“ARE BRAD AND RILEY in trouble?” six-year-old Kevin asked late Monday afternoon as he and Kate walked back from the hospital where she’d faxed her preliminary proposal to the Graham Foundation.
Kate looked at Kevin in surprise. Although he’d begun to talk a little more each day she had been there, going from no answers to single words to sentences, this was the first time he had initiated a conversation instead of just replied to something she or someone else had asked him.
“Yes, honey, they are.”
“How come?” Looking uneasy, Kevin’s hand tightened in hers.
Kate inhaled a breath. “Saturday night, while you and Lewis were still out at the ranch, Brad and Riley decorated three girls’ houses with toilet paper.”
“Why did they do that?”
Easy, Kate thought. “Well, it’s sort of complicated.”
Kevin thrust out his chest importantly as he looked up at Kate. “I’m big enough to understand.”
Maybe he was, at that, Kate thought tenderly. “Brad was trying to date three girls at the same time and he hurt their feelings, so they sprayed him with perfume and put lipstick on his face. Toilet-papering their houses was Brad and Riley’s way of getting back at the girls. Unfortunately, they made so much racket they woke one of the girl’s parents, who called your dad. He made them clean it all up and then he grounded them.”
“But Will’s not grounded anymore, is he?”
“No, he’s not,” Kate said. Although you’d never know it from his increasingly surly behavior.
“Well, I’m not gonna get grounded,” Kevin promised.
Kate smiled down at him and squeezed his hand reassuringly. “That’s good.”
“I almost got in big trouble once, though,” Kevin confided as they turned onto the sidewalk that led up to the front porch of Sam’s rambling Victorian. “It was when I fell off the roof. I knowed I wasn’t s’posed to be up there, but I was, anyway.”
Kate put her briefcase and purse down, and delayed going inside the house for a few minutes. She turned to Kevin, who had the remnants of his lunch in the hospital cafeteria—hot dog with mustard—on his shirt. “How come?” Kate asked as she and Kevin sat down on the wicker settee on the front porch. Kevin fell silent.
“It’s okay,” Kate said gently, not about to push him to do anything until he was ready. She ruffled his dark hair and thought about how much he looked like Ellie. “You don’t have to tell me.”
A look of unbearable sadness in his eyes, Kevin slid across the seat and climbed onto her lap. He wrapped one arm around Kate’s shoulder and rested his head on her chest. “It’s ’cause I wanted to see my mommy,” he confided soberly.
Kate wrapped her arms around him. She rubbed his back, seeking to comfort him in any way she could, even as she tried to understand. “And you thought your mommy would be on the roof?”
Kevin shook his head. He reared back to look at Kate. “No, silly.” He looked at her as though she was a complete dope. “I know she’s in heaven. I just thought I could see her better from the roof. You know, if she’s way up there in the clouds. So that’s why I climbed out there. To find out if I could see her from up high. Only I couldn’t.” Kevin’s face fell as he remembered his disappointment. “And so I looked and looked and then I fell.” He stared at the tiny floral pattern on Kate’s shirt. “I thought my dad would be mad, but he wasn’t. He was just scared.”
“That’s right.” As Kevin once again rested his head on Kate’s chest, she continued to rub his back. “He doesn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well, I’m not going to do that again. ’Cause it didn’t work, anyway.” Kevin sighed and said thickly, “But I sure wish I could see my mommy.”
Recalling what it had been like to lose her brother, to know she would never see him again, never hear his voice, or share a laugh with him, Kate swallowed around the knot of empathy in her throat. Loss was such a hard thing to deal with, even when you were old enough to understand the randomness and sheer unpredictability of life. Kevin wasn’t. “You have pictures of her, don’t you?” she asked, knowing the good memories could help supplant the pain in his heart.
Kevin nodded, admitting this was so, even as he looked all the sadder. “I got one in my room, but…” He paused. Unable or unwilling to go on, Kate couldn’t be sure which.
“What, honey?” Kate prompted gently.
Kevin shrugged his little shoulders as tears brimmed over and slid down his face. “I can’t remember what she sounds like anymore,” he whispered, as if he had just spoken the most dreadful, guilty secret in the world. “And I wish I could. I wish I could just hear her calling me to come in for dinner or something, like she used to, you know.”
