The House on Hope Street

Cherish small miracles.

Believe in big miracles.

Above all—hope.

Praise for

DANIELLE STEEL““A LITERARY PHENOMENON …and not to be pigeonholed as one who produces a predictable kind of book.”—The Detroit News““THE PLOTS OF DANIELLE STEEL'S NOVELS TWIST AND WEAVE as incredible stories unfold to the glee and delight of her enormous reading public.”—United Press International““Ms. Steel's fans won't be disappointed!”—The New York Times Book Review““One counts on Danielle Steel for A STORY THAT ENTERTAINS AND INFORMS.”—The Chattanooga Times““Steel writes convincingly about universal human emotions.”—Publishers Weekly““STEEL IS AT THE TOP OF HER BESTSELLING FORM.”—Houston Chronicle““FEW MODERN WRITERS CONVEY THE PATHOS OF FAMILY AND MARITAL LIFE WITH SUCH HEARTFELT EMPATHY.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer““It's nothing short of amazing that even after [dozens of] novels, Danielle Steel can still come up with a good new yarn.”—The Star-Ledger (Newark)

Praise for Danielle Steel's

THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET““[This] simple story of a courageous woman weathering the worst of life's storms is HARD TO PUT DOWN…. Steel knows how to wring the emotion out of the briefest scene.”—People (Beach Book of the Week)““POIGNANT.”—Chicago Tribune““GREAT ESCAPIST READING …Loaded with all the elements [Steel's] millions of fans expect.”—Library Journal““A PAGE-TURNER … A TWO-HANKY TEARJERKER.”—The Boston Globe“[The House on Hope Street] chronicles well a family's devastating loss and joyful recovery.”—Sunday Oklahoman““Ms. Steel can be counted on to please her faithful readers.”—Richmond Times-DispatchA MAIN SELECTION OF

THE LITERARY GUILD

AND

THE DOUBLEDAY BOOK CLUB

Also by Danielle Steel

THE HOUSE THE GIFT TOXIC BACHELORS ACCIDENT MIRACLE VANISHED IMPOSSIBLE MIXED BLESSINGS ECHOES JEWELS SECOND CHANCE NO GREATER LOVE RANSOM HEARTBEAT SAFE HARBOUR MESSAGE FROM NAM JOHNNY ANGEL DADDY DATING GAME STAR ANSWERED PRAYERS ZOYA SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ KALEIDOSCOPE THE COTTAGE FINE THINGS THE KISS WANDERLUST LEAP OF FAITH SECRETS LONE EAGLE FAMILY ALBUM JOURNEY FULL CIRCLE THE WEDDING CHANGES IRRESISTIBLE FORCES THURSTON HOUSE GRANNY DAN CROSSINGS BITTERSWEET ONCE IN A LIFETIME MIRROR IMAGE A PERFECT STRANGER HIS BRIGHT LIGHT: REMEMBRANCE THE STORY OF NICK TRAINA PALOMINO THE KLONE AND I LOVE: POEMS THE LONG ROAD HOME THE RING THE GHOST LOVING SPECIAL DELIVERY TO LOVE AGAIN THE RANCH SUMMER'S END SILENT HONOR SEASON OF PASSION MALICE THE PROMISE FIVE DAYS IN PARIS NOW AND FOREVER LIGHTNING PASSION'S PROMISE WINGS GOING HOME

To the beloved friends who

got me through so much,

Victoria, Jo, Kathy, Nancy,

and Charlotte.To my wonderful children,

Beatrix, Trevor, Todd, Nick,

Samantha, Victoria, Vanessa,

Maxx, and Zara,

who always give me hope

and fill my life with joy.With all my love and thanks,d.s.

a cognizant original v5 release october 06 2010

Chapter 1

It was ten o'clock in the morning on Christmas Eve, when Jack and Liz Sutherland met with Amanda Parker. It was a sunny morning in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. And Amanda looked both terrified and nervous. She was petite, blond, and delicate, and her hands shook almost imperceptibly as she quietly shredded a Kleenex. Jack and Liz had been handling her divorce for the past year, they worked as a team, and had opened their joint family law office eighteen years before, just after they were married.

They liked working together, and had long since developed a comfortable routine. They enjoyed their practice, and were good at it. They complemented each other, although their styles were extremely different. Inadvertently, and more subconsciously than not, Jack and Liz had adopted a kind of good cop/bad cop routine, which worked well for them and for their clients. It was always Jack who took the more aggressive, confrontational role, the lion in the courtroom, fighting for better conditions and bigger settlements, relentlessly backing his opponents into a corner, from which there was no relief for them until they gave him what he wanted for his client. It was Liz who was more thoughtful, gentler, ingenious about the subtleties, holding the clients’ hands when needed, and fighting for the rights of their children. And at times the difference in their styles led to fights between them, as it had in Amanda's case. Despite some of the malicious games Amanda's husband had played on her, the threats, the constant verbal and occasional physical abuse, Liz thought what Jack had proposed was too tough on him.

“Are you crazy?” Jack had asked her bluntly before Amanda arrived. “Look at the crap this guy has pulled on her. He has three girlfriends he's supporting now, has cheated on her for ten years, has hidden all his assets from her, doesn't give a damn about his kids, and wants to walk out of the marriage without it costing him a penny. What do you suggest we do? Set up a trust for him, and thank him for his time and trouble?” Jack had his fighting Irish up, and although with her bright red hair and flashing green eyes, Liz seemed to have fiery looks, she was in fact far more moderate than he was. Jack's eyes were dark and ominous as he glared at her, and his hair had been snow white since he was thirty. People who knew them well teased them sometimes and said that they looked like Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. But despite their occasionally heated arguments, everyone inside the courtroom and out knew they were crazy about each other. Theirs was a loving, solid marriage, and they had a family that everyone envied, five children whom they adored, four of whom had bright red hair like their mother, and the youngest boy had dark hair, as Jack's once had been.

“I'm not telling you Phillip Parker doesn't deserve to get hammered,” Liz explained patiently. “I'm trying to tell you he'll take it out on her if we're too heavy-handed with him.”

“And I'm telling you he needs that, or he's going to push her around forever. You've got to hit this guy where he'll feel it, starting with his wallet. You can't let him get away with this kind of bullshit, Liz, and you know it.”

“You're pulling the rug out from under him, and paralyzing his business.” What she was saying was sensible, but Jack's hard-line tactics had worked before for many, many of their clients, and he had achieved settlements for them that few other attorneys could have. His reputation was for not only being tough, but brilliant when it came to getting big money for their clients, and he particularly wanted to achieve that for Amanda. Despite several million dollars Phillip Parker had stashed away, and a booming computer business, he had kept Amanda and their three children living at starvation level. And ever since the separation, she had barely been able to get enough out of him to keep them fed and in shoes. It was even more ridiculous once they figured out what he was spending on his girlfriends, and he had just bought himself a brand-new Porsche. Amanda hadn't even been able to buy a skateboard for her son for Christmas.

“Trust me on this one, Liz. The guy's a bully, and he's going to start squealing like a little pig when we put the squeeze on him in court. I know what I'm doing.”

‘Jack, he's going to hurt her, if you squeeze him too tight.” This particular case frightened Liz, and had ever since Amanda had told them of the psychological torture she'd lived with for ten years, and two memorable beatings. She had left him after each one, but he had wooed her back with promises, emotional blackmail, threats, and gifts. And the one thing Liz knew for sure was that Amanda was deathly afraid of him, and Liz thought with good reason.

“We'll get a restraining order on him if we have to,” Jack reassured his wife just before Amanda walked into their office, and he was in the process of describing to her what they were going to do in court that morning. Essentially, they were going to freeze all the assets they were aware of, and cripple his business for the time being, until he gave them the additional financial information they wanted. And one thing all three of them agreed on was that Phillip Parker was not going to like it. Amanda looked terrified as she listened to Jack.

“I'm not sure that we should do that,” she said softly, looking to Liz for reassurance. Jack had always scared her a little, and Liz smiled at her encouragingly, even though she wasn't totally convinced that Jack knew what he was doing on this one. As a rule, she had a lot of faith in him, but this time, his heavy-handedness worried her. But no one liked a fight, or a victory, particularly for the underdog, better than Jack Sutherland. And he wanted to win big-time for his client. In his opinion, Amanda deserved it, and Liz didn't disagree with him, only with the way he wanted to accomplish the win for Amanda. Liz felt that, knowing Phillip Parker, it was dangerous to push him too far.

Jack continued to explain his strategy to Amanda for the next half hour, and at eleven that morning they walked into the courtroom for the hearing. Phillip Parker and his attorney were there when they arrived, and he glanced up with a seeming lack of interest at Amanda. But a minute later, when he thought no one was looking, Liz saw a look pass between them which spoke volumes and sent shivers down her spine. Phillip Parker's whole demeanor was designed to remind Amanda who was in control. Just the way he glanced at her was both frightening and demeaning, and then as though to confuse her, he smiled at her warmly. It was all cleverly done, and the clear message he put out to her seemed to vanish in an instant, but not without its desired effect on Amanda. She looked instantly and visibly more nervous, and leaned over to whisper to Liz as they waited in the courtroom for the court to convene.

“He's going to kill me if the judge freezes his business,” Amanda said nervously so no one but Liz could hear her.

“Do you mean that literally?” Liz asked in a clear whisper.

“No … no … I don't think … but he's going to go crazy. He's coming to pick the kids up tomorrow, and I don't know what I'll say to him.”

“You can't talk to him about this,” Liz said firmly. “Can someone else drop the kids off to him?” As Amanda shook her head silently, she looked helpless, and Liz leaned over to say something to her husband. “Go easy,” was all she said to him, and he nodded, as he shuffled through some papers, and then glanced up with a small, terse smile first at Liz, and then Amanda. The smile told them both that he knew what he was doing, he was a warrior ready to ride into battle, and he didn't intend to lose to his opponent. And as usual, he didn't.

After hearing the shenanigans that had been pulled by Phillip Parker and his legal team, the judge agreed to freeze his assets and monitor his companies for the next thirty days until he came up with the information his wife's legal team needed to reach a settlement with him. His lawyer argued vehemently against it, protesting hotly to the judge, but the judge refused to hear it, ordered him to sit down, and minutes later, rapped his gavel and called a recess. And within seconds afterwards, after an ominous look at his soon to be ex-wife, Parker stormed out of the courtroom. Jack was beaming from ear to ear as he watched him, and put his files back in his briefcase with a victorious look at his wife.

“Nice work,” Liz said calmly, but as she glanced at Amanda, she could see that she was panicked. She said not a word to either of them, as she followed her attorneys from the courtroom, and Liz looked at her with compassion. “It's going to be okay, Amanda. Jack's right. This is the only way we could get his attention.” Technically and strategically, Liz knew and believed that, but from a human standpoint, she was worried about their client, and wanted to do everything she could to reassure her. “Can you get someone to be with you when he picks up the kids, so you don't have to face him alone?”

“My sister is coming over with her kids in the morning.”

“He's a bully, Amanda,” Jack said reassuringly. “He's not going to say anything to you as long as there are other people around.”

Historically, that had been true. But this time they had really pushed him. She had never agreed to let them do that before, but she'd been in therapy for months, and was trying to get braver about not letting Phillip abuse her, verbally, physically, or now financially. This was a major step for her, and one she hoped that, once she stopped shaking, she'd be proud of. And as much as Jack scared her at times, she trusted him completely, and had followed everything he told her to the letter, even this time. She herself was surprised that the judge had been so sympathetic to her, and as Jack said as they walked back to their offices again, that alone should prove something to her. The judge wanted to help and protect her, by freezing Phillip's assets and forcing him to give her the information they'd asked for months before.

“I know you're right,” she said with a sigh, smiling at them both. “It just scares me to get tough with him. I know I have to, but he's a demon when he gets angry.”

“So am I,” Jack said with a smile, and his wife laughed as they said good-bye to Amanda and wished her a merry Christmas.

“It'll be a much better Christmas next year,” Liz promised, and hoped to deliver on it. They wanted to get her the kind of settlement that would allow her to live in peace and comfort with her children. The same kind of comfort, or better, that Phillip's girlfriends were living in, in the condos he'd bought them. He'd even bought one of them a ski chalet in Aspen, while his wife barely had enough money to take their children to the movies. Jack hated guys like that, particularly when the kids had to pay a price for their father's irresponsible behavior. “You still have our home number, don't you?” Liz asked, and Amanda nodded, looking as though she were beginning to relax. At least, for now, the worst was over, and she was impressed by the court's decision. “Call if you need us. If for any reason, he shows up tonight, or calls and threatens you, call 911, and then call me,” Liz said, sounding a little overprotective, but it didn't hurt to remind her. Amanda left them gratefully a moment later, and Jack took off his coat and tie and smiled at his wife with pleasure as he unwound.

“I love beating that bastard. He's going to get his when we hit him with the settlement offer, and there isn't going to be a damn thing he can do about it.”

“Except scare her to death,” Liz reminded Jack with a serious expression.

“At least she'll be scared living on a decent income. If nothing else, her kids deserve that. And by the way, don't you think that 911 business you were telling her is a bit excessive? Come on, Liz, the guy's not a lunatic for chrissake, just an asshole.”

“That's my point. He's enough of an asshole to call and threaten her, or show up and try to scare the wits out of her, just enough to make her back down and have us ask the court to cancel the order.”

“There's not a chance of that, my love. I won't let her do it. And you're the one who was scaring her with all that nonsense about 911.”

“I just wanted to remind her that she's not alone and she can get help. She's an abused woman, Jack. She's not some clearheaded, tough woman who isn't going to take any crap from her ex-husband. She's a walking victim, and you know it.”

“And you're a bleeding heart, and I love you,” he said as he took a step closer and wrapped his arms around her. It was nearly one o'clock by then, and they were closing the office between Christmas and New Year's. And with five children at home, there was no doubt in either of their minds that they would be busy. But Liz was better about leaving the office behind her, when they went home, than Jack was. When she was with her children, they were all she could think of, and Jack loved that about her.

“I love you, Jack Sutherland,” she said with a smile as he kissed her. He wasn't usually amorous with her at work, but it was Christmas after all, and they had finished everything they could before the holiday, especially now that Amanda Parker's hearing was behind them.

Liz put her files away, and Jack stuck half a dozen new ones into his briefcase, and half an hour later they left in separate cars, Liz to go home and get ready for Christmas Eve, and Jack to do a few last-minute errands downtown. He always finished his Christmas shopping at the last minute, unlike Liz, who did hers, and theirs for the kids, in November. She was intensely organized and detail-conscious, which was the only way she could manage both a large family and a career. That and the wonderful housekeeper they'd had for the last fourteen years, Carole, who was devoted to their children. Liz knew without a moment's doubt that she would have been lost without her. She was a young Mormon woman who had come to them at twenty-three, and loved the Sutherland children almost as much as Jack and Liz did, particularly Jamie, who was nine.

As he left, Jack promised to be home at five or five-thirty. He still had Jamie's new bike to put together that night, and Liz knew he'd be frantically wrapping gifts for her in the office he kept at home, at midnight. But Christmas Eve at their house was everything it should be. They had come to each other with years of Christmas traditions they cherished, and over the years had managed to blend them into one big warm cozy celebration, which their children loved.

Liz drove the short distance to their home in Tiburon, and smiled to herself as she pulled into the driveway on Hope Street. All three of her daughters had just returned from shopping with Carole, and they were getting out of the car with all their packages. Megan was a willowy fourteen, at thirteen Annie was stockier but looked just like her mother, and Rachel was eleven, and looked just like Jack, despite her mother's red hair. The three got on surprisingly well, and were in high spirits as they argued good-humoredly about something with Carole. And all three smiled when they saw their mother walk toward them.

“What have you been up to?” Liz put an arm around Annie and Rachel, and then narrowed her eyes as she looked at Megan. “Is that my favorite black sweater you're wearing again, Meg? Or do I even need to ask? You're bigger than I am and you're going to stretch it.”

“It's not my fault you're flat-chested, Mom,” Megan said with a guilty grin. They were always “borrowing” clothes from each other and their mother, more often than not without the owner's permission or approval. It was really the only argument the girls had between them, and hardly a serious problem. Liz felt lucky just looking at them, she and Jack had great kids, and they loved being with them.

“Where are the boys?” Liz asked as she followed them in, and noticed that Annie was wearing her mother's favorite shoes. It was hopeless. They seemed destined to share a communal wardrobe, no matter how many things she bought for them.

“Peter's out with Jessica, and Jamie's at a friend's,” Carole filled in for her. Jessica was Peter's latest girlfriend. She lived nearby in Belvedere, and he was there now more often than at his own home. “I have to pick Jamie up in half an hour,” Carole explained, “unless you want to do it.” Carole had been a pretty blonde at twenty-three, and over the years had widened more than a little, but at thirty-seven, she was still pretty, and she had a warm, affectionate way of handling the children. She was part of the family by now.

“I thought I'd make some cookies this afternoon,” Liz said, setting down her bag and taking off her coat. She glanced at the mail sitting on the kitchen table, but there was nothing important. And as she looked up at the view from the kitchen windows, she could see the skyline of San Francisco across the bay. They had a pretty view, and a warm, comfortable home. It was a little tight for them, but they loved it. “Does anyone want to bake with me?” Liz inquired, but she was talking to herself by then. The three girls had already fled to their rooms, more than likely to talk on the phone. The four oldest kids competed constantly for their two phone lines.

