by Susan Wiggs
While she was trying to figure out what to say, Sean poured 7-Up into one of Crystal’s martini glasses. “You and I will do it together, okay, Charlie Brown?”
“Okay.”
“Do you want an olive or a twist with that?” he asked.
“An olive? Eeuw.”
“Straight up, then,” he said, and handed her the glass.
Lily discreetly set down her cracker. Really, using the good bar glasses was no crime. Judging by the state of the house, those might be the only clean ones left. The place seemed more cluttered and chaotic each time she visited. At one end of the room was an indoor putting green. The stand by the door was stacked with old magazines and books. Cameron came downstairs, looking sullen and disheveled. “Hey, Lily,” he said. He squirted cheese onto a cracker and ate it in one bite. Speaking with a full mouth, he said, “Anyone seen a compass? I need it to do homework.”
“What’s a compass?” asked Charlie.
He rolled his eyes. “Never mind, moron.”
“Uncle Sean! He called me a moron.”
Sean was preoccupied with wiping a smear of cheese off the baby’s chin. “Don’t call your sister names.”
Charlie stuck her tongue out at Cameron. “You’re just all mad because Uncle Sean put parental control filters on the computer.”
“Big deal, moron.”
“Uncle Sean! Lily!”
A timer sounded somewhere in the house, like the bell at the end of a boxing round. “That’s the dryer,” Sean said. “Cam, go get the stuff out and fold it.”
“But—”
“Now.” They locked gazes. Cameron’s eyes narrowed, then he stalked out of the room.
Charlie gave an injured sniff.
“You go help him fold,” Sean said.
“But—”
“Do it, Charlie.”
She looked to Lily as though for support. Lily said nothing. Charlie’s chin trembled, and she turned and marched away like a prisoner to an execution.
Sean held the 7-Up can so Ashley could drink from it. Lily bit her tongue again, and their eyes met over the baby’s head. “My world and welcome to it,” he said.
“You got through another day,” she told him, determined to be supportive. “You got through the whole week.”
“Good for me.”
Ashley climbed into his lap and laid her cheek on his chest. His hand, big enough to cover her back, came up and cradled her with surprising tenderness. There was a smear of processed cheese on the baby’s temple, but a smile on her lips as she blinked a few times, then closed her eyes. Lily was fairly certain that it was too late in the day for a nap. The baby would have trouble getting to sleep tonight.
Stop it, she told herself. “I’ll take these things to the kitchen,” she told Sean.
He didn’t respond, so she gathered up the crackers, cheese, soda cans and glasses, making two trips to get everything into the kitchen. She took great satisfaction in dropping the can of squirt cheese into the trash. She spent a few minutes loading the dishwasher and straightening the kitchen. Other people’s casserole dishes, pie plates and Tupperware containers littered the counter. The Holloways’ friends had been generous with their offerings of food. After such an immense tragedy, the gifts seemed both inadequate and completely in earnest.
She finished with the dishes, then decided to sort through the mail. She’d promised Sean she would take care of Crystal’s business, closing her various accounts, canceling subscriptions, submitting bills to escrow. There was something particularly awful about going through Crystal’s bills, seeing her charged purchases for cosmetics and children’s clothing, gifts and gallons of gas for the car. Crystal had not been the most practical person, but she was generous to a fault.
Lily made stacks of bills and junk mail. An invoice from Riverside Medical Laboratories showed Ashley had had a blood test the Monday before the accident. Lily frowned, wondering if the baby was coming down with something. All the personal items seemed to be addressed to the kids, or to Sean and the kids. Most had the oversize shape and weight of sympathy cards. At the bottom of the stack, she found a few large, padded envelopes addressed to Sean Maguire, each in different, loopy, feminine handwriting. They’d been opened already. One was from Kalamazoo, Michigan, another from Long Beach, California, and still another from San Diego. Friends in faraway places? she wondered, studying the return addresses. Kat, Nikki, Angelina.
