“You should have come over then.”
She pulled her legs in tighter to her chest. “I wasn’t in the mood to socialize.”
“You never are anymore,” John mumbled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He leaned his head back on the couch and closed his eyes. “Usually in the summer, by now we would have had a few barbecues with our neighbors, been on a few picnics, driven along the coast just to get away…and we’ve done none of that.”
“Things are a bit different this year.” Like she really needed to tell him that. Why did she have to explain or excuse herself? She couldn’t just pretend their lives hadn’t changed. That they were the same.
She couldn’t ignore what had happened to them—losing their own child—and continue with life as normal.
Apparently he could. Or wanted to.
“How? We’re still alive. We have a life that revolves around more than just this town and what happened here. Or at least, I thought we did.”
Grace laid her head back on the couch and closed her eyes. “Are we seriously going to do this now? Again? Can we not go one week, or even one day, without having these talks about dealing with things and moving on?”
“Maybe if you would start to deal with things, then we wouldn’t have to,” John said.
She arched her brow. “We deal with grief differently. That much is clear.” Hopefully one day he’d understand what that meant. “Stop trying to tell me how I need to handle things; stop trying to give me a time line…just stop, John. Please.”
“Stop? I can’t, Grace. We’re in this together—at least, I thought we were. But you won’t let me in. You’ve shut me out, won’t talk about what’s happened, and there’s no way for us to move past this if we can’t do it together.”
The agony in her husband’s voice sliced through her heart.
“We are in this together,” she whispered. She opened her eyes to look at him, but he’d already turned away and stared blindly across the room.
“It doesn’t feel like it, Grace. What happened to us, to our community, was horrific, but—”
Horrific? That was how he would describe it? Try devastating. Life altering. Soul crushing.
“I lost my best friend only a few months ago, John.” She crossed her arms tight over her chest, a throw pillow held tight between her arms. “We lost our child. What happened didn’t just happen to this town; it happened to us.” Her voice broke. It was like he forgot that part, as if he glossed over her miscarriage and grief.
“You think I don’t know that? That I don’t live with that reminder every day? How do you think it feels to me to find someone else’s child sleeping in the room meant for our baby? Or to see you hold Sophie in your arms, singing her a lullaby? Don’t think I haven’t noticed what you call yourself when you think no one is around.”
“Call myself?” Grace was confused. She didn’t understand why he was picking a fight with her—because it was obvious that was what he was doing.
John pushed himself up from the couch, his body suddenly rigid with anger. “Give me a break. As if you don’t know.”
She shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I call myself Auntie.”
“You call yourself Mommy.” His voice was low, almost a whisper, but held enough force that she felt like she’d just been sucker punched.
She grabbed onto the edge of the couch. “No, I don’t.” Her heart squeezed in pain. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t betray Katie like that. She couldn’t.
“I’ve heard you more than once.”
She turned toward him, her body angled to his. “I wouldn’t do that. Not to Katie.” She searched John’s eyes. Whatever she expected to see, sympathy or acceptance or even pity, it wasn’t anger. Anger toward her.
“Not to Katie?” John stood, his fists clenched at his sides. “You wouldn’t do that to Katie?” The way he said her name, with vehemence, shocked her. “How about you wouldn’t do that to me, or to the child you lost? Why is it all about Katie?”
“Because it’s my fault she’s dead!”
The words rushed out before she had a chance to even think.
“My fault, John. Mine. It’s because of me that she was at the school. If I had just gone to work like I was supposed to, instead of skipping town to see Faith, Katie would be alive. Her daughter wouldn’t be motherless, and maybe, just maybe, our own child wouldn’t be gone.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she could hardly see John standing before her. She swiped the tears that ran down her face, and ignored the pain in her heart that threatened to crush her.
“Then you would have died.” John stepped toward her, his eyes full of tears and love. “Do you realize that? You would be dead.”
The anguish in his voice, the realization of his words, pulled at her.
“But at least she would be alive.”
Survivor guilt. She’d never get past it.
“You don’t know that.” John reached out but Grace stepped backward, away from him.
“I do know. I would have done the same thing she did: stood in front of my students, protected them from harm. But I wish it had been me and not her. You would survive without me…but how fair is it that Sophie has to grow up without her mom?”
John shook his head vehemently. “I wouldn’t—”
She fled toward their bedroom. How could he not understand? Sinking onto their bed, she clutched her legs tight to her chest.
It was something she and Katie had often discussed: the sacrifice of what being a teacher meant in the face of all the violent school shootings in their country. She thought about the seminars they’d attended in the city about recognizing the signs, being aware of issues before they occurred…but you never expected something like this to happen to you.
Katie was a hero. She’d put the needs of her students above her own, despite having a baby at home. Taking care of Katie’s daughter, helping to raise her best friend’s baby while her husband was grieving…it was the least Grace could do.
So what if it meant she and John didn’t go out as much? Or they didn’t go away like they used to? She wasn’t the same person she’d been then. She’d changed. That moment the news came on the radio about the school shooting…she would remember it forever.