Able to feel and see the depth of his grief, grief that up until now had been pretty much locked away deep inside, Kate’s heart went out to him. She had to take a long breath to keep from crying herself. “I want to see one of the videotapes that has Mommy on it. Can you help me use the machine?”
“Sure. Just show me where the tapes are kept.” Kate didn’t recall seeing any.
Kevin stood and took Kate’s hand, already pulling her along. “They’re in my dad’s room.”
Sam had told Kate when he’d first showed her the house to stay out of there, and she had. But with Sam at the office and Kevin in such distress… Kate decided to heck with Sam’s rules on that particular subject. She’d tend to Kevin’s needs first and deal with his father later. She felt a little guilty and a lot uncomfortable as they opened the door to the master bedroom and walked inside. It was a lovely room, furnished with a big cozy canopy bed that harkened back to another era. There was a large armoire and a highboy in the same beautiful cherrywood, and a pair of chairs and a table set in front of a fireplace provided a small, cozy conversation area. The vanity was still set with Ellie’s things: hairbrush, perfume, makeup. None of it had been removed. The large walk-in closet was half filled with Ellie’s clothes; it still smelled of her fragrance.
Deliberately ignoring the deeply romantic aura of the room, a room that radiated Ellie’s loving presence more than any other in the house, Kate followed Kevin into the walk-in closet. There on a shelf was the video camera and case and boxes and boxes of film, all labeled in Ellie’s neat hand. Family picnics. Ball games. Christmases. Everything they’d had and lost. Everything every one of them wanted still.
“FIRST THINGS FIRST,” Kate told Kevin as they’d gathered up what they needed and taken them downstairs. She had to make dinner for the family. But as soon as they’d eaten, she’d assured him, they would settle in the family room and make memories come to life. Once they had cleaned up the dishes, she and Kevin got right down to it.
“What are you doing?” Brad and Riley wandered into the family room where Kate, Lewis and Kevin were viewing the tapes.
Kate hooked up the video camera to the TV. “Kevin wanted to see some of these home videos.”
Will, who was passing by, took one look at the picture of his mother on the TV screen and, his expression unerringly grim, backed out of the room. He had a sleeping bag in one hand, a cooler full of goodies in the other. A small canvas duffel bag was slung over one shoulder. “I’m leaving,” he announced from the doorway.
Kate had earlier helped him get everything he needed for the camp-out with the football team. “Have a good time.”
“Yeah. Whatever.” Will looked exceedingly bored, while Brad and Riley exchanged looks Kate couldn’t quite interpret. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, after football practice. All right?” Giving her no chance to say anything else, Will strode through the hallway and slammed out the back door.
Lewis turned to Kate with a sympathetic look and explained, “Will can’t bear to see any videos of Mom and neither can Dad.”
“That’s not surprising,” Kate said gently, while Kevin, enthralled at the pictures of his mother and the sound of her voice, sprawled next to Kate on the floor. “Most people tend to react in one of two ways. The home movies and pictures and such either comfort them so much they want to watch them almost continually, or they can’t bear the sight of them because any reminder makes them so sad, and they don’t want to be sad. As time passes, you eventually get over either stage. You either need to look at the stuff less, or you begin to be able to look at it without crying.”
Riley slouched on the sofa. “How do you know all this stuff?” Riley looked at Kate curiously. “Is it because you’re a grief counselor?”
“That’s part of it,” Kate said cautiously, “but I’ve also been through it myself.”
“When?” Brad looked over at her.
“My brother Pete died when he was seventeen and I was twelve,” she told them quietly.
Abruptly the room grew hushed. They all looked stricken, upset by what she had just revealed. “What happened?” Lewis asked.
“He was out with the other football players on the high school football team. They were drinking beer, and he got behind the wheel of a car, and ran off the road, down into a ravine. The car flipped over and he was killed instantly.”
Brad took a long, slow breath. “Were you sad for a long time?”
“Yes.” As Kate looked at the boys she didn’t try to hide the depth of the loss she’d felt. “And so was your dad. Pete was his best friend.”