Liz was busily rolling out cookie dough and cutting it with Christmas forms, when Carole came back downstairs to go and pick up Jamie half an hour later. Liz still had plenty of work to do, and she suspected that Jamie would want to help. He loved doing things with her in the kitchen. And ten minutes later, when Carole came back with him, he squealed with glee when he saw what she was doing, and grabbed a fingerful of the raw dough and grinned with pleasure as he ate it.

“Can I help?” He was a beautiful child, with thick dark hair and soft brown eyes, and a smile that always melted his mother's heart. He was especially dear to her, as he was to all of them, and he would forever be their baby.

“Sure. Wash your hands first. Where were you?”

“At Timmie's,” he said, returning from the sink with wet hands as his mother pointed to the towel so he could dry them.

“How was it?”

“It's not Christmas at his house,” he said solemnly, helping her roll out the rest of the dough.

“I know,” Liz said with a smile. “They're Jewish.”

“They have candles. And they get presents for a whole week. Why can't we be Jewish?”

“Just bad luck for us, I guess. But you do okay with just one night of Christmas.” She smiled at her youngest child.

“I asked Santa for a bike,” he said, looking hopeful. “I told him Peter said he'd teach me how to ride it.”

“I know, sweetheart.” She had helped him write the letter. She had saved all her children's letters to Santa in the back of a drawer, they were wonderful, especially Jamie's. He looked up at her with a warm smile, their eyes met and held for a long moment.

Jamie was a special child, a special gift in her life. He had come more than two months early, and had been damaged first by the birth, and then by the oxygen they gave him. It could have blinded him, but it didn't. Instead, he was learning-delayed, though not acutely, but enough to make him different, and slower than he should have been at his age. He managed well in spite of it, went to a special school, and was responsible, and alert, and loving. But he would never be like his brother and sisters. It was something they had all long since accepted. It had been a shock at first, and an acute agony, especially for her. She felt so responsible at first. She had been working too hard, she had been in three trials back-to-back, and was stressed over it. She'd been so lucky with the others, she'd never had any problem. But right from the first, Jamie had been different. It was a tough pregnancy, and she'd been exhausted and sick from beginning to end, and then suddenly nearly two and a half months early, with no warning, she was in labor, and they hadn't been able to do anything to stop it. He had been born ten minutes after she got to the hospital, it was an easy birth for her, but a disaster for Jamie. At first it had looked as though the disaster might be even greater, and for weeks it looked like he might not survive at all. When they brought him home finally, after six weeks in an incubator, he seemed like a miracle to all of them, and still was. He had a special gift of love, and his own brand of wisdom. He was the kindest and gentlest of all of them, and had a wonderful sense of humor, despite his limitations. They had long since learned to cherish him, and appreciate his abilities, rather than mourn all that he wasn't and would never be. He was such a handsome child that people always noticed him, and then were confused by the simplicity with which he spoke, and the directness. Sometimes, it took them a while to figure out that he was different, and when they did, they were sorry for him, which annoyed his parents and his siblings. Whenever people told her they were sorry, Liz said simply, “Don't be. He's a terrific kid, he has a heart bigger than the world, and everybody loves him.” Besides, he was almost always happy, which was a comfort to her.

“You forgot the chocolate chips,” Jamie said sensibly, chocolate chip cookies were his favorite, and she always made them for him.

“I thought we'd make plain ones for Christmas, with red and green sprinkles on them. How does that sound to you?”

He thought about it for a fraction of an instant, and then nodded his approval. “That sounds pretty. Can I do the sprinkles?”

“Sure.” She handed him the sheet of cookies in the shape of Christmas trees, and the shaker with the red sprinkles, and he went to work on it, until he was satisfied, and she handed him the next sheet. They worked together as a team until they were through, and she put all the trays in the oven. But by then she could see that Jamie was looking worried. “What's up?” It was obvious that he was upset about something. And once he got an idea in his head, it was hard for him to let go of it.

“What if he doesn't bring it?”

“Who?” They spoke to each other in a kind of shorthand, that was familiar to both of them and easy for them.

“Santa,” Jamie said, looking sadly at his mother.

“You mean the bike?” He nodded. “Why wouldn't he bring it? You've been a very good boy this year, sweetheart. I'll bet he brings it.” She didn't want to spoil the surprise for him, but wanted at the same time to reassure him.

“Maybe he thinks I won't know how to ride it.”

“Santa's smarter than that. Of course you can learn to ride it. Besides, you told him Peter would help you.”

“You think he believed me?”

“I'm sure of it. Why don't you go play for a while, or see what Carole's doing, and I'll call you when the cookies are done. You can have the first ones.” He smiled at the thought, and forgot about Santa again, as he went upstairs to find Carole. He loved having her read to him. He still hadn't learned to read.

Liz went to a closet and took some presents out that she'd hidden there, and put them under the tree, and when the cookies were ready to come out of the oven, she called him. But he was happy with Carole by then and didn't want to come back to the kitchen. She put the cookies on platters and set them out on the kitchen table, and then went upstairs to wrap the set of leatherbound Chaucer she had bought Jack. The other things she'd bought for Jack had been wrapped for weeks, but she had just found these recently, while browsing through a bookstore.

The rest of the afternoon flew by, and Peter came home just before Jack did. Peter looked happy and excited, and gobbled up a handful of the cookies his mother had made, and then asked if he could go back to Jessica's again right after dinner.

“Why doesn't she come here for a change?” Liz asked plaintively. They never saw him anymore, he was either at sports, at school, or at his girlfriend's. Ever since he'd gotten his driver's license, she felt as though he only slept there.

“Her parents won't let her go out tonight. It's Christmas Eve.”

“It's Christmas Eve here too,” she reminded him, as Jamie wandered back into the kitchen, and helped himself to a cookie, with an adoring look at his older brother. Peter was Jamie's hero.

“It's not Christmas Eve at Timmie's house. He's Jewish,” Jamie said matter-of-factly, as Peter rumpled his hair, and ate another handful of cookies. “I made them,” Jamie said, pointing at the cookies disappearing into his brother's mouth.

“Delicious,” Peter said with his mouth full, and then turned back to his mother. “She can't go out tonight, Mom. Why can't I go there? It's boring here.”

“Thank you. You need to stick around to do things here,” she said firmly.

“You have to help me leave the cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer,” Jamie said solemnly. It was something the boys did together every year, and Jamie would have been disappointed not to do it with him, and Peter knew it.

“Can I go out after he goes to bed?” Peter asked, and it was hard to resist him. He was a good kid, and a great student, and it was hard not to reward him for it.

“All right,” Liz relented easily, “but you have to come home early.”

“By eleven, I promise.”

And as they stood in the kitchen, Jack walked in, looking tired but victorious. He had just finished his Christmas shopping, and was convinced he had found the perfect gift for her.

“Hello, everybody, Merry Christmas!” he said, and picked Jamie up right off his feet, and gave him a huge bear hug, while the boy chuckled. “What did you do today, young man? Are you all set for Santa?”

“Mom and I made cookies for him.”

“Yum,” Jack said, as he grabbed one and ate it, and then walked over to kiss Liz, as a look of mutual appreciation passed between them. “What's for dinner?”

“Ham.” Carole had put it in the oven that afternoon, and Liz was going to make everyone's favorite sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and black-eyed peas. And on Christmas Day they always had turkey, and Jack made his “special” stuffing. Liz poured him a glass of wine, and followed him into the living room, with Jamie just behind them. Peter went off to use the phone, to tell Jessica he'd be back after dinner. And they could hear screams as they sat in the living room, when he took the phone out of Megan's hands, and disconnected one of her suitors.

“Take it easy, you two!” Jack shouted up the stairs, and then sat down on the couch next to his wife, to enjoy the spirit of the season. The Christmas tree was lit, and Carole had put on a CD of Christmas carols. Jamie sat down happily next to his mother, and was singing to himself, as she and Jack chatted. And a few minutes later, Jamie went back upstairs to look for Peter or Carole.

“He's worried about the bike,” Liz whispered to Jack, and he smiled. They both knew how happy he'd be when he got it. He had wanted one for ages, and they had finally decided he was ready for it. “He's been talking about it all afternoon, he's afraid Santa won't bring one.”

“We'll put it together after he falls asleep,” Jack whispered, and then leaned over to kiss Liz. “Have I told you lately how beautiful you are, Counselor?”

“Not for a couple of days at least,” she grinned at him. In spite of the many years they'd been married, and the children that constantly surrounded them, there was still a fair amount of romance between them. Jack was always good about that, about spiriting her away for romantic evenings, taking her out for nice dinners, and away for the occasional weekend. He even sent her flowers sometimes for no particular reason. It was an art form keeping the romance in their relationship when they worked together, and had ample reason to either disagree or simply get bored with each other. But somehow they never had, and Liz was always grateful for the efforts Jack made in that direction. “I thought about Amanda Parker this afternoon while Jamie and I were making cookies. I hope that jerk doesn't make trouble for her, after the hearing today. I just don't trust him.”

“You have to learn to leave your work at the office,” he chided her, and then poured himself another glass of wine. He pretended to be better at leaving his work behind than she was.

“Was that your briefcase I saw chock full of work in the hallway, or did I imagine it?” she teased him and he grinned.

“I just carry it around. I don't think about it. It's better that way.”

“Yeah, I'll bet.” She knew him better than that. They chatted for a while, and then she went in to make dinner. They lingered at the table that night, talking to the kids, and laughing with them. They were talking about silly things that had happened in years past, and Jamie added to the conversation and reminded them all of when Grandma had come for Christmas and insisted they go to midnight mass, and had fallen asleep in church, and all of them got a fit of the giggles because she was snoring. It reminded Liz that she was grateful her mother had gone to her brother's this year. It was hard having her on holidays, she told everyone what to do, and how to do it, and she had her own peculiarities and traditions, and she always gave Liz a hard time about Jamie. She had been horrified when he was born, and called it a tragedy, and still did whenever she had the opportunity, out of Jamie's earshot. She thought he should be sent away to a special school, so the other children didn't have to be “burdened” with him. It made Liz furious each time she said it. Jack just told Liz to ignore her. What her mother thought about it didn't make any difference to them. Jamie was an important part of their family, and nothing in the world would have made them send him away. The other children would have been outraged if Jamie had left them. And it still made Liz angry every time she heard her mother say negative things about him.

Peter helped Jamie put the milk and cookies out for Santa, as he did every year, with a dish of carrots and a bowl of salt for the reindeer, and a note that Jamie dictated to him, reminding Santa about the bike, and urging him to bring some really great stuff for Peter and his sisters. “Thank you, Santa,” Jamie dictated finally, and then nodded with satisfaction as Peter reread the letter to him. “Should I tell him it's okay if I don't get the bike?” Jamie asked, looking worried. “I don't want him to feel bad, if he didn't bring it.”

“No, I think it's okay like this. Besides, you've been so good, I'll bet he brings it.” They all knew he was getting the bike he wanted so badly, and couldn't wait for him to see it on Christmas morning.

Liz tucked Jamie into bed eventually, Megan was on the phone as usual, and Rachel and Annie were giggling in their room trying on each other's clothes. Peter left for Jessica's after he helped Jack set up the bicycle for Jamie. Liz was busy cleaning up in the kitchen and organizing dinner for the next day. Carole had gone to drop something off at a friend's, and Liz had told her she'd clean up after dinner. It was a peaceful, happy evening, filled with the spirit of Christmas, and Liz and Jack were enjoying the prospect of the holiday and a long weekend. They worked hard, and enjoyed the time they spent with their children. They were just walking slowly upstairs hand in hand when Amanda Parker called them. Megan took the call, and Liz went to speak to her, and as soon as she picked up the phone, she could hear that Amanda had been crying. She could hardly talk.

“I'm so sorry to call you on Christmas Eve … Phil called a little while ago, and …” She began to sob as Liz listened and tried to soothe her.

“What did he say?”

“He says if I don't tell you to unfreeze everything, he's going to kill me, he says he'll never give me ten cents of support, and the kids and I can starve for all he cares.”

“That won't happen and you know it. He has to support you. He's just trying to scare you.” And he had, very successfully. Liz hated cases like this one, where she had to watch a client she liked being abused. Some of the stories Amanda had told her early on had made her shudder. He had browbeaten and terrorized her, so much so that she had waited years to leave him. And now she was just going to have to tough it out while he threatened her, and they got her the kind of support she deserved to get from him. But Liz knew it wasn't easy for her. Amanda was a perfect victim. “Don't answer your phone again tonight,” Liz said quietly. “Lock your doors, stay home with the kids, and if you hear anything suspicious outside, call the police. Okay, Amanda? He's just trying to scare you. Remember, he's a bully. If you hold your ground, he'll back off.”

Amanda didn't sound convinced when she answered. “He says he's going to kill me.”

“If he threatens you again, we'll get a restraining order next week. And then if he comes near you, we can have him arrested.”

“Thank you,” she said, sounding slightly relieved, but not enough. “I'm so sorry to bother you on Christmas Eve.”

“You're not bothering us. That's what we're here for. Call again if you need to.”

“I'm okay. I feel better now. Just talking to you helps me,” she said, sounding grateful, and Liz's heart went out to her. It was a hell of a way to spend Christmas.

“I feel so sorry for her,” Liz said to Jack when she walked into their bedroom afterwards. She'd been talking to Amanda on the phone in the hallway. “She's just not equipped to deal with that bastard.”

“That's why she has us to defend her.” He had taken off his shoes and was wandering around their bedroom in stocking feet, silently chortling to himself about the gift he had bought her. But when he glanced at Liz, he saw that she was looking genuinely worried.

“Do you think he'd really dare hurt her at this point?” she asked him. Phillip Parker had hurt his wife a long time before, but they had been separated for quite a while.

“No, I don't. I think he's just trying to intimidate her. What does he want now? For us to reverse today's order?” Liz nodded. It was exactly what Jack had expected, and didn't surprise either of them. “He can sing the blues on that all he wants, we're not reversing anything, and he knows it.”

“Poor Amanda. This is so hard for her.”

“She just has to tough it out and get through this. We'll do fine for her, and he'll get over it. He has more than enough to give her a decent settlement, and support for her and the kids. He can cut back a little on one of his girlfriends if he has to.”

“Maybe that's what he's afraid of.” Liz smiled, and looked admiringly at her husband. He was taking his shirt off, and as always, he looked incredibly handsome to her. At forty-four, he still had a strong, athletic-looking body, and in spite of the white hair, he looked years younger than he was.

“What are you smiling at?” he teased her, as he took off his trousers.

“I was thinking about how cute you are. I think you're even better looking and sexier than when we got married.”

“You're going blind, my love, but I'm grateful for it. You look pretty good too.” At forty-one, no one would have guessed that she had had five children. He walked back across the room and kissed her, and they both put Amanda Parker and her problems out of mind. As much as they liked her and felt sorry for her, she was still part of their work life, and something they needed to forget now, in order to put their work behind them and enjoy Christmas with each other and their kids.

They sat in bed and watched TV for a while, the girls came in to say good night before they went to bed, and Liz heard Peter come in on the stroke of eleven. He was always conscientious about his curfews. And after they watched the news, she and Jack turned off the light and slid into bed, with an arm around each other. She loved cuddling with him, and when he whispered to her, she giggled, and tiptoed across the room to lock the door of their bedroom. You never knew when one of the children would come in, particularly Jamie, who often woke up at night and came in to ask her to help him get a drink of water, and tuck him back into bed. But once the door was locked, the room was theirs, and as Jack slipped off her nightgown and kissed her, she moaned softly as they found each other. It was the perfect way to spend Christmas Eve.

Chapter 2

On Christmas morning, Jamie climbed into bed with them at six-thirty in the morning. Liz had her nightgown back on by then, and they had unlocked the door before they went to sleep. Jack was still sound asleep in his pajama bottoms as Jamie settled in next to Liz. She and Jack had cuddled close to each other all night, and everyone else in the house was still asleep when Jamie asked her if it was time to go downstairs yet.

“Not yet, sweetheart,” she whispered to him. “Why don't you sleep with us for a while. It's still nighttime.”

“When will it be time to go downstairs?” he whispered softly.

“Not for another couple of hours.” She was hoping to stall him for as long as possible. At least till eight, if she was lucky. The others were old enough not to want to get up at the crack of dawn anymore. But Jamie was overwhelmed with excitement and anticipation. Eventually, she tiptoed back to his room with him, and gave him a kiss and a bucket of Legos to play with. “I'll come and get you when it's time,” she promised as he started building something with the Lego blocks, and she went back to cuddle up to Jack for another hour. He was warm and cozy, and she smiled to herself as she tucked herself in right behind him.

It was after eight when Jack finally stirred, and Jamie walked back into their bedroom. He said he'd used up all his Legos. Liz kissed her husband and smiled at him, as he grinned sleepily at her, remembering the pleasures of the night before, and she sent Jamie to wake the others.

“How long have you been up?” Jack asked, casting a lazy arm around her, and pulling her closer.

“Jamie came in at six-thirty. He's been very patient, but I don't think he'll hold out for much longer.” Five minutes later, he was back in their bedroom, with the others straggling behind him. The girls looked half asleep, and Peter had an arm around Jamie. He had helped put the bike together for him the night before, and was smiling, thinking of how much Jamie was going to like it.

