The House on Hope Street

by Danielle Steel

  “I know. But doing this doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t help. It just makes it worse. I used to come in here too, and do the same thing, but it made me so sad I stopped. Maybe you should pack up his stuff. If you want, I’ll help you,” Peter offered.

  “Grandma said I should too…. I just don’t want to,” Liz said sadly.

  “Then don’t. Do it when you’re ready.”

  “What if I never am?”

  “You will be. You’ll know when.” He held her for a long moment, and then she slowly pulled away and smiled up at him. The moment of sheer agony had passed, and she felt better as she looked at her son. He was a good boy, and she loved him more than she could tell him, just as she loved all her kids.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, sweetheart. Thanks for being there for me, and for all the others.” He nodded, and they walked back into her room again, as she glanced at her briefcase. For once, she just didn’t feel like working. Doing what she had just done, trying to hold on to Jack, by clinging to his clothes, and smelling his cologne on them, always made her feel worse after the initial indulgence. The positive aspects only lasted for a few seconds. But she only missed him more afterwards. It was what Peter had discovered, and why he had stopped doing the same thing, just as he had told her.

  “Why don’t you give yourself a breather tonight, just take a hot bath, or go to a movie or something,” he said wisely.

  “I’ve got work to do.”

  “You always have work to do. It’ll wait. If Dad were here, he’d take you out. Even he didn’t work every night the way you do now.”

  “No, but he worked at home a lot. More than I did then.”

  “You can’t be you and him, Mom. All you can be is you. It’s too much to do both parts.”

  “When did you get so wise?” She smiled at him as he stood in the doorway, but they both knew the answer to that. Peter had grown up about six months before, on Christmas morning. He had had to do it very quickly, to help her and his siblings. There was no choice now. Even the girls had grown up a lot in the last six months, and despite her awkward age, Megan was always offering to help her. Liz knew she was going to miss her while she was at camp, but they deserved to get away and have a good time. They all did.

  Peter went to his own room then, and in her room, Liz sat down on her bed and spread out her papers. She was still working long after Peter had gone to bed. She always worked late now. She hated to go to bed, or to try and sleep. It was always a battle to fight the memories out of her head. The nights were a lot harder than the days, and had been from the beginning.

  But by two she was finally asleep, and by seven, she was up and running. She dropped Jamie off at camp again, went to work, sifted through her caseload, dictated letters to Jean, made a dozen phone calls, and at five-thirty she was back in the backyard, timing Jamie’s dashes. In its own way, it was a pleasant treadmill. Kids, work, kids, work, sleep, and then the same routine all over again. For the moment, it was all she had, and all she wanted.

  By the time camp was over for the girls, Jamie had picked up a lot of speed on his dashes, and improved his distance on the running long jump. They had even practiced the sack race, with a burlap bag she had gotten at the feed store. He was gaining in confidence as well as speed. And he made up in effort and goodwill what he lacked in coordination.

  But Jamie was even more excited about seeing his sisters when they came home than he was about the Special Olympics. And they were thrilled to see him. Jamie was special to all of them. And the day before camp ended for the girls, Liz took Jamie and a friend to Marine World. He loved getting splashed by the dolphins and the whales. He was absolutely soaked by the time they left and got in the car to drive home. Liz had to wrap him in towels so he didn’t catch cold, and he was ecstatic about the day.

  The Special Olympics were scheduled for the following weekend. Liz trained every night with him, and all morning the day before the event. And when his sisters watched him, they applauded and cheered. He was better than he had ever been, and the night before he could hardly sleep he was so excited. He slept in Liz’s bed that night, as he still did fairly often. She never complained about it, or discouraged him, because selfishly she loved it too, and it gave them both comfort.

  The morning of the Olympics was sunny and warm, and she and Jamie left before the others. Peter was going to drive over an hour later with Carole and the girls. Liz was carrying jack’s video camera, and wearing her Nikon. They checked in at the gate of the fairgrounds, and Jamie was given a number. There were children like him everywhere, and many far more challenged than he, many of them seemed severely afflicted, and there were endless numbers of kids in wheelchairs. It was a familiar sight to Liz, and it touched her to see how happy they all were, and how excited. Jamie could hardly wait for his first event, and as they lined up for the hundred yard dash, he suddenly turned to his mother with a look of panic.

  “I can’t,” he said in a choked voice. “I can’t, Mom.”

  “Yes, you can,” she said quietly, holding his hand. “You know you can, Jamie. It doesn’t matter if you win, it’s just for fun, sweetheart. All you have to do is have a good time. That’s all, just try to relax and enjoy it.”

  “I can’t do it without Daddy.” She hadn’t been prepared for that, and her eyes filled with tears as he said it.

  “Daddy would want you to have a good time. This means a lot to you, and it did for him. It’ll make you feel good if you win a ribbon.” She spoke in a quavering voice, fighting back tears, but for once, Jamie didn’t see them.

  “I don’t want to without him,” he said, bursting into tears of his own, and burying his head in his mother’s chest, and for a minute she wondered if she should let him drop out, or encourage him to do it. But it was like everything else they had to face now, unbearably hard the first time, but once they got through the pain, there was a sense of victory to have survived it.