Quit being so nosy, Lily told herself, even as she threw a look over her shoulder. The largest of the envelopes slipped through her fingers and dropped on the floor, its contents spilling out. Pink stationery, loopy handwriting: Dear Sean, We’ve never met, but I saw in the paper about your terrible tragedy, and I just want you to know I’ll be there for you…. Paper-clipped to the letter was a photograph of a young woman with huge breasts.
Shaken, Lily put it back. Then she peeked into another envelope to find a different letter, different photos. Now that you have all those kids, you’ll be needing a wife…. The picture of Kat made Lily gasp aloud.
“He gets stuff like that in the mail every day,” said Cameron. “Pretty rank, huh?”
Lily spun around, her cheeks flaming. “What?”
“Women sending him letters and pictures. They’re like, all hot for him because he’s been in the papers.”
“Oh.” Lily swallowed. “I…see.”
“It’s totally weird. Who knew this would make him bachelor of the year?”
Lily busied herself with putting the bills in her bag. “I should go,” she said, her stomach churning. This was Crystal’s house, and it was being turned into something else altogether. Yet Lily had no authority to change things, even if she knew what to do.
“See you later,” Cameron said, bending down to explore inside the refrigerator.
As she walked to the door, she tried to figure out what to say to Sean. He sat very still on the sofa, the baby snuggled against him. Holding a balled-up blue nightgown, Charlie leaned against his other side. Late afternoon light fell over them, and she realized all three were fast asleep. Grief was exhausting business; they were discovering that.
She stood for a moment, watching them sleep. Watching him, studying the fine shape of his jaw, the muscles of his arms. She felt an unexpected wave of yearning and melancholy. No wonder perfect strangers were proposing to him.
Lily came home tired and troubled, but on this particular day, an unexpected distraction awaited her. She found her sister’s thirty-seven-foot Winnebago parked alongside her house. As Lily got out of her car, the door of the RV opened and out jumped Violet, her face pinched by strain. Behind her came Megan and Ryan, her children, who were nine and ten respectively. They were a rambunctious pair who always seemed to be either fighting or being best friends. At the moment they were having a shoving contest, and Violet looked too exhausted to discipline them. Before her sister even spoke, Lily knew the news was bad.
“Okay, before you say anything,” Violet began, “it’s only temporary, I swear.”
“I was going to say hello to my niece and nephew, actually,” Lily told her. “Hello, niece and nephew.” She doled out the hugs, and they returned them with firm enthusiasm. Vi’s children were usually slightly disheveled and grubby, but they were a happy pair, as affectionate and easygoing as their mother.
“Why don’t you two go around back and play,” Lily suggested. “I’ve got a tetherball set up.”
“How come you got a tetherball but you have no kids?” Megan asked.
“Maybe I play with it all by myself,” Lily said with a wink. Honestly, she didn’t want to go into it as she felt a now-familiar twinge. She and Crystal had put the ball up together only a few weeks ago when the first signs of spring appeared, so Charlie could play with it when she visited with her mother. The reminders of Crystal sneaked up on Lily and seized her heart, and the sense of loss took her breath away. When did it end? she wondered. Did it ever?
Megan and Ryan resumed their shoving contest as they
made their way to the backyard.
Lily gave her sister a hug. “I barely got a chance to talk to you at the funeral, but thanks for coming. So how are you?” she asked.
“Fat, that’s how.” She ran a hand around the cinched-in waistband of her jeans.
“Oh, come on. You look great.”
“I look fat. You know I always overeat when I get stressed out.”
“What’s stressing you out?” Lily asked, though she could probably guess. Violet’s life seemed to have been designed for stress. She had married straight out of high school and had the kids soon after. Her husband, Rick, rarely held a steady job. He had a habit of starting oddball businesses that were marked for doom from the start, and when they failed, no one was surprised except Rick himself. Plant day care, professional clowning, ice delivery, fly-tying lessons and extreme topiary were just a few of the enterprises that were supposed to earn him his first million.
