Table for five (10 page)

But maybe not.

Sean squatted down and peeled away the remains of the windshield. Something sliced into his hand but he kept working. The truck teetered some more but he didn’t stop.

Everything in the SUV had landed in the wrong place. There were stray golf clubs stabbing into upholstery, a lost shoe on the crushed dashboard. The DVD player, of which Derek was so proud, was mangled and smashed. He came across Crystal’s purse and it was virtually empty, as though someone had turned it inside out.

Sean became desperate, half crawling into the truck, searching for his brother. He brushed past Crystal’s bony limbs. Something slick coated the heaved-up dashboard. A terrible odor infested the cab.

Then he realized where Derek was.

Sean paused to gather his thoughts. It couldn’t be done. It was impossible to think. Slowly, gingerly, he got out of the car, slipping in blood. His hand shook so bad he couldn’t hold his phone still enough to dial. He finally sank to his knees, putting the phone on the ground to keep it steady while he stabbed at the numbers: 9-1-1.
Send.

Saturday
6:30 a.m.

L
ily was startled from sleep. She should not have been sleeping at all, she thought, leaping up from the sofa, pacing the living room as soon as her feet touched the floor. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She had no right to relax her vigilance until she made sure Crystal was all right.

She checked the wall clock—6:30 a.m. Outside, the world was a monochromatic gray. She grabbed the handset of the phone and quickly checked the caller ID to make sure she hadn’t missed a call. She had not. Still, she felt guilty for having dozed off.

Maybe she should have had coffee with Sean Maguire. No, she thought. Coffee was bad for you, even in an emergency. She shuddered herself fully awake with the thought. Get a grip, Lily.

The TV, which she’d muted hours ago, flickered with the
hyperrealistic colors of a paid-programming broadcast. She picked up the remote to click it off. Then a terrible thought seized her and she switched to a local station and turned up the volume. A talking-head anchorwoman, looking impossibly perky at this hour of the morning, offered a farm-and-ranch report.

Lily muted the sound again but left the station on the local news. She punched in the number of Sean’s mobile phone. Funny how she’d memorized it instantly, the moment he gave it to her. She got a recording and hung up without saying anything. He was probably out of range. Then she tried Crystal’s number, praying with every cell of her body that her friend would pick up, laugh and explain that she’d been swept away and ended up at a roadside motel with her ex-husband.

No such luck.

With a sigh, Lily tiptoed upstairs to check on her friend’s children. Crystal’s house was cluttered but beautiful, vintage furniture giving it a special air of permanence. It felt strangely intimate, almost invasive, to watch Crystal’s children sleep.

Cameron lay facedown and spread-eagled, the covers in a tangle around his gangly limbs. Dim light through the window washed over the clutter of his room—schoolbooks, laundry, golf paraphernalia. There was a peculiar smell of gym shoes and grass in here, and the trash can overflowed with empty food wrappers. Crystal said he ate like a tapeworm host.

Lily backed out of the room and closed the door, then went to check on the girls. Charlie slept amid a litter of stuffed animals. The glow of a SpongeBob night-light gave the toys a glassy-eyed, strangely sinister look, though Charlie seemed content enough.

Across the room, Ashley had thrown off all her covers. She stirred and snuffled as Lily bent over the side of the crib and pulled a blanket up over her. As she tucked it around Ashley,
Lily felt a peculiar warm contentment, stirred by the simple act of checking on the sleeping baby. The girls were so little, totally dependent. For someone not cut out to have kids, Lily was occasionally a victim of biological impulse, attacked by untimely tugs of a yearning she didn’t know how to assuage.

A peculiar weight pressed down on her. She was going to kill Crystal for being such a flake and disappearing like this.

She tiptoed out of the baby’s room and went downstairs to put the kettle on. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror and grimaced. Her hair was frizzed, her cheek imprinted with the texture of the sofa’s upholstery. How charming.

She ducked into the bathroom to rinse her mouth, splash water on her face and drag a comb through her hair. Then she pressed her hands down flat on the countertop and tried to make them stop trembling.

