I don’t need chocolate. But right now I’m weak.

Leaving the box sealed, I reach through the broken window and pull out an individually wrapped cupcake. I shouldn’t be tempted. My stomach is full of good food—a delicately seasoned chicken breast, strawberries, walnuts and greens drizzled with light poppy-seed dressing. None of that is junk.

This is.

My hand closes around the wrapper. I should crush it…the way I crushed that whole display in Smiley’s. Instead I pop it open.

I have to know. I have to know why Rob couldn’t stop eating these things.

My hand is shaking as I lift the cupcake toward my mouth. The frosting oozes across my tongue now, melting. The cake is sweet and moist. The frosting is dark and bitter. The filling is creamy and sweet. The combination is euphoric.

And now I understand Rob.

Lisa Childs

Award-winning author Lisa Childs wrote her first book, a biography…of the family dog, when she was six. Now she writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction. The youngest of seven siblings, she holds family very dear, in real life and in her fiction, often infusing her books with compelling family dynamics. She lives in west Michigan with her husband, two daughters and a twenty-pound Siamese cat. For the latest on Lisa’s spine-tingling suspense and heartwarming women’s fiction, check out her Web site at www.lisachilds.com. She loves hearing from readers, who can also reach her at P.O. Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

Learning to Hula
Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

From the Author

Dear Reader,

One of my best friends is a widow, twice. I have always marveled at how strong this little, four-foot-nine, ninety-pound woman is to have survived losing not only one love of her life, but two. And she hasn’t just survived—she’s happy again.

I’ve wondered how I would handle such an unspeakable tragedy, to lose the man I love. My husband is one of those fun-loving, never-met-a-stranger types who makes me laugh every day. How would I laugh without him? Like the main character in Learning To Hula, I’m sure I’d focus on my children and lean on my family while I passed through all the stages of grief and, like Holly, I’d learn to hula and find happiness again. Being strong is more a state of mind than body.

Wishing you every happiness!

Lisa Childs

To: Tara Gavin, with deep appreciation, for your vision

and dedication to Harlequin NEXT. Thank you for

including my stories in this empowering, relevant series.

Jennifer Green, with special thanks, for your insight

and guidance. I love working with you!

Jenny Bent, my amazing agent, thank you for your

constant encouragement and unwavering support!

Mary Gardner, for always being a true friend.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

STAGE 3

STAGE 4

STAGE 5

STAGE 6

STAGE 7

STAGE 8

STAGE 9

STAGE 10

STAGE 11

STAGE 12

STAGE 13

STAGE 14

STAGE 15

STAGE 16

STAGE 17

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

The experts say that when you suffer a loss, you pass through five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Well, I’m certainly no expert despite all the experience I’ve been getting lately. But I think there are more than five. Or maybe I only think that because I’ve been through each stage so many times that I’ve stopped labeling them.

At any rate I know which stage the experts have omitted. Happiness. And I know you can find that stage again no matter what kind of loss you’ve suffered….

STAGE 1

Holly DeJong. That’s the name on the check. Not the signature, but on the payable-to line, which is good since that’s my name, and there are a lot of zeroes in the box after it.

A lot of zeroes but still not the most I’ve seen. I got a bigger check six months ago…when I buried my husband.

“Do you have any questions?” the bank manager asks.

I shake my head. My hand is shaking, too, as I pick up the pen I just used to sign all the documents; I endorse the back of the check and hand it to him. “Here, you take it.”

“Holly…”

“Do your magic with it, Keith,” I tell him. I’d given him the other check, too, and already the account he put it in has added zeroes to the original total.

Rob would like that, that the value of his life has kept increasing even after his death. That’s what that first check represented—his life. The second, for the sale of his business, represents his life’s work.

I know he would make some joke about all the zeroes; he was always making jokes. Sometimes I think he’s not really dead, just pulling one of his pranks that usually amused only him, and taking it too far.

“Holly, are you sure?” Keith asks.

I glance up from the check and focus on him, staring at his dark suit and the matching circles beneath his eyes. His hair, once dark, too, has gone mostly gray. He hasn’t looked this old in all the years I’ve known him.

And I’ve known him a long time, ever since he started dating my oldest sister, Pam. He’s been married to her for twenty-five years.

But if she has her way, they won’t make twenty-six. She’s left him. I’m not sure which has made him look old so suddenly, twenty-five years of marriage to her finally catching up with him, or her leaving.

