Stillwater Rising

by Steena Holmes

  The bouquet made her smile, and for one moment, one very brief moment, she forgot.

  The knock at the door startled her. She crossed the room and peeked through her curtains to see who it was.

  “Julia Berry, you open that door right this instant,” Lacie demanded. Her arms were full of bags, and she blew out a piece of stray hair that hung over her eyes.

  Julia unlocked the door and stepped to the side. When Lacie set the bags down, Julia should have been prepared for the fierce hug she received, but she wasn’t. She staggered against the pressure of Lacie’s arms around her.

  “Happy birthday,” Lacie said before she kissed her cheek and gave her an extra squeeze.

  “I’m sorry about this morning,” Julia said.

  Lacie waved away her apology. “Don’t worry about it. As soon as I saw your note on the back door I knew you wanted to be left alone today. But”—she bent down and grabbed the bags—“if you thought your little note would keep me away all day, you should have used different wording.” She carried the bags into the kitchen and put them down on the table.

  “I thought birthday wishes=sleep said it all.” Julia followed after her. The other day Lacie had asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and when Julia couldn’t come up with an answer, she was told to sleep on it. So she did and realized there was one thing she’d always wanted for her birthday but never got—to sleep in.

  Her other wish, she’d been afraid to confess, but somehow Charlotte had already known.

  “I’ve been by a few times today, but you weren’t around.” Lacie pulled out containers along with some wrapped presents.

  “Charlotte came by.” Her throat constricted as she took in the presents and the cake with her name on it.

  “That’s for me?” Tears gathered and she wiped them away.

  “Of course it is! Kylie helped to make it and decorate it. She wanted to come, but I wasn’t sure . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Julia knew why.

  “It was really nice of her. Please tell her that.” The last time she’d seen either Kylie or Liam, Lacie’s two remaining children, Liam had been quick to tell her he didn’t like her anymore, and then Kylie had run out of the room in tears.

  “I will.” She handed her a small wrapped gift. “This is from Liam.”

  Julia reached for the gift and held it in her hands as if it were the most precious thing in the world to her. In that moment, she wished Liam and Kylie were here, for her to say thank you. She unwrapped the gift, and the tears couldn’t be contained then. It was a layered heart made out of multicolored construction paper and glued together. The hearts were all different sizes, and in the middle was a hand-drawn cake.

  “Can I bring them next time?” Lacie asked.

  Julia nodded her head.

  “So you let Charlotte in but not me? I’m not sure if I should be offended or . . .”

  Julia shrugged. “She caught me off guard. And she carried flowers.”

  The look Lacie gave her was priceless. “Paige and Camille have brought flowers, and you refused to open the door,” she pointed out.

  “I know.” She pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “Okay, then.” Lacie grabbed two plates from the cupboard, a cutting knife, and forks.

  “Should I sing?” she asked as she placed a candle in the middle of the cake.

  “Please don’t.” She loved her friend, but Lacie had the voice of a crow when it came to singing.

  Lacie winked at her and lit the candle.

  Julia stared at the flame, slightly mesmerized by its flickering light. She could hear Gabe’s voice, from when he was little, singing “Happy Birthday” to her and then blowing the candle out for her.

  It was their thing. Gabe always blew out her candles. He would sing her the birthday song, squeeze her hand while she made her wish, and then blow out her candle, always in a rush so that she wouldn’t get to it first. She’d laugh and place a kiss on his cheek and he’d smile, his cheeks bright red from the exertion before she cut into the cake.

  She had no wishes to make this year.

  “Do you need help?” A teasing smile graced Lacie’s face, and Julia shook her head.

  She bent down, and with a slight puff from her lips, she blew out the candle.

  “What did you do today?” Lacie asked while she took a knife and laid the cut piece on a plate.

  “Charlotte took me”—she swallowed—“to the cemetery. To see Gabriel. Or not to see, but to spend time with him,” she clarified.

  Lacie touched her arm briefly. “I’m glad.”

  “It was nice.” Julia nodded. “I’ve been afraid to go there.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. Did she really need to explain why she stayed away from the cemetery?

  “You’re allowed to grieve for your son, Julia.”

  “So is everyone else. In peace.”

  Lacie grunted, and Julia knew it was in frustration. They’d had this conversation plenty of times in the past.

  “I would have taken you.”

  “I know.” Julia gave her a small smile.

  “So why let Charlotte take you when I’ve offered plenty of times?”

  Julia bowed her head over her cake, slid her fork into the layers, and sighed.

  “Because, Lacie. Charlotte wasn’t there to mourn her own child. A child my son killed.” It was hard to say the words, to hear them. But they needed to be said.

  Lacie didn’t respond, but then, Julia didn’t really expect her to. This was another topic of conversation they’d had over and over. A guilt Julia couldn’t relinquish. A fact Lacie lived with daily. It amazed her that Lacie could still be friends with her. She wondered if this was Lacie’s way of proving she could forgive, that she was “doing the Lord’s work.” She knew Lacie would say no and defend the bond they’d had for years, but there had to be a small part of her friend that hated her.

