скачать книгу бесплатно
Fine by him. There was a difference between being there if she needed anything, and pushing himself on her. He could do the former, and it might be better in the long run. He had some rawness himself since Callie and hadn’t even dated since her death. Eventually, he supposed he would again, but he’d know when the time was right. For now, however, he couldn’t imagine anyone in Callie’s place.
Deciding that Vicki might be wise, he settled back, intending to focus solely on helping Lena clear her house.
And on Krystal. Vicki might think it was a big adventure for the child, but he’d seen her sitting on a porch swing, sucking her thumb and looking like an abandoned, weary waif.
He would do everything he could for that child. Starting with finding her a friend.
* * *
“Where’s Dan?” Lena asked, when Vicki stepped inside.
“He said he had something to do, and would see you tomorrow.” From upstairs, she could hear Krys singing at the top of her lungs. Vicki looked up. “She sounds happy.”
“For now. I left her to finish her playroom. There wasn’t much left to do, and she’s pretty certain about where she wants everything.”
“She sure is.” Vicki dropped her purse on the hall table. “I told her to put her toys where she wanted in there. I hope it was okay.”
“Perfectly okay.” Lena slipped her arm around Vicki’s shoulders. “Now let’s you and me have a quiet cup of coffee and relax for a minute. You’ve earned a chance to take a deep breath.”
Vicki hesitated only briefly. Keeping busy had become a kind of refuge for her, a way to keep grief and despair at bay. Coming here had been a way to escape the constant reminders of loss. Somehow it just hadn’t been getting easier.
Lena took them into her kitchen, which like many older ones didn’t have a lot of cabinetry or counter space, but instead had a big round table for most kitchen chores. Despite its lack of the conveniences Vicki expected, it was a large room and probably worked well. One long bank of counters and cabinets provided enough room for a microwave and a food processor, and little else. A sink with a short counter filled a second wall. That left a stove and refrigerator side by side on the third wall, and the table, which sat beneath the wide windows.
The coffee had already brewed and Lena set out two mugs for them. Vicki slid into an old oak chair at the table, saying, “We must seem like an invasion force to you.”
Lena laughed. “Actually, no. Why do you think I kept asking you to come here? This is a big old house, too big for one person, and it’s going to be yours someday, anyway. You might as well make any changes you want. Better than being caretaker of the family museum.”
Vicki laughed helplessly. “You’ve said that before. Do you really feel that way?”
“Sometimes, yes.” Lena sat near her. “When your grandparents were alive, that was one thing. The three of us got along pretty well, and the place was...well, what it was. But it’s been a while since they passed. This place echoes with just me, and I keep getting an itch to change it somehow. It always seemed like a ridiculous expense just for me. But now there’s you and Krystal, and I think changing this house around is going to be good for me. For all of us.”
“I hope so.”
Lena regarded her thoughtfully. “Does something about Dan bother you?”
Vicki started. “No. Why?”
“I know he’s a cop and you were trying to get away from being smothered by them, but he’s not like that.”
“No?” She waited, tensing.
“No. He’s a widower, you know.”
Vicki felt her heart jump uncomfortably. “He is?”
“Yup. Lost his wife to ovarian cancer a bit over five years ago. I knew her, too. Small town. Anyway, he’s become a good friend of mine, and I’d hate for you to feel uncomfortable with him.”
Vicki nodded and realized that she had indeed felt a resistance toward him. Not because of him; he hadn’t done one thing to make her feel that way. But because she feared...what, exactly? He might be a cop, but he wasn’t a reminder. She shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Lena.”
“No need. You and I have been talking frequently since Hal died. I think I have some understanding of the problems you’ve been dealing with. It might give you some comfort to know Dan’s been through a lot of it, too. Anyway, he’s a good friend. He could be your friend, as well, but he doesn’t have to be. I just want you to know that he is my friend.”
Now Vicki felt just awful. She must have done something to cause her aunt to speak this way. “I don’t want to make him feel unwelcome.”
“I’m sure you don’t. And you’ve been dealing with a lot. I only brought it up because...well, he was supposed to come here for dinner tonight. I expected him to return with you. Did something happen?”
“Not a thing. He was very helpful, and he told me about the park where I could take Krys.”
“Well, then, I’m going to call that young man and find out what’s going on.”
If she hadn’t felt so bad, Vicki might have laughed. Dan was young enough, but Vicki wasn’t so old that she should be thinking of him as “that young man.”
Lena went to the wall phone and called Dan. “I hear you’re skipping out on dinner. You never pass on my fried chicken.”
Vicki gestured that she was going to the bathroom, then slipped out. It seemed she couldn’t escape Dan, but then she wondered why she should even want to. He’d been pleasant and helpful, and he had no ties with her past, other than Lena. What was going on inside her?