It didn’t work. Nothing worked. Only seeing Crystal walk through the door, blowing kisses and waving excuses around like a lace handkerchief, would help now.

Worry felt like a live, loathsome thing, twisting and writhing in Lily’s gut. This, she thought, feeling nauseous and light-headed, this was what loving someone did to you. The moment you started to care about someone, they made you frantic with worry. As soon as you let yourself love someone, you were doomed.

She rinsed her face again and glanced into the mirror. This was how she would look forty years from now, her face scored by lines of concern, eyes troubled and haunted by factors beyond her control. Old and afraid—that was how she looked.

Crystal liked to tease her about her habit of avoiding matters of the heart. “You’re like someone who’s afraid of water,” she once said.

“I
am
afraid of water,” Lily had reminded her.

“And it’s totally irrational.”

“No, giving yourself heart and soul to someone else and expecting to be taken care of, now, that’s irrational. Why would I do that?”

Crystal had offered a smile that, after the end of her marriage, had been wistful and sad with hard-earned wisdom. “Because that’s when life finally makes sense.”

My life makes perfect sense right now, Lily thought as she left the bathroom. Or rather, it had until last night, when she’d rushed over here to a missing-persons situation.

She put the phone handset into the charger and went to fix a cup of herbal tea.

Ginseng this morning, to sharpen her mind. The coffee smelled almost unbearably delicious, but she didn’t go near the glossy blue sack of imported Lavazza. When you were already insane with worry, she thought, why would you consume something that irritates your nerves?

She paced the kitchen, waiting for the water to boil. Crystal called her kitchen Mission Control, but it usually looked like Mission Out-of-Control. Letters, bills and junk mail littered the built-in desk. The fridge was plastered with schoolwork old and new, recipes and diet tips, expired grocery coupons and school forms and permission slips, most of them out of date.

Lily put away the clean dishes. In the process, she came across a mug that still bore a smudge of lipstick in Crystal’s favorite shade. She moved to wash it off, then hesitated and set the mug on the sill above the sink. Then she nervously tried organizing the spice rack. She listened intently to the water in the kettle and took it off the heat before the whistle blew, then set the tea to steep.

She tried to spend her nervous energy on tidying the cupboards. They were so disorganized that the kitchen was barely functional. Crystal was a creative person, but not an orderly one.

Lily was standing in the middle of the kitchen, trying to decide where to stash a Pyrex measuring cup, when the sound of an engine crescendoed and then stopped. She heard the heartbeat thud of a car door opening and closing.

Thank God, Lily thought, rushing to the back door. She’s finally home.

It was Sean Maguire’s truck, she saw, her stomach dropping. He was alone. And walking slowly toward her.

The rising sun painted everything with precise strokes in roseate hues. Each blade of grass, every brick of the driveway, the texture of the tree bark, the shapes of budding leaves—all had been picked out in excruciating, exquisite detail by the glowing light. The colors of the sunrise lay upon Sean Maguire’s broad shoulders, his unkempt hair. His imposing silhouette stood out starkly as the new sun lit him from behind.

Lily stood on the threshold of the kitchen, her heart knowing the truth before her mind did. She couldn’t make out the expression on his face as he came toward her but, of course she didn’t have to. The terrible truth was in the aching stiffness of his gait as he approached.

There was a moment—a split second, really—in which she allowed herself to hope. But that quickly died when he stepped into the slant of light from the kitchen and she saw his face.

Lily decided to speak up first. At least that would buy a few more seconds. A few more seconds to believe the world was normal. A few more seconds to believe nothing had changed.

“The children are asleep.” It came out as a whisper.

He nodded. His throat worked up and down as he swallowed. Lily kept focusing on details—the way the beard stubble shadowed the shape of his jaw, the luxurious thickness of his eyelashes. She noticed a thin, fresh cut across the ridge of his cheek, held together by two small white butterfly band
ages. The fact that he looked immeasurably older than when he’d left the house last night.

Lily thought about screaming. Maybe if she screamed, it would drown out the words he would inevitably say to her. She didn’t, of course. No amount of screaming would make the truth go away.

