no one could see her anymore. She didn't exist, because they couldn't acknowledge Billy's sin … but that was only Jean, she told herself. But who else was there? If her own mother didn't believe her … she didn't want to think about it anymore. Didn't want to think about any of it. She was going as far away as she could, and maybe she'd never go home, although she knew that too was a lie. Her mother's last words to her had been, “You'll come home for Thanksgiving, won't you, Tan?” It was as though her mother was afraid of her now, as though she had seen something in her daughter's eyes that she just couldn't face, a kind of bleeding, open, raw pain that she couldn't help and didn't want to be there. She didn't want to go home for Thanksgiving, didn't want to go home ever again. She had escaped their tiny, petty lives … the hypocrisy … Billy and his barbaric friends … Arthur and the years and years he had used Jean … the wife he had cheated on … and the lies Jean told herself … suddenly Tana couldn't stand it anymore, and she couldn't go far enough to get away from them. Maybe she'd never go back … never.

… She loved the sound of the train, and she was sorry when it stopped in Yolan. Green Hill College was two miles away and they had sent a lumbering old station wagon for her, with an old black driver with white hair. He greeted her with a warm smile, but she looked at him suspiciously as he helped her load her bags.

“You been on the train long, miss?”

“Thirteen hours.” She barely spoke to him on the brief drive to the school, and had he even seemed about to stop the car, she would have leapt out and begun to scream. But he sensed that about her, and he didn't push her by trying to get too friendly with her. He whistled part of the way, and when he got tired of that he sang, songs of the Deep South that Tana had never heard before, and in spite of herself, when they arrived, she smiled at him.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime, miss. Just come on down to the office and ask for Sam, I'll give you a ride anywhere you want to go.” And then he laughed the warm black laugh, smiling at her. “There ain't too many places to go around here.” He had the accent of the Deep South, and ever since she had gotten off the train she had noticed how beautiful everything was. The tall majestic looking trees, the bright flowers everywhere, the lush grass, and the air still, heavy and warm. One had a sudden urge to just stroll off somewhere quietly, and when she saw the college itself for the first time, she just stood there and smiled. It was all she had wanted it to be, she had wanted to come here to visit the winter before, but she just hadn't had time. Instead, she had interviewed with their traveling representative up North, and gone on what she'd seen in the brochures. She knew that academically they were one of the best schools, but she had actually wanted something more—their reputation, and the legends she had heard about what a fine old school it was. It was old-fashioned, she knew, but in a way that appealed to her. And now as she looked at the handsome white buildings, perfectly kept, with tall columns, and beautiful French windows looking out on a small lake, she almost felt as though she had come home.

She checked in at the reception room, filled in some cards, wrote down her name on a long list, found out what building she'd be living in, and a little while later, Sam was helping her again, loading all of her luggage on an old country cart. It was almost like a trip back in time just being there, and for the first time in months, she felt peaceful again. She wouldn't have to face her mother here, wouldn't have to explain how she felt or didn't feel, wouldn't have to hear the hated Durning name, or see the unknowing pain Arthur inflicted on her mother's face … or hear about Billy again … just being in the same town with them had stifled her, and for the first month or two after the rape, all she had wanted to do was run away. It had taken all the courage she had to go on to camp that summer anyway, and each day there had been a battle too. She wanted to flinch each time someone came too close, especially the men, but even the boys frightened her now too. At least she didn't have to worry about that here. It was an all-women's school, and she didn't have to attend the dances or proms, or nearby football games. The social life had appealed to her when she had first applied, but she didn't care about that now. She didn't care about anything … or at least she hadn't in three months … but suddenly … suddenly … even the air here smelled good, and as Sam rolled the luggage cart along, she looked at him with a slow smile and he grinned at her.