  “Why don’t you try one event,” Liz reasoned with him, as she kept her arms around him and stroked his hair, “and if you hate it, we’ll just watch from the stands, or go home if you want. Just do this one.” He hesitated for a long time, and said nothing, as they called the participants in the dash to the starting line, and then he looked up at her and nodded. She walked to the starting line with him, and he turned and looked at her for a long time, and then he lined up with the others. She blew him a kiss before he turned around, something Jack would never have done. Jack always treated him like a man, and he always said she treated Jamie like a baby. But he was her baby, and no matter how grown up he eventually got, or how capable, he always would be.

  She stood watching him with tears in her eyes as he ran, and shouting encouragement with the other parents. But she wanted him to win this time, for himself, for Jack, and to prove that things were still all right, that he could live on without his father. Jamie needed this even more than the others, and maybe in some small way, she did also. She watched, holding her breath as he approached the finish line. He looked as though he might come in third or fourth, and then with a sudden burst, he pulled ahead of the others. He didn’t look to either side, or glance around, as some of the others did, he just pushed himself as hard as he could and kept going, and then with a look of astonishment, as tears streamed down her face, she realized that he had come in first. The ribbon had snapped across his chest, and he was panting at the other end, and looking around wildly for her as the official “hugger” gave Jamie a big hug and congratulated him. There were scores of volunteers who did just that. Liz ran to him as fast as she could, and he threw his arms around her when he saw her.

  “I won! I won! I came in first!… I won, Mom! I never did that with Daddy!” But Jack would have been so pleased for him, and so proud of him, and Liz could just imagine him smiling at them. She was holding Jamie close to her, and thanking God and Jack for making it happen for him, she kissed the top of Jamie’s head and told him how proud of him she was, and he loo
ked surprised when he glanced up and saw that she was crying. “Aren’t you happy, Mom?” He looked confused and she laughed.

  “You bet I am!! You were fantastic!!” They both waved to Peter and the girls in the stands, and made a victory sign, and Peter and the girls stood up and cheered when they announced the winner of the hundred yard dash on the P.A. system as Jamie was getting his gold medal off to the side. No matter what else happened that day, Jamie had won.

  He came in second in the running long jump after that, and won a silver medal, and tied for first in the sack race. By the end of the day, he’d won two gold medals and a silver, and he’d never been as happy in his life, when they finally drove home late that afternoon as he sat in the car with all three medals around his neck. It had been a wonderful day, full of excitement and victories and tender moments. And Liz took them all out to dinner at the Buckeye in Sausalito to celebrate. It was a day they would long remember and all be proud of.

  “I never did that with Dad,” Jamie said again over dinner. “You’re a really good trainer, Mom. I didn’t think you could do it.”

  “Neither did I,” Megan said proudly, looking at her mother. And Rachel and Annie teased him about what a hot athlete he was, while Liz said she was going to frame the medals for him.

  “You did a great job, Mom,” Annie complimented her.

  “Jamie did the hard part. All I did was time him in the backyard. That was pretty easy.” But they had done it every day for five weeks running, and it had paid off. Jamie had never been as happy in his life, or as proud. He showed everyone near them in the restaurant his ribbons and medals. And when Liz tucked him into bed that night, he thanked her again, and put his arms around her neck, and pulled her closer.

  “I love you, Mommy. I miss Daddy, but I love you a lot.”

  “You’re a great boy, and I love you, Jamie. I miss Daddy too, but I think he was watching you today and he was really proud of you.”

  “I think so too,” Jamie said with a yawn, and she scratched his back for a minute when he turned on his side. He was asleep before she ever left his bedroom. And she was still smiling to herself as she walked back to her own room. Peter had gone out by then, and he had taken Megan with him to a movie. Rachel and Annie were watching a video, and Liz walked quietly into her room, thinking about her husband.

  “We did it,” she whispered in the dark. And as she looked around the empty room, she could almost feel him. It was a presence, and a force, and a love that was not easily forgotten. “Thank you,” she said softly as she turned on the light, but she no longer expected to see him, or him to come back. But what he had left her with was infinitely precious.

  Chapter 6

  They left for Tahoe three days after the Special Olympics. And Jamie was still in high spirits. They all were. An old friend of Jack’s had lent her his house in Homewood. It was a rambling old house they’d borrowed from him before. His wife didn’t like Tahoe, his kids were grown, and they seldom used it. And it was perfect for Liz and the children. It had a wide, sheltered porch, and you could see the lake from most of the bedrooms. It was surrounded by five acres of land. There were big, beautiful trees, and everyone was in a great mood when they got there.

  Peter and the girls helped Liz get everything out of the car, and Jamie took the groceries into the house and helped her unpack them. Carole had gone to Santa Barbara for a week to stay with her sister.

  “What about a swim?” Peter suggested almost as soon as they arrived. And half an hour later, they were all jumping off the nearby dock, shivering in the cold water. But that was part of the fun of it, and Liz had arranged for them to go water-skiing the next morning.