Stop. She made herself stop. This was absurd. “Where’s Crystal?” she finally asked. Oh, no, she thought, changing her mind, don’t say it, please don’t say it. A thickness of tears gathered in her throat.

“It was an accident,” Sean said.

It was what he didn’t say that roared loudest in her head. He didn’t say Crystal was all right. He didn’t say they were working on her, that she’d make a full recovery. He said nothing of the sort.

“Both of them?” she heard herself ask.

He nodded, his eyes tortured.

Lily had forgotten she was holding the Pyrex cup until she heard a thud and realized that she had dropped it. The cup hit the threshold and rolled onto the concrete walkway and, quite unexpectedly and bizarrely, stayed intact.

Both Lily and Sean ignored it.

She felt herself falling in slow motion, and the only way to stop was to fall against him, against his chest, and let the stranger’s arms come up around her.

She felt the strength of him but found no comfort there. Crystal was already gone, and the truth of that tore a gaping hole in the world.

And then it hit Lily that the man holding her had lost his brother. He shouldn’t be propping her up when he had grieving of his own to do.

She pulled away from him. There were screams of shock and horror that needed to erupt from her, but she wouldn’t let
them. She would do at least that much for Crystal. She would not let the children find her a sobbing, incoherent mess.

Later, she told herself, stepping back from Sean Maguire. I’ll cry later.

Saturday
6:45 a.m.

“W
here?” Lily asked, her whole body aching as though she’d been in an accident, too.

“The coastal highway, a few miles south of the Seal Bay exit.”

She wondered what they’d been doing way out there. “What happened?”

“The car went off the road. He might have been swerving to keep from hitting something. The pavement was slick, and they went over an embankment.”

“When did the highway patrol find them?” The idea of Crystal trapped in a car, injured and terrified, haunted Lily. She saw Sean’s face change, stiffening with inner pain. “Oh, God,” she said. “You found them, didn’t you?” Recoiling, she closed her eyes to shut out the look that flashed across his features.

“It was a couple of hours ago.” His voice was low and husky with grief and lack of sleep.

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling the urge to take his hand but deciding it wouldn’t help. “That must have been so terrible for you.” She kept imagining what it was like. She wondered if they’d suffered, if they’d struggled to stay alive, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask. For herself, she wanted to believe Crystal had gone suddenly, never knowing what had hit her.

“Now what?” she asked Sean, holding on to sanity by a slender thread.

“The highway patrol is sending someone,” he said, his voice toneless with shock. “I told them to let me go ahead, you know. I didn’t want the kids waking up to a bunch of patrol cars and strangers all over the place.”

“That’s…that’s the right thing to do. I guess.”
Like this is something I would know.
Lily’s mouth felt completely dry. She could not believe how hard it was to speak or even to move. “This is bad,” she muttered, forcing herself into action. She went into the kitchen and looked at the half-organized cupboard. “I’m losing it, and that’s bad. I need to hold myself together for the children.”

He crossed the kitchen and gripped her shoulders firmly, then looked down into her eyes. His hands felt unexpected, discomfiting, a stranger’s touch. “Yes,” he said firmly, “you do. And you will. We both will.”

How was it that staring into his eyes just for a moment helped her reel her unraveling sanity back in? She had no answer, but his stare—it was more like a glare, actually—worked, maybe because deep within his gaze she detected a powerful hurt. She forced herself to stand up to the truth. Crystal was dead. Derek was dead. The children were alive, and they needed her.

“Yes, okay,” she said, clearing her throat. “All right. The kids. They’re absolutely our top priority. The way we tell them right now is going to affect how they handle it.”

“Yeah.” He let go of her shoulders. “I agree. The highway patrol is also sending over someone from Child Protective Services to check on the kids.”

“Child Protective Services?” Lily was baffled.

“They said it’s standard in cases like this, when…when both parents are gone.” He paused and seemed to have trouble taking the next breath.

Lily thought again about reaching out, as he had to her, but her hands stayed at her sides, crushed into fists. “I imagine it’s their job to make sure someone’s looking after the children,” she said faintly.

