Tracie Peterson (33 page)

“What’s happened to us?” Erica finally asked, her tone somber. “We didn’t used to be like this.”

“We’ve torn ourselves apart,” Brook replied. “And I think we’ll have to be the ones to find a way to put ourselves back together.”

“Like Humpty Dumpty,” Erica more stated than asked.

“Like six separate pieces of a beloved quilt,” Brook replied, her voice cracking with emotion.

Erica felt tears come to her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Brook. I just never saw it that way.”

“Have you read your letter yet?”

“What letter?” Erica asked curiously. She went back to the box and immediately spied the envelope.

“It’s from Rachelle.”

“Oh, that letter.” Erica remembered Mattie mentioning that Mavis was sending missives for each of them. “Did you read yours?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Read your letter,” Brook said softly. “Then call me and we’ll talk some more.”

Long after they had concluded their call, Erica sat in a stupor and stared dry-eyed at Grammy’s gift and Rachelle’s letter.

How appropriate that they should come together in one package, Erica thought. She picked up the letter and read it again.

To my daughter Erica
,

You were the last of my babies and probably the hardest to leave. For you see, I knew there would be no more after you. I had made such a desperate mess of my life and you were so unexpected. My one true love, your father, was dead before you were even born—dead from an overdose of the drugs he could never seem to beat. I never recovered from losing him. Every time I looked at you girls, you reminded me of him—of the love I’d lost
.

By now you must know that I have taken my life. I hope you won’t hate me, but then, I’m sure you probably already do. How could you not hate a mother who left you alone to be raised by a grandmother? How could you not despise me every day of my life? This letter seems a poor offering to tell you how much I wish I could take back the things I’ve done with my life. My acting and all the laurels that accompanied it are meaningless when I realize that the only thing that ever really mattered was the one thing I couldn’t seem to get right. I’m
sure it means nothing at all now, but I cannot leave without letting you know that I loved you. I know that if my mother had her way with you, you know all about forgiving and loving. I’m sure she shared God and the Bible and all those important things, and because of this, I can only hope that somehow—someway—you might find it in your heart to forgive me. God knows I can’t forgive myself
.

Rachelle

Erica put the letter down and looked once again to the wall hanging. “Six separate pieces,” she whispered, knowing full well it was exactly the kind of thing Grammy would do to prove a point.

She remembered Grammy saying, “
Sometimes when folks stop listening, it’s time to give them something more visual. Sometimes, you have to see what people are saying rather than hear it
.”

Today she was given new sight.

Chapter 29

Ashley couldn’t say that she was happy to see Jack pull into the driveway. She knew he was furious with her choice to remain in Estes Park, but she had refused to deal with him over the telephone. She watched as he brought the Bronco to a stop and smiled as her boys bounded out from the backseat. She’d hardly seen them or talked to them since the accident, and now they were here, happy and healthy and exactly what she needed. It was easy to forgive Jack his intrusion as she watched the boys make a beeline for the front door.

“Mommy!” Zach called from the doorway. “Mommy, where are you?”

“I’m right here, Zachy,” Ashley replied, coming into the room. “Goodness, but you look like you’ve grown at least a foot taller. Come give me a kiss and hug.”

Zach ran at her and very nearly knocked her to the ground as he tackled her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I missed you!”

“Zach! You can’t crash into your mother that way,” Jack called from the door.

Ashley looked up to meet her husband’s brooding expression. “He didn’t hurt me,” she replied, wanting to add, “Not like
you
hurt me.”

“Mom!” John called, scooting around his father’s frame to run across the room.

She laughed at his tanned complexion and sun-bleached hair. “I guess you must have spent a lot of time at the beach in California.”

“We went there every day,” John replied, hugging her so tightly that it caused Ashley pain. She refused to acknowledge it, however.
These were her boys, and if they needed to connect to her in that way, she wouldn’t refuse them for the world.

“So let’s sit down and you can tell me everything you’ve been doing.” She led them to the couch, not offering Jack so much as another word.

The boys rattled on about their trip to California and how nice the flight attendant had been to them. They gave her detailed accounts about going to the beach and practically living in Uncle Loren’s swimming pool. Then they switched gears and told her about church camp and ran quickly to where Jack had left the bags by the door. Digging in, they each searched through their things until they found what they were looking for.

“I made this wooden cross for you,” John said proudly. “We had to sand it and stain it and then polish it up. It’s supposed to remind us of God’s love.”

Ashley held the piece in her hands and fought to keep the tears from coming. “It’s very pretty, John. You did a nice job.”

“Here’s mine,” Zach said, throwing himself on the couch beside her. For all of his time on earth, Zach had yet to simply sit down rather than fly through the air and take the furniture as if by attack. He put a leather heart in her hand.

Studying the piece, Ashley noted how the heart was actually two pieces lashed together at the sides by lacing rawhide through prepunched holes. The top had been left open and there were pieces of paper inside the pocket.

“It’s very nice, Zach. Did you sew the sides together?” Ashley asked.

“Yup. It’s not sewed all the way,” he said in his little-boy way. “That’s so God can put His Word in your heart.” He took the piece from her and spilled out the paper. “Those are my Bible verses. I memorized them at camp. Do you want to hear them?”

“I memorized some verses too!” John declared proudly. “I can tell you mine.”

Ashley listened patiently as the boys recited their verses. They
were very familiar verses—the kind that were taught to children. Easy-to-remember verses. Very important verses.

“‘For God so loved the world,’” John began with the eloquence of a Shakespeare actor, “‘that he gave his one and only Son.’” He paused and looked upward as if seeking guidance. He grinned and shrugged. “And if you believe in Him, you’ll have eternal life.”

“Very good,” Ashley told her firstborn and hugged him tightly.