“Come on, get up, Dad,” Peter said with a grin, pulling the covers off his father, as Jack groaned and rolled over, trying to put a pillow over his head, but just watching him do it brought out a spirit of mischief in his daughters, and before he could defend himself, Annie and Rachel jumped on top of him, and Megan tickled him, as Jamie squealed in delighted excitement. Liz got up and put her robe on as she watched them. They were suddenly a tangle of arms and legs, all acting like little kids again, as their father retaliated and tickled them, and pulled Jamie into bed with him. They were one big pretzel of giggling kids and bodies as Liz laughed and finally rescued Jack, and told them all it was time to go downstairs and see what Santa had left them. Jamie was the first off the bed as soon as she said it, and rushed headlong toward the doorway, and the others followed suit, still laughing, as Peter and Jack walked behind them. Jamie was already halfway down the stairs as the others left their parents’ bedroom.

He couldn't quite see his presents yet, he had to round a turn in the stairs, but as he did he saw it, bright and shiny and red and beautiful, and as Liz watched his face, she felt tears spring to her eyes. The look on Jamie's face was the magic of Christmas, as he saw the bike, and then dove down the stairs to it, and the others all watched him with pride and pleasure. Liz held the bike for him as he got onto it, and Peter took the handlebars and led him around the living room, trying not to run over the others’ presents. But Jamie was so excited he was barely coherent.

“I got it! I got it! Santa gave me the bike!” he shouted to everyone, as Jack put on a CD of Christmas carols. And suddenly, the whole house seemed filled with the Christmas spirit. The girls settled down to open their presents then too, and Peter eventually convinced Jamie to get off the bike for a while, so they could both open their presents. Jack had opened the set of Chaucer by then, and a cashmere jacket Liz had bought for him at Neiman Marcus. And Liz was thrilled when she opened the gold bracelet Jack had bought her the day before, it was perfect for her, and she loved it, as he hoped she would.

They spent half an hour opening gifts, and exclaiming over what they got, and then Jamie got back on the bike again, and Peter helped him balance it, as Liz went to cook their breakfast. She was going to make them all waffles and sausages and bacon, their standard Christmas breakfast. And as she made the waffles and hummed Christmas carols to herself, Jack wandered into the kitchen to keep her company, and she told him again how much she loved her bracelet.

“I love you, Liz,” he said, looking tenderly at her. “Do you ever think about how lucky we are?” He glanced toward the happy sounds coming from the living room as he said it.

“Oh, about a hundred times a day, sometimes more than that.” She came over to put her arms around him and kiss him, and he hugged her tight.

“Thank you for everything you do for me. … I don't know what I ever did to deserve you, but whatever it is, I'm just glad we have each other.” He said it very gently as he held her in his arms.

“Me too,” she said, and then hurried back to the stove to turn the sausages and bacon. He made coffee and poured orange juice while she did the waffles and finished the sausages and bacon, and they all sat down to breakfast shortly after, chattering about their gifts, and laughing and teasing each other. Jamie lay the bike down on the kitchen floor next to him. If they'd have let him, he'd have sat on it while he ate breakfast.

“What's everyone going to do today?” Jack asked as he poured himself a second cup of coffee, and the others groaned over how much they'd eaten and how full they were.

“I have to get the turkey started pretty soon,” Liz said, glancing at the clock. She'd bought a twenty pounder, and it would take most of the day to cook. And Jack had to make his famous stuffing.

The girls said they wanted to try on their gifts and call their friends. Peter wanted to drop in at Jessica's again, and Jamie made him promise to come back soon so he could help him ride his new bike, and Jack said he was going to drop by the office for a little while.

“On Christmas Day?” Liz looked at him in surprise.

‘Just for a few minutes.” He told her he had forgotten one of the files he wanted to work on over the weekend.

“Why don't you forget about it till tomorrow? You don't need it today,” she chided him. He was beginning to sound like a workaholic. After all, it was Christmas Day.

“I'll feel better if I know it's here, then I can just get up tomorrow and do it,” Jack said, looking apologetically at his wife.

“What was that you were telling me about learning to leave my work at the office? Practice what you preach, Counselor.”

“I'll be gone five minutes, and then I'll come home and do the stuffing. I'll be back before you know it.” He smiled at her, and kissed her after the children left, and then he helped her clear the table.

She stayed in the kitchen to start getting the turkey ready, and half an hour later he came downstairs, in khaki pants and a red sweater, freshly shaved.

“Do you need anything?” he asked before he left, and she shook her head and smiled at him.

“Just you. Unlike some people I know, I'm not planning to work this weekend. On holidays, I take the day off.”

She was still wearing her bathrobe, and her red hair looked straight and smooth as it hung below her shoulders, and the big green eyes looked lovingly at him. To him, she didn't look a minute older than when they had married. “I love you, Liz,” he said gently, and kissed her, and then he headed out the door with a smile.

He thought about her all the way to the office, and pulled into his usual parking space outside their building. He let himself in with his keys, and left the door open behind him. He unset the alarm, and walked into their office. He knew exactly where the file was, and knew it would take him less than a minute to get it. And he was already on his way back to reset the alarm, when he heard footsteps in the hallway. He knew there was no one else there, and wondered if Liz had followed him, but that didn't make sense, and he stuck his head out the doorway to see who, if anyone, had come in after he did.

“Hello?” Jack called out, and there was no answer, but he heard a rustling sound, and then a strange metallic click, and as he turned a corner, he found himself suddenly looking straight at Phillip Parker, Amanda's husband. He had an ugly look on his face, and he looked disheveled and dirty and hungover. And then, Jack looked down and saw that Phillip was holding a gun aimed at him, and he felt strangely calm as he spoke to their client's husband. “You don't need that here, Phil. Put the gun down.”

“Don't tell me what to do, you son of a bitch. You thought you could fuck with me, didn't you? Thought you could scare me. Well, you don't scare me, you piss me off. You twisted her around, got her to do everything you wanted, you think you're doing her such a big favor, well, you want to know what you did for her?” Jack saw that he was crying then, and that Parker had a long smear of blood on one sleeve, and he looked like he'd gone crazy. Jack had the feeling that the man holding the gun had either been drugging or drinking. He seemed completely irrational, and hysterical as he rambled. “I told her I'd kill her if you didn't back off…. I'm not going to let you do that to me … you can't freeze everything I own and fuck with me like that. … I told her I'd do it …I told her … she has no right … you have no right. …”

“It's just for a month, Phil, until you give us the information we asked for. We can undo it anytime. Monday, if you want. Just take it easy.” Jack's voice was deep and calm and soothing, but his heart was racing.

“No, you take it easy. Don't tell me what to do. It's too late anyway. It doesn't matter anymore. You ruined everything. You made me do it.”

“Made you do what, Phil?” But Jack knew instinctively, even before Phil Parker said it. Liz had been right, they had driven him over the edge, and as Jack watched him, he was suddenly panicked for Amanda. What had Parker done to her, or the children?

“I killed her,” Phil said flatly, and began to sob as soon as he said it. “It's your fault. I didn't want to do it. But I had to. She wanted to take everything I had … she wanted all of it, didn't she? The little tramp … you had no right … what was I supposed to do while you froze everything? Starve?” Jack knew it was pointless to answer him, all he could do now was pray that what Phil said wasn't true.

“How did you know I'd be here, Phil?” Jack asked calmly.

“I followed you. I've been outside your house all morning.”

“Where's Amanda?”

“I told you … she's dead….” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and the blood on his jacket smeared across his face as he did it.

“Where are the kids?”

“They're with her. I left them there,” he said, crying softly.

“Did you kill them too?” Phil shook his head and pointed the gun at Jack's head.

“I locked them in her bedroom with her.” Jack felt his stomach turn over as Phil said it. “And now I have to kill you. It's only fair. This is all your fault. You made her do it. She was a nice girl until you came along. It's all your fault, you bastard.”

“I know it is. It's not Amanda's fault, Phil. Now put the gun down and let's talk about it.”

“You son of a bitch, don't tell me what to do or I'll kill you too.” He went from grief to rage in the fraction of an instant, and his eyes were lasers as they bore through Jack's, and Jack suddenly realized that he meant everything he was saying, and was capable of delivering on it.

“Put the gun down, Phil.” Jack's voice was calm and powerful as he slowly took a step toward Phillip Parker. “Put it down, Phil.”

“Fuck you, you bastard,” he said, but lowered the gun slowly down from his aim at Jack's forehead, and Jack realized that he was slowly winning. Phil was wavering, and in a minute, Jack was going to make a move and take the gun. He never took his eyes from Phil's and continued to advance slowly toward him, and then as he had almost reached him, there was the sound of an explosion in the room, and Jack stared at him in amazement. The gun was aimed at his chest, and for a long moment, Jack felt absolutely nothing, and was sure he had missed him, but the bullet had gone into him so cleanly he barely felt it. He stood where he was and watched, unable to move or raise his arms, as Phil Parker then put the gun in his own mouth, squeezed the trigger, and blew the back of his head off, and as his blood and brains splattered all over the wall behind him, Jack felt a cannonball hit him in the chest, and he dropped to his knees, trying to understand what had happened. It had all happened so quickly. He knew he had to call someone before he lost consciousness, and he could see a phone on the desk as he fell slowly against it. He could just barely reach it, as he grabbed the receiver and pulled it toward him, and dialed 911. He could hear the voice in his ear as he fell toward the floor, but he could barely breathe now.

“Police emergency.”

“I've been shot….” He managed to squeeze the words out, and he could see red oozing from his sweater onto the carpet where he was lying.

They repeated his phone number and address back to him, as Jack gasped into the phone and confirmed it and told them the door was open. “Call my wife,” he said hoarsely, and could feel his eyes closing as he gave them her number.

“An ambulance is on its way. They'll be there in less than three minutes,” the voice said, and he had trouble understanding what they were saying. Why an ambulance? Why were they sending an ambulance? He couldn't remember. All he wanted was Liz. And as he closed his eyes and lay on the floor, he felt cold and wet, and he could hear a siren in the distance. He wondered if it was Liz, and why she was making so much noise. And then suddenly, he could hear voices all around him, and someone was moving him. They put something on his face, and they were tearing at him and pulling him, and the voices were shouting. He couldn't remember why they were there or what had happened. And where was Liz? What had they done with her? He could feel himself sliding into blackness but someone kept calling him, and all he wanted was Liz now, not all these people, shouting at him. Who were they? And where were his wife and children?

Liz had still been in the kitchen in her bathrobe when they called. It was about ten minutes after Jack left, and she had a funny feeling suddenly that it might be Amanda. But she was surprised when it was a strange voice on the phone. The caller said he was a police officer and they had reason to believe that her husband had been injured at their office, and had asked them to call her. An ambulance had already been dispatched to their office.

“My husband?” She wondered if it was a prank. It didn't make any sense. He had only left a few minutes before. “Was he in a car accident on the way over?” But why didn't he call her himself? This was crazy.

“The caller said he had been shot,” the officer said gently.

“Shot? Jack? Are you sure?”

“They're not on the scene yet, but the caller asked us to call his wife, and gave us your number. You might want to go right over.” As Liz listened to him, she thought about going upstairs to get dressed, and then decided not to. If it was true, and Jack was hurt, she needed to get there in a hurry. She thanked the voice on the phone, and ran to the foot of the stairs to call out to Peter and tell him to keep an eye on Jamie.

“I'll be back in a few minutes,” she called up to him when he acknowledged her, and she didn't wait around to explain it. She just grabbed her car keys off the kitchen counter, and headed out the door in her bathrobe. And as soon as she got in her car, and backed out of the driveway, she found herself praying… let him be okay … please God … let him be okay … please…. The words on the phone kept ringing in her head … the caller said he had been shot … shot … shot … but how could Jack have been shot? That was crazy. It was Christmas and he had to make the stuffing. All she could think of was the look on his face as he had smiled at her and walked out of the kitchen in his khakis and red sweater … the caller had been shot. …

She drove into the parking lot outside their office at breakneck speed and saw two squad cars and an ambulance with their lights flashing, and she ran inside as fast as she could to see what had happened. She raced up the stairs saying his name under her breath … Jack … Jack … as though to call out to him … to let him know she was coming, and she couldn't see him when she walked in. All she could see was the cluster of police officers and paramedics hovering around him. The paramedics were working on him, and as she looked behind them, she saw the wall of blood where Phil Parker had shot himself, and she felt dizzy the instant she saw it. His body lay below it, covered by a tarp. And then, without thinking, she shoved one of the officers aside, and was suddenly looking down at her husband. He was the color of concrete, and his eyes were closed, as instantly she put a hand over her mouth and gasped, as she dropped to her knees beside him. And then as though he knew she was there, Jack's eyes fluttered open. They had an IV in his arm, and were doing something to the wound in his chest. The sweater they had cut off lay on the bloodstained carpet beside him. There was blood everywhere, all over him and them and the carpet beneath him, and as she leaned over him, it was suddenly all over her too, but he smiled when he saw her.

“What happened?” she asked, too frightened to even absorb what was happening, or understand it.

“Parker,” he said in a whisper and closed his eyes again, as they moved him as gently and as swiftly as they could onto a gurney, but his eyes rolled back in his head as they did it, and then he looked at her again and frowned, determined to tell her something. “Love you … it's okay, Liz. …” He tried to reach out to her with one hand, but he didn't seem to have the strength, and as she ran beside the gurney with them, she could see him lose consciousness, and she was suddenly aware of an overwhelming sense of panic. They couldn't stop the bleeding, and his blood pressure was dropping uncontrollably. Somebody grabbed her roughly by the arm and pulled her into the ambulance, the door slammed, and they careened away from the curb, and both paramedics were working frantically over him, and talking tersely to each other. But he didn't open his eyes again, or speak to her, and she sat on the floor staring at what was happening, unable to believe what she was seeing, or what she was hearing. And then suddenly one of the paramedics was compressing Jack's chest, as blood gushed everywhere. The ambulance seemed to be filled with Jack's blood and she was covered with it, and she could hear the other paramedic saying over and over again … no pulse … no blood pressure … no heartbeat … as she stared at them in horror. And as they reached the hospital, they turned and looked at her and the one who had been doing the chest compressions on Jack shook his head with a look of sorrow.

“I'm sorry.”

“Do something … you have to do something … don't stop … please don't stop….” She was sobbing. “Please don't….”

“He's gone … I'm sorry …”

“He's not gone … he's not gone….”

She sobbed, bending down and clutching Jack to her. Her bathrobe was stained red by then, but she could feel him lifeless in her arms, and the oxygen mask was hissing. And then they pulled her away from him and someone led her into the hospital, sat her down, and wrapped her in a blanket, and there were strange voices all around her. They brought the gurney into the hospital then, and when she looked up, she saw that they had covered him with a blanket, and his face was covered. She wanted to take the blanket off his face so he could breathe, but they rolled him past her. She didn't know where they were taking him, and she couldn't move. She couldn't do anything. She couldn't think. She couldn't speak. There was nothing she could do now, and she didn't know where Jack was.

“Mrs. Sutherland?” A nurse was standing in front of her and spoke to her finally. “I'm very sorry about your husband. Is there someone who can come and get you?”

“I don't know … I … where is he?”

“We've taken him downstairs.” It had an ominous sound to it Liz hated. “Do you know where you'd like him taken?”

“Taken?” Liz looked at her blankly, as though she were speaking in a foreign language.

“You're going to have to make arrangements.”

“Arrangements?” All Liz could do was echo her words. She couldn't think or speak like a normal person. What had they done with Jack? And what had happened? He had been shot. Where was he?

“Is there someone you'd like me to call?”

Liz didn't even know what to answer. Who could she call? What was she supposed to do now? How had this happened? He was only going to the office for a few minutes to pick up a file, and he had to make the stuffing. And as she tried to make sense of it, one of the officers approached her.

“We'll take you home whenever you're ready.” Liz looked at him blankly, as he and the nurse exchanged a glance. “Will there be someone at home when you get there?”

“My children,” Liz said hoarsely, as she tried to stand up, but her legs were shaking and would hardly hold her, as the officer put an arm around her to support her.

“Is there someone else you'd like me to call?”

“I don't know.” Who did you call when your husband was shot? Their secretary, Jean? Carole? Her mother in Connecticut? Without thinking, she gave them Jean's and Carole's numbers.

“We'll tell them to meet you at the house.” Liz nodded, as another officer went off to make the calls, and the nurse offered her a clean hospital robe to go home with, and helped her out of the robe she was wearing that was bright red with Jack's blood now. Her nightgown was soaked with it too, but she didn't change it. She knew there were friends she could call, but she couldn't think who they were now. She couldn't think of anything except Jack, lying there, and whispering to her that he loved her. She thanked the nurse for the robe and promised to send it back, and then she walked barefoot through the hospital hallway and outside to the police officers waiting for her in the squad car. The nurse at the desk told her to call them when she had made arrangements. Even the word sounded ugly to her. Liz made no sound as she got in the back of the squad car, and she didn't even know she was crying as tears rolled down her cheeks and she stared through the grille ahead of her at the backs of the two officers driving her home. They opened the car door for her, and helped her out when they got there, and offered to come in with her. But she shook her head, and began to sob as Carole walked down the driveway toward her, and Jean drove in at exactly the same moment. And suddenly both women were holding her, and all three of them were sobbing. It was beyond belief, this hadn't happened to them. It couldn't have. It was too hideous to be true. She was trapped in a nightmare. It wasn't possible that Jack was gone. Things like this just didn't happen to real people.

