would not be there to watch his girls grow into young women, and he would not be there on the their wedding days to walk them down the aisle.
John stilled, took a deep breath and handed her a handkerchief to dry her eyes. Sadness shadowed his gaze, and he cleared his throat. “I called Detective Sanger on my way here,” he said quietly. “She couldn’t add much to what Fred told you, except a little more background on the girls.”
She twisted the handkerchief in her hands. “I can only imagine the kind of background that would give two teenage girls access to a loaded gun and prompt them to use that gun to solve a problem or end an argument. It’s reckless and outrageous and it’s beyond my ability to comprehend, let alone forgive,” she snapped. “But I can tell you what they’ll probably discover.”
She counted out her assumptions on the fingers of her right hand. “One, a broken home. Two, maybe even a series of foster homes. Three, drugs. Alcohol for sure, probably worse. Four, poor academic and discipline records at school. Five, they haven’t been to church for years, if ever. And their defense attorney will use their deprived, miserable backgrounds to defend and make excuses for them so the jury will feel sorry for them. No one will care about Steve and the price he paid for someone else’s sins.”
Alarmed by the depth and scope of her anger, she stopped, closed her eyes for a moment and forced herself to take a few long, slow breaths to slow her racing heartbeat. When she did, the echo of her words sounded against the very foundation of her faith—a faith built on the belief that the Son of God had sacrificed His own innocent life to atone for the sins of others.
“They’re still investigating,” John murmured and stroked the side of her arm. “Let’s take this one step at a time, one day at a time.”
She met his gaze and saw the turmoil in her soul reflected in the depths of his eyes before he dropped his gaze. “I’m really glad you came home,” she whispered.
He looked toward the staircase. “I’d better head upstairs. I need to make a few calls and tie up some loose ends.”
“Okay. I had made some plans for us to go out for pizza with some of the girls’ friends before the puppet show, but I told the girls we’d make it another night.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“I just have to make a call or two to cancel.”
“Use your cell phone.”
She cocked her head.
He shrugged. “I unplugged the phones on the first floor. I’ll do that upstairs, too. I’m just surprised none of the reporters have tried to call yet,” he explained.
Memories of the media barrage in July that began with Steve’s death and continued for days past his funeral were still vivid enough to make her shudder. While he went upstairs, she got her cell phone from her purse and called Madge first and quickly explained why she had to cancel tonight’s outing.
“If you can’t come to the pizza party, then the pizza party will come to you,” Madge insisted. “Good friends, junk food and a few little chatterboxes are just what you need to take your mind off what you learned this afternoon. I’ll take care of everything, and I’ll call Judy to tell her about the change in plans, too. Just set the table and change into something comfortable, like jeans and a T-shirt,” she offered and hung up before Barbara had a chance to decline.
Chapter Five
A s the party was winding down, Barbara sat back in her chair and sighed with satisfaction.
Indeed, Madge had been right.
A lot of chatter, a little chaos and a good dose of friendship had been just the prescription to help rescue a troublesome and challenging day and a sure way to ease the ache of what might have been. She glanced down the length of the dining room table. Instead of the maps and brochures John had been collecting, now safely stored away in the attic, along with dreams of sailing away into retirement and a life of leisure, empty pizza boxes and antipasto tins littered the middle of the table.
Behind paper plates and beverage cups, all five adults and four children crammed together around the table. Russell and John sat at opposite ends. Madge and Judy anchored one side with Barbara between them, across from the four children on the side closest to the wall, a line of chatterboxes, their little faces smeared with tomato sauce and more than one milk mustache.
Ever the organizer, Madge checked her watch and clapped to get the children’s attention. “Who wants to go to the puppet show now?”
“Me!”
“Me!”
“Me!”
A chorus of little voices rose louder and louder until Madge quieted them with another clap of her hands. “Then we need clean faces and hands.”
Barbara got to her feet. “And a potty stop. Sit still. I’ll get some cloths.” While she went to the kitchen to retrieve the box of premoistened, disposable cloths that had become a new staple in her life, John and Russell blocked the two possible escape routes. The children apparently were far more interested in getting ready for the puppet show than they were in avoiding a cleanup because when Barbara returned, they were all in their seats and offered little protest when she started an assembly line.
After washing one pair of hands and a face, Barbara passed the child to Madge who provided escort to the powder room behind the kitchen. John took the next child upstairs to the main bathroom. Then, while John and Madge kept their little charges occupied in the living room, as much to protect the antiques as to keep the children from going back to the table for one more bite of pizza, Judy and Russell took the remaining two children for a potty break.
Barbara tossed the last dirtied cloth into one of the pizza boxes, got a large trash bag from the kitchen and cleared the mess from the table, including the plastic tablecloth, in a matter of minutes. “There’s a lot to be said for going modern,” she murmured and stored the trash bag outside the back door. She returned to the dining room, smoothed a lace tablecloth back into place and set the pair of antique Hull candlesticks in the center.
She paused to run her fingertips along the stem of one of the candlesticks, the first of the thirty-four pieces John had given her over the years for their wedding anniversaries. She kept them all displayed behind beveled glass in an old oak cabinet she had helped her father refinish, first stripping away layers and layers of white paint and cleaning tiny specks of paint in each groove in the heavily carved wood with toothbrushes and toothpicks.
Glancing at the cabinet, she smiled. So many memories, outside and inside. Memories of her father, teaching her patience and sharing with her his love for antiques as they worked. Memories of her married life captured with each piece of Hull resting on glass shelves. The small Hull lamp she had gotten their first anniversary for “lighting up his life with joy.” The vases she had used to hold the flowers John had given to her for different anniversaries and later, when Rick and Steve had been born.
“Steve.”
She choked out his name. Reminded once again of her loss and the breaking news from the police, she fought the swell of grief ever ready to crash over her heart and inflame still-healing wounds. She turned away from the table. Toward the sound of little frogs who had apparently invaded her living room. Toward laughter. Toward the future instead of the past. Toward life filled with more joys than sorrows.