She wondered if she would ever get herself sorted out.
“Mommy?”
She looked up and saw Krystal at the head of the stairs. “Yes, sweetie?”
“I finished. Come see.”
Vicki climbed the stairs to join her daughter in her new playroom. “I heard you singing when I came home. It sounded like you were having fun.”
“Aunt Lena said I could do it myself. I’m a big girl now.”
That was the second time in two days. When she reached the top of the stairs, Vicki stroked her daughter’s blond head and wondered if she had somehow put pressure on the child, making her feel she needed to grow up faster. Even with all her experience with children, Vicki didn’t know. They all seemed to want to grow up fast. But sometimes they had reasons that were darker than their years should justify.
The organization in the room existed only in her daughter’s eyes, but Vicki praised it sincerely. This was one place Krystal could express herself and control her environment, and not for the world would Vicki take that away from her.
Then she saw a photograph on the shelf and felt gut-punched. It was a family photo of her, Hal and Krys, taken on Krys’s third birthday. Balloons decorated the background, and all three of them were beaming.
Vicki hesitated, then said, “I thought you liked that picture by your bed.”
Krys shook her head. “I can’t see him when I sleep.”
“Oh. I didn’t think of that.” The giant fist, so familiar over the past year, once again reached out and grabbed Vicki’s heart, squeezing it until she almost couldn’t breathe. Her knees weakened and she sat on the edge of the bed, which had almost disappeared beneath stuffed animals.
Krystal climbed up beside her. “See?”
Indeed, she could see. Krystal had found the place in the room where Hal’s photo could see her everywhere. His dark, smiling eyes seemed to be looking at them right now.
“Daddy likes it here,” she announced. “Tell me about my party again?”
Despite feeling as if her chest were being crushed, Vicki told the familiar story of Krystal’s third birthday party. It had become a ritual, and if she skipped even one word, Krys reminded her.
Hugging her daughter, she forced life into her voice, when she felt as if she had no life left.
* * *
Dinner with Dan had been a pleasant time. They ate at the big dining room table again with the overhead chandelier adding some cheer. He and Lena spoke about doings around the county, and Dan included Krystal as often as possible, asking her about her new playroom, but in no way pushing any boundaries.
By the time Vicki took her daughter upstairs for a bath and bed, she felt more comfortable with the whole idea of Dan being around frequently. Unlike some of Hal’s friends, he wasn’t trying to play the father role for the girl. He just treated her as if she were another friend at the table.
Later, when she went back downstairs, he was still here, chatting with Lena in the living room. Vicki wished she could enjoy the kind of comfortable friendship they seemed to, and knew she was the only one holding back.
It was always possible she might not like him as much as Lena did, but she’d never know unless she joined the two of them.
Lena had made it clear that they were friends, and that wasn’t going to change. Vicki still wasn’t sure what she had done that had made Dan originally decide not to come for dinner, but she resolved to be friendlier.
If she could figure out how. She seemed to have become somewhat socially inept after the past year. But of course, she’d stopped meeting new people and had become enclosed by the blue wall of Hank’s friends. If she sat for hours without speaking, they didn’t worry about it. They just included her, then let her be.
Despite the passage of time, she’d seemed to want to be left alone more rather than less. It was part of what had driven her to accept Lena’s invitation—the feeling that Hal’s friends, despite their best intentions, were holding her in some kind of stasis. That with them she would always be Hal’s widow.
Well, if she was to have any life at all other than being his widow and Krystal’s mom, now was the time to start. And friendship was a good place to begin.
She went to the kitchen to pour herself coffee before joining them. Once again, she found Dan and her aunt on Lena’s old couch. Vicki wondered if her recliner sofa was radioactive or something.
“Hey there,” Lena said. “Is the tyke out for the night?”
“Totally. She worked hard on her playroom today.” Vicki smiled. “And she loves it. Thanks, Lena. I can’t quite tell how she organized it, but everything is where she wants it.”
“I could get rid of that bed.”
Vicki sat on the edge of the sofa. “I don’t think you need to. It seems to have become the home for a bazillion stuffed animals.”
“We should find some things to put on the walls,” Lena remarked. “That old wallpaper just looks old, and the room hasn’t been used in so long that if it ever had any charm, it was in another era.”
Dan chuckled, and Vicki felt a smile lift her lips. “Krys seems happy with it.”
“Krys put a lot of life into it,” Lena agreed. “But I’m sure I could give her something cheerier to look at above little-girl height.” She brightened. “Let’s do that. Posters, whatever. Bright colors. I bet she’d love to help pick them.”
Vicki had no doubt of that. “Just not too much,” she said cautiously.