  There had to be.

  “Aren’t you wondering about all these other gifts?” Lacie forced a smile into her voice; Julia could hear it. “They’re from everyone at your store.” She held one out to her, but Julia didn’t reach for it.

  “They didn’t have to.” She hadn’t been able to think about her store, the Treasure Chest. She knew she needed to—it was her only source of income—but who would want to buy, let alone sell, the items in her shop now?

  “They wanted to.” Lacie pushed a gift into Julia’s hands.

  Julia set it down, not ready to open it or any of the others. Lacie sighed, ate a few more bites of her cake before she laid the plate down on the table, and gathered her purse.

  “I love you, Julia. I wish you would believe that. And I’m not the only one. Yes, there are a lot of hurting people in this town, but it’s not because of you.” A weariness set in Lacie’s gaze, and Julia knew there had to be some hesitation there.

  “I love you too, Lacie.”

  “Happy birthday,” her friend said. She gave her a hug and then left, leaving Julia to sit there, at the table, alone once again.

  She needed to get used to this. Being alone. No matter what her friend said, no matter what Charlotte did . . . in her heart, she knew. She knew she was to blame. How could she not be? It was her job, as Gabriel’s mother, to raise him right.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JENNIFER

  The insistent knock on the bathroom door was beyond irritating. Why couldn’t Robert just leave her alone? She’d made it very obvious that she didn’t want to talk to him.

  When she walked through their front door last night, the look on his face told her he’d already heard about what she’d proposed at the committee meeting. Before he could say a word, she told him she didn’t want to talk about it, poured herself a glass of wine, grabbed the bottle, and headed up to the spare bedroom where she promptly locked the door.

/>   Robert had stood on the other side of the door and attempted to talk to her, but she turned the volume up on the television and ignored him. It was childish, she knew that, but she was already humiliated, and she didn’t need a lecture from her husband.

  Besides, she had a lot to think about. Merille’s confession that she wasn’t alone, that a group of other parents felt the same way, left her in an emotional tailspin. She’d made Merille a promise to meet with her to discuss the idea more. The woman had been cagey last night on the sidewalk, as if fearful of who would see them talking. But why? No one had been around, and it had been late.

  “Jenn, we need to talk.”

  It was the first official Monday of summer, which meant he should have left first thing to go shoot a round of golf at the clubhouse. It was his routine. A round of golf before heading into work.

  The pounding was giving her a headache.

  “For Pete’s sake, Jenn. This is childish. I’ll take the door off if I need to. Just unlock it and talk to me.” Weariness with a hint of annoyance filled his voice. She took a step toward the door.

  “I don’t want a lecture,” she said.

  “I don’t plan on giving one. How about just a conversation?”

  “I’m serious, Robert.”

  “So am I. Charity’s gone to Amanda’s, so it’s just us. I’ll be downstairs.”

  Charity was gone? Did Robert plan that, or was it something the girls had just decided on the fly?

  She listened to Robert’s footsteps fade out of their room before she unlocked the door and opened it.

  Her hair was twisted in a loose bun, and she threw on some yoga pants and a loose T-shirt. She had hardly slept last night, and it showed with the bags beneath her eyes.

  She’d done a lot of thinking last night. Somewhere around three in the morning she realized that she didn’t regret saying what she’d said nor did she believe it to be wrong.

  Yes, there were major ramifications for closing the school, but there were also benefits. Stillwater Public School needed a face-lift, a major update. The student body had outgrown the classrooms, and the school had been in discussion for years about bringing in trailers to create extra classrooms.

  Why not build a new school? The city owned plenty of land. The community center didn’t have enough outdoor space—they could fix that by creating a memorial park or sports area on the grounds where the school now stood.

  By building a new school, the school could increase in size and offer more for its families. Yes, it would be expensive, but if there’s one thing Jenn knew how to do, it was fund-raise. And with the recent media attention, raising the money wouldn’t be an issue.

  She realized it would take time, but weren’t their children worth it?

  Somehow she had to make people realize they needed to shelter their children more, protect them, and forcing them to spend eight hours a day in a place where their friends were murdered before their eyes was wrong.

  And if what Merille said were true, then she wasn’t as alone in this as she’d thought. If. She needed to find out the truth of Merille’s words first.

  With renewed belief in herself, Jenn made her way downstairs and found Robert holding a plastic bag.

  “What are you doing?”

  She watched as he grabbed one of the many floral arrangements in their living room and dropped it in the bag.

  “It’s time we cleaned up.”

  One after another, Robert emptied all the vases and baskets and threw the flowers, dead or alive, into the bag. Jenn stood at the bottom of the steps, unable to move.

  “Why?”

  “It’s time, don’t you think?” He went to gather the cards lying in groups and was about to dump them in the bag before she stopped him.