“How’d you cope?” Lewis asked.
Badly, Kate thought, as she rested her arm on her upraised knee. “Well, I was one of the people who didn’t want to look at anything that reminded me of my brother.” Which had been hard, given that her parents had turned Pete’s room into a shrine. “I missed Pete so desperately. He was my only sibling, my big brother. But at the same time, every reminder I had of him just made me feel all the pain and the grief all over again. So I mostly tried to bury it and pretend everything was okay,” Kate concluded.
“Even when it wasn’t okay,” Lewis said sadly.
Kate nodded. “So I didn’t really come to terms with Pete’s death until I finally went off to college and started taking psychology classes. When I began studying grief, I realized I wasn’t over losing Pete, not by a long shot, so I joined a grief group and got some help.”
Silence fell as the boys thought about that. “What do you do at a grief group?” Lewis asked curiously at last.
From her perch on the floor, Kate leaned back against the sofa. “Mainly, you sit around and talk to people who have been through similar tragedies and loss. You can talk if you want to, or just listen. They always have a counselor there to help. But mainly it’s just a safe place to go, where you know you can say whatever is on your mind, and know that everybody else there is going to understand what you’re going through.”
Riley made a face. “Do people get all weepy and hysterical?”
“Yes,” Kate admitted freely, wanting them to know that crying was nothing to be afraid of. “But it’s the kind of crying that makes you feel better,” she said.
“Crying always makes me feel stupid,” Brad lamented.
“That’s true,” Kate admitted, “in the short run.” She looked at the boys, commiserating gently, “No one likes having red, puffy eyes, a runny nose, or those weird hiccupy sounds coming out of your chest. Or even worse, the feeling that you couldn’t stop the tears coming out of your eyes if you tried. But in the long run crying actually makes you feel better. Because when you get upset or worried or you’re grieving there’s a buildup of certain chemicals in the brain and a depletion of others. Your emotions build up, and that in turn affects how you feel. The physical act of crying releases those emotions, your brain chemistry alters, and then you start to feel better.”
“What happens if you don’t let yourself cry?” Lewis asked.
“Then the emotions stay locked up in the brain, creating havoc with your moods and your brain chemistry, and you continue to feel sort of lousy or vaguely unhappy or angry without really knowing why. Which is what happened to me,” she admitted quietly as she looked at the boys one by one. “I was so busy trying to be strong and brave that I didn’t really deal with any of the emotions I was feeling at the time, and then, when I least expected it…when I was in college, they all came back with a vengeance and I realized I had never really gotten over losing Pete at all,” she concluded quietly.
Riley studied Kate thoughtfully. “Are you over it now?”
Kate let out her breath slowly. “I’m always going to miss him. And there’s a part of me that’s always going to hurt when I think of how his life was cut short. But I think I’ve come to terms with my loss. And, really, that’s the best you can do, sort of accept what happened, because you never really get over the loss of a loved one, you’re always going to miss that person, and wish he or she was here.”
Brad looked at her with new respect. “Is this what you do in your grief group, explain this kind of stuff to people, so they sort of understand?”
Kate nodded. She felt proud of what she had accomplished in that regard. “When I was growing up, we didn’t have grief groups at the hospital or anywhere in Laramie. That’s why I came back and eventually got one started here. So that there would be immediate, accessible help for people who’ve suffered trauma, grief and loss.”
Riley studied Kate. “Does Dad know all this…about what you do, I mean?”
“Sort of,” Kate said cautiously, aware they were headed into dangerous territory. “It’s not the kind of thing he’s really wanted to talk to me about just yet.”
Lewis adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Would you mind if I went to one of your groups?”
“I’d love to have you,” Kate said warmly but cautiously. “But you’ll have to get permission from your dad first.”
Downcast expressions all around. “Well, that’s just it,” Lewis said with a troubled sigh and a discouraged look at Kate. “He’s not going to want me to go.”
SAM GOT HOME Monday evening a little after eleven. The lights on the second floor were out. The house was quiet, except for what sounded eerily like Ellie’s voice. The sound hitting him like a blow to the heart, Sam put his briefcase down and headed for the source. It turned out to be the family room television, where Kate and four of his boys were busy transferring video camera film to videocassette.