“He killed Amanda too,” Jean said through tears as they stood there holding each other. The officer who'd called her had given her the details. “The kids are all right, or alive at least. They saw him do it. But he didn't hurt them.” Phillip Parker had killed Amanda and Jack, and then himself. It was a wave of destruction that had hit them all. The Parker children were orphans. But all Liz could think of now was what she was going to say to her own children, and she knew that the moment they laid eyes on her they would know that something terrible had happened. There was blood in her hair, the blood-soaked nightgown had stained through the cotton bathrobe she'd gotten at the hospital, and she looked like she'd been in an accident herself. She looked like a wild woman as she stood there, staring blankly at the other two women.

“How bad do I look?” Liz asked Carole, as she blew her nose, trying to regain her composure for her children.

“Like Jackie Kennedy in Dallas,” Carole said bluntly, and Liz cringed at the image.

She looked down at the gray cotton robe with the bloodstains still spreading on it. “Can you get me a clean robe? I'll wait in the garage … and a comb …” She stood sobbing in Jean's arms as she waited, trying to make sense of it, trying to get a grip on herself, and thinking of what she would tell the children. There was nothing she could tell them but the truth, but she knew that whatever she said now, and however she said it to them, would affect them for their entire lifetimes. It was an awesome burden. And she was still sobbing uncontrollably as Carole returned with the comb and a clean pink terry cloth bathrobe. She put it on over the gray cotton one, and combed her hair without looking.

“How do I look now?” she asked them, she didn't want to terrify her children before she even spoke to them.

“Honestly? You look like shit, but you're not going to scare them by the way you look. Do you want us to come in with you?” Liz nodded, and they followed her into the house from the garage, directly into the kitchen. They could hear the children in the living room, some of them at least, and she asked the two women to wait in the kitchen, until after she told the children. She felt she owed it to them to be alone with them, but she had no idea how to do this.

Peter and Jamie were playing on the couch when she walked in, roughhousing and teasing and laughing, and Jamie looked up at her before Peter did, and his whole being seemed to stop when he saw her.

“Where's Daddy?” he asked, as though he knew. But sometimes Jamie saw things the others didn't.

“He's not here,” Liz said honestly, fighting to keep control. “Where are the girls?”

“Upstairs,” Peter said, with worried eyes. “What's wrong, Mom?”

“Go and get them, sweetheart, will you please?” He was the head of the family now, although he did not yet know it.

Without a word, Peter bounded up the stairs, and a moment later, returned with his sisters. They all looked serious, as though they sensed that their lives were about to change forever, and they stared at their mother sitting on the couch looking dazed and disheveled.

“Come and sit down,” she said to them as gently as she could muster, and instinctively, they huddled close to her, and she reached out and touched each one, as tears began to slide down her cheeks despite all her efforts to stop them. She was touching all of their hands as she looked from one to the other, and pulled Jamie close to her.

“I have something terrible to tell you … something awful just happened….”

“What happened?” Megan spoke with a ring of panic in her voice, and began to cry before any of the others. “What is it?”

“It's Daddy,” Liz said simply. “He was shot by the husband of a client.”

“Where is he?” Annie asked, starting to cry, like her sister, and Peter and the others were staring at her in disbelief, as though they couldn't fathom what had happened. But how could they? Liz still couldn't understand it either.

“He's at the hospital,” but she didn't want to mislead them, she knew that however terrible, she had to tell them, and deliver the blow that they would never forget. Forevermore, they would each have to live with this moment, and relive it a million times in memory … forever…. “He's at the hospital, but he died half an hour ago … and he loved you all very much. …” She clutched each of them close to her, in a bunch, her arms around all of them, pulling them toward her as they screamed in anguish. “I'm so sorry….” Liz said through her own sobs “I'm so sorry. …”

“No!” the girls screamed in unison, and Peter was wracked by sobs, as Jamie stared at his mother and stood up, pulling free of her embrace, and backing away from her slowly.

“I don't believe you. That's not true,” he said, and then ran up the stairs, as Liz quickly followed. She found him crouched in a corner of his room, curled into a ball, crying, with his arms over his head, as though to shield himself from the blow of her words and the horror of what had happened to them. And with difficulty she picked him up and sat on his bed with him, cradling him as they both cried.

“Your daddy loved you very much, Jamie. … I'm so sorry this happened.”

“I want him to come back now,” Jamie said through his sobs, and Liz continued to rock him.

“So do I.” She had never known an agony such as this, and she had no idea how to bring them comfort. There was none.

“Will he?”

“No, baby, he won't. He can't come back. He's gone.”

“Forever?” She nodded, unable to say the word herself. She held him for a few minutes more and then set him down gently, and stood up, as she took his hand in her own.

“Let's go back to the others.” Jamie nodded, and followed her downstairs, the others were holding each other and crying, and Carole and Jean were with them. It was a room full of tears and sorrow and anguish, and the Christmas tree and opened gifts looked like an offense now. It seemed incredible that two hours earlier they had all opened presents together and had breakfast, and now he was gone. Forever. It was unthinkable, unbearable. Where did one go from here? How did one do this? Liz had no idea what to do now. But inch by inch, piece by piece, bit by bit, she had to do what she was supposed to, and she knew it.

She shepherded them all into the kitchen, and she began to sob again when she saw that his coffee cup was still there, and his napkin. Carole put them away quietly, and poured a glass of water for each of them, and they sat crying together for what seemed like hours, and then finally, she took them all upstairs so Liz and Jean could talk about the arrangements. People had to be called, his parents had to be notified. They lived in Chicago and would want to come out. His brother in Washington. Her mother in Connecticut, her brother in New Jersey. Friends had to be called, the newspaper, the funeral home. She had to decide what she wanted to do. Colleagues and former associates and clients would all have to be called. Jean made rapid notes as they talked. Liz had to decide what kind of service she wanted. Did he want to be cremated or buried? They had never talked about it, and Liz felt sick as they did now. There was so much to think about and do. Hideous details to be coped with. The obituary had to be written, the minister called, the casket chosen, all of it so grim, so unbelievable, so terrifying.

And as Liz listened to Jean, she felt a wave of panic wash over her, and she suddenly stared at the woman who had worked with them for six years and all she wanted to do was scream. This couldn't be happening to them. Where was he? And how was she going to live without him? What would happen to her and her children?

All she did in the end was bow her head and sob, as it hit her with full force again, like an express train. Her husband had been shot and killed by a lunatic. Jack was gone. And she and the kids were alone now.

Chapter 3

For the rest of the day, Liz felt as though she were moving under water. People were called. Faces came and went. Flowers arrived. She was aware of a pain so enormous it was physical, and waves of panic washed over her with such force she was sure she would drown in them. The only reality she could relate to now was her constant worry about her children. What would happen to them? How could any of them live through this? The agony on their faces was a mirror of her own. This couldn't be happening to them, but it was, and there was nothing she could do to stop it or make it better for them. Her sense of helplessness was total and overwhelming. She was being driven by a life force so powerful it had no limits, and it felt as though she was being washed toward a brick wall, and could do nothing to stop it. But they had already hit the wall, the morning Phillip Parker shot her husband.

The neighbors brought food, and Jean had called everyone she could think of, including Victoria Waterman, Liz's closest friend in San Francisco. She was an attorney too, though she had given up her practice five years before, to stay home with her three children. She had had triplets through in vitro, after years of trying, and decided she wanted to stay home with them, to enjoy it. Victoria's was the only face Liz could focus on and remember. The others all seemed vague, and she couldn't remember from one hour to the next who had been there, and who she had talked to. Victoria arrived quietly with a small overnight bag. Her husband had agreed to take care of the boys, and she was planning to stay for the duration. And the moment Liz saw her standing in the bedroom doorway, she began to sob, and Victoria sat with her for an hour as she cried, and held her.

There was nothing Victoria could say, no words she could offer her that would make it all right, so she didn't even try. They just sat there, holding each other and crying together. Liz tried to explain what had happened, to sort it out for herself if nothing else, but it didn't make sense, especially to her, as she went over everything that had happened that morning. Liz was still wearing her bloodstained nightgown and hospital robe when Victoria arrived, and after a while, Victoria helped her take them off, and gently put her in the shower. But nothing changed anything, nothing helped, whether she ate or drank or cried or talked or didn't. The outcome was still the same no matter how she turned it around in her mind, no matter how many times she went over what had happened. It was as though saying it would make it come out different this time, but it didn't.

All Liz wanted to do was run in and out of her bedroom to check on her children. Carole was sitting with Jamie and the girls, Peter had gone to Jessica's for a while, and Jean was making endless phone calls. Victoria tried to get Liz to lie down, but she wouldn't, and that afternoon, Jean said grimly that Liz had to think about the “arrangements.” It was a word she had come to hate, and never wanted to hear again. It held within its core all the horror of what had just happened to them. Arrangements. It meant picking a funeral home, and a casket, and a suit for him to wear, and the room where people would come to “view” him, like an object or a painting, and no longer a person.

Liz had already decided that she wanted the casket closed, she didn't want anyone to remember him that way, but only the person he had been, laughing and talking, and playing with his kids, and strutting around the courtroom. She didn't want anyone to see what he had become, the lifeless form that Phillip Parker had destroyed with a single bullet. And she knew that somewhere Amanda Parker's family was dealing with the same horror they were, and her children would be devastated. They were still young, and she had already been told that Amanda's sister would take them. But Liz couldn't think about them now, only her own. She asked Jean to send flowers to the funeral home for them the next day, and she was going to call Amanda's mother in a few days. But for the moment she was too distraught herself to do more than cry for them from the distance.

Jack's brother arrived from Washington that night, his parents from Chicago, and they went to the funeral home with Liz the next morning, to do what they had to do. Jean went with them, and Victoria came along, and held Liz's hand while they picked the casket. It was somber and dignified, mahogany, with brass handles and a white velvet lining. The people at the funeral home made it sound as though they were picking out a car for him, and told them of the various alternatives and features, and it was suddenly so horrible that it made Liz want to laugh hysterically. But as soon as she did, she was sobbing uncontrollably again. It was like having no control over yourself, and not being able to stop or change the constant wave of emotions that engulfed her. Destiny had put her on the crest of a tidal wave, and there was no way to get safely back onshore. She wondered if she would ever feel safe or normal again, or sane, or be able to laugh or smile, or read a magazine, or do any of the ordinary things people did. Their Christmas tree looked like an accusation, an ugly memory, the ghost of Christmas past, every time she walked by it.

There were a dozen people at their dinner table that night. Victoria, Carole, Jean, Jack's brother James, after whom Jamie had been named, his parents, her own brother, John, whom she had never been close to, Peter's girlfriend, Jessica, a friend from L.A. that Jack had gone to school with, and the children. Other faces came and went, the doorbell rang, flowers and food arrived. It suddenly seemed as though the whole world knew, and Jean was successfully keeping the press at bay. It was the headline in the evening paper, and the kids had watched the story on the news on TV, but Liz had made them turn it off when she saw them watching.

And as they talked about arrangements for the funeral at the dinner table after the kids went back upstairs, the doorbell rang, and Carole an swered it. It was Liz's mother, Helen, just arriving from Connecticut, and she started to cry the moment she saw her daughter.

“Oh, my God, Liz … you look awful….” “I know, Mother, I'm sorry … I …” She didn't know what to say to her, and the relationship they shared had never been overly warm, or comfortable for Liz. It was always easier dealing with her from a distance. Jack had always been the buffer for her when her mother disapproved of what they were doing. Liz had never forgiven her for her lack of support or compassion for her youngest grandson. Her mother thought it had been foolish of them to have a fifth child anyway. Four already seemed too many to her, and five was “ridiculous and excessive,” according to Helen.

Carole offered her dinner, but Helen said she'd eaten on the plane, and she sat down at the kitchen table with the others, and let Jean pour her a cup of coffee. “My God, Liz, what are you going to do now?” She dove right to the heart of the matter, without waiting to take her first sip of coffee. The others had all been crawling through the day, inch by inch, and minute by minute, trying to look no further ahead than the next hour, or voice any disturbing questions. But Liz's mother was never one to mince words or hesitate to tread where she shouldn't. “You'll have to give up the house, you know. It'll be too hard for you to handle it on your own … and close your practice. You can't do it without him.” It was just exactly what Liz felt and was afraid of. As usual, her mother had gone straight to the heart of the terror and stuck it right in her face, shoved it down her throat and up her nose, until she could hardly breathe thinking about it. It seemed like an echo of what she'd heard nine years before … you're not going to try and keep that baby at home, are you? My God, Liz, having a child like that in the house will destroy the other children. Her mother could always be counted on to voice everyone's greatest terrors. “The Voice of Doom” Jack had always called her, but he laughed when he said it. She can't make you do anything you don't want, Jack had reminded her. But where was he now? And what if she was right? … What if she did have to give up the house, and close their practice? How was she going to exist without him?

“All we have to do right now is get through Monday,” Victoria interrupted firmly. They had arranged to have the viewing at the funeral home over the weekend, and the funeral on Monday at Saint Hilary's. “The rest will take care of itself.” The funeral on Monday was their goal, the place where Liz had to focus. After that, they would all help her pick up the pieces, just as they were there for her now, and everyone at the table knew she didn't need to worry yet about the big picture. This was bad enough, and as they sat there, Liz's mind kept drifting back to Christmas. It really was a nightmare that would live on for them forever. The children would never again put up a Christmas tree, or hear a Christmas carol, or open a gift without remembering what had happened to their father on Christmas morning, and what it had been like for each of them right after it happened. Liz looked ravaged as she looked around the table at the people who had come together to help her.

“Come on, why don't you come upstairs and lie down,” Victoria said quietly. She was a small woman with dark hair and brown eyes, and a firm voice that told you not to argue with her, but her strength was exactly what Liz needed. When she was still practicing, Liz used to tease her about being a terror in the courtroom. Her specialty was personal injury law, and she had won some extraordinary sums for her clients. But thinking that reminded Liz of Jack again, and Amanda, and everything that had happened. Liz was crying again as she walked slowly up the stairs to her bedroom, with Victoria right behind her.

Liz told her to have Peter sleep in Jamie's room, and put her mother in Peter's room. Jack's brother, James, was going to sleep on the couch in Jack's office next to their bedroom, and her own brother in the living room. The house was chock full. Jean was going to sleep in the other twin bed in Carole's room, and Liz had already asked Victoria if she would sleep in her king-size bed with her. They were there like a benevolent army, ready to fight the war on agony with her. And everywhere Liz looked, there seemed to be people. Peter and Jessica were in one of the girls’ rooms talking, when she walked past, and Jamie was sitting on Megan's lap. They seemed to be calm, and not crying for once, and Liz let Victoria lead her to her own room. She lay down on the bed, feeling as though she had been beaten with two-by-fours, and stared up at the ceiling.

“What if my mother's right, Vic? What if I have to sell the house and give up our practice?”

“What if China declares war on us, and bombs the house the day of the funeral? Do you want to pack now, or wait until afterwards? If you pack now, your stuff could get pretty wrinkled, but if you wait, your things could get pretty messed up if they drop a bomb on the house…. What do you think, Liz, now or later?” She was smiling, and Liz laughed for the first time since that morning. “I think your mother is creating problems you don't need to worry about, now certainly, and probably never. What is she saying to you, that you're a lousy attorney and you can't function without him? Give me a break, Jack used to say you were actually a better lawyer than he was.” And Victoria believed it. Liz had an extraordinary knowledge of the law, and what she lacked in bravado and panache, she made up for with skill and precision.

“He just said it to be nice,” Liz said with tears springing to her eyes again…. God, it was so impossible to think he wasn't there. Where was he? She wanted him back, now. Only yesterday morning they had lain in the same bed she was lying on, and they had made love the night before that. Tears poured down her cheeks as she thought of it. She was never going to make love again, never be with him again, never love anyone again. Her life felt like it was over, as much as his.

“You know case law better than any other attorney I know.” Victoria tried to drag Liz's mind back to the immediate present. She could almost see all the horrors that Liz was thinking, whether or not she voiced them. ‘Jack was just showy in the courtroom, like me, we're both bluffers.” It was hard to remember not to speak of him as though he were still with them.

“Yeah, and look where it got him. I told him yesterday that Phillip Parker would kill her if we messed with his business and his assets. I just didn't know he'd kill Jack too.” She dissolved in tears again as she said it, and Victoria sat down on the bed and held her until the wave had abated, and by then Liz's mother was standing in the bedroom doorway.

“How is she?” Her mother looked directly at Victoria, as though Liz were unconscious and couldn't hear them, and in some ways she was, she felt as though she were having an out-of-body experience, and was watching everything that happened from a place somewhere on the ceiling.

“I'm okay, Mom. I'm fine.” It was a dumb thing to say, but what else could she say? It was as though she had to prove to her mother that she could do this. If not, she might prove her mother right and lose her house and her practice.

“You don't look it,” her mother said grimly. “Tomorrow, you should wash your hair and put on makeup.” Tomorrow, I should die so I don't have to live through this, Liz wanted to say to her, but couldn't. There was no point fighting with her on top of everything else. They had enough to worry about now, without adding family feuds into the bargain. Jack hadn't been close to his brother either, but at least he was there, and it was nice for the children to see him, Jack's parents, and her mother and brother.