  “Stop.” Until now she’d ignored each and every card, not wanting to see them, to read them, or to remember. “Not those. I haven’t . . . I’ll put them away for later.”

  He held them out to her, and she was finally able to move. Her hand trembled as she reached for the multitude of cards, but her grasp was firm when she grabbed them.

  She looked around for a spot to place them, somewhere that was out of the way, and spotted a square box beneath an end table. She knelt down and opened the box and found some Lego pieces that belonged to Bobby. Her eyes filled with tears as she placed the envelopes on top of the toys.

  When she stood, Robert was behind her and he offered to help her up, but she ignored his hand and pretended she didn’t see it.

  She headed into the kitchen to pour herself a coffee while he went into the garage and left the bag there.

  While he was gone, she brought out the bottle of Baileys and poured some of the liquid gold into her cup before placing it back in the fridge. She wasn’t planning on going anywhere this morning, so it’s not as if she were doing anything wrong, and yet, she knew if Charity were here, she probably wouldn’t have added the liqueur to her coffee.

  “Are you ready to talk?” Robert grabbed his mug that sat on the corner of the island and crossed the kitchen to the screen door. “I thought we could sit outside.”

  Without a word, Jenn followed him and made her way to her favorite chair. She drew her feet up beneath her and looked out over the bay. The crystal-blue water was tranquil today. A few clouds drifted in the sky, and the sound of birds as they flew along the shoreline searching for food filled the air.

  “I love this view,” she said quietly. She drank in the beauty, letting it fill up her soul with its peacefulness. She needed that today. She needed the calm, the sliver of hope that all would be well. She held on to that idea.

  “I missed you last night.”

  When Jenn looked at her husband, she was shocked at what she saw. His gaze was steady on the lighthouse that was to their right, across the bay, but his face was haggard. He looked as if he’d aged overnight. The gray was more pronounced on his sideburns, the worry lines on his forehead more visible, and he looked . . . tired.

  “I’m sorry.” The words were automatic, without thought. And she was sorry. Sorry she’d acted so childish last night by avoiding him, for not facing him when she should have.

  “I realized something in the middle of the night.” Robert let out a long sigh, his shoulders dropping with the action. “Somehow, in all of this, we lost our way. We’ve been trying to dig ourselves out of this . . . grave . . . we were thrown into, but instead of doing it together, we’ve been struggling on our own.”

  Jenn recoiled at his choice of words.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you . . . yesterday.” Robert adjusted himself in the chair, angling his legs toward her. He set his hand on the arm of his chair, palm up, as if waiting to see if she would extend her own hand toward him.

  She tightened her grip on her mug and looked away from him.

  Robert sighed, “Charity told me about the Andersons.”

  Jenn wrinkled her nose at the memory but didn’t say anything. What else had Charity told him? Did she mention her episode by the harbor?

  “I thought maybe I’d talk to Shawn and explain that things will be different now.”

  “Why?” Jenn shook her head. Why would things be different? Robert was the one who insisted that things remain the way they had been in the past, that they put up a brave front for the returning summer families. He was the reason she was still doing the damn baskets.

  “Because I was wrong.”

  Jenn sat there in silence. The sound of the waves as they washed up on the shoreline below them soothed her. Robert was admitting he was wrong. What had happened? Something must have for him to have this change of heart.

  “I . . . I didn’t want to admit our lives had changed and things would be different. But they are. We have a huge hole in our family, and all I’ve done is ignore it, hoping that somehow, someday, the hole would disappear. I didn’t w
ant what happened to us to affect the families who come here each summer.”

  “You placed those people ahead of your own family. It’s nothing new, Robert. It’s what you’ve always done.”

  She watched him out of the corner of her eye and had a tiny sliver of satisfaction when she saw her words had hit him hard. Sometimes the truth hurt.

  “I’m trying to protect my family; at least, I thought I was.”

  “How?” This time she did turn toward him, but in anger. “Were you protecting us when you made that deal with the reporters? The one where they could come to our son’s funeral as long as they left all of the other families alone during theirs? Was it okay for you to exploit your son’s death like that?” Her words boiled over in fury. Her fingers began to tingle from the tight grip she held on the cup, and she forced herself to place the cup down on the side table.

  “That’s not . . . it wasn’t . . .” He shook his head as he visibly struggled for words.

  “It was like that. It’s been like that, time and time again. Not once have you thought about what Charity or I were going through. You’re as bad as Charlotte. She can’t seem to take off the mayor persona and be the friend that I need right now. Everything is about this town and the other families. Every family but your own.”

  She could read in his eyes everything Robert wanted to say but couldn’t. Everything. Guilt. Shame. Acceptance. Agreement. Grief. It all washed over him as he listened to what she had to say. Finally listened to what she had to say.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was low and clouded with emotion. “I didn’t think. I didn’t . . . I let you down. I let Charity down, and I’m so sorry. Instead of being here for you . . . all I’ve done is push you away. Charity prefers to spend time at Amanda’s house rather than here and you . . .”