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her right as he peered down into her face, his heart
hammering faster when he saw that his guess had been right.
              His sister had come
home at last.
              “Aubrey…I…”
              She shook her head and
stared straight ahead, apparently not interested in looking at her brother.  “Yes,
it’s me, your sweet sister.  Surprised?”
              Noah couldn’t imagine a
bigger understatement.  He didn’t know what to say and figured it was a
rhetorical question anyway.
              “You’re probably
wondering where I’ve been all this time, what I’ve been doing.”
              Noah again found
himself incapable of response.  He was having a hard time getting a handle on
his feelings.  After giving her up for dead so long ago, he should be happy
about this unexpected reunion, overjoyed, even.  He should be drawing her into
his arms and hugging her so tight she could barely breathe.  In reality, he
felt only trepidation and had no desire to touch her.
              She laughed again.  This
time there was a nastier edge to it.  “You never came looking for daddy and
me.”
              “That’s not fair,
Aubrey.  I had no idea where to look, no fucking clue where dad took you. 
Until just now, I was sure you were both dead.”
              She grunted.  “These
are the things you tell yourself so you can sleep at night.”
              “They’re the truth.”
              She finally looked at
him.  There was a hollow look around her pale blue eyes and her sickly pallor
suggested a prolonged lack of exposure to sunlight.  She was wearing a black
dress and a pair of grimy old running shoes.  The dress had seen better days,
too.  It was badly frayed, with many loose threads at the seams.
              “I don’t care, and I’m
not here to argue with you.  I just wanted to come back and see if you were
still here, because if you’d died or something, I could have forgiven you.  But
you look very healthy, Noah.”
              Noah felt a tear
sliding down his cheek.  “Aubrey…”
              “Your tears are wasted
on me, brother.  Now that I know you’re alive, I’ll be moving along.  Maybe
we’ll see each other again, maybe we won’t.”  Her gaze shifted back to the
empty clearing.  “Probably not, though.”
              “You should stay with
me.”
              Aubrey shook her head. 
“No.  You don’t want me here, trust me.  I’d probably kill you in your sleep
some night.”
              Neither of them said
anything else for several minutes.  They both watched as the light of the rising
sun filled the valley below, Aubrey remaining in the chair despite her stated
intention to move along.  But the splendor of nature was lost on Noah this
morning.  His sister’s bitter words had swept aside his earlier trepidation.  Tears
continued to flow, old emotions reawakening and tearing at his heart.
              “I’m sorry.  You’re
right.  I should have looked for you.”
              She nodded.  “Yes.  You
should have.”
              “At least tell me what
happened to you.  Is dad…”
              He trailed off, unable
to say it.
              “Yes, he is.  He was
dead barely more than an hour after you last saw him.”
              She said this in a
flat, strangely emotionless tone.  Her eyes looked unfocused, like those of
someone far away from here in her head.  For the first time, Noah had an urge to
reach out and touch her, to comfort her somehow.  But he made no move to do
that, knowing the gesture would be unwelcome.
              “We made it out of the
mountains fast.  The road out of here was empty and dad drove like a maniac. 
The highway between here and Knoxville was another story.  It was chaos.  Stalled
traffic as far as the eye could