“Think I can do it?” she asked Jean at the end of the afternoon, looking depressed and anxious. Everything seemed to take ten times as much effort, and she felt exhausted.
“Of course you can.” Jean knew that Liz was every bit as good an attorney as Jack was. He had been the bluster and the balls and the bully in the partnership, if he had to be. But they had done a skillful dance together.
But at that moment, without him, Liz felt like less than half the team. She felt as though he had taken her confidence and her courage with him, and said so to Jean. “You'll be fine,” Jean said again. “And I'll do everything I can to help you.”
“I know you will, Jean. You already have.” She glanced at the brand-new carpeting and back at her secretary, as her eyes filled with tears and she remembered all too painfully how it had looked on Christmas morning. “Thank you,” she whispered, and went to sit in her husband's office. She was still going through his files, and she had to force herself to leave at five-thirty. She didn't want to come home too late for the kids, although she knew she could have stayed at the office till midnight every night for a month, and still not finished everything she wanted. She took his briefcase home with her, chock-full of files she wanted to read before morning. And she still had the two court appearances to prepare for.
The house was silent when she got in, unusually so, she actually wondered if anyone was home, and then she saw Jamie sitting quietly with Carole in the kitchen. She had just made chocolate chip cookies for him, and he was at the kitchen table, eating one in total silence. He said not a word to anyone, not even to his mother as she walked in and smiled at him. “How was your day, sweetheart?” “Sad,” he said honestly. “My teacher cried when she said she was sorry about Daddy.” Liz nodded. She knew only too well now what that felt like. The delivery boy who brought her sandwich to the office for lunch had made her cry, as had the pharmacist when she stopped to refill a prescription, as had two people she'd run into on the street, as did everyone now. All they had to do was say they were sorry, and it nearly killed her. If they had kicked her in the shins, it would have been easier to deal with. And the avalanche of condolence letters that had come to the office broke her heart as she read them. And when she glanced at the kitchen counter, she saw another stack there. People meant well, but their eloquence and their expressions of sympathy were agony to live with.
“How's everyone else?” Liz asked Carole as she set down Jack's briefcase.
“Why are you carrying Daddy's bag?” Jamie asked, as he ate another cookie.
“I need to read some of his papers.” Jamie nodded, satisfied, and informed her that Rachel had been crying in her room, but Annie and Megan were on the phone, and Peter hadn't come home yet.
“He said he'd teach me how to ride my new bike, but he hasn't,” Jamie said sadly. The bike had been all but forgotten.
“Maybe he can do it tonight,” she said hopefully, but Jamie shook his head and put down a half-eaten cookie. Like her, and the others, he had no appetite.
“I don't want to ride my bike now.”
“Okay,” she said softly, as she touched his silky hair and bent down to kiss him, as Peter walked in the kitchen door with a ravaged expression. “Hi, Peter.” She didn't dare ask him how his day was, she could see it. The same way all of theirs had been. He looked as though he'd aged five years in the past week. It was a familiar feeling. But she felt a hundred years older than she had on Christmas Eve. She had barely eaten or slept in the past week, and she looked it.
“I've got something to tell you, Mom.”
“Why is it that I don't get the feeling it's good news?” she said with a sigh, as she sat down and picked up the rest of Jamie's cookie. Her lunch had sat untouched all afternoon in her office.
“I had an accident on the way home from school.”
“Did you hurt anyone?” She looked calm, but she was numb, and her perspective had changed in the last week. Anything less than death was something she could live with.
“Just the car. I hit a parked car, and crumpled the front fender.”
“Did you leave a note for the owner of the other car?” He nodded in answer.
“It didn't do anything to them, but I left a note anyway. I'm sorry, Mom.”
“It's okay, sweetheart. I ran two red lights on the way to work this morning, if that makes you feel any better. The officer who stopped me said I shouldn't be driving. Maybe you shouldn't either, for a while.”
“I can't get anywhere if I don't, Mom.”
“I know, neither can I. We'll just both have to be careful.” He drove an old Volvo station wagon that Jack had bought for him that year because it was safe and solid, and she was glad for it now. She drove a newer model of the same car, and Carole had her own car, an old Ford that she'd had for ten years and kept in mint condition. It got her where she wanted to go, and she picked the children up from school in it. There was Jack's car now too, a new Lexus he had splurged on that year, but Liz didn't have the heart to drive it herself or sell it. Maybe they'd just keep it. She couldn't bear the thought of disposing of his things. She'd already spent several nights holding his clothes close to her, and smelling the familiar aftershave on them, as she stood in his closet. She couldn't bear to part with any of his belongings, and had no intention of giving away anything. She still needed to keep his things near her. Several people had told her to get rid of everything as soon as possible, and she had thanked them for their concern, and had every intention of ignoring what they told her.
The girls came downstairs for dinner shortly after that, and they were a somber group as they sat at the kitchen table. And for at least half the meal, no one said a word. They looked and felt like survivors of the Titanic. Just getting through the days now was gruelling, particularly now that they were back at school and she was back in the office.
“Do I dare ask how everyone's first day back at school was?” she finally asked them, as she looked at the uneaten food on everyone's plates. Only Peter had made a vague effort to eat anything, and even he wasn't up to his usual standards. He usually had seconds of everything, and ice cream on whatever was served for dessert, regardless of what it was. But no one could eat, and they looked relieved when their mother asked them how their day was.
“It sucked,” Rachel volunteered first, and Annie seconded the opinion.
“Everyone kept asking how it happened, if I saw him afterwards, if we cried at the funeral. It was sick,” Megan said, as the others heaved a sigh of agreement.
“They mean well, probably,” Liz gave them the benefit of the doubt, “they're just curious and they don't know what to say to us. We just have to keep trucking and get through it.”
“I don't want to go back to school,” Jamie said firmly, and Liz was about to tell him he had to, when she decided he didn't. If he needed some time at home to heal, what difference did it make, particularly for Jamie.
“Maybe you can keep Carole company for a few days,” Liz said quietly, and Rachel immediately looked at her with a question.
“Can I stay home too?”
“Can I?” Annie echoed.
“I think you guys need to try and work through it. Maybe Jamie can give it another try next week.” Peter didn't tell anyone at the table he had cut his last two classes and sat in the gym alone, but he just couldn't face more of what his sisters had been describing. The coach had found him there, and they had talked for a long time. He had lost his father when he was the same age as Peter, and they had talked about what it felt like. It helped to hear his coach but it couldn't take away the pain.