Table for five

by Susan Wiggs

  The phone rang again.

  “Check the caller ID,” Lily said.

  Cameron looked at the small screen. “Says Wireless. I don’t recognize the number.”

  “We’ll let it ring, then,” Lily said.

  “Better yet, we’ll unplug the God—the darned thing.” Sean tugged the phone jack from the wall.

  Elsewhere in the house, another extension continued ringing, then stopped as the answering machine picked up. The sound of Crystal’s recorded voice was a soft ghost moving through each of them.

  Charlie tilted her head to one side, listening. “Mommy,” she whispered.

  In the ensuing silence, Sean suddenly felt every nanosecond of his sleepless night. “Let’s sit back down,” he said.

  Charlie slid into his lap again, and he found the warmth and weight of her, the cotton-candy smell of her hair oddly comforting. And instantly, he felt guilty for taking comfort in this terrified, hurting child.

  Lily poured Cheerios into a plastic bowl and gave them to Ashley. “’Kyou,” said the baby.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Cameron was still wary, on edge. He perched on his chair as though poised to flee.

  The phone rang again.

  “Why are so many people calling?” Charlie wailed.

  “I’m afraid a lot of people are going to be calling,” Lily said.

  “Because of Dad,” Cameron said. “Because he’s famous.”

  “Because both your parents have a lot of people who love them and are concerned about you. We’ll ignore the phone and only talk to people we want to talk to, okay?” Lily said.

  “Somebody from the highway department is going to be here any minute,” Sean said.

  “Why?” asked Cameron. “Are they giving Dad a ticket?” His anger was firming up like epoxy, growing harder by the minute.

  “They’re probably going to be asking some questions. It’s standard.” He didn’t finish the thought. Standard procedure in a fatality accident, they told him at the scene. “And they’re sending a social worker to make sure everyone’s cared for. Anyway,” he continued, “we need to call Jane.”

  “She might have heard already,” Lily pointed out.

  “We still need to call her. And I’ll call my father in California.” He felt light-headed again. How the hell was that done? How did you pick up the phone and say the words Derek is dead. “What about Crystal’s family?”

  “Her father’s gone, mother’s in a nursing home,” Lily said. “She doesn’t have anyone else.”

  “Grandma Dot is sick,” Charlie informed him. “She doesn’t know who anybody is.”

  “She had a series of strokes, and the last one was severe,” Lily explained.

  Sean suspected she didn’t want to go into more detail in front of the children.

  Charlie’s weight, slight though it was, started to feel heavy to Sean. Her bony little frame pressed into him.

  “You should call Jane, then, I suppose,” said Lily.

  Something about the directive irritated him. He glanced at the clock and nodded. The morning news might report the accident. He had a thought of Maura. While driving away from the wreck, he’d called her but got no answer. Sean had left a message: Call me the second you get this. It’s important.

  She hadn’t called yet.

  Lily looked pale and shaken. He could see a brittleness around her, as thin and fragile as a coating of ice around a twig. It wouldn’t take much for her to break. He suspected the kids alone were the reason she held herself together.

  He patted Charlie on the head. “I’d better do that.”

  She clambered off his lap and Lily opened her arms. “Climb aboard.”

  Solemn-faced, Charlie did so, leaning her cheek against Lily’s chest. The kid was crying, not making a sound. Sean found a box of Kleenex and set it on the table by Charlie.

  “Me, too,” said Ashley, opening and closing her hands. Sean looked at Cameron. Derek’s boy was lost somewhere, staring out the window.

  “Cameron, keep an eye on Ashley while I make this call,” Sean said.

  Cameron nodded and put more juice in the baby’s cup.

  Sean picked up a slip of paper with Jane’s number and used his cell phone to make the call. How do I do this? he wondered, noticing the shaking of his hand. He forced himself to hold it steady. While it rang, he wandered out onto the patio. He had no idea what to say to this woman, how to break the news to her. He wanted to do this right but he barely knew his brother’s girlfriend. He’d always thought he and Derek would grow closer now that he was back from overseas. He’d thought they had all the time in the world.