  She cooked dinner for them that night, and Peter helped with the barbecue. His father had taught him how to do it. And they sat in front of the fireplace afterwards, telling stories and roasting marshmallows. And after awhile, Annie told a funny story about their father. Liz smiled as she listened, and it reminded her of another time, and another story. She told it, and they all laughed, and then Rachel reminded them of when Dad had accidentally locked himself into a cabin they’d rented and had to climb out the window. And after a while it was a contest of who could remember the silliest stories. It was a way of bringing him back to them, in a way they could all tolerate now. The months that had passed had taken the edge off the pain for them, and left them with not just the tears, but the laughter.

  And when they all finally went upstairs to go to bed, Liz felt better than she had in months. She still missed him, but she wasn’t quite as sad, and they were all happy to be there. It was a vacation they all needed, and she was glad that Peter had managed to get the time off to come with them. He was doing such a good job at the pet hospital that they had given him the week off and told him to enjoy it.

  They all went waterskiing the next day, and Peter took Rachel and Jamie fishing in the stream behind the house, and they caught a fish. And the next day they took out the small boat that was tied to the dock, and both boys caught fish, and then Megan landed a big one. They caught crawdads near the dock, and Liz cooked them that night for dinner. It was an easy, happy time for all of them, and they slept on the porch one night in sleeping bags, and looked up at the stars. It was a perfect vacation.

  And when they packed their things at the end of the week, they were all genuinely sorry to leave, and made Liz promise to do it again that summer. She thought they might borrow the house again on Labor Day. It was a way of avoiding the party they always gave then. Like the Fourth of July picnic they had decided not to give this year, their end of summer party on Labor Day was a family tradition. But going to Lake Tahoe instead was an ideal substitute for it.

  They were all relaxed and happy when they drove home the next day, and stopped at Ikeda’s in Auburn for hamburgers and milk shakes.

  “I hate to go back to work,” Liz confessed to her oldest son as they both finished their milk shakes. “This was so much fun, I wish I could be lazy for the rest of the summer.”

  “Why don’t you take some more time off, Mom?” he suggested, and she shook her head. She could just imagine what was waiting for her now at the office, she had court appearances scheduled all through the month, and a trial in early September she had to prepare for.

  “I’m swamped.”

  “You work too hard, Mom.” But they both knew she was still trying to carry her own load and his father’s. “Why don’t you hire another lawyer to help you?”

  “I’ve thought about it. But somehow I think your father wouldn’t have liked that.”

  “He wouldn’t have wanted you to kill yourself working this hard either.” Jack had always known how to have a good time, and as compulsive as he was about their work, no one liked a vacation better than he did. He would have loved the week they had just spent at Lake Tahoe.

  “I’ll see. Maybe in a few months I’ll bring another lawyer into the practice. But so far, I’m doing okay by myself.” As long as she never stopped to read a book or a magazine, or have lunch with a friend or get her hair done. As long as she kept her nose to the grindstone every minute she wasn’t with the kids, it worked fine, but it wasn’t much of a life for her, and she knew it. And apparently, so did her children.

  “Don’t wait forever, Mom,” Peter admonished her, and rounded the others up. They were buying candy, and carried bags of it back to the car to take home with them. It was part of the charm of Ikeda’s. It was one of their favorite stops. They usually stopped there too on their way to ski at Tahoe in the winter.

  Carole was waiting for them when they got home, and Liz knew that the next few weeks would be busy for her, before the kids went back to school. Peter would still be working at the pet hospital for another week or two, but the others would be spending all their time around the pool, and inviting friends over to hang out with them. Carole would fix lunch for half a dozen kids or more every day, and sometimes twice that many at dinner. But Liz liked knowing where they were, and that their friends were welcome t
o visit.

  Carole had cooked a delicious dinner for them, and when they went to bed that night, they were happy to be home, and full of stories of the lake to tell her. And Liz still looked relaxed when she left for work the next morning. It lasted for all of about ten minutes. The stacks of work and files on her desk had multiplied dramatically while she was gone, and there were more phone messages than she had ever seen waiting for her. She was handling her cases too well. Both clients and other attorneys were constantly referring new cases to her. And she couldn’t help but remember what Peter had said about taking another lawyer into the practice to help her.

  She mentioned it to Jean that afternoon as they attacked her desk systematically, and Liz did some dictation.

  “Do you have anyone in mind?” Jean asked with interest. She’d been thinking the same thing herself for quite a while, and applauded Peter for the astute suggestion.

  “Not yet,” Liz admitted to her. “I don’t even know if I want to do it.”

  “You should give it some thought. He’s right. You can’t do it all yourself. It’s too much for one person. It was almost too much for two before Jack died, and the practice has grown in the last six months. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but I have. You’re handling twice as many cases than you were when there were two of you to do them.”

  “How did that happen?” Liz looked surprised as she acknowledged what Jean was saying.

  “You’re good at what you do, that’s how,” Jean said with a smile.

  “So was Jack.” Liz was quick to defend him. “I always thought he was a better lawyer than I was.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Jean said honestly, “but he turned away more cases than you do. You never have the heart to say no to anyone. If he didn’t like a case, he booted it right out the door into the hands of some other lawyer.”

  “Maybe I should do more of that,” she said thoughtfully.