The stereo had been turned up, the window down, and there had been a happiness in her heart she knew now that she would never experience again. She’d been on her way to Seattle to spend time with her sister before John joined her and they had their own little weekend celebration: Grace was pregnant, a dream come true, and she couldn’t wait to tell her sister.
She still remembered the spot in the road she’d been passing when the special bulletin came on. She was on I-525, between Freeland and Clinton. A little fruit stand stood on the side of the road, and the sign for the winery she and Katie loved to head to on weekends was just up ahead.
Time stood still when she heard. She pulled over to the side of the road, frozen. She would always remember that sensation of icy tendrils moving along her veins toward her heart from the tips of her fingers as they clutched the steering wheel. She’d gasped from the pain as she listened to the news: that one of the town’s own had entered the school with a gun and shots were fired. Emergency vehicles were on the scene, but there was no word on what had happened after that. So she sat there, waiting, praying that this was all just a mistake, that what they thought had been a gun was actually something else.
She’d reached for her phone, her fingers fumbling with the device, and called her husband, but the line was busy. She tried again and again. She then tried calling Katie’s cell, then Paige’s, then John’s again, but all she got were busy signals. So she sat there on the side of the road, tears streaming down her face, not knowing what was happening.
Moments later she’d wished to be back in that space of not knowing. Because the pain was nothing compared to finding out that there were casualties. Children. Innocent bystanders.<
br />
A teacher.
The moment she heard that, Grace turned her vehicle around, her body shaking, and drove back toward Stillwater Bay. To the nightmare that had now become her life.
She rocked herself on her bed now. She’d lost her baby within weeks of the shooting. The grief over losing her best friend, knowing it was because she’d asked Katie to cover her class that she was dead…Grace deserved what life had handed her.
How could she not help take care of Sophie? To love her and do what she could to ease Nathan’s burden? Why couldn’t her husband understand that?
Her cell phone rang. Her sister’s name came on the screen, and without thought Grace hit the ignore button.
She wasn’t ready to speak to Faith. Not yet.
A few moments later her phone buzzed with a text message.
I miss you. I have a week off and was hoping to come and see you. Please say yes.
Her chest tightened at the thought. When she didn’t answer, Faith called.
Grace answered at the first ring.
“I can’t.” She barely whispered the words into the phone.
“I won’t take no for an answer. I miss you. My flight is already booked and I’ll be at your place before dinner.” There was a note of pleading in Faith’s voice, but Grace ignored it.
“No.”
“No? You don’t mean that, Grace.”
She uncurled her body and stood, stretching her back, and then paced her small bedroom.
“Grace? Please don’t do this.”
Her fingers were freezing, so she placed the phone on speaker, set it down on the bed, and rubbed her hands together to warm them. “You can’t just drop in like that.” She couldn’t handle her sister here. Not now.
There was silence on the line. Grace knew Faith was mulling over her words.
“Then meet me,” Faith finally said.
“No.”
“Then I’m coming.” The pleading tone was gone. Now Faith just sounded frustrated and annoyed.
With her.
If anyone should be frustrated or annoyed, it was Grace. Who did her sister think she was?
She rubbed the back of her neck. “Now just isn’t a good time, okay?”
“It’s never a good time lately. What’s going on? You won’t talk to me anymore. You rarely return my texts, and this is the first time in over a month you’ve actually answered my call.”
“You know exactly what happened.”
“I’m coming tomorrow. Please be home.”
Grace inhaled sharply. “I said no.”
“I’m not giving you a choice.” With that, Faith hung up, leaving Grace standing there in shock.
Did her sister just do that?
“Faith?” John stood in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest.
“She’s coming tomorrow.”
“I know.”
Grace frowned. “You know?” She didn’t like the sound of that.
He shrugged. “She asked what I thought about her coming for the week. I told her it was a good idea.”
“She asked you first?” Her brow furrowed as she stared at him, daring him to look her in the eyes, expecting that he wouldn’t. His gaze flittered about all over the room until he stared down at their carpet.
“John?” Grace asked again. “Since when have you started talking to my sister?”
“Since you stopped.” He slowly lifted his head. “She’s worried about you, and to be honest, she’s not the only one.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The look in his gaze was full of…compassion? Sympathy? Understanding? Sadness? She wasn’t sure which.
“Whether you want to admit it or not, you need her. You won’t open up to me; you won’t go see a counselor. You need something or someone, and I hope to God she’s it.” He turned, as if wanting to leave, but Grace stopped him.
“John…I’m not…” She was afraid to admit that the idea of Faith coming scared her.
“Ready?” John looked at her, really looked at her, as if he could see into her soul. “Grace, it’s time, don’t you think? Time to stop running? What could happen that hasn’t already happened? You lost your best friend. We lost our child. You lost a part of yourself you’re afraid you can never get back; I get it. But none of that was your fault. I wish…” He stopped, and Grace almost thought he might cry. She started to get up, but he held his hand out to her. “You can’t keep blaming yourself.”