“I told them the kids were safe and sound, but by law they have to check.” He reached up and absently massaged his neck. “They wanted to send someone right away, but I said I thought I should be the one to tell them first.”

Lily felt a jolt of apprehension. “You hardly know these children,” she said, picturing their sweet, unsuspecting faces.

He glared at her. “I’m all they’ve got.”

In terms of actual family, he was nearly correct, Lily reflected. Crystal was an only child. Her father had died before Ashley was born and her mother was in a nursing home. On her best day, Dorothy Baird remembered her own name and nothing more. The most recent stroke had left her barely able to speak at all. Now her diminished capacity was a blessing, because she wouldn’t understand that her daughter was gone.

Derek had a stepfather who lived in Palm Desert and that was about it. That, and Sean Maguire.

“She’s my—” Lily stopped, took a breath, steadied herself. “She was my best friend.” There. She’d said it. She had spoken of Crystal in the past tense. “These children are like my own.” The strength of her own conviction surprised Lily. She had never quite articulated the children’s hold on her heart like that before. She was shaken by an alien sensation, the fierce
protectiveness of a mother eagle swooping in to defend her own. The notion frightened her with its power, and she realized the children didn’t need her as a friend or teacher. They needed her in a way that could alter her life for good; they needed things she wasn’t sure she possessed.

Sean headed toward the living room. “We’ll tell them together.”

“They might not get up for a while,” she said. “It’s not a schoolday, so—”

A cry sounded upstairs.

No, thought Lily. Not yet, please, not yet. Let them sleep awhile longer, let them have just a few more moments of blissful ignorance.

The cry sounded again, more insistent this time. Lily and Sean exchanged a glance. “I’ll go,” she said, heading for the stairs.

“I’ll go, too.”

They found Ashley standing up in the crib, fists clutching the rail, face screwed up in preparation for another wail. She stopped when she saw Lily, smiled and reached out, hands opening and closing as if to grab the air. In the bed across the room, Charlie stirred but didn’t awaken.

Lily tried a soothing
shh
as she lifted Ashley from the crib. The toddler’s diaper had a leaden, claylike feel. Lily noticed Sean standing uncertainly in the doorway, and reality poked through the fog of shock. This child was utterly helpless, and now she was an orphan in the care of an uncle who seemed more like a big kid and a woman who had sworn never to have children.

“I’ve got this,” she told him, though her voice sounded wobbly with uncertainty.

“I’ll go make coffee,” he said, heading for the stairs.

Lily was on her own. “That’s helpful,” she murmured, carrying Ashley into the bathroom. “Just what we need.”

“Okeydokey,” said Ashley.

Lily found that by focusing on the baby’s face, she could hold herself together, but it wasn’t the baby’s face that needed attention. Lily’s inexperience showed as she fumbled through the diaper change, though Ashley submitted with a curious patience.

The stretchy, fitted jumpsuit was awkward to remove, though the diaper peeled off easily enough. Then Lily stood there with the balled-up dirty diaper in one hand, her other on the baby to make sure she didn’t roll off the table.

“I can’t just leave you here while I go put this in the trash,” she explained to the baby.

Ashley babbled and smacked her lips. “Want juice,” she said. “Want cookie.”

“In a minute. Let’s get you dressed.” She opted for putting the diaper on the counter to dispose of later. Where was the trash can? she wondered, exasperated. Crystal had never been the most organized person, but you’d think she would put both the trash can and clean diapers within reach.

“Lily sad,” Ashley observed. “Got tears.”

Lily realized her cheeks were drenched. “You’re right,” she whispered, using a baby wipe on her face. “I’m all right,” she assured Ashley, though she felt herself unraveling like a runaway spool of thread. She didn’t belong to herself now. Her best friend was dead and Lily could not break down and cry for her. “I’ll be fine.” She pasted on a bright smile. “Okay?”

“’Kay.”

She fumbled around, managing the diaper, a shirt and pull-on pants. As she lifted Ashley up and set her on the floor, Lily caught a glimpse of herself in a round wall mirror framed by pink fairies.