  “Jane,” he said when her voice mail picked up. “Call me right away, the second you get this message.” He left his number, then took a deep breath as he walked through the patio gate. The world looked exactly the same, as though nothing were amiss. The urge to keep walking was strong. He’d walked away from things before, refusing to make someone else’s problem his own.

  Then, as he reached the end of the driveway, a flashbulb went off in his face, momentarily blinding him. “Get the hell off this property,” he said, unable to see through the fog of red residue from a flash.

  chapter 17

  Saturday

  11:15 a.m.

  “Thank you for your time,” said Lily, holding open the back door for the highway department officer and the social worker.

  “Call me anytime, night or day,” said Susie Shea, the caseworker who had jumped into the situation with both feet. She had been at the house for hours, helping them get through the day and explaining what would happen, step by step. Though compassionate, she didn’t sugarcoat the situation. The Holloway children were now, at least temporarily, wards of the state, subject to close supervision and regular reports.

  Lily shut the door behind them and paused, leaning her forehead on the doorjamb. She had never felt quite so exhausted in her life. It was as if she’d been uncapped and drained dry, and there was nothing left but an overwhelming ache of grief. She turned from the door and noticed a stack of library books on the hall table—Cruising the Caribbean, Genetics for Dummies, The Nursing Home Survival Book, Horton Hears a Who. According to the stamped pocket on the back, they were all overdue. Next to the books were a dry-cleaning slip and a receipt for film processing. Reality came into sharp focus. This was a life interrupted, everyday errands that would never get done, and the prospect of sorting everything out crushed down on the already unbearable weight of grief.

  Crystal’s children were orphans now. Lily could scarcely get her mind around the idea. They were completely alone in the world. For the time being, the foster care system would place them in the care of Sean Maguire, and they would live with him here. Lily tried not to be taken aback by this, telling herself it was the logical arrangement—in the eyes of the child welfare system, anyway. Their closest blood relative, Dorothy Baird, was not medically competent to step in, so Sean was next in line for the time being, at least until they learned whether or not there was a legally designated guardian. When Ms. Shea had explained as much to him, he’d looked shell-shocked and said, “Yeah, all right, I guess.”

  Lily wasn’t certain he’d understood. He might have given the same response if she’d asked, “Do you want fries with that?”

  All three children would start immediately with a grief counselor. Charlie and Cameron were high risks for trauma over abandonment issues. Ashley’s risk was lower. She might not suffer at all; it was too early to tell.

  As Lily carefully stacked the library books by the door, she tried to make herself accept the situation. The unthinkable had happened, the thing people never actually believe would come to pass. She only hoped Crystal and Derek had prepared for this. For the short term, Sean Maguire was in charge. Sean Maguire.

  “Lucky them,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Lucky who?”

  Startled by the masculine voice, she turned and nervously wiped her hands on her thighs.
Maguire unsettled her, or maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was this whole surreal situation.

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Upstairs. Ashley’s napping, Charlie’s watching a video and Cam’s…staring out the window. Lucky who?” he asked again.

  “Nothing. Just thinking aloud.” She set down the books and glanced at the envelope in his hand. It was the paperwork outlining the arrangements for the children’s care. “Are you sure you’re willing to take this on?” she asked.

  “Willingness has nothing to do with it. They’re my brother’s kids. I’m all they’ve got.”

  “Crystal wanted me to take care of her children,” she told him bluntly.

  “How the hell do you know that? Did she leave you a note or something?”

  Lily took a deep breath, forcing herself to ignore his tone. “I’m their godmother. And we talked about it after she had Ashley and her mother had her first massive stroke. She told me she was revising her will, and if anything ever happened to her and Derek, I would be in charge of the kids.” Lily and Crystal had joked about it. “You with your vow never to have children,” Crystal had teased. “Someday, you could wind up with three.” They’d laughed together, imagining Lily’s orderly world disrupted by the chaos of family life. Of course they had laughed. The very idea was ludicrous.