Lena eyed her inquisitively. “Why?”
Vicki hesitated, acutely aware that Dan would hear, and might take it wrong. “Well, our friends...” Yes, call them friends, not Hal’s colleagues, not cops. “Every time they came to see us, they brought something for Krystal. That’s why she has so many stuffed animals and toys. More than any child needs. Hal and I didn’t want to spoil her, but...” Vicki shrugged, not knowing how to finish the thought.
“Well, thank goodness,” Dan said.
Startled, she looked at him and found him almost grinning. “What?”
“Krystal was admiring the wolf on my T-shirt yesterday. You don’t know how close I came to getting her a stuffed wolf. I guess that would have been the wrong thing to do.”
Lena laughed. Vicki felt her cheeks warm. “It wouldn’t have been wrong,” she said swiftly. “I’m sure she would have loved it. It’s just that she’s spent most of past year living in a flood of gifts. That needs to slow down.”
Dan winked. “Got it. I’ll get the wolf next week.”
In spite of everything, Vicki laughed. All of a sudden her heart felt a smidgeon lighter. “That’ll work,” she said.
Dan rose to get more coffee. Lena suggested he just bring the pot into the living room.
“So what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” Lena asked Vicki.
“Your house, your agenda.”
Lena cocked an eyebrow at her. “You don’t get off so easy. It’s your house now, too. You still haven’t gone through to tell me if I’ve labeled any furniture for removal that you might want to keep. And we need to get at your unpacking.”
Vicki was glad Dan wasn’t in the room at that moment, because what burst out of her sounded anything but adult. “Lena, this is so hard.”
Her aunt instantly came to sit beside her and hug her. “I know, my sweet girl. I know. Don’t let me pressure you.”
“It’s not that,” Vicki admitted. “It’s that I seem to have made all the decisions I can make. I don’t know if I can make any more. And I’m not even sure I made the right ones. What if this is all wrong for Krystal?”
Dan froze in the foyer as he heard what Vicki said. The worn oriental rug beneath his feet had silenced his steps, and he was certain neither of the women knew he was there. Should he go back into the kitchen? But the anguish in Vicki’s voice riveted him to the spot.
He understood the torment of losing your spouse, and he was intimately acquainted with the decisions that eventually had to be made. Few of them were easy; all of them were painful. You could either turn your life into a living gravestone, or you could chose to move ahead.
But moving ahead meant making painful choices. The day he had realized that he needed to take his wife’s clothing to the Red Cross had sent him over an emotional cliff edge. Lena talked about living in her family’s museum. Well, he’d done that, too. He’d lived in a museum of his life with Callie. He supposed Vicki had done the same thing.
But his choices hadn’t been as broad or sweeping as the ones Vicki had just made. She hadn’t just closed up her own museum, but she’d left the only place familiar to her, everyone she knew, and she’d taken her daughter on the journey with her.
Hearing her fear that she might not have done right by Krystal pierced him. How she must have agonized over making the correct decisions.
He heard Lena speak again, quietly. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m truly sorry. I keep wanting to be cheerful, and keep moving us along, and I forget how hard this must be. I’ve never had to do anything like it. It was different when your grandparents died. They were old, they were sick, it was time. And I didn’t have to do anything except stay right here and let time do its work. You’ve chosen a much harder path.”
“What if it’s the wrong one?” Vicki asked, her voice strained.
“I can’t guarantee it’s not. Only time will tell. But I listened to you enough to know all the thought you put into deciding to move here. And I know that never at any point did you forget about your daughter.”
Silence. Dan closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing Vicki’s fears and pain. He didn’t know what he could do about any of it, but he was determined to try. Then he heard Lena speak again.
“All right,” she said, “no more decisions for you unless you feel like making them. There’s really no rush, you know. I shouldn’t have pressured you. Take a break. We’ll sort out everything when you’re ready.”
Dan suddenly realized he’d been gone too long. After stepping backward on the rug to the kitchen door, he headed for the living room again, making his footsteps heavier this time.
When he entered the room, Lena was still sitting beside Vicki.
“Coffee, anyone?” he asked casually.
Chapter Three (#u1b933d6f-416a-578d-ae31-5353c873b918)
Two days later, Vicki was beginning to feel that she had her feet under her again. She spent a couple hours unpacking her own belongings and arranging her bedroom, with Krystal’s guidance, then suggested they take a walk to the park.
Krys, dressed like her mother in jeans and a T-shirt, liked the idea, but ran to her room to grab a teddy bear first.
Vicki wondered what to make of that. Krystal had never before seemed inclined to carry a stuffed animal with her. Maybe the girl was still feeling insecure. Vicki hid her concern behind a big smile, stopped to grab her purse and keys, then opened the front door.