“So what’s up?” she asked Violet as she unlocked the door and led the way into the house.
“We had to move,” Violet said, sinking down on the couch. “Our lease was up and the landlord raised the rent ridiculously high. We’re living in an apartment in Troutdale now.”
Lily got two bottles of organic juice from the fridge and handed one to Violet. “I take it the, ah, voice-acting business didn’t work out?”
Violet shook her head. “Disaster. He dubbed one Japanese commercial and they sent him packing. He said he had to talk so fast, he sounded like he was on helium. I feel so bad for Rick.” She met Lily’s gaze. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Bull, nothing. You’re giving me a look. What’s that look mean?”
Lily offered a smile to cover her frustration. “You’re amazing.”
“I am? In what way?”
“Your devotion to Rick. Does he know how lucky he is to have you?”
Violet sipped her juice. “I’m the lucky one.”
Lily bit her tongue. Lucky. The man had all but ruined them financially several times in a row. Still, she conceded, he never stopped trying, and his wife adored him. Love was such a strange business. No wonder she didn’t understand it.
Violet took her silence for disapproval. “All right, so he’s not exactly Donald Trump. But I didn’t marry him for his ability to make a buck. I married him because I love him, and here we are eleven years later and I love him more than ever.” Violet’s eyes shone, and Lily had no doubt she believed her own words.
“That’s wonderful for you,” she said. Was it? she wondered. Was it wonderful to adore someone in spite of his flaws, or was it madness?
“Don’t do too many backflips for me, big sister.” Violet laughed. “I’m not a brain like you. I don’t have a college degree, but I do know what love is.”
Lily regarded her thoughtfully. “Meaning I don’t.”
“Meaning it’s different for everyone. For me, it’s the way I feel when Rick walks into the room and my heart speeds up. It’s how safe I feel in his arms and how sweet he is with the kids, not what our bank balance is or isn’t. Sometimes you just need someone to fall back on, someone to put his arms around you and tell you things are going to be all right. Everything else is just details, Lily. They don’t matter. That’s what love does. It makes the small stuff…small.”
Violet’s passion shone through; she truly believed that having someone to love without judgment made anything bearable—financial ruin, loss, hard times. Was that why everyone insisted you needed love in your life? Lily wondered, her thoughts drifting to the Holloways. Losing Crystal brought home the fact that life was hard and enduring hardship alone was a humbling ordeal.
“Listen to me,” Violet said, “going on about myself.”
Lily smiled. “It’s fine. I think you’re really something.”
“Not sure what, though, huh?” Violet looked around the neat, well-organized kitchen. “We’re so different. How did we turn out so different?”
It was a good question. Only a year apart in age, they’d each branched off in wildly different directions. One became a true believer in love and the other an utter heathen when it came to matters of the heart. Raised by bitter, embattled parents, Violet had rebelled, determined to have her own happy family. She’d rushed headlong into an impractical love and a chaotic family life. Lily, on the other hand, built a wall around herself and refused to take risks with her emotions.
“I bet a psychiatrist would have a field day with us, eh?”
“No, because you never talk about the past,” Violet pointed out. “Then again, I suppose you don’t have to. You live your life in a way that screams out what you won’t say aloud.”
Lily felt as though the air had been sucked out of her lungs. She recovered quickly and smiled as though Violet had made a joke. “How are dear old Mom and Dad, anyway?” she asked.
“Old. But not dear.” Violet shook her head. “Maybe all the fighting is good for them. They are in excellent health, as always.”
“Mom came to see me right after the accident. Surprised the heck out of me. I was surprised to see them at the funeral, too,” Lily admitted.
“They’re not the enemy, you know.”
“No,” Lily conceded. “There are no enemies in this, just like there weren’t any when we lost Evan.” Her family had been forged by tragedy and its aftermath. And now it was happening all over again to Crystal’s family.
“I hope they do a better job than we did,” Violet said.
