Lucinda gave him a shrewd look that told him she wasn't taken in by his denial.
"After David and Karen died, you and I became the center posts of Roanna's life. She needed our love and support, but for the most part we didn't give it to her. No, let me rephrase that, because most of the blame is mine: I didn't give her my love and support. As long as you were here to love her, though, she got by. When you left, there was no one here for her, and she gave up. She was almost gone before I noticed," Lucinda said sadly. A tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek, and she wiped it away.
"She was down to eighty pounds. Eighty pounds! She's five seven she should weigh at least a hundred and thirty. I can't describe to you how pitiful she looked. But one day I saw her, really saw her, and realized that I had to do something or I'd lose her, too."
Webb couldn't say anything. He stood up and walked over to the window, his fists jammed deep into his pockets. His shoulders were rigid as he stood with his back to Lucinda, and it was hard for him to breathe. Waves of panic washed over him. My God, she'd almost died, and he hadn't known anything about it.
"Just saying "You need to eat' wouldn't have done the trick," Lucinda continued, the words spilling out of her as if she'd held them in for too long, and she had to share the pair. "She needed a reason for living, something to hold on to. So I told her I needed her help."
She stopped and swallowed hard before resuming.
"No one had ever said they needed her. I hadn't realized ... Anyway, I told her I couldn't manage without her, that everything was too much for me to handle by myself. I didn't realize how true that was," Lucinda said wryly.
"She pulled herself back. It was a long fight, and for a while I was terrified that I'd left it too late, but she did it. It was a year before her health recovered enough that she could go to college, a year before she stopped waking us up at night with her screams."
-Screams?" Webb asked.
"Nightmares?"
"About Jessie." Lucinda's voice was soft, shredded with pain. "She found her, you know. And that was the way she screamed, the same sound, as if she'd just walked in and stepped in Jessie's blood." The words trembled, then firmed as if Lucinda wouldn't allow that weakness in herself.
"The nightmares developed into insomnia, as if staying awake was the only way she could escape them. She still suffers from it, and some nights she doesn't sleep at all. She catnaps, for the most part. If you see her dozing during the day, whatever you do, don't wake her up because that's probably the only sleep she's had, I've made it a rule that no one wakes her, for any reason. Corliss is the only one who does. She'll drop something or let a door slam, and she always pretends it's an accident."
Webb turned from the window. His eyes were like green frost.
"She might do it once more, but that'll be the last time," he said flatly.
Lucinda gave a faint smile.
"Good. I hate to say it of my own family, but Corliss has a mean, trashy streak in her. It'll be good for Roanna, having you here again."
But he hadn't been here when she'd needed him most, Webb thought. He'd walked out, leaving her to face the horror, and the nightmares, alone. What was it Lucinda had said? Roanna had stepped in Jessie's blood. He hadn't known, hadn't thought about the strain she must have been under. His wife had been murdered and he'd been accused of the crime; he'd been undergoing his own crisis, and he'd assigned her stress to guilt. He should have known better, because he'd been closer to Roanna than anyone else.
He remembered the way she had ignored the united condemnation of the town and slipped her little hand into
his at Jessie's funeral, to give him comfort and support. Considering the wild tales that had been going around about Jessie catching him screwing Roanna, it had taken a great deal of courage for her to approach him. But she'd done it, not counting the cost to her reputation, because she'd thought he needed her. Instead of squeezing her hand, doing any little thing at all to show his trust in her, he'd rebuffed her.
She'd been there for him, but he hadn't been there for her. She had survived, but at what cost?
"I didn't recognize her at first," he mused almost absently. His gaze never left Lucinda's.
"It isn't just that she's older. She's all shut down inside."
"That was how she coped. She's stronger; I think it frightened her when she realized how weak and ill she had become. She's never let herself get in that condition again. But she coped by shutting everything out, and holding herself in. It's as if she's afraid to feel too much, so she doesn't let herself feel anything. I can't reach her, and God knows I've tried, but that's my fault, too." Lucinda squared her shoulders as if settling an old burden, one she had become so used to that she seldom noticed it now.
"When she found Jessie and screamed, we all went running into the bedroom and found her standing over the body. Gloria jumped to the conclusion that Roanna had killed Jessie, and that's what she and Harlan told the sheriff. Booley had a deputy guarding her while he checked it out. We were all on one side of the room, and Roanna was on the other, all by herself except for the deputy. I'll never forget the way she looked at us, as if we had walked up and stabbed her. I should have gone to her, the way I should have gone to you, but I didn't. She hasn't called me Grandmother since," Lucinda said softly.
"I can't reach her. She goes through the motions, but she doesn't even care about Davencourt. When I told her I was going to change my will to benefit you, if she could get you to come home, she didn't even blink. I wanted her to argue, to get angry, to care, but she doesn't." The in comprehensibility of it rang in Lucinda's voice, for how could anyone not care about her beloved Davencourt? Then she sighed.