“CAN YOU WATCH JULIA and Wyatt this afternoon?” Marin’s mother asked, coming into the house through the patio door.
Marin looked up from where she was sitting at the kitchen eating her lunch, a chicken salad sandwich, while reading a new book. “Why? What’s up?”
“My cell phone died on me and I need to run to the mainland for a new one.”
“Can’t you wait until the weekend?”
“Would you go three days without your cell phone?”
A month ago, Marin wouldn’t have gone three hours without one, but after all this time on Mirabelle she was unplugged, relatively speaking, and enjoying it. That didn’t mean she wanted to babysit. “Mom, I—”
“What’s the big deal, Marin?”
The big deal was that besides the quick apology in his office, she hadn’t seen Adam since that disastrous tequila sex incident. Otherwise, she didn’t have an excuse for not helping her mother out. After a surprisingly lazy morning, she’d gone for a run, had just finished with a shower and had nothing else on the agenda for the rest of the day.
“All right,” Marin finally said. “I’ll watch the kids.”
“Great. They had an after-school snack, but you’re going to need to feed them supper and help them with homework. Oh, and Adam’s working late tonight. He won’t be home until almost bedtime.”
“What? I thought this would be just for an hour or so. What am I supposed to do with the kids for that long?”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Do they know I’m coming?”
“Yep. I told them.”
“Awfully sure of me, aren’t you, Mom?”
Her mother only grinned before grabbing her purse and taking off out the front door. Marin finished what was left of her sandwich and walked outside to find the kids climbing around on their new play equipment. It was a fairly elaborate system sporting a fully enclosed platform fort with a full roof and windows, a slide, three swings and monkey bars.
“Hi,” she said, standing a short distance away.
Wyatt’s head poked out through one of the fort windows. “Hi, Marin.”
Julia came down the slide. “Hi.”
“You okay with me babysitting?” Marin asked. “If I promise to do a better job than last time.”
“Sure.” Julia shrugged. “You got your hair cut.”
Marin ran her hands through the short strands. “Yeah. Pretty short, huh?”
“It’s pretty.”
“Thanks.”
Wyatt came through the door on the fort and reached for the monkey bars. What if he fell again? “Be careful up there.” At a loss for what else to do, she went to stand beside him, just close enough so she could reach out on the chance he lost his grip.
“Okay!” he called as he reached the end. Then he let go of the bar.
Marin snatched him in midair. “Dude, careful.”
“I do that all the time.”
“Yeah, but the other day you got lucky. One of these times, you might really break an ankle.” As Marin set him down, she caught Julia watching her. “Better?”
The little girl smiled.
The kids played for quite a while and Marin even remembered to bring them out something to drink. Later, she made dinner for them, grilled cheese sandwiches and apple slices. While she did a few dishes, they did homework. The evening went much better than she’d expected.
“I’m finished!” Julia exclaimed, putting her folders in her backpack.
“Me, too!”
Now what? “Did you guys ever finish your frames for Carla?”
“Yep. Last week with Angelica,” Julia said. “But I’d like to make another frame for me.”
“What are you going to frame?”
“A picture of my mom. That way I can remember my mom the way Carla can remember us.”
Wyatt nodded. “I want one, too.”
“Okay. Let’s do it.” Missy’s craft box still happened to be at the Harding house, and it wasn’t long after the kids had sat at the kitchen table to make more frames that Marin decided to join them. “Maybe I’ll make one, too.”
“What are you going to put in it?” Julia asked.
“I have no idea. This just looks fun.”
Marin turned on some music and in no time they were talking and laughing as they worked on their projects. “How’s school going?” she asked, sincerely curious.
“Okay,” Julia said. “You were right about Kayla. She’s my best friend now.”
“That’s great. So recess is going all right?”
“Most of the time,” she said.
“When Cody isn’t teasing us,” Wyatt added.
“Who’s Cody?”
“Just some stupid kid.”
“Have you told your teacher about what’s happening?”
“Yeah. But she can’t make him stop.”
“He’s sneaky,” Wyatt said.
“Maybe you should tell your dad.”
“He’s too busy.”
“He never even took us school shopping. We just ordered some of what we needed on his computer.”
Marin felt Julia’s gaze on her.
“Would you take us shopping for everything else we need?” she asked softly as she looked down on her project.
Marin paused for a moment. She’d always loved back-to-school shopping even though she’d hated heading back to school. She needed some warmer clothes if she was going to be hanging around much longer, and these kids were easier to be around than she’d expected. “Why not? It sounds fun. As long as it’s okay with your dad.”
