work proved to be reasonably steady, wasn’t an option. Given the area’s cost of living, the pay was inadequate, and as a part-time employee, she wouldn’t have benefits. Anyway—school didn’t start for another six weeks.
Fear cramped in her again at the reminder that in less than two weeks, she and the kids would lose their health insurance.
What it came down to was that no job she was qualified to do would pay the basic bills, never mind justify the additional day care. Staying home with the kids, not working for so many years, had been a mistake of monstrous proportion. She’d trusted the man she loved, who had been untrustworthy.
A man who’d willingly sacrificed his own life to save a young girl he didn’t even know.
How could she harbor feelings so bitter, so angry, for the funny, kind man who would do something like that?
How could she not?
She almost had to leave Josh at day camp until she could finish painting the entire interior of their house and pack enough of their possessions to make it ready for prospective buyers to view, she concluded. At least Jenna took naps and was usually able to play quietly while Mommy scrubbed and painted and sorted. With his energy level, Josh couldn’t be as patient.
Maybe there’d be a quick sale. But her panic didn’t subside, and for good reason. Even if the house sold at full price, she wouldn’t end up with all that much money. The market had sagged since they’d bought the modest rambler in Bellevue. They hadn’t spent the money they should have to update it. Increasingly, people expected granite countertops, skylights, hardwood floors, not aluminum windows, ancient Formica, worn beige carpets.
The real estate agent had strongly advised new carpet, at least. Anna could put that on a credit card and pay it off once the house sold. Other improvements were out of reach.
She had no choice but to move away. The Seattle area was chasing San Francisco and New York City for the most expensive places in the country to live. Of course, salaries would be lower in Montana or eastern Oregon or wherever else she went, too. At the very least, she’d have to find a college town where she could take classes to refresh her teaching certificate or make herself employable doing something besides hoisting a heavily laden tray or answering phones.
When finally the tension eased enough to leave her limp, she started the car and saw the dashboard clock. She’d been chasing herself on the hamster wheel for twenty minutes. Twenty wasted minutes. Usually, she put off her frightened scrabbling in search of solutions until bedtime. Who needed sleep when you could lie rigid in the dark and try to figure out how to survive with two young children when you had next to no money?
Anna had never imagined being so close to having no home at all.
* * *
THE ONLY LIGHTS in the family room were one standing lamp and the ever-shifting colors of the TV. Through the window, Nate saw the glitter of lights across the lake in Seattle and a few sparkling on the mast of a boat gliding through the dark water.
Staying unnoticed in the doorway, he glanced at the TV to see what Molly was watching. The Lego Movie. Amusing, as he recalled.
He switched his attention to his daughter, who had curled into the smallest possible ball in the corner of the sofa. She clutched a throw pillow in her arms as if it was a flotation device—all that would keep her from drowning. He’d swear she hadn’t blinked in at least a minute. She was either mesmerized by the movie or not seeing it at all.
At least she wasn’t watching Moana again. That one, with the tense father/daughter thing going, made him uncomfortable.
All she’d wanted since he’d picked her up this morning was to watch a succession of DVDs. Having a waterfront home on Lake Washington used to be a plus. Today, she’d been careful to keep her back to the view of the lake. Okay, that was understandable, but she hadn’t wanted to ride her bike, which he kept in his garage, either, or play a board game. He’d bought two skateboards a while back, one child-sized, one adult, along with pads for knees and elbows and helmets. Sonja didn’t approve, of course, but skateboarding on the driveway was one of the few activities done with her father that had delighted Molly. Today? “No, thank you, Daddy.”
After thanking him politely and refusing to go out to a pizza place they both liked, she nibbled at what he put in front of her for lunch and dinner. She hadn’t talked any more than she absolutely had to.
Abruptly, he’d had enough.
He flicked on the overhead light and strode to the sofa, where he grabbed the remote and turned off both DVD player and television.
Molly sat up. “Daddy!”
“That’s enough, honey. You haven’t taken your eyes off that TV all day. You and I need to talk.” He sat on the middle cushion, within reach of his kid.
Her lower lip pooched out. “I was watching the movie!”
“How many times have you seen it?” Unsurprised that she didn’t answer, he said, “Often enough to know how it ends.”
She bent her head and stared at her lap.
He reached over and gently tipped up her chin. Her big eyes, a vivid green, finally met his.
“I know falling in the river scared you. But keeping everything you feel inside isn’t healthy. You haven’t told me yet what really did happen.”
She mumbled something about her mother.
“I need you to talk to me, too.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Mr. Grainger is dead,” she whispered. “Like Tuffet.”
Tuffet had been her cat, named because he’d let her lie on him whenever she wanted. When Sonja had moved out, she’d taken the cat along with Molly. According to Molly, Tuffet got sick and died. Sonja had admitted to him that the cat had somehow slipped out and been hit by a car.
“I know,” Nate said now, tugging Molly over to lean on him.
“Mommy says it’s your fault, because it was hard to watch so many kids at the same time.” Even her intonations parroted her mother’s. “If you were there, you coulda watched me.”
“That’s true,” he had to say, “but most of the kids only had one parent along, didn’t they? And were assigned three other kids.”
After a hesitation, her head bobbed against him.
His eyes stung from unfamiliar grief mixed with the rare joy at holding her in his arms. He’d loved his little carrottop with unexpected ferocity from the minute the doctor had handed over the beet-red, squalling newborn. If she’d drowned... Even as he shied away from an inner vision of her limp, lifeless, pallid body, his heart cramped painfully.
“Mommy said it’s my fault, too, ’cuz I did something I wasn’t s’posed to.”
Sharp anger supplanted the pain. Molly was old enough to take responsibility for her actions, but not to confront that kind of guilt. What the hell was Sonja thinking?
“Okay.” He shifted to allow him to see her face, wet with tears. “Here’s the thing. Kids break rules all the time. They hide from their parents, or they run from them because it’s
