Chapter 10

Despite her nightly prayer to the contrary, her life marched on. Day became night, night became day, and soon she’d lived another week, another two weeks, another three weeks, another month without her family.

In the mornings, she was woken from the dream-filled version of her living nightmare by the crow of Elijah’s rooster, the bird’s timekeeping ability as good as any alarm clock she’d ever owned. She’d lie there, in the eventual and inevitable silence, staring at the ceiling, her eyes welling with tears at all of the things she should be doing . . .

Making a cup of coffee for Jeff.

Checking the morning temperature so everyone dressed in the proper clothes.

Going over her day’s to-do list outlining what everyone needed to be doing and when/where.

Sometimes she could almost hear them in her head as they’d been in the early morning hours: Jeff’s sleepy thank-you as she handed him his favorite blend, Maggie’s pleas to read just a little before getting dressed, Spencer’s need to talk through the day ahead, and Ava’s sweet little “good morning, friends” ritual with her dolls and teddy bears wafting down the hallway. But that auditory track never lasted long. Instead, the snippets were quickly drowned out by the memory of a very different voice: “Ma’am, there’s been an accident.”

She knew she should be used to it by now. It was as much a part of her wake-up routine as the rooster. But try as she did to steel herself for its impact, the memory still reduced her to tears, first; nausea, second.

By the time she was done voiding her stomach of the limited food she’d eaten the previous evening, a peek out the front window would reveal a familiar basket filled with whatever breakfast foods Lydia had made for Elijah and their children. It was usually noon before her stomach was settled enough to take a bite or two of whatever Lydia had made, and even that could only be consumed while sitting in the chair Luke had set out for her beneath a nearby tree.

There, surrounded by the wide-open fields and the endless blue sky, she could detach from herself enough to breathe. Sometimes, she’d zone out so completely, she’d find that an hour, maybe two had gone by without her knowing. Other times, she’d catch a glimpse of one of the farm animals and then watch its every move until she finally grew bored and went inside.

The late afternoon and early evening hours took on a routine as well, with the basket she’d unpacked and left outside Lydia’s front door reappearing on her own porch with items more reflective of dinner. And just as there was always a main dish, a side dish, and a slice of warm bread, there was also a note from Lydia.

The notes, themselves, were never long, just a quick word of encouragement or a reminder that Lydia was ready to listen if or when Dani was ready to talk. But she wasn’t. Really, what was there to say? Her family was dead. No amount of talking could ever undo that fact.

That’s why, after the contents of the dinner basket were added to the refrigerator, she took advantage of the fact that Lydia and her family were eating in the main house to go for a long walk. The walks, themselves, had no rhyme or reason—no specific length or destination. Rather, they were simply a way to change her scenery and to try to work out some of the unfamiliar aches and pains that had begun to settle in her lower back and thighs.

By the time she returned to the grossdawdy house each evening, whatever energy she’d managed to harness to get herself down the road and back was gone, replaced by bone-reaching fatigue and a fresh round of guilt at the sight of her clothes, freshly laundered and folded, waiting for her atop the front porch when she returned.

All her life, she’d handled her own affairs, first as a latchkey kid, and then, later, as a wife and mother. Yet now, at thirty-five, something as seemingly simple as deciding whether to open the back door and step onto the deck or stay inside seemed too big, too daunting.

Pressing her head against the door’s single glass pane, she peered out at the barley crop she’d watched Elijah walk through and tend over the past few weeks. If Lydia’s husband thought Dani unfriendly or lazy for sitting on the back patio or beneath the tree, doing nothing but staring out at the land or sky most afternoons, he didn’t let on, his daily nod of greeting no different after a month than it had been in the beginning.

Still, it was hard not to wonder if the hatted man with the easy pace and strong work ethic was growing tired of her presence on his farm. How could he not? Her car never moved, her laundry took up space on the clothesline, she avoided contact with him and his children, and her able body did nothing to earn its keep.

“Elijah understands, Danielle,” Lydia assured her, again and again. “He really does.”

“No. He doesn’t. No one does,” she whispered as she pushed open the back door to the bright afternoon sun. Lifting her chin, she willed the warmth to stay with her as she crossed to the chair. There, as opposed to the rocking chair on the front porch, her very presence was obscured from the main house by the trunk of the pin oak tree, a saving grace when the guilt that invariably followed unleashed yet another round of cheek-soaking tears.

The sadness was always the same. She missed Jeff. She missed the kids. She missed Mom. And the thought of living the rest of her days without them pained her to her very core.