Oblivious to his presence, the boys laughed softly as they watched a shuddering Ellie reluctantly hold up a channel cat-fish they’d caught on a fishing trip. He and the boys hadn’t looked at any of these since Ellie had died. He’d figured it would be too painful. But obviously that wasn’t the case for his four youngest children. To his amazement, they seemed comforted by the taped memories of their mother. Not sure how much of this he could take without feeling their loss acutely all over again, Sam walked into the room. They swiveled around to face him in surprise. They looked as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t. “What are you doing?” Sam asked casually.
“Watching videos with some of our favorite Mom stuff on them.” Pausing only long enough to adjust the glasses on the bridge of his nose, Lewis stood and gave Sam a hug hello.
Sam hugged him back, then sat on the sofa. Lewis sat beside him, staying unusually close to Sam’s side.
Kevin uncurled himself from Kate’s lap and moved to Sam’s. “I couldn’t ’member what Mommy’s voice sounded like. Does that ever happen to you?”
“Sometimes,” Sam said.
Sam continued cuddling his youngest son close and turned his attention back to the screen, where the action had shifted to the hilarious setting up of tents at the campsite.
“Where’s Will?” Sam asked.
Kate stood and pushed down the legs of her trim white jeans, where they’d ridden up. “He’s camping out at the lake with some of the guys on the football team.”
Since it was too late to veto the arrangement, Sam supposed he would have to accept that.
“Do you think you could give me a hand with the garbage and the recycling?” Kate asked Sam casually. “I forgot to set it out next to the curb.”
Able to see that what Kate really wanted was to speak to him privately, Sam said, “Sure.” He shifted Kevin off his lap and, leaving the kids to enjoy their videos, followed Kate out to the garage where the bins and cans were kept.
As they came face-to-face in the yellow glow of the outdoor lights, Kate got straight to the point. “Lewis wants to go to one of my grief groups to see what it’s all about. I told him I’d ask you.”
Sam knew Kate was very tied to what she did professionally, that she believed in it with all her heart and soul, but he was still stunned she had betrayed his wishes this way. He’d thought—erroneously, obviously—they’d had an understanding about this. He regarded her grimly, knowing if she’d been anyone else he would have hauled her out then and there. “You pitched this to them when I wasn’t home?”
Kate tilted her chin at him. “They had some questions about what I did at the hospital.”
“And that just came up, out of the blue?” Sam returned sarcastically. He didn’t buy that for one minute.
“As a matter of fact,” Kate said, glaring right back at him and mocking his icy tone to a T. “It did.”
Careful to keep his voice down, lest the boys overhear a ruckus and come to investigate, Sam advanced on her, not stopping until they were toe-to-toe. “You really expect me to believe that?” he demanded.
“You know what?” Kate pressed her lips together firmly and gave him a withering glare. “Given your ridiculously narrow-minded attitude about what I do for a living, I don’t care what you believe.”
He caught her by the shoulder before she could spin away. He knew he never should have made love to her. Doing so had changed things, made everything between them intensely personal, even when they were doing their best to keep a safe physical distance from each other. “You owe me more of an explanation than that.”
“Okay.” Kate folded her arms in front of her. She considered him impatiently, not about to give up or to give in no matter how much he tried to intimidate her. “You want to know why Kevin was on the roof that day he fell?” she said in a taunting whisper that arrowed straight to his heart. “He was trying to see Ellie in the clouds. He thought he’d have a better view of heaven from up there. He missed his mother so much he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t tell anyone because he didn’t want to be made fun of.”
For a moment Sam was so taken aback by what she told him he could barely take a breath. “He told you that?”
Kate nodded, her expression as grim as his. “As well as how sad he was that he couldn’t seem to remember what Ellie looked like or how she sounded,” she said sadly, her eyes turning even more compassionate. “Which is of course why I broke one of your cardinal rules and went with him into your bedroom to retrieve the videotapes. Because I didn’t think he should have to wait a moment longer to hear his mommy’s voice or to see her face if that’s what he needed to feel better.”