“I’ll ask him. Sunday. We can go Sunday.”
They returned to working on their frames and a short while later, they’d finished and were ready for pictures.
“I know where we can find some!” Julia said excitedly. “In Daddy’s closet. I found a box of pictures one day when I was helping Carla clean.”
“If it’s private, we shouldn’t be snooping.”
“It’s not private. I’ll show you.”
Marin followed the kids upstairs. It was already dark outside, so she flipped on lights as she hesitantly followed Julia and Wyatt into their father’s bedroom. Snooping or not, she still felt as if she was invading someone’s private space. Because she was.
That didn’t stop her from glancing around the room in the hopes of gleaning some insight into the mind of their enigmatic father. Adam’s bed, covered with a light geometrically patterned quilt in black and various shades of gray, was neatly made. Along with a coin jar and pen, electronic chargers for a phone and laptop sat on his bedside table, indicating he likely worked in bed. Just like his office, there was nothing remotely personal in this room, except for the faint masculine, spicy scent hanging in the air.
The kids had gone into the walk-in closet, and Julia was trying to get something down from the top shelf. “I’ll get it.” Marin grabbed the box, brought it out into the bedroom and set it on the floor. “You’re sure this is all right?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Julia asked.
“It’s just pictures,” Wyatt added.
Julia flipped open the top of the box to reveal stack after stack of photos that clearly spanned several years in the past. “We can find pictures of Mom in here,” Julia said.
As the kids rifled through the lower layers, Marin picked up the photo lying right on top. It was Adam with both kids, albeit years younger, sitting on his lap. They hung on him like monkeys on a tree. The next one down was of a young woman in shorts and a T-shirt sitting on a large blanket in the grass. A toddler-aged Wyatt with fingers covered in cheesy chips sat next to her. Julia lay on her stomach next to them, her legs bent and her feet in the air, eating a sandwich.
“Looks like you were having a picnic in this one,” Marin said, showing Julia the photo.
She smiled and nodded. “That’s my mom. Isn’t she pretty?”
Marin studied the woman’s face. Big brown eyes, like Julia’s. Long midnight-black hair. The kind of olive-colored skin of which Marin had always been envious. Who wouldn’t want skin that tanned in a millisecond? “She’s more than pretty.” Marin smiled softly. “She’s beautiful.” Their mother looked a bit too skinny, though, and had dark circles under her eyes, making Marin wonder how she’d died. Had she been sick? For a long time or a short while?
Suddenly, she had this feeling they shouldn’t be in Adam’s room. They shouldn’t be looking through these photos. “Come on, kids. Pick something out and let’s go downstairs.”
“NO, THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT, Wayne.” Adam was wrapping up his weekly phone meeting with his accounting manager as he walked home, juggling a bag of groceries. The update meeting with the islanders had gone well, but he had this one last thing to do before he could call it a day. “I looked at those financials you emailed and something’s miscoded between jobs.”
“You’re probably right. The numbers looked a little funky to me, too. I’ll take another look at the individual accounts and get back to you tomorrow. Anything else, Adam?”
“No, I think that’ll do it.”
“I took a look at the Mirabelle progress reports. You got a mixed bag going on there, don’t you?”
“Yeah. We had some late shipments. The library and Setterbergs’ buildings, Duffy’s, Whimsy, and the wedding shop are still giving us trouble, but The Rusty Nail is finished along with the other shops on that block.”
“You know it’d be a hell of a lot easier for you and I to put our heads together on this stuff if you were here in St. Louis.”
“I know.” Adam did not want to be having this conversation, but Wayne needed to vent every once in a while.
“You hire the right project managers and they can be onsite running the jobs. You can manage from here.”
“I know that.”
“Did you hear about the late season tornado that hit Kansas last week?” He paused. “Well, it’s our type of business. We could expand this company if we’re not limited by what you can handle. Double, triple the number of jobs.”
“I know that, too.” They could hire several operations managers and expand, and he could still be out managing the most challenging projects.
“In other words, you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Something like that. I gotta run, Wayne, I’m home.”
“Okay. Think about focusing your efforts at corporate, all right?”
“Will do,” he said, just to end the discussion. There was no way he was moving back to St. Louis. He disconnected the call and walked into his house.
“I like this one,” he heard Wyatt say.
“You can have that one,” Julia added. “I like mine better.”
