Frowning, she took the phone. Shouldn’t they
be speaking to her father, if something was wrong? He’d be home soon. An hour,
if traffic from the airport wasn’t heavy. “Hello? This is Emily May. I’m afraid
my father—”
She remembered a man’s voice, words that made
no sense, her brain suddenly slow and sluggish, trying desperately to discern
the meaning behind phrases that couldn’t possibly apply to her or her life.
Accident. Injuries. Airlift. Hospital. Emergency. Emergency. Emergency.
She’d been so cold, frozen, for days and
days.
Emily shivered and a warm hand closed over
hers. She blinked, and Derian was there, solid and real and warm. “My father
had a short meeting in Jakarta, and he and my mother tacked on a few days’
vacation. My sister wanted to scuba dive and went with them. I begged off, I
had too much to do getting ready for my trip to the States.” She took a breath,
the pain in her chest cutting her breath short. “They were in a small plane—it
went down just short of the airfield. No one was ever able to determine why.
The pilot and my…” She swallowed. “My mother was killed instantly.”
“Emily,” Derian murmured gently. “I’m so
terribly sorry.”
Emily blinked the searing pain of memory
away. “A car came for me, from the embassy. My father worked for the foreign
office. My father and my sister Pam were taken to the trauma center. I didn’t
know about my mother until I got to the hospital. Even then it took hours for
anyone to tell me anything.”
“I can’t begin to imagine how horrifying that
must’ve been.”
“I don’t have any other close family, and all
my friends—” She shrugged. “Well, they were teenagers, and this was something
no one knew how to deal with.”
“So you were alone.” Derian bit off the
words, angry at something she couldn’t change but wished desperately she had
been able to. That she could have somehow been there, to share some of the
pain, to shield her somehow from the horror.
“Of course, people came from my father’s post
to help me with the details, and looked after the bills and insurance, things
like that. I don’t remember. I didn’t really even pay any attention. I stayed
with my best friend’s family at first.”
She hadn’t realized she was cold, hadn’t
realized Derian had moved, until Derian handed her a hot cup of tea. Her
fingers were numb on the cup. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to tell me the rest.”
Emily smiled weakly. “I want to, if you don’t
mind.”
“Of course not.”
“My father never woke up. About ten days
after the accident, he developed severe pulmonary complications. He died
without ever knowing what happened, and part of me is almost glad. He would’ve
so hated to be without Mother.” She grimaced. “I don’t know if that’s selfish
of me or not.”