“How did the other kids get involved?” Sam asked gruffly, unable to remember when he had felt so completely ticked off.
“They saw Kev and me watching the tapes and they came in and joined us. There was no big conspiracy, no deliberate plot to supersede your wishes.”
Sam understood what had happened, but only to a point. “Then why does Lewis suddenly want to go to one of your group therapy sessions?” Sam demanded sternly.
“Because he is obviously still having trouble dealing with Ellie’s death and he thinks it might help him to feel better. Unfortunately, he’s also convinced that you’d never allow it. I saw how disappointed he was and volunteered to talk to you, to see if I could change your mind.”
Sam studied her, aware the more they stood there, alone like that, the more he wanted to take her to bed and make wild, hot, passionate love to her, which defied all reason and convention. But since he couldn’t do that, shouldn’t do that, he held on to his anger, knowing that would work well to continue to keep them apart. “Did you promise Lewis you would be able to manage it?” he demanded, wondering just how far her betrayal of his wishes had gone.
“No,” Kate said coolly, looking him up and down in the same thoroughly encompassing manner he regarded her. “But, for the record, I don’t see how you can reasonably deny any of your boys whatever comfort they might seek, whether it meshes with your particular way of handling things or not.”
The derision in her voice stung. Worse, he knew Ellie would probably have agreed with her. “And what is my way?” Sam demanded.
Something flickered in the depths of her eyes. Kate regarded him with the same contemptuousness he had shown her earlier. “You want an honest answer?” she asked in a low tone that fired him up even more.
“Nothing but,” he challenged.
Kate inclined her head to the side, her look becoming almost distant, clinical. “Your way is to keep everything to yourself.”
Sam just looked at her. What in blaze’s name was wrong with that?
Kate threw her arm out to the side, in the direction of the house. “All of Ellie’s stuff is in your room. Shut away. Unfortunately, no matter how much you try, you can’t keep Ellie alive that way. Not in your bedroom and not in your heart. You can’t keep living in the past that way. It’s not good for you, and it’s not good for the boys.”
Bristling at her no-holds-barred attitude, he crossed his arms over his chest as a red veil descended over his eyes. “Is this a professional opinion, Ms. Marten?”
“As a matter of fact,” Kate admitted, leaning closer still when what she really should do is run, “it is. The way your bedroom is right now, Sam, when you go in there and see all of Ellie’s stuff still around, it’s like she’s away on a trip instead of gone.”
Sam stepped back, grabbed a garbage can in each hand and hauled them out to the curb. “You are out of line, Kate!”
Kate merely looked at him as she carried out the recycling container for aluminum cans. She stopped just short of the curb, dropped the container, and planted her hands on her hips. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t remember the good times, Sam,” she said gently, her face looking even more angelically pretty in the glow of the overhead streetlights. “I think you all should remember as much as you can, as often as you can, and you should cherish those memories with all your heart and soul. But you’ve also got to move on, however painful a process that is.”
“Easy for you to say,” Sam flung back before he could stop himself, hating the lecturing quality of her tone almost as much as the validity of her argument. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her lightly, his fingers sinking into the softness of her skin. “You don’t know what it’s like to be married to someone for seventeen years.” His voice caught as he let her go every bit as abruptly as he’d grabbed her. “To build a life and a home and a family. And then she’s gone. And you’re just supposed to carry on—” His voice broke. He couldn’t go on. Not without breaking down himself. And that he sure as hell wasn’t going to do.
Kate reached out for him, all soft, sympathetic counselor now. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
Sam swore. No, he was the one who was sorry. He knew it wasn’t her fault, even if he kept acting as if it was. Struggling to stop acting like someone Kate should pity, Sam said, “Look, I know I’ve been a bastard…”
“No one’s saying you don’t have a right to be upset.” Kate regarded him, the gentleness in her eyes almost worse than the derision. “But you still have to move on. And one of the first steps is to sort through her things.”
“I haven’t had time to deal with it,” Sam said gruffly.
“Except you do deal with it on a daily basis,” Kate argued. “Because you see Ellie’s things every time you walk into that room.”
Like, he didn’t know that? Sam thought impatiently. “I get the message,” Sam said, irritated she wouldn’t just let him do things in his own way, in his own time, like everyone else.