She and Victoria lay in bed late that night, talking about him, and what had happened. It was a nightmare none of them would ever forget, and probably never recover from. Liz had already spoken to several people on the phone that day who had told her she'd never get over it, particularly a traumatic death like this, and two others had told her that the best thing she could do was get out in the world again as soon as possible, she might even be married again in six months, who knew, she might get lucky. Lucky? How did they figure that, and where did they get the courage to tell her what to do? Sell the house, move away, move into town, take a new associate in with her, give it up, what to tell the kids, what not to tell the kids, buy a dog, have him cremated, throw the ashes off the bridge, don't let the kids attend his funeral, make sure they see him before the casket was closed, make sure they don't so they don't remember him that way. Everyone had free advice to give, and an endless stream of opinions. She was already exhausted from listening to them. But all it boiled down to in the end was that Jack was gone, and she was on her own now.

She didn't fall asleep until five o'clock that morning, and Victoria lay awake and let her talk all night. And at six o'clock Jamie came in, and climbed into bed with them.

“Where's Daddy?” he asked, as he lay next to her, and Liz could feel her whole body shudder as he asked her. Was it possible he'd forgotten? Maybe it was so traumatic for him he'd repressed it.

“He died, sweetheart. A bad man shot him.”

“I know,” he said sensibly, looking up at her as they lay side by side in the bed that his father had slept in only a day before. “I mean now, where is he?” Jamie looked at her as though she were silly for thinking he'd forget, and she smiled sadly at him.

“He's at the funeral home, we're going there today. But he's really up in Heaven with God.” At least she hoped that was true and that everything she'd always believed was the way it happened. She hoped that he was happy and at peace, as she'd been told. But in her heart of hearts, she wasn't sure yet. She still wanted him back too much to entirely believe that.

“How can he be in two places?”

“His spirit, everything about him that we know and love, is in Heaven with God, and right here with us, in our hearts. His body is at the funeral home, kind of like he's sleeping.” Tears squeezed out of her eyes as she said it, and Jamie nodded, satisfied with her response.

“When will I see him again?”

“When we go to Heaven to be with him. Not till you're very, very old.”

“Why did the bad man shoot him?”

“Because he was very angry, and very crazy. He shot someone else too. And he killed himself, he won't come back here to hurt us.” She wondered if that was what he was thinking, and she wanted to allay his fears, whether or not he voiced them.

“Did Daddy do something bad to him?” It was a good question.

“Daddy did something that made him very angry, because the man had done some bad things to his wife. Daddy asked the judge to take away some money from him.”

“Did he shoot Daddy to get back his money?”

“Sort of.”

“Did he shoot the judge too?”

“No. He didn't.” Jamie nodded, mulling over what she'd said to him, and then he lay in bed next to her, just holding her close to him, and Victoria got up and went to take a shower. It was going to be a long day for all of them, and she wanted to get ready so she could help Liz in every way she could. It was going to be an unthinkably awful day for Liz and the children.

In the end, it was even worse than Victoria, or Liz, had expected. The entire family went to the funeral home, and they broke into sobs the moment they saw the casket. There were flowers standing next to it, and a spray of flowers on top of it, Liz had asked for white roses for him, and the smell of them was heavy in the room when they entered. And for a long time, there was only the sound of sobs, and finally Victoria and James took the children away, and led Liz's mother away with them, and Liz was left alone with the mahogany casket she had chosen for him, and the man she had loved for nearly twenty years resting inside it.

“How could this happen?” she whispered as she knelt next to him. “What am I going to do without you?” The tears streamed down her cheeks as she knelt on the worn carpet and rested a hand on the smooth wood. It was all so inconceivable, so unbearable, so much more than she had ever thought she could bear, except that now she had to. She had no choice. This was the hand that life had dealt her, and she had to live through it, if only for her children.

Victoria came to get her after a while, they went out to get something to eat, but Liz couldn't eat anything. The children were talking by then, and Peter teased the girls to cheer them up, and kept an eye on his mother as he sat next to Jamie and told him to eat his hamburger. They had all suddenly grown up overnight. It was as though Peter could no longer allow himself the luxury of being a teenager, but had become a man. Even the girls seemed more grown up suddenly, and Jamie less of a baby. They were all doing their best to be strong and be there for their mother and each other.

Carole drove the children home after they ate, and the others went back to the funeral home with Liz. And all afternoon people came to pay their respects, and cry, and comfort Liz, and chat with each other outside the funeral home. It was like an endless cocktail party, with tears, and no food, and Jack in the casket at the end of the room. Liz kept waiting for him to step out of it and tell them all it was a terrible joke and it had never happened. But it had, and it seemed to go on forever.

They went through a second day at the funeral home, and by then Liz was alternately numb and feeling hysterical, but outwardly she was extraordinarily composed, so much so that some people wondered if she was sedated. But she wasn't, she was just on autopilot, and doing what she had to.

Monday dawned with dazzling sunshine, and she went back to the funeral home before the funeral, to be alone with him. She had decided not to see him, and was agonized over it. She felt as though it was something she ought to do, but she knew she just couldn't. She didn't want to remember him that way. She had last seen him in the ambulance, and on their office floor, moments before he died, and that was agony enough to remember without adding further torture to it. More than anything, she was afraid that if she saw him, she couldn't stand it, and would lose her grip completely. She left quietly and drove home, and found the children waiting for her in the living room, with their uncles and their grandparents. Her mother was wearing a black suit, and the girls were wearing navy blue dresses their grandmother had bought them. Peter was wearing his first dark blue suit, that Jack had just gotten him a month before, and Jamie was wearing a blazer and gray flannels. Liz was wearing an old black dress Jack had liked and a black coat that Jean had borrowed for her on Sunday. They looked somber and respectable, and as they filed into the pew at St. Hilary's Church, Liz could hear people cry and blow their noses.

The service was beautiful and brief, the church was full, there were flowers everywhere, and afterwards it was all a blur to her. Jean and Carole had arranged for food at the house, and more than a hundred people came to eat and drink and tell her how sorry they were. And all Liz could think of was leaving him at the cemetery. She had left a single red rose on his casket for him, and then kissed the box, and walked away, holding Jamie's hand with Peter's arm around her. It was a moment of such blinding pain that she knew that never in her entire lifetime would she forget it.

She moved like a robot throughout the day, and two hours after everyone left, her brother-in-law caught a flight to Washington, her brother to New York, Jack's parents to Chicago. Victoria went home, but promised to drop by the next day, with the boys. Jean went home that night too, and her mother was leaving the next morning. And then she would be alone with her children, and have the rest of her life to live through without him.

When the children went to bed that night, finally, Liz and her mother sat in the living room. The Christmas tree was still there, drooping as badly as she felt, and her mother had tears in her eyes as she patted Liz's hand.

“I'm sorry this happened to you.” She had lost her own husband, Liz's father, ten years before, but he had been seventy-one and sick for a long time. She had had time to prepare for it, and her children had been grown and gone. It had been painful for her too, but nothing like this was for Liz, and she knew it. “I'm so sorry,” she whispered, as tears slid down her cheeks and Liz's once again. There was nothing else to say. They just sat in the living room and hugged each other for a long time, and for the first time since Jamie's birth, Liz remembered that she loved her, and forgave her for the things she had said then. In a terrible way, this agonizing loss had brought them a kind of healing, and if nothing else, Liz was grateful for it.

“Thanks, Mom. Can I make you a cup of tea?” she asked finally, and they went out to the kitchen together. And as they drank tea at the kitchen table, her mother asked her again if she was going to sell the house and Liz smiled. This time it didn't bother her as much. It was just her mother's way of saying she was worried about her and wanted to know if she'd be okay. She had finally figured out that she wanted Liz to reassure her.

“I don't know what I'm going to do, but we'll be fine.” They had put aside enough money over the years, and Jack had a healthy insurance policy. And of course she had the law practice to support them. Money wasn't the issue now so much as learning to live without him. “I don't want to make any big changes for the kids.”

“Do you think you'll remarry?” It was a silly question, but Liz smiled, thinking of what Victoria had said. “If China declares war on us …”

“I don't think so. I can't imagine it, Mom.” And then tears filled her eyes again. “I don't know how I'm going to live without him.”

“You have to. For the children. They're going to need you more than ever. Maybe you should take some time off from work, close the office for awhile.” But she couldn't afford to take time off, and she knew it. Their entire caseload was now resting exclusively on her shoulders. Except for Amanda Parker. Just thinking of her made Liz ache for her children and what they had been through that day. They had lost both a mother and a father. She had called the house and spoken to Amanda's sister that afternoon and told her how sorry she was. They had both cried, and the Parker family had sent her and the children flowers.

“I can't close the office, Mom. I have a responsibility to our clients.”

“That's too much burden for you, Liz.” Her mother cried as she said it. She had a heart after all. It was just the connection to her mouth that was so often foolish and faulty, but Liz suddenly understood something more about her. She meant well, she just didn't know how to say it.

“I'll manage.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

Liz shook her head. She'd just have to take care of her mother if she stayed, and she needed all her energy now for her children. “I'll call if I need you. I promise.” The two women held hands across the kitchen table, and then went up to bed. Victoria called her late that night to see how she was, and she said she was fine, but neither of them believed it, and Liz lay in bed, wide awake, and crying most of the night, until six o'clock the next morning.

Her mother left on schedule, and then she and the children were alone, roaming aimlessly around the house. Carole took everyone bowling that afternoon, and even Peter went, for once without his girlfriend. Liz stayed home to go through some of Jack's papers, and everything was meticulously organized. She found his will easily, the insurance policy, everything was in order in his desk. There was no chaos to comb through, no bad surprises, nothing to worry her, except for the fact that he was gone and she was alone for the rest of her life. And as she thought of it, she felt the now familiar wave of panic wash over her, and she missed him more than she thought humanly possible. She cried all afternoon, and by the time the kids came home, she looked exhausted.

Carole cooked dinner for them that night, hamburgers and french fries. They had thrown the turkey out, untouched, on Christmas night. No one wanted to look at it, let alone eat it. And by nine o'clock, the children were in their rooms, the girls watched a video, and later that night, Jamie woke up and climbed into bed with her, and it was comforting to have him there, warm and cozy beside her. Life stretched ahead of her like an endless empty strip of road now, with nothing but responsibilities and burdens, and things she would have to do alone.

The next week crawled by, the kids were still home from school for the Christmas holiday. On Sunday they went to church. He had been gone for ten days by then. Ten days. Days, only hours and moments. It still felt like a nightmare. And on Monday morning, she got up and cooked them breakfast. Peter drove himself to school, and she took the girls to their school nearby, and then drove Jamie to his special school, but he hesitated for a long time before he got out of the car. And at last, he turned and looked up at his mother, as he clutched his lunch box. It was a new one that Rachel had given him for Christmas with Star Wars figures on it.

“Do I have to tell them at school that Daddy died?” he asked, looking somber.

“The teachers know. I called to tell them, and I think everybody read it in the newspaper, sweetheart. Just say you don't want to talk about it, if you don't want to.”

“Do they know a bad man shot him?”

“I think so.” She had told the woman who ran the school that if he got upset and wanted to come home, they should call Carole, or Liz herself at the office. But like the other children, he seemed to be doing better than she'd expected. “If you need to call me at the office to talk to me, just tell your teacher, she'll let you.”

“Can I come home if I want to?” He looked worried.

“Sure. But you might get pretty lonely. It might be more fun at school, with your friends. See how you feel after a while.” He nodded then, and opened the car door, hesitated for an instant and then turned to look back at her.

“What if someone shoots you at the office, Mom?” His eyes were full of tears as he asked her, and she shook her head with tears in her own eyes.

“That won't happen, I promise.” She reached out and touched him gently as she said it. But how could she promise him that? How could she promise him that any of them would ever be safe again? How could she know? If something so terrible could happen to Jack, terrible things could happen to any of them, and now they all knew it, even Jamie. There were no guarantees anymore for long life or safety. “I'm going to be fine. And so will you. I'll see you tonight, sweetheart.” He nodded and got out of the car, and walked forlornly into school as she watched him with a bowling ball on her heart. She couldn't help wondering if they would all feel like this forever, or for a very long time at least. It was hard to imagine feeling good again, or laughing, or making noise, or being loud, or feeling their hearts light. This seemed like a burden they would carry with them forever, or at least she knew she would. They would get over it, or at least adjust to it. But they would never have another father, and she would never have Jack. Their loss was irreparable, even if their hearts repaired eventually, there would always be a hole there. And as she drove to the office, she was so blinded by tears and so worried about all of them, that she drove through two red lights and got pulled over by a policeman.

“Did you see that light?” he barked at her as she rolled the window down, and she apologized through her tears. He looked at her long and hard as he took her driver's license from her, started to walk away and then turned back. He had recognized the name, and had read about it in the papers. He looked at her with concern, as he gave her back her license. “You shouldn't be driving. Where are you going?”

“To work.” He nodded and met her eyes.

“I'm sorry about your husband. Why don't you follow me? What's the address?” She gave it to him, and he got back in his car, turned on the flashing lights and pulled ahead of her, and escorted her all the way to their office, as she cried.

It was almost worse when people were nice. But he had been incredibly decent to her. He got out as she parked the car, and then shook her hand. “Try not to drive for a while, or as little as possible. You could get in an accident, hurt someone, or yourself. Give it a little time.” He patted her arm, and she was still crying when she thanked him, and walked into her office, carrying Jack's briefcase.

She hadn't been at the office since Jack died, and she was dreading the sight of it, but she knew Jean had been busy the week before. As usual, she had worked miracles. The bloodstained carpet had been replaced, the wall where Phillip Parker had shot himself had been repainted. There was no sign of the carnage that had taken place, and Jean smiled up at her as she walked in, and offered her a cup of coffee.

“Was that a black and white I saw outside a minute ago?” Jean looked concerned, as Liz blew her nose and smiled at her. She wanted to thank her for all she'd done to clean things up, but she just couldn't bring herself to say it. Jean understood without hearing the words, and handed her a steaming mug of black coffee.

“I ran two red lights on the way here. He was very nice, and gave me an escort right to the door. He told me to stay off the roads.”

“Not a bad idea,” Jean said, looking worried.

“What do you suggest I do? Hire a limo? I've got to come to work.”

“Take a cab,” Jean said sensibly.

“That's silly.”

“Not as silly as killing yourself or someone else. Now, that's silly.”

“I'm okay,” Liz reassured her, but convinced no one.

Jean had cancelled all the court appearances she could, save two which couldn't be postponed, but they weren't until later that week. Liz needed the time to go through all their files, and figure out what she was going to do about their clients. She dictated a letter to Jean that afternoon, explaining the circumstances of Jack's death to all their active clients, although it was hard to believe anyone didn't know. It had been all over the news during the Christmas weekend. But some might have been away, or missed it somehow. She explained that she'd be working as a sole practitioner now, and understood if people wanted to hire other attorneys to replace them. If not, she would be continuing with their work, and doing the best possible job for them. And to those who had sent her letters and flowers, she thanked them for their expressions of sympathy. The letter was direct and to the point, and both she and Jean suspected that most of their clients would stick with her. But that vote of confidence in itself was going to be an enormous burden to her. Despite what she had said to her mother the week before, she was beginning to wonder if she could do it. It was going to be hell doing it all alone. Overnight, it had more than doubled her workload. Not only did she have to handle his work as well as her own, but she had lost the moral support and the spark and the energy that he brought to her.

“Think I can do it?” she asked Jean at the end of the afternoon, looking depressed and anxious. Everything seemed to take ten times as much effort, and she felt exhausted.

“Of course you can.” Jean knew that Liz was every bit as good an attorney as Jack was. He had been the bluster and the balls and the bully in the partnership, if he had to be. But they had done a skillful dance together.

But at that moment, without him, Liz felt like less than half the team. She felt as though he had taken her confidence and her courage with him, and said so to Jean. “You'll be fine,” Jean said again. “And I'll do everything I can to help you.”

“I know you will, Jean. You already have.” She glanced at the brand-new carpeting and back at her secretary, as her eyes filled with tears and she remembered all too painfully how it had looked on Christmas morning. “Thank you,” she whispered, and went to sit in her husband's office. She was still going through his files, and she had to force herself to leave at five-thirty. She didn't want to come home too late for the kids, although she knew she could have stayed at the office till midnight every night for a month, and still not finished everything she wanted. She took his briefcase home with her, chock-full of files she wanted to read before morning. And she still had the two court appearances to prepare for.

The house was silent when she got in, unusually so, she actually wondered if anyone was home, and then she saw Jamie sitting quietly with Carole in the kitchen. She had just made chocolate chip cookies for him, and he was at the kitchen table, eating one in total silence. He said not a word to anyone, not even to his mother as she walked in and smiled at him. “How was your day, sweetheart?” “Sad,” he said honestly. “My teacher cried when she said she was sorry about Daddy.” Liz nodded. She knew only too well now what that felt like. The delivery boy who brought her sandwich to the office for lunch had made her cry, as had the pharmacist when she stopped to refill a prescription, as had two people she'd run into on the street, as did everyone now. All they had to do was say they were sorry, and it nearly killed her. If they had kicked her in the shins, it would have been easier to deal with. And the avalanche of condolence letters that had come to the office broke her heart as she read them. And when she glanced at the kitchen counter, she saw another stack there. People meant well, but their eloquence and their expressions of sympathy were agony to live with.

“How's everyone else?” Liz asked Carole as she set down Jack's briefcase.

“Why are you carrying Daddy's bag?” Jamie asked, as he ate another cookie.

“I need to read some of his papers.” Jamie nodded, satisfied, and informed her that Rachel had been crying in her room, but Annie and Megan were on the phone, and Peter hadn't come home yet.

“He said he'd teach me how to ride my new bike, but he hasn't,” Jamie said sadly. The bike had been all but forgotten.