He left this time, and she listened to the echo of his footsteps as he walked toward his office.
She wasn’t running. She was facing reality, and it was a lot harder than John obviously thought it should be. Reality was that she was childless. Reality was that her best friend’s daughter was motherless. Reality was that school was going to start in a few short weeks and she wasn’t as ready as she needed to be. Reality was…
Grace picked up her phone. Don’t come. I won’t be here. I’m not ready.
She didn’t care what her sister thought of that text. And she didn’t care what that meant about her own state of mind. If Faith did show up tomorrow…John would be the only one welcoming her.
She wondered whether they’d see the irony in that.
4
CAMILLE
Camille sat at the kitchen table, a hot mug of coffee in her hands, and blindly stared out the window of their cottage-style home. She hated mornings. Hated dragging her weary body out of bed, hated the pain in her feet as she made her way to the bathroom to shower while the coffee brewed nice and strong.
She felt like an old lady in a young(ish) woman’s body. She was just barely pushing past thirty. As her father would say, I’m getting too old for this.
She smiled at the thought. Her father would mutter it every morning, and her mother would remind him he was only as old as he felt.
They died too young. They should still be here, working away in the flower shop, tending their own gardens, and living the life they’d always dreamed about. Instead, their lives had been snuffed out by a drunk driver a few years ago.
“I thought you’d be sitting on the deck.” Paige shuffled into the room, her hair in a messy bun, wearing loose-fitting capris that barely hid her knee brace.
Camille yawned. “I can’t seem to move from the chair. I didn’t think you were going to be here?”
“I decided to sleep in my own bed last night.” Paige poured herself a cup, stirred in some sugar, and then came to her, her hand out as if to help her sister up.
Camille lifted up her arm and then dropped it again. “Whose house are you sitting for, anyway?”
Paige yawned. “Oh, a summer family. The mayor mentioned that they were looking for someone to housesit here and there throughout the summer.” She rubbed her eyes and yawned again. “They don’t want people to think it’s empty.”
“Charlotte never said anything to me about it,” Camille complained.
Paige shrugged. “I don’t even really know the people, other than that it’s a property Robert’s company manages.”
Camille frowned into her coffee mug. Her whole body lagged with lack of energy, and it even hurt to raise her arms to sip her coffee.
Paige pulled out a chair and sat. “Maybe you need to go back to bed? You don’t look so hot. You’re not getting sick, are you?”
Camille shook her head. “I can’t get sick.”
Paige’s brow rose.
“We can’t afford for me to be sick. You’re busy with clients, which means there’s no one to tend the store.”
Paige laughed. The sound was bitter, full of sarcasm. “Are you serious? Life is not going to fall apart just because you’re not there to hold it up.”
Camille blanched as she realized how she’d sounded.
Paige leaned forward, her voice softer this time. “I’m pretty sure I can manage to keep our store running for a day. I can take care of our clients tonight; that’s not an issue. You know that.”
Camille sighed before yawning ag
ain. “Maybe I just need to sit outside. The crisp morning air usually helps.”
“Or maybe go back to bed? You probably got one of those summer cold/flu bugs.”
It was tempting. It really was, and it wasn’t like there were a lot of orders today. Which meant she could relax a little at work, sit more than stand, and take it easy.
“I’ll be fine,” she said before another yawn happened. Tears appeared in her eyes from the exertion. Okay, maybe she wasn’t fine. Maybe she should go back to bed.
“At least let me open this morning. Come in later.”
That would work. She didn’t need to take the day, just a few hours. Some extra sleep would be lovely. She was about to nod and tell her sister she would go back to bed, but she didn’t get the chance.
“For Pete’s sake, Camille. I wish you’d trust me a little. Don’t you think it’s time you let me grow up and be the adult that I am? You don’t need to treat me like a little kid who only needs to water lawns and pull weeds. Stop being so damn controlling.” Her sister’s fingers turned white from the tight grip on her coffee mug.
Camille sat there, shocked into silence for a moment before recovering herself.
“If you want me to treat you like an adult, then start acting like one.” With energy she didn’t have, Camille pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “You want to help carry the load? Then by all means, do. But then you actually have to face life. Are you ready for that? Instead of hiding yourself at the golf course every day mourning over what might have been, it means you have to stop running from your past and get your knee taken care of. Pretty soon you’ll be wearing those braces all the time. Should I get Dad’s cane out of storage? Because you know that’s the next step. The doctor has told you that over and over.” She leaned down, her hands holding her weight against the table. “Being a grown-up means not running away from life. Are you ready for that?” She didn’t wait for her sister to answer; instead she turned and slowly forced herself to walk toward her bedroom. Before she reached the door, she paused and looked over her shoulder.
“Thanks for opening up for me today. I’ll try to be in by midmorning.” She wasn’t sure whether that softened the blow, but in all honesty, she didn’t care.
The Stillwater Bay Collection (Books 1-4): Stillwater Bay Series Boxed Set Page 17