Before Kate could reply, the back door opened. Brad stuck his head out and looked down the curb. He was holding the cordless receiver in his hand. “Dad! Phone—for you!”
SAM CAME OUT the back door. Even in the glow of the outdoor lighting, Kate could see he looked very unhappy. “Are you sure Will was camping out with the team tonight?”
Kate didn’t like the way Sam posed that question. “That’s what he said,” she told him cautiously. “Why?”
“That was Amanda Sloane’s father. Apparently she was supposed to be spending the night at a girlfriend’s house tonight. They just called to check on her and found out she wasn’t there, and wasn’t supposed to be. They think she’s out with Will. And that they’re intending to spend the entire night together.”
Kate held up a silencing hand. “Wait a minute, Sam. There’s no way the coaching staff on the football team would allow girls to be at this camp-out,” she said firmly. All Laramie high school functions were very well chaperoned.
Sam regarded her steadily. “So maybe he’s not with the rest of the team.”
“And maybe,” Kate said slowly, realizing too late she had been duped, “there’s no team camp-out.”
LEERY OF BURDENING her father with unnecessary stress given his current still-untreated health problems, Kate called Gus Barkley to check, while Sam sent the rest of the boys on to bed. She returned to Sam, embarrassed at how easily and thoroughly she had been duped. “There’s no camp-out.”
Sam swore. “You think they’re out at the lake?”
Under the circumstances, Kate hated to speculate, especially when, because she was the “adult” on duty, she was at least partially responsible for this happening. She met Sam’s eyes. “He definitely took a lot of camping gear with him,” she said.
“All right.” Sam went to get a flashlight, his cell phone and keys. “I’m going out there.”
Remembering how surly Will had been when he left, Kate hurried to catch up. “I’ll go with you,” she said, the look she gave him brooking no arguments. “We’ll find them a lot faster if there are two of us looking.” They told Brad and Riley where they were going. As they got into Sam’s eight-passenger SUV, Kate asked, “What did you tell Amanda’s parents?”
“That I’d call as soon as I located them.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Frustration tightened the line of his mouth. “I don’t understand why Will would do such a thing. Will’s never been so defiant. Or at least he never was. Ellie would have never stood for it.”
Kate inclined her head to the side.
“She knew what those boys were thinking and feeling almost before they did,” Sam continued.
Kate figured that was so. Ellie had been remarkably sensitive and perceptive. It didn’t explain why Sam, who also shared many of the same qualities, at least when it came to building his business, sometimes seemed so clueless about his own kids. “And you don’t?”
Sam’s expression turned brooding and conflicted. “You have to understand. She was the one who took care of them. She knew I was busy building the business, and she wanted me to concentrate on that, without worrying about any of the little things, like whether or not the kids got their homework done. As long as she was there, I didn’t have to worry about anything. I knew she’d handle it.”
“So when she got sick…”
“She still handled everything—emotionally,” Sam said. “And she and the kids both wanted it that way. They wanted to turn to her with their problems and dilemmas. She said knowing they still needed her, despite everything, was what kept her going, even when the cancer had robbed her of just about everything else.”
But what about you, Sam? Kate thought, her heart going out to him. Didn’t you feel shut out of your own kids’ lives? “It had to have been devastating when she died,” she said gently.
Sam looked as if he wouldn’t go back to that point in his life for anything. “You’re not kidding.” He looked at her with a wealth of feeling. “I never knew how many crises there could be in a single week. But with five kids, there’s always something going on, always someone in trouble, or having a tough go of it, or needing extra time and attention.”
An understatement and a half, Kate thought as Sam guided his SUV through the entrance into the lake and slowed to a crawl, so they could visually search every potential campsite for Will’s Jeep. It took a good two hours, searching all the nooks and crannies around the lake, but at 2:00 a.m. they spotted Will’s two-person pup tent. Sam cut the motor on the truck and they walked through the trees.
“Will?” Sam’s voice echoed in the silence of the night.
There was a rustling-around sound and swearing from inside the tent. A girl’s soft voice. A lot more rustling. And then Will came stumbling out, wearing only his jeans.