“Maybe he can do it tonight,” she said hopefully, but Jamie shook his head and put down a half-eaten cookie. Like her, and the others, he had no appetite.

“I don't want to ride my bike now.”

“Okay,” she said softly, as she touched his silky hair and bent down to kiss him, as Peter walked in the kitchen door with a ravaged expression. “Hi, Peter.” She didn't dare ask him how his day was, she could see it. The same way all of theirs had been. He looked as though he'd aged five years in the past week. It was a familiar feeling. But she felt a hundred years older than she had on Christmas Eve. She had barely eaten or slept in the past week, and she looked it.

“I've got something to tell you, Mom.”

“Why is it that I don't get the feeling it's good news?” she said with a sigh, as she sat down and picked up the rest of Jamie's cookie. Her lunch had sat untouched all afternoon in her office.

“I had an accident on the way home from school.”

“Did you hurt anyone?” She looked calm, but she was numb, and her perspective had changed in the last week. Anything less than death was something she could live with.

“Just the car. I hit a parked car, and crumpled the front fender.”

“Did you leave a note for the owner of the other car?” He nodded in answer.

“It didn't do anything to them, but I left a note anyway. I'm sorry, Mom.”

“It's okay, sweetheart. I ran two red lights on the way to work this morning, if that makes you feel any better. The officer who stopped me said I shouldn't be driving. Maybe you shouldn't either, for a while.”

“I can't get anywhere if I don't, Mom.”

“I know, neither can I. We'll just both have to be careful.” He drove an old Volvo station wagon that Jack had bought for him that year because it was safe and solid, and she was glad for it now. She drove a newer model of the same car, and Carole had her own car, an old Ford that she'd had for ten years and kept in mint condition. It got her where she wanted to go, and she picked the children up from school in it. There was Jack's car now too, a new Lexus he had splurged on that year, but Liz didn't have the heart to drive it herself or sell it. Maybe they'd just keep it. She couldn't bear the thought of disposing of his things. She'd already spent several nights holding his clothes close to her, and smelling the familiar aftershave on them, as she stood in his closet. She couldn't bear to part with any of his belongings, and had no intention of giving away anything. She still needed to keep his things near her. Several people had told her to get rid of everything as soon as possible, and she had thanked them for their concern, and had every intention of ignoring what they told her.

The girls came downstairs for dinner shortly after that, and they were a somber group as they sat at the kitchen table. And for at least half the meal, no one said a word. They looked and felt like survivors of the Titanic. Just getting through the days now was gruelling, particularly now that they were back at school and she was back in the office.

“Do I dare ask how everyone's first day back at school was?” she finally asked them, as she looked at the uneaten food on everyone's plates. Only Peter had made a vague effort to eat anything, and even he wasn't up to his usual standards. He usually had seconds of everything, and ice cream on whatever was served for dessert, regardless of what it was. But no one could eat, and they looked relieved when their mother asked them how their day was.

“It sucked,” Rachel volunteered first, and Annie seconded the opinion.

“Everyone kept asking how it happened, if I saw him afterwards, if we cried at the funeral. It was sick,” Megan said, as the others heaved a sigh of agreement.

“They mean well, probably,” Liz gave them the benefit of the doubt, “they're just curious and they don't know what to say to us. We just have to keep trucking and get through it.”

“I don't want to go back to school,” Jamie said firmly, and Liz was about to tell him he had to, when she decided he didn't. If he needed some time at home to heal, what difference did it make, particularly for Jamie.

“Maybe you can keep Carole company for a few days,” Liz said quietly, and Rachel immediately looked at her with a question.

“Can I stay home too?”

“Can I?” Annie echoed.

“I think you guys need to try and work through it. Maybe Jamie can give it another try next week.” Peter didn't tell anyone at the table he had cut his last two classes and sat in the gym alone, but he just couldn't face more of what his sisters had been describing. The coach had found him there, and they had talked for a long time. He had lost his father when he was the same age as Peter, and they had talked about what it felt like. It helped to hear his coach but it couldn't take away the pain.

“No one said this was going to be easy,” Liz said with a sigh. “But this is what life dished out to us for right now. We have to try and make the best of it. Maybe if we just do it for Daddy, he would have wanted us to be okay. And one day, we will be again.”

“When?” Annie asked miserably. “How long will we feel like this? The rest of our lives?”

“It feels like that right now. I don't know,” Liz said honestly. “How long does anything hurt? A long time sometimes, but not forever.” She wished she believed that herself as they all went back upstairs again. The house had never been as quiet. They were all in their rooms with their doors closed, there was no sound of music blaring from within, and the phone hardly rang. Liz kissed them all good night when they went to bed, even Peter, and they hugged each other for a long time without words. There was nothing left to say. All they could do now was survive it. And Jamie slept in her bed again that night. She didn't encourage him to go back to his own bed, because it was so nice having him there so she didn't have to sleep alone. But all she could think of as she turned off the light and lay next to her sleeping child was how much she missed Jack, and ask herself, and him, if he could see her from where he was, how she was ever going to get through this. There were no answers yet. There was no joy left in their life. Only the unbearable agony of losing him, and the gaping hole he had left, which was only filled with the pain of missing him. It was still a physical ache for all of them, and especially for her, as she lay awake again all night, crying for him, and holding on to Jamie. She felt as though she were drowning as she clung to her youngest child.

Chapter 4

By Valentine's Day, Jack had been gone for seven weeks, and the kids were starting to feel better. Liz had talked to the girls’ school psychologist, who had given her the mixed blessing of telling her that somewhere around six to eight weeks, the kids would turn the corner, and start to be happier again. They would adjust, but by then, Liz would feel worse for a while, as the full reality of it hit her.

And as she walked into the office on Valentine's Day, Liz finally believed her. Jack had always made a big deal out of holidays. He bought roses for her on Valentine's Day, and he always got her a present. But everything about this year was different. She had to appear in court for clients twice that day, and she was finding it harder and harder to do that. Her clients’ animosity toward the spouses they were divorcing seemed unnecessarily venomous to her, and the cruel tricks they pulled on each other and wanted her to pull on their behalf seemed so pointless. She was beginning to hate their law practice, and wondered why she had let Jack talk her into family law in the first place.

She had said as much to Victoria when she last talked to her. Her boys kept her busy as they were still in nursery school, and she and Liz had had trouble getting together, but they still had time for long conversations on the phone late at night.

“What other kind of law would you rather do?” Victoria had asked sensibly. “You always told me you hated personal injury when I was doing it, and I can't see you doing criminal.”

“There are other specialties. I don't know, maybe something to do with kids. All my clients are so busy trying to screw each other over, they forget about their children.” Children's advocacy had always appealed to her, but Jack had always been quick to remind her there was no money in it. He wasn't greedy, but he was practical, and they had five kids to support. They made a good living in family law, and it was difficult to ignore that.

But she was reminded again of how much she hated it on the afternoon of Valentine's Day when she walked out of court having won some minor point for one of her clients. She had allowed herself to get talked into filing a motion against the woman's ex-husband more for its nuisance value than for any real legal reason, and the judge had correctly scolded her for it, but granted the motion. The victory was hollow for her as a result, and she felt stupid as she drove back to the office.

“Did you lose?” Jean asked when she saw her walk into the office. Liz looked tired and annoyed and seemed irritable when she picked up her messages on the way into her office.

“No. We won. But the judge said it was frivolous, and he was right. I don't know why I let her talk me into it. All she really wanted to do was annoy him. Jack would have put his foot down.” But Jack wasn't there anymore to discuss things with, or bounce things off of, or make her laugh, and keep their clients in line. He had made it fun for her, and kept their practice exciting. Now it was just drudgery, and she no longer felt she was doing the best possible job for their clients. “Maybe my mother was right two months ago, and I should close the office.”

“I don't think so,” Jean said quietly, “unless that's what you want to do.” She knew the insurance money had come in the week before, and Liz could afford to close the office for a while and decide what she wanted to do, but she thought she'd be miserable sitting at home with too much time on her hands. She had worked for too long, done it too well, and had enjoyed it too much to just give it up now. “Give it time, maybe it'll get to be fun again for you, Liz. Or maybe you just have to put your foot down with your clients, and be more selective about the cases you take now.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” She left early that afternoon, and didn't tell anyone where she was going. There was something she wanted to do, and she knew she had to do it alone. She stopped and bought a dozen roses on the way out of town, and she drove to the cemetery, and stood at his grave for a long time. There was no headstone yet, and she laid the roses down on the grass, and then stood there and cried for an hour, racked by sobs.

“I love you,” she whispered finally, and then walked away in the chill wind, with her head down, and her hands deep in her pockets. She cried all the way home, and she was just a few blocks away when she missed a stop sign, and rolled blindly through it, just as a young woman left the curb and dashed across the street. Liz's Volvo and the young woman's left hip collided instantly, and she crumpled toward the ground with a startled expression as Liz stomped on the brakes, put the car into park, and leapt out of the car to help her. There were still tears on her face as she helped the young woman up, and three cars honked at her, and people shouted out their windows at her.

“What are you? Crazy, or drunk? I saw that!”

“You hit her! I was a witness…. You okay?” the driver shouted to her victim, as both women stood trembling in front of Liz's car, and tears continued to pour down Liz's face.

“I'm so sorry, I … I don't know what happened. I didn't see the stop sign,” she said to her victim, but she did know what had happened. She had been to the cemetery to see Jack and she was so distraught she had hit the woman who had every right to be crossing the street. It was entirely Liz's fault, and she herself knew it.

“I'm okay … don't worry…. You just barely touched me,” the young woman reassured her.

“I could have killed you,” Liz said in horror, and both women were holding each other's arms, as though to hold each other up, and the woman who'd been hit looked at Liz, and realized Liz was in a daze.

“Are you okay?” Liz nodded in answer, barely able to speak, desperately sorry about what had happened, and frightened of what could have.

“I'm so sorry … my husband just died … and I was at the cemetery just now … I shouldn't have been driving. …”

“Why don't we both sit down….” They both got into Liz's car, and she offered to take the woman to the hospital, but the young woman insisted she was fine, and told Liz she was sorry about her husband. Liz was in far worse shape than she was.

“Are you sure you don't want to go to a doctor?” Liz asked her again, but the young woman smiled, grateful that nothing worse had happened.

“I'm fine. The worst I'll get is a bruise. We were both lucky … or at least, I was.” They sat there together for a little while, exchanged names and telephone numbers, and a few minutes later the young woman got up and went on her way, and Liz went home, still shaking. She called Victoria from her car and told her what had happened, since personal injury had been her specialty. Victoria whistled through her teeth when Liz told her.

“If she's as nice as you say, which I doubt, from experience, you were goddamn lucky. You'd better give up driving for a while, Liz, before you kill somebody.”

“I've been okay … it was just today. … I went out to the cemetery … it's Valentine's Day. …” She started to sob and couldn't say more.

“I know. I'm so sorry. I know how hard this is.” But she didn't. No one could possibly know, Liz knew now, unless they'd been through it. She realized that all the times she had told people who had lost someone how sorry she was, she hadn't been able to dream, for a single instant, of what it meant to them, or what it felt like.

She told the children about the accident that night, and they looked frightened, they were clearly worried about her. But when she called the young woman to see how she was, she still insisted she was fine, and she sent Liz flowers the next morning at the office, which stunned her. The card read “Don't worry, we're both going to be okay.” Liz called Victoria as soon as she got them.

“You must have hit an angel,” Victoria said in disbelief. “All of my clients would have sued you for emotional distress, brain damage, spinal injuries, and I'd have collected ten million dollars for them.”

“Thank God you retired.” Liz laughed for the first time since it had happened. There was nothing to laugh about these days.

“You're damn right. And damn lucky. Now are you going to stay off the road for a while?” She was genuinely worried about her.

“I can't. I've got too much to do.”

“Well, you'd better be careful. Take this as a warning.”

“I will.”

She was exceptionally cautious after that, but it sobered her a little, and made her realize how distraught and out of touch she was. And for the next month, she made a bigger effort to cheer up for the children. She took them to the movies on weekends, went bowling with them, encouraged them to invite their friends for dinner and the night. And by St. Patrick's Day, another of Jack's favorite holidays, they weren't in great spirits, but they were better. It was nearly three months, and the children at least seemed to be happier, even Jamie. There was laughter at the dinner table again, they played their music as loud as they ever had, and although their faces were still too serious from time to time, she knew that they had turned the corner. But her nights were still long and dark and lonely, and her days filled with stress at the office.

But on Easter weekend, she surprised them. She couldn't stand the thought of another dismal holiday, filled with memories of Jack, wandering the house in agony and trying to overcome it. She took them all skiing at Lake Tahoe, and the kids really loved it. They looked relieved to see her back out in the world with them, skiing with them, and laughing as she raced Megan down the bunny slope, or collided with Jamie. They all loved it. It had been just what they needed.

And on the drive home, they talked about the summer.

“That's months away, Mom,” Annie complained. She had a crush on a boy close to home, and didn't even want to think about going away that summer. Peter already had a summer job lined up, at a nearby veterinary hospital, which wasn't a career path for him, but at least it would keep him busy. And all she had to do was organize the three girls and Jamie.

“I can only get away for a week this year, I've got too much to do now that I'm working alone. How about camp for a month for the three of you? Jamie can stay home with me and do day camp.”

“Can I bring my own lunch?” Jamie asked, looking concerned, and Liz smiled at him. He had hated the lunches at the last day camp he went to, but he loved the kids and the activities and she thought it would do him good. He couldn't go away to sleepover camp like his sisters.

“You can bring your own lunch,” Liz promised, and he beamed.

“Then I want to go.”

Two down. Three to deal with, Liz thought to herself as they drove home from Tahoe. The other three discussed it all the way to Sacramento and decided that camp sounded like a good idea after all. In July. And Liz said she'd take them all to Tahoe for a week in August, and then they could hang around at home, and use the pool with their friends.

“Are we going to give our Fourth of July picnic this year?” It was an annual tradition that Jack organized every year. He did the barbecue, ran the bar, and was a one-man band. Just thinking about it depressed her. There was a long silence and Liz shook her head. No one argued with her, and then as she glanced over at him, she saw that there were two tears sneaking down Jamie's cheeks as she watched him.

“Are you sad about the picnic?” she asked softly, but he shook his head. It was something else. Something much more important.

“I just remembered. Now I can't do Special Olympics.” It was an event he loved, that Jack had done with him. They had “trained” for months, and Jamie usually came in last, or close to it, in whatever events he entered, but he always won a ribbon of some kind, and the whole family went to watch him.

“Why can't you?” Liz refused to be daunted. She knew how much Jack had put into it, and how much it meant to Jamie. “Maybe Peter can train with you.”

“I can't, Mom,” Peter said regretfully. “I'm going to be working from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the pet hospital, and I'll even have to work some weekends.” But it was great money, which was why he had agreed to do it. “I won't have time.” There was a long, long pause, as the tears continued to roll silently down Jamie's cheeks, and Liz felt as though her heart had been ripped out of her chest as she watched him.

“Okay, Jamie,” she said quietly, “that leaves you and me. We'll have to work on this together. We'll figure out what events you want to be in and qualify for, and we'll work our asses off, and this year,” she said, fighting back her own tears, “I think we ought to go for a gold medal.” Jamie's eyes grew wide at the words.

“Without Daddy?” Jamie looked startled as he turned to see if she meant it or was just teasing. But she wouldn't have done that to him.

“With me. How about it? Let's shoot for the stars.”

“You can't, Mom. You don't know how to do it.”

“We'll learn together. You can show me what Daddy used to do. And we'll win something, I promise.” A slow smile dawned on Jamie's face, and he reached out a hand and touched hers, without saying another word. They had solved the problem. And the summer was organized. All she had to do now was enroll the girls at camp, sign Jamie up for day camp and Special Olympics, and reserve rooms or a house for them in Tahoe for a week in August. It wasn't easy, any of it, figuring it out, meeting their needs single-handedly, living up to their expectations, trying to make up to them for what they had lost, but she was doing her best, and for the moment they were surviving.

They were all doing decent work in school, they smiled a good part of the time now, they'd had a great time skiing with her, and all she had to do now was keep them on track till they grew up, carry a double load in their law practice, and learn how to get jamie through Special Olympics, and with luck, even win a ribbon. She felt like a juggler in a circus act, as they drove home toward San Francisco, and Megan turned the radio on full blast. But it was familiar at least. Jack would have had a fit over it, and made her turn it off. But Liz didn't. She knew it was a good sign, and they needed all the good signs they could grab now. There had been damn few of them in the past three and a half months, but things were slowly beginning to look up. Liz glanced at Megan with a small smile, and as their eyes met, Liz turned the radio up even slightly louder. And as Megan watched her do it, she started to laugh, and so did her mother.

“Yeah, Mom … go for it!!!” They all laughed and shouted and started to sing with the music. It was deafening. But it was just what they needed, and Liz spoke as loud as she could in the din.

“I love you guys!” They managed to hear her despite the noise, and in unison they shouted back to the woman who had guided them over the reefs and back into safe waters, and they knew it, just as she did.

“We love you too, Mom!!!” Their ears were still ringing from the music when they got home, but they were all smiling, as they picked up their bags and walked into the house, and Liz was walking right behind them, smiling.

Carole was waiting for them at the door. “How was it?” she asked, referring to the ski trip as much as the long drive home, and Liz smiled at her with a look of peace Carole hadn't seen on her face in months.

“Terrific,” Liz said quietly, and walked up the stairs to her bedroom.