The guilt, though, that was always different, changing on a minute-to-minute basis. Guilt over staying home, guilt over having dreamed about time away from Jeff and the kids at a spa, guilt over losing herself in a book when her family needed her most, guilt over needing a stranger to tell her they were gone, guilt over being the one still alive and—

A quick squeal from the rear of the main house slanted her thoughts and her eyes to the left in time to see the heart-shaped back of Lydia’s gauzy white prayer kapp through a small gap in the pin oak’s budding branches. A second later, the kapp gave way to a peek at Lydia’s high cheekbones pushed still higher by a growing smile.

“Do you want to sit on my lap, in the chair, or next to each other on the ground?” Lydia asked, her voice wafting across to Dani.

“I want to sit on your lap on the ground!”

Nettie . . .

Lydia’s answering laugh distracted Dani’s thoughts from their immediate jump to Ava. “I did not say those two together, silly girl.”

“But I like them together very much,” Nettie said.

Again, Lydia laughed. “Yah. I do, too. So”—her pitch shifted with a change in stance—“let us put them together now. Before the boys return from school.”

A flurry of movement from behind the lowest part of the tree pulled Dani’s gaze downward in time to see a rustle of blue fabric (Lydia’s dress) and then, seconds later, the plop of light green fabric meeting blue. “I do not want to go to school,” Nettie announced. “I want to stay here. Like you.”

“I stay here now. But when I was five, as you will be next year, I went to school, too. That is how I learned how to count, how to read books, and how to know what the bishop is saying in church. It is these things that Luke and David and Mark are learning, too.”

“I can count,” Nettie countered. “One . . . two . . . three . . . six . . .”

“Four, Nettie. One, two, three, four.”

Nettie’s sweet voice filled the air again. “One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . six.”

“After four is five—four, five, six.”

“One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . .” Nettie stopped, sucked in a breath, and then, cautiously, added, “six.”

“Yah. That is it. In school you will learn to count to one hundred.”

Nettie’s answering gasp brought a small smile to Dani’s lips. “I cannot count that high!”

“Not now you can’t. But when you are in school you will, just as your brothers do.”

A beat or two of silence gave way to Nettie’s voice once again—a voice that was quieter, more hesitant than before. “But when I go to school I can only hug you in the morning and when I come back home.”

“Yah.”

“Hugs make you happy, Mamm.”

“Do I get hugs from Luke?” Lydia asked.

“Yah. Many!”

“Do I get hugs from David?”

“Yah.”

“Do I get hugs from Mark?”

Dani grinned at Lydia’s tactic as Nettie’s answering yah filtered its way through the branches.

“See?” Lydia said. “School does not stop hugs. It just teaches you things you must know between hugs.”

“I know how to feed the baby cow with the bottle! I know how to put eggs in the basket without breaking them! I know how to pet all kinds of animals!”

“Yah. You do. But there are many more things you must learn. Like the boys. Like I did. And like Dat did, too.”

“Dat went to school?” Nettie asked in the wake of a tiny gasp. “But Dat is big and I am little.”

Lydia’s laugh echoed in the crisp afternoon air. “Dat and I were both little once, too. Just like you.” Then, “Don’t you like when the boys read to you? Won’t it be fun when you can read to . . .”

Dani cocked her ear in an attempt to hear the rest of Lydia’s sentence, but there was only silence. Curious, she leaned forward only to duck back again as Nettie jumped up, the child’s dress swooshing into place just above her tiny ankles.

“No! No! Don’t go away, smile! I will be right back!” A few running steps led to silence, then to more running steps, and, finally, to a flash of yellow just before green fabric met blue fabric a second time. “See, Mamm? I picked you a flower—a yellow one! See? It is pretty! It should make you a smile!”

“I am smiling, silly girl,” Lydia said, her voice thick with . . . emotion?

“No, a big smile! Like before! When you teached me to count, and spoke of Dat being little!”

Again, Dani leaned forward, her heart thudding softly in her ears.

Smile like she wants, Lydia . . . please.

“Like this?” Lydia finally asked.

“Yah! That is a good smile, Mamm! A very good smile!”

“I’m glad,” Lydia said, her smile audible once again. “I love you, silly girl.”

This time, the flash of skin Dani could just make out beyond the trunk of the tree belonged to Nettie as she wrapped her tiny arms around Lydia’s neck with youthful, unadulterated joy. “I love you, too, Mamm.”