She looked the way she’d expect to look after the sort of night she’d had. Inside, everything was different. A terrible darkness bloomed there, obscuring everything else. As she
hurried after the baby scampering toward the stairs, she knew with irrevocable certainty that her life would never be the same. She felt like a different person, a stranger in her skin.

Ashley held on to her finger as they went downstairs with excruciating slowness, each step of the descent drumming home the reality of what had happened. Sean waited at the bottom, the expression on his face inscrutable. When they were halfway down, Lily sensed a presence behind her and turned.

“Charlie.”

“Mom,” said Charlie in a sleepy voice. “Where’s Mom?”

“Mom!” echoed Ashley in her cherub’s voice.

Lily and Sean exchanged a terrible look. The sight of Charlie’s face, soft with sleep, nearly undid Lily again. How? she thought wildly. How would they break this to her?

“Good morning, kiddo,” she said, stroking the little girl’s tousled hair.

“Hi, Lily. Hi, Uncle Sean. What happened to your face?”

“Hey, short stuff,” Sean said. “Why don’t you go see if Cameron’s up?”

“He never gets up early on Saturday,” Charlie pointed out. Somber-faced, she looked from Sean to Lily. And in her eyes was a deep comprehension that caused a chill to creep up Lily’s spine.

“All right,” she said with quiet resignation. “I’ll go get him.”

“She knows something’s wrong,” said Sean.

Lily picked up the baby, brought her to the kitchen and settled her into a high chair. “She’s known that since yesterday.”

He grabbed a box of Peek Freans and handed one to Ashley, watching her as though she were a time bomb. She gazed at him for a moment of eloquent silence, then took the biscuit from him. “’Kyou,” she said.

She seemed to like Sean better this morning.

Lily picked up the cup of tea she’d brewed earlier and tried to take a sip, but the brew was lukewarm and bitter now. She remembered setting it to steep before Sean got home. That had been eons ago, it had happened in a different era, before she had to face the fact that her best friend and Derek had walked out of her classroom yesterday and had driven over a cliff.

“What’s going on?” asked Cameron in a grumpy, just-awakened voice.

Charlie scurried in and went straight to Sean. “I made him get up and he’s all mad at me.”

Lily filled a sippy cup with juice and gave it to the baby. Cameron stood, stolid and wary, straddling the threshold as though about to flee.

Lily felt Sean’s eyes on her. Now? he seemed to be asking.

These poor kids, Lily thought, clamping her teeth together to keep in a sob. We’re as lost as they are.

Sean cleared his throat. He kept hold of Charlie’s hand and looked into Cameron’s eyes. “There was a car accident yesterday…”

Charlie’s face crumpled and her shoulders drew inward and trembled. Sean put his arm around her. Lily moved toward Cameron, her hand outstretched. He ignored the gesture and right before her eyes, he seemed to turn as cold as stone, although his expression didn’t change.

“Your mom and dad were driving together, and the weather made it dangerous,” Sean continued, a subtle note of disbelief in his voice, “and their car went, uh, it went down a bank.”

While Lily listened, she watched Sean’s face grow whiter. Cameron’s expression vanished to nothing.

A thin sheen of sweat glistened on Sean’s brow and upper lip. Lily thought about what this night had been like for him while the rest of them slept. She considered the scratches on his face and hands, his torn sweatshirt, the muddy boots
parked outside the door. He’d been the one to find his brother and Crystal. What had those haunted eyes seen? Had he touched them? Had he cried?

She wondered all these things as if she should be concerned, but to her mild surprise, she felt a numbness. She could register facts, but God help her, she couldn’t match them to any tangible feeling.

There were too many things to feel, to talk about. Too many inexplicable things to explain. Lily slowly lowered her hand, touching Cameron’s. “We don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

“You don’t need to say anything.” He glared at her.

“Yes, we do, but no one knows where to start.”

“So what are you looking at me for?” Cameron wrenched his hand away from hers. His face registered shock and pain for a fleeting second before the uncomprehending expression of a wounded animal masked his features.

Seeing his agony, feeling it pierce through the numbness—that was when Lily discovered something worse than her own grief.