Chapter 5

The kids got out of school on the second week of June, and two weeks later, Liz and Carole were packing their bags for camp. The girls were genuinely excited and several of their friends were going too. It was nice to see them all looking so happy. The camp they were going to was near Monterey, Liz drove them down herself, and took Jamie with her for the trip.

There was a real holiday atmosphere in the car, on the way. They played a variety of CD's, all of them loud, wild, and their kind of music, rather than their mother's. But Liz didn't mind. In the last month or two, she had really enjoyed being with her children. And she had promised Jamie she'd start training with him as soon as the girls left for camp. They had another five weeks before the Special Olympics, and his sisters would be back by then. The whole family always went to the Special Olympics to cheer for Jamie. It was a tradition Jack had started three years before, and one that was important to them. But Jamie was still worried that his mother wouldn't know how to do it with him.

They dropped the girls off at camp between Monterey and Carmel, and Liz helped carry their sleeping bags, tennis rackets, one guitar, two trunks, and a mountain of duffel bags and tote bags to their cabins. It looked like enough gear for an invading army. And they scarcely remembered to kiss her and Jamie good-bye before they ran off to meet their counselors, and find their friends.

“Maybe you'll go to camp one day,” Liz said to Jamie as they drove away.

“I don't want to,” he said matter-of-factly. “I like being home with you.” He looked up at her as he said it, and she smiled at him as they got back on the freeway. It took them three hours to get back to Tiburon, and when they arrived, Peter had just come home from work. He had started the week before, and was loving it, despite the long hours. It was exactly what he wanted. And there were two other high school kids working there that summer too, one of them a very pretty girl from Mill Valley, and a young college intern, from the veterinary college at Davis.

“How was work today?” she asked her oldest son, as she and Jamie walked into the kitchen.

“Busy.” He smiled at his mother.

“How about some dinner?”

She was cooking for them again, as she had been for months. Carole had covered for her before that. But ever since Easter, she felt as though she had reconnected with her children. Her mother was still calling regularly to check on her, but even her predictions of doom didn't seem quite as ominous. It was beginning to seem as though they were going to make it after all. She was managing at work, despite an enormous workload. She had finished all of Jack's cases, and started some new ones on her own. The kids were in good shape. The summer was off to a reasonable start. And she still missed jack, but she could get through the days, and even the nights now. She didn't sleep as well as she once had, but she was asleep by two now instead of five, and most of the time, she was in fairly decent spirits. Though occasionally, she still had some real sinkers, and some intensely down days. But now at last there were plenty of good ones too, more than bad.

She made pasta and salad that night for the three of them, and ice cream sundaes, and Jamie helped her make them. He put the whipped cream on, and the nuts, and the maraschino cherries.

“Just like in a restaurant,” Jamie announced, proud of himself, as he served them.

“Have you and Mom started training for the Olympics yet?” Peter asked with interest as he demolished the sundae.

“We start tomorrow,” their mother answered.

“What events are you entering this year?” Peter talked to him now like a father, more than just an older brother. He had picked up the slack wherever possible, and had even finished the year with fairly respectable grades, in spite of everything that had happened. And in the fall, he'd be a senior. Liz was planning to visit colleges with him in September. Mostly up and down the West Coast. He didn't want to go far from home now, although before his father had died he'd been talking about Princeton and Yale and Harvard. But now he was looking toward UCLA, and Berkeley, and Stanford.

“I'm going to do the running long jump, and the hundred yard dash … and the sack race,” Jamie said proudly. “I was going to do the egg toss again, but Mom says I'm too old now.”

“Sounds good to me. I'll bet you win another ribbon,” Peter said with a warm smile, as Liz watched them both with a look of pleasure. They were both good boys, and she was glad they were at home with her. She enjoyed their company, and she could concentrate on them with the girls gone.

“Mom thinks I'll win first prize this time,” Jamie said, but he didn't look convinced. He still wasn't sure how adept his mother would be as a trainer. He was used to practicing with his father.

“I'll bet you do too,” Peter said, helping himself to more ice cream, and giving some to his little brother.

“I don't mind winning last place,” Jamie said matter-of-factly, “just so I get a ribbon.”

“Thanks for your faith in me as a trainer.” Liz smiled at her youngest son, and started clearing the dishes, and then she told him to get ready for bed. Jamie was starting day camp in the morning.

And the next day when she drove him there on the way to work, she looked at Jamie proudly and leaned over to give him a kiss. “I love you, kiddo. Have fun. I'll be home at six, and we'll start practicing for the Olympics.”

He nodded and blew her a kiss as he got out of the car, and she headed for the office. It was a warm, sunny day in Marin, though she could see fog stretched across the bridge, and she knew it was probably cool in San Francisco. It was a pretty summer day, and she thought of Jack suddenly, with a quick knife stab in the heart. She still had them sometimes, when she thought of him, or saw something they had both loved or done together. But she felt better again by the time she got to the office. But no matter what she did, or how busy she was, she still missed him.

“Any messages?” she asked Jean as she walked in, and Jean handed her seven little slips of paper. Two were from new clients she had just met the week before, two were from attorneys she had referred cases to, two were from people she didn't know, and one was from her mother.

She returned all her business calls, and then called her mother.

“Did the girls get off to camp all right?”

“Perfectly. I took them down yesterday, Jamie started day camp this morning, and Peter is working.”

“What about you, Liz? What are you doing about getting on with your life?”

“This is my life, Mom. I'm taking care of my kids, and working.” What else did she expect her to do now?

“That's not enough for a woman your age. You're forty-one years old, you're still young, but not young enough to be wasting time. You should be dating.” Oh, for God's sake. It was the last thing on her mind. She was still wearing her wedding band, and similar inquiries by friends had been rebuffed promptly. She had no interest whatsoever in dating. In her heart, she still felt married to Jack, and felt as though she always would be.

“It's only been six months, Mom. Besides, I'm too busy.”

“Some people are remarried by then. Six months is a long time.”

“So is nineteen years. What's new with you? Are you dating?”

“I'm too old for that,” her mother snapped at her, although they both knew she wasn't. “You know what I'm saying.” Sell the house. Close the office. Find a husband. Her mother had lots of good advice to give her, or so she thought, as did everyone else Liz knew. Everyone had some kind of advice to give her, and she wasn't buying. “When are you going to take a vacation?”

“In August. I'm taking the kids to Tahoe.”

“Good. You need it.”

“Thank you. I'd better get to work. I've got a lot to do this morning.” She wanted to get off the phone before her mother got on her case about something else. There was always something.

“Have you put away jack's things yet?”

Christ. It was hopeless. “No, I haven't. I don't need the space.”

“You need the healing, Liz, and you know it.”

“So how come Daddy's coats are still in your downstairs closet?”

“That's different. I have nowhere else to store them.” Store them for whom? And for what? They both knew it was no different.

“I'm not ready to put them away, Mom.” And maybe I never will be, she acknowledged to herself in silence. She didn't want him out of her life or her head or her heart, or her closets. She wasn't ready to say good-bye yet.

“You're not going to get better till you do that.”

“I am better. Much better. I've got to go now.”

“You just don't want to hear it, but you know I'm right.” Who says so? Who says I have to put his things away? She felt the familiar knife-stab of pain again that she had already felt once that morning. Her mother was definitely not helping.

“I'll call you this weekend,” she promised her mother.

“Don't work too hard, Liz. I still think you should close the office.”

“I may have to if you don't let me get to work, Mom.”

“All right, all right. I'll talk to you on Sunday.”

After she hung up, Liz sat staring out the window, thinking of Jack, and what her mother had said, but it was just too painful to let go and do the things her mother had suggested. It was comforting to still see his clothes hanging in his closet. Sometimes she'd let herself touch a sleeve wistfully, or sniff the cologne that still lingered on his collars. She had finally put his shaving gear away, and thrown away his toothbrush. But she couldn't bring herself to do more than that. The rest of it was all there, and she liked it. And one day, when she didn't like it anymore, she would do something about it. But hopefully, not for a long time. She wasn't ready, and she knew it.

“Are you okay?” Jean had walked into the room and saw her staring out the window with a look of sorrow. But Liz stirred quickly when she heard her, and looked at her with a wistful smile.

“My mother. She always has some piece of advice to give me.”

“Mothers are like that. You have court this afternoon, I assume you remember.”

“I do. Though I can't say I'm looking forward to it.” She had maintained their practice exactly as it had been. She was still taking all the same cases that Jack would have approved of, and wanted to fight. She was still using the same criteria for accepting them, and referring the same ones that Jack wouldn't have wanted. She was doing it for him, and still respecting the guidelines he had set for them, but there were times when she questioned what she was doing. There was so much about family law that she didn't like, so many of the battles that seemed unimportant to her. And dealing with people who hated each other, were so willing to hit below the belt and hurt each other, and constantly cause each other trouble and pain, was beginning to depress her, and Jean knew that. Liz's heart wasn't in it the way it had been when Jack was alive. They had been great as a team, but on her own, she just didn't have the fire she'd once had anymore. She wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but the constant irritations of dealing with divorce had begun to bore her.

But no one would have guessed that when she walked into court that afternoon. As usual, she was well prepared, totally organized, and fought valiantly for her client, and easily won the motion. It was a trivial point, but she handled it to perfection, and the judge thanked her for her rapid disposal of a relatively small matter that the opposing counsel was frivolously trying to turn into a major issue.

It was nearly five o'clock when she got back to the office, answered a few more calls, and gathered up her things. She wanted to be home by five-thirty for Jamie.

“Are you leaving?” Jean walked in with a stack of papers for her that had just been delivered from another attorney's office. The material was part of the discovery in a new divorce case, and came from a well-known firm in the city.

“I have to get home to train with Jamie. He's going to be in the Special Olympics again this year.”

“That's nice, Liz,” Jean said smiling. She was carrying on all of Jack's traditions, holding high the standard of his memory, for her clients, herself, and her children. It was obvious she didn't want anything to change, and so far, it hadn't. Every minute piece of her life was still in exactly the same place it had been before she lost her husband. She didn't even sit at his desk now, or use his office, although she had always liked his better. She had simply closed his door, and rarely went into his office anymore, and there was no one else to use it. It was as though she still expected him to come back one day, and sit there. At first, Jean had thought it was eerie, but by now she was used to it. They only went in there from time to time, to get some papers. But most of their active files were now in Liz's office.

“See you tomorrow,” Liz said, as she hurried out the door. And when she got home, Jamie was waiting for her. She ran into the house, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, and running shoes, and five minutes later, she was back outside again, and going over the running long jump with Jamie. The first time he tried it, his performance was pretty unimpressive, and he knew it.

“I can't do it.” He looked defeated before he started, and as though he wanted to give up, but she wouldn't let him.

“Yes, you can. Watch me.” She showed him, and tried to do it slowly so he could see it. He was more visual than auditory and he did a little better the next time. “Try it again,” she encouraged him, and after a while Carole came out to them with a glass of Gatorade and a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

“How's it going?” she asked cheerfully, and Jamie shook his head, looking mournful.

“Not good. I'm not going to win a ribbon.”

“Yes, you are,” Liz said firmly. She wanted him to win, because she knew how much it meant to him, and he had always won one when he trained with his father. After he ate two cookies and drank half the Gatorade, she told him to try it again, and this time he did better. And she reminded him of the Special Olympics oath “Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”

They continued practicing for a while, and then she had him do a dash across the yard and timed him. He was better at the dash than the long jump, he always had been. Running was his strong suit, he was faster than most of the kids he ran against, and better able to focus on what he was doing. Despite his handicaps, he had a surprising amount of concentration, and he had even finally learned to read that winter, and he was very proud of it. He read everything he could get his hands on. Cereal boxes, mustard labels, milk cartons, storybooks, flyers that people stuck under her windshield, even letters that Liz left on the kitchen table. At ten, he loved the fact that he could read now.

At seven o'clock, Liz suggested they call it a day, but he wanted to keep working at it for a while, and she finally talked him into going inside at seven-thirty.

“We still have a month to train, sweetheart. We don't have to do it all in one night.”

“Dad always said I had to do it till I couldn't stand up anymore. I can still stand up,” he said simply and she smiled at him.

“I think we should quit for the night while you're still standing. We can do it again tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he finally conceded. He had worked hard and he was exhausted, and when they walked back into the kitchen, Carole had dinner ready for them. It was roast chicken and mashed potatoes, with glazed carrots, one of Jamie's favorite dinners. And a hot apple pie fresh out of the oven.

“Yum!” he said with a look of delight, and he gobbled up everything on his plate while he chatted about the Olympics with his mother. He was genuinely excited about it.

He took a bath and went to bed right after dinner. He had to get up early for day camp, and she had some work to do. She took her briefcase upstairs and kissed him good night, and then set her briefcase down in her bedroom, and walked into her closet. They had a big walk-in closet that Jack had built for them. She used one side, and Jack's clothes hung on the other. And remembering what her mother had said on the phone that morning, she found herself looking at his things again, with more longing than she had in a while. It felt like everyone was trying to take them from her, and she wasn't ready to give them up, or forget him.

She found herself running a hand over his jackets again, and she held one of them to her face and smelled it. It still smelled of him. She wondered if his clothes always would, or if eventually the scent of him would fade away. She couldn't bear the thought of it, and she felt her eyes fill with tears as she buried her face in one of his jackets. She didn't hear Peter come in, and she jumped when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, turned and saw him.

“You shouldn't do that, Mom,” he said softly, watching her, with tears in his own eyes.

“Why not?” She was crying then, and he reached out and held her in his arms. He was not only her son, but her friend now. At seventeen, he had grown into manhood instantly when he lost his father. “I still miss him so much,” she confessed to him, and he nodded.

“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 looked 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 to 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.

“I'm not sure you could bring yourself to do it.” Jean knew her well. Liz was incredibly conscientious.

“Neither am I,” Liz said as she laughed, and they went back to work on the dictation. She had a number of things to send to various judges, and other attorneys, on the cases she was currently working on.

It was late when she got home that night, nearly eight o'clock, but she was paying her dues for her vacation. The kids were still sitting around the pool when she got home, and Carole was dishing out pizza.

“Hi, guys,” Liz said with a smile, and she was pleased to see Peter there, but less so when she saw two of his friends dive into the pool and play a little too roughly with the younger children when they all got into a game of Marco Polo. She told them to tone it down a little bit, and asked Peter to tell his friends not to play quite so roughly. “Someone's going to get hurt,” she said quietly to Carole, who agreed with her and said she had spent the whole afternoon telling Megan's friends the same thing. Liz was particularly worried about Jamie, who was only a fair swimmer.

And she warned them about it again that night after their friends left. “I don't want any accidents here … or any lawsuits!”

“You worry too much, Mom.” Annie dismissed her, and Liz told her that she meant it.

She reminded them of it again the next day when she left for work, and when she came home that night, things seemed a little calmer. But on Thursday, when she came home late again, and found half a dozen of Peter's friends in the pool with him, she watched them diving too fast, too soon, and not waiting until the other children had cleared the area, and she told him in no uncertain terms that his friends would be banned from the pool if they didn't observe basic safety rules, and respect the younger children.

“I don't want to have to remind you again,” she said sternly.

“You look tired, Mom,” he said gently.

“I am tired, but that's beside the point. I don't want an accident here. You can't rough-house in the pool, Peter, and I mean it.”

“Okay, Mom, I heard you.” He had grown up a lot in the past year, but not completely. He was still young, and some of his friends were daredevils and foolish, and she had always worried about it. Having someone get hurt was a headache she didn't need. They'd been through enough trauma for one year, and she wasn't afraid to say so to him, or his friends.

She went up to her room to work again that night, and she had an early appearance in court the next morning. She was tired and edgy, and she wanted to get a good night's sleep.

She was just leaving the courtroom in fact, at noon the next day, when her cellular rang. It was Carole, and she sounded precise and calm, as Liz stopped to talk to her on the steps of the courthouse.

“You need to come home right away,” she said clearly, and Liz felt her spine tense. Carole only sounded like that when one of the kids got hurt, or there was a serious problem.

“What happened? Is someone hurt?” She knew before Carole told her.

“It's Peter. He had a day off from work, and some of his friends were here.” Liz interrupted her instantly in a shrill tone that was unfamiliar to her own ears, but her nerves were no longer what they once had been.

“What happened?”

“We don't know yet. He was diving and he hit his head, I think. The ambulance is here.”

“Is he bleeding?” All she could think of was Jack as he lay on their office floor with blood everywhere. If there was blood, to her now it meant disaster.

“No,” Carole said with a calm she didn't feel. She had hated to be the one to tell her, but she knew she had to. “He's unconscious.” She didn't have the heart to tell her he might have broken his neck. They weren't sure yet. “They're taking him to Marin General. You can meet him there. Liz, I'm sorry.”

“Is everyone else okay?” She was running to the car as she asked her.

“No one else was hurt. Just Peter.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

No one really knew. There were paramedics everywhere, and Liz could hear the sirens start to wail as they took off with him as she asked the question.

“I think so. I don't know much, Liz. I was watching them … I told them. …” Carole started to cry as she said it, and Liz started her car, and ended the conversation as she pulled away from the curb, praying that he'd be all right. He had to be. They couldn't live through another disaster, or God forbid, losing him. She just couldn't. She drove to the hospital as fast as she could without running lights or hitting pedestrians, and she pulled into the parking lot shortly after they rushed Peter into the emergency room. They had taken him straight to the trauma unit, and they directed Liz to it as soon as she got there.