“I learned ‘God is love.’ It’s really short,” Zach said proudly. “It’s on this paper if you don’t believe me.”

His simple words were arrows in her heart. “
God is love
.” She could hear Grammy telling her that God’s love was the kind that never failed. It was a love to be counted on.

“Boys, you need to give your mother a rest now. Why don’t you go outside and play for a bit. You haven’t been up here for a long time and there are probably lots of things you’ll want to explore,” Jack told his sons.

Ashley said nothing, knowing that Jack wanted to have time to speak with her in private. She had refused to give him any answers on the telephone and no doubt he felt entitled to some explanation for her delay in returning home.

“We’ll find you some pretty rocks, Mommy,” Zach told her as he threw himself into action.

“You do that, Zach,” she told him and took up the pieces of Bible verses and replaced them in the pocket of the heart. “Thank you both for my presents. I feel so special that you would make these for me.”

The boys hardly seemed to hear her, however, as they hurried outside. Their laughter warmed her heart. How she had missed them.

“So you want to tell me what this is all about?” Jack questioned.

Ashley looked at him. Really looked at him. He had dark circles under his eyes and his jaw was set in that tight sort of way that always revealed that he was upset. His normally tanned complexion, compliments of his Mediterranean ancestors, seemed almost pale and sallow. She wondered if he’d been sick but decided against asking.

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you by staying here, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I felt we should discuss on the telephone,” Ashley replied softly.

“Well, what sort of thing is it?” he asked, coming to sit in the overstuffed chair opposite her.

“Jack, there are some things that we need to deal with. Things that I don’t understand yet.”

“If this is about your memory loss, stop worrying about it. You aren’t missing anything but a few painful hours. Didn’t you ever consider that this was God’s way of helping you deal with the accident? If you had to sit around reliving the horror of what you went through in the wreck, it might well be too much for your mind.”

Ashley bit her lip. How could she explain this to him without coming right out and accusing him of lying? Yet how long could she give him a chance to come through with the truth?

“I want to take the boys and go visit Grammy,” she said, taking a different approach to the subject. “I need time to think, and I need time with them.”

“I can’t get off to go traipsing off to Kansas,” Jack said, running his hands through his hair. “You know my schedule is pretty hectic. It was difficult just to get up here. There’s no way I can go to Mattie’s.”

“I don’t want you to go with us to Mattie’s,” Ashley said, trying as hard as she could not to sound bitter. “I need that time alone.”

Jack stopped fidgeting and looked at her oddly. “What are you saying? You’ve had time alone up here. I thought I was being the understanding husband by giving you space, but I’ve reached my limit. I can’t keep asking my mother to fill in doing the job that you should be in Denver doing.”

Ashley felt her body tense. She wasn’t going to let this turn into an ugly fight. She refused to give in to his baiting. “You won’t have to worry about anything. I’ll arrange for the housekeeper to be there to cook and clean and the boys will be with me.”

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Jack said, getting up to pace. “You are
barely a month out of the hospital. Granted, you’ve had an incredible recovery—”

“Yes, and I see my doctor on Tuesday. Unless she has some good reason for why I can’t travel by car to Kansas, I’m going.”

He turned and looked at her. Sheer panic and fear were etched in his expression. Ashley knew then that she’d been right all along. He was keeping a great deal from her. Her mind ran rampant. Had she told him about the baby only to hear his accusations and anger? Was that what she couldn’t remember?

“I don’t want you to go,” he finally said. “There’s no reason for it. Not any good reason.”

She’d had enough. It was time to make herself understood. “Jack, I know I was at the clinic the day of the accident.” There. It was a simple statement, and he could do with it whatever he chose.

He blanched. “Ashley, you’re wrong. Your mind is playing tricks on you.”

“And you’re lying to me,” Ashley stated evenly. She got up from the couch, clutching the gifts her children had given her. “I don’t know why you’re lying to me, but I do know that you are.”

He began to pace again and the look on his face left Ashley no doubt that her suspicions were well-founded. Something was terribly wrong. And this was the heart of her fears and overwhelming sorrow. The key to her recovery was locked up somewhere in the events of that day—in the hours or minutes before the accident.

“Look what we found!” John declared as the boys burst into the house.

Jack exchanged a look with Ashley before he shook his head. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

Ashley watched him walk off as the boys came to show her a bird’s nest with its cracked shell remains. Now, more than ever, Ashley knew that she had to get away from Jack. He needed time to think and so did she. She also needed time with her boys. A week or two with Grammy would be just the thing to help her heal. She would go back to Denver with Jack, but she wouldn’t stay any longer than it took to
square everything away by getting a new car, or at least a rental.

Later that afternoon, Jack and the boys decided to drive into town for groceries. He was gone only a few minutes before he returned from the car with a package in his hands. “I forgot that this came for you. I guess I had my mind on other things.”

Ashley took the package and noted the handwriting. “Grammy sent me a get-well gift, no doubt. She is so thoughtful.”

Jack opened his mouth as if to reply, then closed it and went to the door. He looked back at her with an expression of longing that nearly broke Ashley’s resolve to leave him for a time. She loved this man. Loved him dearly. Perhaps that’s why it hurt so much to know he was keeping something from her.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said and then was gone.

Ashley took the small wrapped box to the table and opened it. She missed Grammy more than she could say and knew that she should call her. The few times she had taken Grammy’s calls, Ashley knew her conversation had been less than satisfying. She felt miserable for putting her grandmother through such concern, but her emotions were raw and in order to protect herself, Ashley hadn’t wanted to deal with anyone. Now, however, she felt the time had come. This gift would give her the perfect reason to call Grammy, and then she could announce her plans to go home. That would surely make up for some of the distance she’d put between them.