They were quiet for a while, listening to the children at play in the backyard.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Lily said. “How long can you stay?”
“Only until Rick picks us up in a little while. I’m hoping we won’t have to leave the Winnebago here for long. Just until we get a house with a place to park it. Actually, we’re going to need to sell it.”
“So why not just sell it?”
“You know Rick. He hasn’t come around to my way of thinking yet. So in the meantime, we’ll keep it parked.” She eyed Lily uncertainly. “That is, if it’s okay with you.”
Okay? Having a land yacht parked amid her prize-winning rhododendrons?
She took a deep breath. This was a family affair, she reminded herself. Blood was thicker than…plant matter. “It’s fine,” she said.
“Thanks, Lil. We’ll be forever in your debt. Oh, wait. We are forever in your debt. We’ll never get out.”
“Don’t be silly. I wish I could help you more.”
Violet beamed at her. “You’re a saint, I swear. And hey, you can take it out anytime you want. I mean it. The thing is a lot of fun. It sleeps six. Rick wanted a big one in case we have more kids.”
Good plan, thought Lily, but she held her tongue.
“You could take Crystal’s kids camping, maybe.”
“I doubt I’ll be taking your Winnebago anywhere,” Lily said.
“You never know.”
“That’s the story of my life these days,” Lily confessed. “I never know what’s happening next.”
Violet sobered. “How are you doing?”
“Not great.” Lily felt a now-familiar prickle in her throat. “I miss her so much, Vi. She meant the world to me, and now that she’s gone, I hardly know what to do with myself.”
Violet gave her a hug. “Ah, Lily. I wish you weren’t so alone.” She pulled back and looked Lily in the eye. “Listen, I know what you’re probably thinking. Just because someone you love died doesn’t mean you should never love again.”
How well her sister knew her, Lily thought. “It means I never should have loved in the first place.”
“You don’t get to choose, Lil. Why not let yourself be crazy about Crystal’s kids? Lord knows, they need it. Who’s raising them?”
“Sean, the uncle on Derek’s side. You met him at the funeral.”
“The hunk? How could I forget? So he’s single, right?”
Lily flashed on an image of Maura, all long legs and intelligent eyes. “For the time
being, I suppose. He’s seeing someone, not that it’s any of my business.”
“Lily Raines Robinson, I swear you are blushing.” Violet leaned forward, intrigued. “What’s up with you and this guy?”
“Nothing.” Lily was annoyed. “We both want what’s best for the kids, that’s what’s up with us, but we don’t always agree on the way to approach this.”
“Since he’s the uncle—”
“Half uncle, if you want to get technical. A guy who barely knows them. Still, he’s the children’s only blood relative besides Dorothy, and according to social services, that trumps my claim to them. It’s so frustrating, Vi. Crystal wanted me to take care of them, but she never got around to discussing it with Derek. I’m sure she thought they had all the time in the world.”
“Wow. So are you going to try to get them placed with you?”
“Honestly, that was my knee-jerk reaction when this all came to light, but I backed off. The children need stability right now more than ever. If I initiated a legal action, it could disrupt their lives even worse. Even Crystal’s attorney said my chances of winning are slim to none, since the will isn’t valid and I’m not a blood relation. Still, sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from rushing in and taking over.”
“The guy might like it if you did. Ever think of that?”
“All the time,” Lily admitted, picturing Sean asleep on the sofa. More than I should.
“Wow. Rick and I have never even made wills.”
“You’re kidding. Vi, you’ve got two minor children. You really ought to put something in writing.”
She nodded, watching Megan and Ryan out the window. “Hey, Lily?”
“Yes?”
“When I do make a will, I’m appointing you guardian of the kids. Is that all right?”
“You really need to discuss this with Rick,” Lily said.
“He’ll go along with whatever I say. His parents are getting on in years and his sisters’ lives are too chaotic to take over raising kids. You’re the perfect choice, Lily. Please say you’ll agree.”
She reached across the table and touched her sister’s hand. “I’m honored.”