She was running down the halls, looking for him, and as soon as she walked into the trauma unit, she saw him. He was gray and wet and they were giving him oxygen, and working on him frantically. They were too busy to talk to her, a nurse explained to her rapidly what was happening. He had a severe head injury, and a possible fracture of several vertebrae. They were going to X-ray Peter as soon as possible, and they were running IV lines into him, and putting monitors on him as Liz watched them.

“Is he going to be all right?” Liz asked without taking her eyes off her son, overwhelmed by a wave of panic. He looked like he was dying, and she wasn't sure that he wasn't.

“We don't know yet,” the nurse told her honestly. “The doctor will speak to you as soon as they assess him.”

Liz wanted to touch him, and talk to him, but she couldn't even get near him. And all she could do was stand there, and wrestle with her own panic. They were bringing an X-ray machine in, they had cut his bathing suit off, and he was lying naked on the gurney.

They X-rayed his head and his neck, and they seemed to be examining every part of him, as his mother watched them. She was crying as she looked at him, and it seemed an eternity before a doctor in green scrubs walked toward her. He had a stethoscope around his neck, and he looked stern as he explained the situation to her. He was tall, and his dark eyes looked grim, but the gray at his temples made her want to believe that he knew what he was doing.

“How is he?” she asked, sounding desperate.

“Not great at the moment. We're not sure yet how bad the head injury is, or what the implications are. There's a broad range of possibilities here. There's a fair amount of internal swelling. We're going to do an EEG, and a CT scan in a few minutes. And a lot is going to depend on how fast he comes out of it. I think he may have gotten lucky with his neck. I thought it was broken when he came in, but I don't think it is. We'll have the X rays back in a minute.” He saw a lot of quadriplegics come in from pool accidents, mostly boys this age, in their late teens, who played too rough, or dove without caution. But this kid seemed to have gotten lucky. There was no paralysis of his limbs, and he had good mobility from what they could tell. If anything, he had a hairline fracture, which, five minutes later, is what the X rays told them. He had a hairline fracture of the fourth cervical vertebra, but he hadn't damaged his spinal cord. Now they had to concentrate on his head injuries.

And for just an instant, before they took him away, she was able to reach out and touch him. All she could think of to say to him was “I love you,” but Peter was still unconscious and couldn't hear her.

It was nearly an hour later before he came back, and he still looked gray, and the doctor who came to talk to her again didn't look happy. She had learned that he was the head of the trauma unit by then, and his name was Bill Webster.

“Your son has quite a concussion, Mrs. Sutherland. And a hell of a lot of swelling. All we can do is wait now, and if the swelling gets worse, we're going to have to go in and relieve it.”

“You mean brain surgery?” She looked horrified, as he nodded. “Will he be … is he …” She couldn't even formulate the words beyond her panic.

“We don't know yet. There are a lot of variables here. We're going to keep him quiet for a little while and see what happens.”

“Can I sit with him?”

“As long as you stay out of our way, and don't move him. We need him quiet.” He spoke to her as though she were the enemy, and she felt as though he was. There was a toughness to the man, and a lack of sensitivity, which she hated instantly. But all he was interested in was saving Peter, which slightly redeemed him.

“I won't get in your way,” she said quietly.

He told her where she could sit, and she pulled up a stool next to where Peter lay, and quietly held his hand. There was an oxygen monitor on one finger, and there were monitors everywhere, to keep track of his heart and his brain waves. For the moment at least, he was stable.

“Where were you when this happened?” he asked accusingly, and she wanted to slap him.

“In court. I'm a lawyer. My housekeeper was at the pool with them, but I guess things got out of hand.”

“So I gather,” he said curtly, and went to talk to a resident and another doctor. He came back again a few minutes later. “We're going to give it another hour or two, and then take him upstairs to surgery,” he said bluntly, and she nodded. She was sitting on the stool, holding Peter's hand as best she could.

“Can he hear me if I talk to him?”

“It's unlikely,” he said, looking at her with a frown. She was as pale as her son, but she was also a redhead and very fair. “Are you all right?” he asked, and she nodded. “We don't have time to deal with you here if you faint. If this is too much for you, you can sit in the waiting room and we'll call you if anything happens.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” she said firmly. She had lived through what had happened to Jack eight months before, and she hadn't fainted then. She hated the way this man was speaking to her, but one of the nurses had told her he was the best there was, and she was willing to believe it. But his bedside manner was appalling. He was used to life-and-death situations, and saving lives, his whole focus was on that, and not their relatives. The last thing he wanted was to have to worry about someone other than his patient. He hurried away again, to call a neurosurgeon he wanted available if needed, and a nurse came to ask her if she wanted coffee.

“No, thanks, I'm fine,” she said softly, but it was obvious that she wasn't. She looked as desperate as she felt, as worried about her son as she had once been about her husband. And all she knew was that she couldn't lose this time. It was more than she could bear just thinking of it, and every time she did, she leaned over and spoke softly to Peter.

“Come on, Peter … wake up … talk to me … it's Mom … open your eyes … talk to me … it's Mommy, sweetheart … I love you … Wake up….” It was a mantra she said over and over and over again, praying that wherever he was, in the distant recesses of unconsciousness, he could hear her.

It was two-thirty in the afternoon by then, and at four, nothing had changed, and the doctor came back and talked to her again. They were going to give Peter another hour to regain consciousness on his own, and reassess the situation then. She nodded as she listened. He hadn't stirred since he came in, but she and the doctor both agreed that his color was a little better. The doctor noticed at the same time however that hers wasn't, but he didn't say anything about it. She looked awful. And he mellowed a little bit this time as he spoke to her, but not much. He only asked if she had called the boy's father, and she shook her head, and didn't offer to explain it to him.

“You probably should,” he said cautiously, there was something in her eyes that made him hesitate, maybe a bad divorce, or some awkward situation. “He's not out of the woods yet.”

“His father died eight months ago,” she said finally. “There's no one else to call.” She had already called home and told everyone he was still alive but she wouldn't call again until she had more news about his condition. She sounded calmer than she felt. All she could do was pray now that Peter would not join his father. She was praying that the doctor could prevent that.

“I'm sorry,” he said, and disappeared again, as she looked intently at her son, and although she would have died before she told anyone, she was beginning to feel the room spin slowly around her. It was all too much for her, too terrible, too terrifying. She couldn't lose him. Couldn't. She wouldn't let him leave them. She put her head down as far as she could, and felt better, and then went back to talking quietly to Peter. And as though he had heard her prayers, he moved ever so slowly, and tried to turn his head, but they had put a neck brace on him and he couldn't. His eyes still didn't open. She started talking to him in a stronger voice then, urging him to open his eyes and talk to her, or blink if he could hear her, squeeze her hand, move his toe, anything. But there was no sign from Peter, until at last he let out a soft moan, but it was impossible to tell if it was a sound he had made unconsciously, or in response to what she was saying to him. And a nurse came running as soon as she heard him. She checked his vital signs again, looked at the monitors, and ran to get the doctor. Liz couldn't tell if it was a good sign or not, but she kept talking to him, and begging him to hear her. And just as the doctor came back again, Peter moaned again, and this time his eyes fluttered open as she stood next to him, looking down at him with hope and terror.

“Mmmmmmmmoooommmmmm …” he said in a long agonized sound, but she knew what he had said, and so did Bill Webster. He had said “Mom,” though with excruciating effort. And tears were pouring down her cheeks as she leaned closer to him and told him how much she loved him. And when she glanced back at the doctor, much to her amazement, he was smiling.

“We're getting there. Keep talking to him. I want to run some more tests on him.” Peter's eyes had closed again, but he opened them as she continued to talk to him, and he let out a horrible moan this time and squeezed her hand almost imperceptibly. But he was coming around, and moving ahead, by millimeters, if nothing more.

“Owwwwwwww,” he said, looking at her with a frown. “Owwww …” he said again, and she moved toward the doctor.

“He's in pain,” she said softly, and Bill Webster nodded.

“I'll bet he is. He's got one hell of a headache.” He was putting something in Peter's IV as he spoke to her, and a technician took more blood. And a few minutes later, the neurosurgeon came to see him. “We're getting there,” Bill Webster told him, and looked encouraged. Dr. Webster shared the latest data with him, and they told Liz that they weren't going to do surgery yet. And with luck, and some more progress, maybe they wouldn't have to. It was six o'clock by then, and she hadn't left Peter's side for an instant. “We'll keep an eye on him if you want to get a cup of coffee,” Webster offered, but she shook her head. She had no intention of leaving Peter until things had improved further, no matter how long it took. She hadn't eaten anything since that morning, but she couldn't have eaten at that point if she'd tried.

It was another hour before Peter made another sound, but this time when he did, he said “Mom” again, a little more clearly. “Hurts,” he finally added to it in a voice that was barely more than a croak, but he lifted his hand this time, and squeezed hers as much as he could. He was hardly stronger than a baby. They didn't want to give him anything for the pain and risk his slipping back into a coma. “Home,” he said finally, while the doctors watched him.

“You want to go home?” Bill Webster asked as Peter looked at him, and ever so slightly, Peter nodded. “Good. We want you to go home too, but you're going to have to talk to me some more before you go anywhere. How do you feel, Peter?” He spoke to his patient far more gently than he had to his patient's mother. But she was grateful now for what they were doing for him.

“Terrible,” Peter said in answer to his question. “Hurts.”

“What hurts the most?”

“Head.”

“Does your neck hurt?” He nodded again and then winced, it obviously pained him to move anything, and with good reason. “Does anything else hurt?”

“No … Mommy …”

“I'm here, baby. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Sorry …” he said, looking at her, and she shook her head. He had nothing to be sorry about at this point. “Stupid.”

“Yes. Very.” The doctor answered for her. “You're lucky you didn't wind up a quadriplegic from something like this.” And then he asked him to move his legs and arms, and hands and feet, and Peter did, but he could barely squeeze the doctor's fingers. But Webster and the neurosurgeon were pleased with his progress. And at nine o'clock they told Liz they were moving him to the Trauma ICU to continue to monitor him closely. “I think you can go home and get some rest. He's moving steadily in the right direction. You can come back in the morning.”

“Can I sleep here?”

“If you really want to. He should go to sleep eventually. We might even give him something to make him sleep, if he makes a little more progress. You can use the rest, you've had quite a day here.” In spite of himself, he felt sorry for her. As a rule, he tried not to get too involved with his patients, but Liz looked like she'd been through the wringer. “Do you have other kids at home?” he asked, and she nodded. “You might want to go back to them. They must be worried. He was in pretty bad shape when he came in. Did they see it happen?”

“I think so. I'll call and let them know he's better.” There had been nothing to say to reassure them until then.

“Why don't you go home for a while? I'll call you if anything happens.” Webster sounded firm.

“Will you be here?” She didn't like him, but she was beginning to trust him.

“All night and until noon tomorrow. I promise.” He smiled at her, and she was surprised to realize that he was actually decent-looking when he wasn't running roughshod over her, or scowling as he checked the monitors and the chart.

“I hate to leave him,” she said honestly.

“It'll do you good, and we'll be busy moving him in a little while. You'll just get in the way here.” He had a way with words, and she couldn't help smiling at him. And then she told Peter she'd be back soon, she was going home to the other children.

“I'll be back as fast as I can, I promise,” she said to Peter and he smiled.

“Sorry, Mom,” he said again. “Really stupid.”

“You're really lucky. And I love you. So just hurry up and get better.”

“Tell Jamie I'm okay,” he said with real effort, but also real progress. It was the longest sentence he'd said since he woke up and started talking to them.

“I will. I'll see you later.”

“I'm okay.” He was trying to reassure her, which was a good sign. He was cognizant, and not only aware of his surroundings, but the subtler implications of what had happened. She couldn't even bear to think of what it would have been like if he hadn't come out of the coma, or worse, hadn't survived. It didn't bear thinking.

“I expect to see you running up and down the hall when I get back. Okay?” He laughed at her, and she walked slowly out into the hall after she kissed him, and the doctor followed.

“He's a very lucky boy,” he said, looking impressed by her. She hadn't faltered for a single moment. “For awhile there, I didn't think he was going to come out of it without surgery, and certainly not this quickly. He's young and healthy, and who knows, maybe you made a difference, talking to him like that.”

“Whatever it was, thank God he came out of it when he did.” Her legs went weak as she thought about it.

“He's going to be here for a couple of weeks, I suspect, so don't wear yourself out all at once. If you want to come back in the morning, he'll be fine.”

“I'd rather sleep here. But I'll go home and check on the other children and then come back in a couple of hours.”

“How many do you have?” He was curious about her. He didn't know who or what she was, but one thing was obvious to him, she was a wonderful mother and loved her son deeply.

“Five,” she answered him. “He's the oldest.”

“Leave your number at the desk. I'll call if anything comes up. And if you decide to stay once you get home, don't feel guilty about it. The others may be pretty upset, particularly if they saw it happen. How old is your youngest?”

“Ten. They're ten, eleven, thirteen, and fourteen.”

“You've got your hands full.”

“They're good kids,” she said, and he wanted to say they had a good mother, but he didn't. Instead, he went back to check on Peter again, and she left. It was after nine when she got home, and all the children were still up. The girls were sitting at the kitchen table, crying, and Jamie was sitting on Carole's lap, looking exhausted and pale. They looked like orphans from a war zone, and they jumped at her the minute she walked in the door, trying to read her face, but she was smiling, although she looked worn out and disheveled.

“He's going to be okay. He's got a terrible concussion, and a hairline fracture of a vertebra in his neck, but he's going to be okay now. He's very lucky.”

“Can we see him?” They asked as a chorus.

“Not yet,” Liz said, as Carole put a plate in front of her with leftover meat loaf from dinner, but Liz couldn't eat a thing.

“When can he come home?” Megan asked, looking anxious.

“Not for a couple of weeks, maybe longer. It depends how fast he recovers.” They wanted to know everything, but she spared them the horrors of that afternoon. All they needed to know was that he had survived. They sat together for an hour, and when they went upstairs, Carole told her how sorry she was. She felt entirely responsible for what had happened.

“Don't be silly,” Liz said, almost too tired to talk to her, let alone assuage her guilt, but she felt she owed it to her to calm her down. “You can't control everything. They obviously got too rough. He's just damn lucky it didn't kill him, or paralyze him.”

“Oh, my God,” Carole said, as tears rolled down her cheeks and she blew her nose. “Will he really be all right?”

“They think so. He didn't regain consciousness until a couple of hours ago, but he's talking now. For a while there, I thought …” She couldn't even say it, and Carole nodded with tears in her eyes. She had thought the same thing, and the longer it took Liz to come home, and when she didn't call, Carole was certain that the worst was about to happen. They had come damn close though. “I'm going back tonight. I'll go up and pack some things.”

“Why don't you sleep here? You look exhausted, Liz, you can use the rest if you're going to be with him tomorrow.”

“That's what the doctor said, but I want to be with him tonight. Even at seventeen, this has to be scary for him, and he's in a lot of pain from the concussion.”

“Poor kid. What a miserable way to end the summer. Do you think he'll be able to start school in September?”

“We don't know yet.” School was the least of his problems. It had looked so terrifying all afternoon. Liz felt as though she'd been hit by an express train as she thought of it, and she looked as though she had, as Carole's heart went out to her.

Liz walked slowly upstairs, and went in to kiss Jamie good night, but he was already sound asleep, and the girls were in bed. The house seemed strangely quiet without Peter, as she walked into her room and sat down on the bed. She wanted to pack a bag, but suddenly she couldn't move. All she could think of was what had nearly happened, and all she could do was sob with relief. It was after eleven when she finally packed her bag, and midnight when she got back to the hospital to see him. She had delayed for a few minutes to call her mother, who was horrified about Peter's accident when Liz told her. “My God, will he be all right?” she asked in a choked voice, and Liz reassured her and promised that when Peter felt better, he would call her.

Peter was awake when Liz arrived back at the hospital, and continuing to make good progress. He was talking almost normally to one of the nurses when Liz walked into the ICU.

“Hi, Mom,” he said the moment he saw her. “How's Jamie?”

“He's fine. Everybody said to tell you they love you. They wanted to come and see you. I told them to wait awhile, or they'd have been back here with me.”

The nurse set up a bed for her in a corner of the waiting room, and she lay down on it in the tracksuit she'd worn, and she pulled a blanket over her. They had promised to come and wake her if Peter needed her, or got worse again, but they told her they didn't think there would be a problem. His vital signs were good, and he was talking up a storm.

She was just drifting off to sleep when she saw Bill Webster walk into the room, and she sat bolt upright in panic, with her heart pounding as she looked at him. He had changed his green scrubs for gray ones. It was not a particularly attractive costume.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. He's fine. I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted to see if you needed anything … something to sleep …” He seemed to hesitate, and she realized how much he cared and she was grateful for what he was doing for Peter, and had already done.

“I'm fine, thank you,” she said, unwinding slowly again. “And thank you for everything you've done. I think I'll be able to sleep.” She looked so tired, but it didn't really surprise him. It had been an intense afternoon.

“I'm glad he's doing so well.” He looked as though he meant it.

“So am I. I'm not sure we'd have lived through it, if he didn't.”

“Was your husband ill for a long time?” he asked. For some reason he had assumed it was cancer, but she shook her head.

“He was shot by the husband of one of our clients on Christmas morning.” That jogged his memory, and he nodded. He couldn't think of what to say to her, and could only guess what it had been like for her.