Clamping a hand over her mouth, Dani dropped her head onto her knees and gave in to the answering sob she was powerless to stop.

* * *

She gave the piece of fried chicken one last push across the plate and then abandoned her fork once and for all, its answering clatter against the wooden tabletop muffled by the blows from the one-man boxing match inside her head. Round and round her thoughts went, her repeated attempts to feel good about herself as a parent undermined, again and again, by reality’s one-two punch.

The memory of Ava saying, “I love you, Mommy,” became a race to actually remember a time when they’d sat outside on the back patio and just talked . . .

Answer: never.

The memory of Ava wrapping her arms around Dani’s neck the way Nettie had done with Lydia led her on an internal search for times when she hadn’t hurried through such a moment in favor of whatever was next on the schedule.

Answer: there were none.

The memory of Lydia’s excitement as the boys arrived home from school on their scooter bikes yanked Dani’s thoughts back to the afternoon schedule she was so often consulting when Maggie and Spencer first climbed into the car at the end of the day. She’d always looked up and smiled at them, hadn’t she?

Answer: after I double- and triple-checked where we were supposed to go next . . .

The memory of watching Lydia and Nettie, hand in hand, trailing behind the boys to the barn for the baby cow’s after-school feeding had sent her own thoughts skittering about for those times when all three kids had enjoyed something so simple together.

Answer: last summer’s vacation, maybe?

The memory of Elijah and Lydia standing near the barn, smiling and laughing together as they watched their children chase after a trio of chickens, left her trying to remember similar moments when she and Jeff had stood, side by side, simply enjoying their children’s joy.

Answer: Christmas morning? Maybe the same beach vacation?

Each memory, each introspection, left her feeling more and more battered. Every night, when she was still Jeff’s wife and the kids’ mom, she’d gone to bed feeling satisfied, maybe even a little smug over the fact that every item on her day’s to-do list had been crossed off. Even the things that hadn’t been there in the morning yet had been added throughout the day.

Since the moment Maggie had been old enough to go to school, Dani had been the go-to parent for every teacher her daughter had. Books needed covering? No problem, Dani had lots of brown grocery bags at the ready . . . Parents needed to be called and cajoled onto various committees? No problem, Dani would call . . . A chaperone was needed for an upcoming field trip? No problem. Dani could go . . .

The same held true for every one of Maggie’s and Spencer’s activities. If there was a need, Dani filled it, plain and simple. And Ava? She was such an easygoing three-year-old. She went along for everything and never made a fuss. But during the day, when Maggie and Spencer were at school? That was the time for Ava’s playgroup . . . Story time at the library . . . A stop at the grocery store . . . Running over to Jeff’s office to plan a client meeting or drop off a baked treat for the staff . . . And for double- and triple-checking her to-do list.

“My good old to-do list,” she murmured.

Pressing her fingers to her temples, she tried to will away the ache in her head that had grown progressively worse throughout the day. But like the pain in her lower back, it refused to comply. Some of it, she knew, was from all the crying. Another, equally large culprit was surely her inability to eat much of anything. But crying was her new norm, and the very thought of eating left her feeling sick to her stomach in much the same way she’d felt when—

She jerked upright on the kitchen bench.

Was it possible?

Could she actually be . . .

Noooo.

Jeff and the kids. They’d been gone seven weeks. If she was pregnant, she would know. She’d always known.

With Maggie, it had been the sudden aversion to eating. She’d think something looked good or smelled appetizing, only to change her mind at the last minute.

With Spencer, her appetite had lessened, as well, but it was the pervasive ache in her lower back that had alerted her to his presence.

With Ava, it had been all of the above, plus a kind of fitful sleep that left her feeling as if she’d run a full marathon before her feet had even hit the ground in the morning.

And while she was most definitely dealing with all of those same issues now, every single one of them—the loss in appetite, the body aches, the restless sleep—went hand in hand with grief and loss.

So, too, did her missed—

Dani’s gasp filled the kitchen as her thoughts rewound to the days leading up to the accident. To standing with the kids at the airport, waiting for her mom to arrive . . . To calling the kids’ favorite pizza place for their special night-in with Grandma . . . To the private dining room Jeff had reserved for the two of them so they could celebrate their anniversary alone . . . To the gleeful realization that her mom and the kids were all fast asleep when they got home later that night . . . To the candles Jeff had lit around their bedroom and the way his eyes had sparkled when he reached for her . . .

Swallowing hard, she struggled up onto shaky legs, crossed to the bedroom for her purse and car keys, and headed out into the dusk.