  Despite barely sleeping at all last night, she paced in agitation. “You know, it was one of those conversations about something that’ll never happen.”

  He nodded. “I understand. Ms. Shea said most couples don’t bother with making wills, but I’m pretty sure Derek and Crystal have them. Still, designating someone to take your kids…” He shook his head. “Most people think, why? It’s like buying flight insurance.”

  “I always buy flight insurance,” Lily said quietly. She was beginning to feel punchy, perhaps slightly ill. “I told Crystal fine, of course I’ll look after your kids. I was supposed to sign something prepared by her lawyer, but the subject never came up again. Why would it? Things like this just don’t happen.”

  He was a man of disconcerting stillness, Sean Maguire. In silence he took her measure with a look she couldn’t read, then asked, “Is that what Derek wanted?”

  She felt an ugly little tug of resentment. “I don’t know what he wanted.” Except a divorce. He’d wanted that, and he’d gotten it on his terms, which included joint custody of the children.

  She refrained from saying anything. This man had lost a brother. Her opinion of Derek wouldn’t ease his shock and grief or her own.

  All right, she told herself, get a grip. Every time she tried to think straight, a huge, overwhelming thought detonated in her head. Crystal was gone.

  How could that be? she wondered, looking around the kitchen. The mug with Crystal’s lipstick on it still sat on the windowsill. She wasn’t supposed to be gone; there were errands to be done, engagements marked on her calendar in her loopy scrawl. She was supposed to come back here to her house, her children, her life. It seemed impossible that she wouldn’t.

  Lily squeezed her eyes shut and imagined a series of clear freeze frames, like a slide show of beloved snapshots—Crystal as a coltish teenager, laughing as she taught Lily how to do a cartwheel. And later as a young woman, flush with victory at winning one of a dozen beauty pageants. Crystal as a bride, looking like something out of a fairy tale, and then as a mother, bathed in sweat and triumph moments after giving birth to her children. Only yesterday, she’d sat in Lily’s classroom, shredding a Kleenex and holding in tears as she discussed her troubled daughter. She’d been so vibrant, so overwhelmingly alive. How will I hold on to all the memories? Lily wondered. How will I help the children hold on to them?

  The thought rattled aimlessly around inside Lily. Her heart had held a cherished friend. And now…nothing but a terrible bright void where Crystal had been.

  Lily opened her eyes and raised them to Sean. “So did you and Derek…ever talk about it?”

  “No. Never. It’s like you said. Your mind doesn’t go there. No one’s does.”

  “These children need answers now. They need to know what’s going to happen to them, not just for the next week but for the next year, for the rest of their lives.”

  “I know.”

  Susie Shea had told them to come up with a temporary plan for the children to make sure they were cared for in the short term.

  “I suppose we’ll find out more later in the week,” Lily said. “You know, when the wills are read.”

  An awkward silence stretched out between them. The faint sound of the TV drifted through the house.

  “What about Jane Coombs?” asked Lily. “I thought she’d come right over as soon as she heard.”

  “You’d think.”

  “But…?”

  “She got hysterical on me when I told her. She offered to come right over but I told her to wait until she pulled herself together. Didn’t think it would do the kids any good to see her like that.”

  “She was about to become their stepmother,” Lily said. “How could she stay away?” She got up, looking for something to straighten or clean. She grabbed the mug with the lipstick, started to wash it, stopped herself. She put it away on a high shelf, lipstick and all. She turned to find Sean watching her without expression.

  She refused to explain herself, saying, “So now what? The children need answers, Sean. They need to know who’s going to fix their breakfast in the morning and get them off to school. They need to know who they’ll celebrate Christmas with and who’s going to sign their permission slips and take them to the doctor when they’re sick. That’s what they need. And they need it right now, not after the funeral or the reading of the will.”