“Okay, that’s it then.” That sounded like Marin. “You both like the ones you picked the best.”
The sounds of the voices, the children talking with Marin, carried from upstairs as Adam hung up his jacket. Immediately, he was suffused with a sense of belonging he hadn’t felt in a long while. After a tough day at work, there was something about coming home to his family that had always been soothing to him. But it was more than that. Barely a moment had gone by since they’d had sex in the backyard that he hadn’t thought of Marin, of wanting to touch her again.
Quietly, as they continued talking, he set the groceries down on the kitchen table and climbed the steps. That was odd. Their voices came from the direction of his bedroom. He walked down the hall and saw Marin sitting on the floor, her back to him, and the kids on her either side.
“What are you guys—” He stopped in his tracks as Bethany’s smiling face stared out at him from a photo lying on the carpet. Sunshine overhead caused silvery highlights in her dark black hair as she hiked in the foothills near their hometown. He remembered taking that picture of her as if it was yesterday. That was the day she’d told him she was pregnant with Julia.
Marin spun around. “Oh. Hi.” She faltered, as if she’d been caught in the act of something. “We were just… The kids made more frames. This time for themselves,” she explained. “They each wanted a picture of their mother to put on their bedside tables. I hope it’s—I hope it’s okay.”
“Yeah, it’s fine.” He bent down, picked up the photos and tossed them into the box. “You two can keep the ones you picked out, but the rest go back.”
“But, Daddy—”
“I brought some ice cream home.” Adam felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. “It’s in the grocery bag on the kitchen table. You guys go down and scoop up a bowl for yourselves. I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Can Marin stay?” Julia’s eyes lit up. “Can she, Daddy, please!”
“Please, please, please,” Wyatt begged.
“I think Marin needs to go,” Adam said, barely controlling the anger suddenly boiling up inside him like a geyser. “Don’t you, Marin?”
Marin seemed to sense his emotions. “Sorry, kids. Some other time. Maybe.”
The kids ran out of the room and down the stairs. “I appreciate you watching my kids tonight,” he whispered. “But I’d also appreciate it if you’d leave now.”
“Is it so bad they remember their mother?”
“Stay out of it, Marin.” He jammed the photos in the box. “It’s none of your business.”
“She’s their moth—”
“Who just happened to have killed herself.” He shut the door to his bedroom. “Slit her wrists. Right in the tub at our home outside St. Louis.”
“Oh, my God,” Marin murmured.
“Now you know.” He held her horrified gaze. “Satisfied?”
“I didn’t—I—oh, God, did Julia find her?”
“No. The kids were at a friend’s house for the day. I found her when I got home from work.”
Adam turned away from Marin, hoping to keep the memories at bay, but there was no point. They ripped through him as if someone was drawing a dull hacksaw down his back. Beth pregnant or nursing. Beth laughing or making love to him. Beth…dead. Her skin more pale than Adam could’ve ever imagined skin could be. And blood everywhere. Beth’s blood. Everywhere.
“I’m sorry,” Marin whispered.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He turned and opened the door, sending her the message loud and clear it was time for her to leave. “It’s my fault it happened. No one else is to blame. No one.”
“DADDY?” JULIA CALLED from her and Wyatt’s bedroom later that night.
On the way downstairs from his own room, Adam stopped in the hall, and stuck his head through the open door, keeping his gaze averted from the photos of Beth on the tables on either side of their bed. The house was big enough for them each to have their own room, but they weren’t interested in privacy. In every house they’d rented since leaving Missouri they’d wanted to share a room. Tonight, like every night, they were both piled into Julia’s queen-size bed with a book and a small light illuminating the pages. “You two are supposed to be asleep.”
“We’re not tired,” Julia whispered.
“We’re sorry,” Wyatt said.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” He turned to go.
“Daddy?” Julia said softly. “Will you read to us?”
Adam went completely still. Reading to the kids had always been a special thing for Beth. She’d never known that watching her read had been one of his favorite things, too. Her voice had been the most soothing sound in his world. He used to sit and watch them when she hadn’t a clue she was on center stage. He couldn’t imagine trying to take her place any more than he could imagine being so close to those photos of Beth.
“I’m pretty tired,” he murmured. “Maybe another time.”
“You said you’d take us shopping. Can we go this weekend?”
He had state and federal people coming on Monday to do some inspections. “That’s bad timing for me, honey. Let’s wait and see.”
“That means no.”
“It means let’s wait and see.”