  “Whoa, slow down. One step at a time.” He steepled his fingers together and frowned. “Let’s figure out a plan.”

  She felt a small beat of panic even as she nodded. I’m not ready, she thought. I can’t do this. Then she reminded herself that these were Crystal’s children. It didn’t matter how ill equipped she felt for the disaster. “I can stay through the weekend,” she said slowly. “I’ll take next week off from work to be with the children.” She studied his face, his troubled eyes. “Are you all right with that?”

  “I…yeah, thanks. For now, we’ll go with that plan.” He glanced toward the stairway. “Sleeping arrangements?”

  “I’ll take the guest room,” she said swiftly. She couldn’t possibly sleep in Crystal’s bed.

  He looked at the stack of publications the social worker had left for them to go through—Growing Strong, Grief Counseling for Children, Adjusting to Foster Care, Tips for Transitions. They were the sort of things Lily saw in the faculty lounge or professional library at school, and until now, they’d always seemed remote and theoretical. Now the very titles frightened her.

  “I wonder, um…” Sean paused and swallowed. “Maybe you could help me with her room.”

  Lily knew exactly what he was asking. “Let’s change the sheets and clear out a space in the closet. I know where she keeps everything.”

  His expression softened with gratitude. Lily went through the motions like a robot, getting fresh sheets from the linen closet and making up the bed. There was a curious, discomfiting domesticity to the situation and she hurried through the motions. Then she filled a big tapestry suitcase with dresses and scarves, skirts and blazers and shoes. She worked swiftly, trying not to think about what she was actually doing—putting these things away because Crystal was dead. As she zipped it up, she noticed the luggage tag, Handle With Care.

  “Just put it up on the shelf for now,” she told Sean. “It’s much too early to—” She cleared her throat. “We’re not getting rid of anything for a while.”

  “Fine with me.” His phone rang and he stepped aside to answer it.

  Lily finished up in the closet, surrounded by the familiar scent of Crystal’s perfume. The packed suitcase made it easy to imagine that Crystal wasn’t dead, but merely away on a trip.

  She picked up a bo
ok from the bedside table. Sins of the Father by Gail Goodman. The page was marked with a business card with the Laurelhurst School logo. It was a card for Greg Duncan, the PE teacher and golf coach. Lily flipped the book open. Crystal had been right in the middle of the novel. She’d never know how it ended.

  Sean flipped his phone shut. “Derek’s agent is coming in. He caught a plane from L.A. as soon as I called him,” Sean said. “He takes care of all of Derek’s business.”

  Will he take care of his kids? Lily knew she didn’t need to ask that.

  “His name is Red Corliss,” Sean continued. “He, uh, he scheduled a press conference.”

  “A press conference?” Lily was incredulous. “Tell me you’re joking.”

  “I don’t like the idea, either,” Sean said, “but Red knows what he’s doing. He says that way we can control the information, and if we’re lucky, get the press to keep their distance.”

  She shuddered at the very idea of announcing Crystal’s death as though she’d won another pageant. Turning to Sean, she searched his face, feeling a curious and unexpected intimacy with this stranger. They’d known each other less than twenty-four hours, yet there was a terrible connection between them, forged of the unthinkable.

  “Do you know how much I hate this?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

  chapter 18

  Saturday

  3:20 p.m.

  Red Corliss steamed into town like a freight train, shouting into a cell phone while issuing orders as he cut a swath through everything in his path. When Sean was younger and a client of Red’s, he’d been a little in awe of the sports agent’s aggressiveness and his brusque manner. Now, a dozen years later, he saw Red for what he was, an ambitious, confident professional whose attitude masked an unexpectedly tender heart.

  Within a short while, Red had somehow managed to round up the key players and assemble them at Echo Ridge, Derek’s home course. An hour later, Red arrived at Crystal’s house.