The latter is why he’s hesitating to take the check, why he hesitated to participate in the closing to begin with. But the twenty-five year relationship is why I would trust no one else.

For the past six months he’s held my hand and guided me through the maze of paperwork involved with settling an estate and transferring ownership of a business.

“Keith, you’re always going to be my brother.”

I have none, just two sisters. Emma, the second oldest one, has been married twice, but I never felt as close to either of her husbands as I have to Keith. I can’t understand why Pam is leaving him.

She blames Rob.

She blamed him for a lot of things when he was alive; I shouldn’t have expected his death to change that. Pam never understood his sense of humor, so the only thing she “got” about the practical jokes he played on her was angry. After he let the air out of her tires once, she blamed him every time she got a flat, and whenever something sticky was on her door handle, she thought Rob was fooling around with the peanut butter again.

Despite their mutual antagonism, she claims that his death somehow brought her clarity. She can’t put off doing what she really wants because she sees now that life is too short.

They hadn’t agreed on much when he was alive, but Rob wouldn’t be able to argue that one with her. He’d been forty-one when he died.

Death by cupcake is what I call it. He lied and cheated on me with those things, breaking every promise he made to cut them out of his life and stick to the diet I put him on. I should have known he was lying. A man’s waistband doesn’t keep expanding like that. He’d called it a beer belly, but he’d never been able to swallow a sip of beer; he’d hated the taste of it. He actually hadn’t liked anything that wasn’t sweet.

Well, at least Pam got something out of his death. I got nothing but zeroes. Lots of them, thanks to all the life insurance Rob had bought from one of his clients, an insurance agent. When he’d made the purchases, I’d thought it sweet of him to support the man’s business. I hadn’t realized it would one day be supporting us.

Before Keith can overcome the emotion I see in his watery eyes, and say anything about my loyalty to him, the buyers come back into his office. They just rushed out a little while ago, buoyant with the pride and excitement of ownership.

These are the kids who worked for Rob, who helped him build his computer business. I’m glad they bought it. They’re Rob’s second choice to take over, but I can’t hang on to the store until our son grows up. Robbie’s only fifteen, and I can’t presume that his father’s dream will be his, even though my son says it is. I want him and his eleven-year-old sister, Claire, to first get through this nightmare of losing their father, then come up with and realize their own dreams.

Just as Brad, Jake and Steven realized theirs, of owning their own business. The three of them are in their early twenties and they look more like surfers, with their long, shaggy hair and baggy clothes, than computer geeks. But they have enough computer savvy and experience for Keith to give them a business loan.

Jake and Steven walk toward me, holding a big cardboard box. The money is enough; I hope they haven’t brought me anything else.

“You missed this stuff when you cleaned out Rob’s office,” Brad says. He’ll be the manager, as he’s the one who usually talks for the three of them. He’s the one who asked if I’d sell to them. Although they would never admit it, their decision to buy was probably as much to get me out of the office as to own the business themselves. I worked there before Rob died, for him, with them; it was different after.

Everything is.

“So what’s in the box?” Not that I can’t guess.

More cupcakes. I found them stashed everywhere after his death—in the desk in his den, his sock drawer, car console and tackle box. I really should have had a clue, other than his growing belly, of what Rob had been doing. The man had never gone fishing a day in his life.

Predictably Brad lifts out a box of the decadent cupcakes. The guys are laughing. Rob had probably thought it was freaking funny, too.

A big joke on me.

Who’s having the last laugh now? I’d like to know. I haven’t laughed much since he died. I force a smile and knot my hands in my lap to still their trembling. It’s not nerves.

Nothing that simple.

I’m boomeranging back to stage two again. Anger. I can feel it building, but I fight it. I’m past it. I’ve done all the five stages of grief. I’ve even managed stage five, acceptance, or I wouldn’t have sold the business.

I’m doing great. Just like my mom did when my dad died six years ago. She’s my little five-foot, hundred-pound how-to guide on being a widow. She handled it. So can I.

Brad pulls something else out of the box, slowly so that at first all I see is the grass-covered shade, then the rest of the lamp follows. Silken black hair spills over his fingers and coconut-covered breasts peek out from between them. The grass skirt rustles against the box as he lifts the object free and settles it on Keith’s desk.

The shade swings around as the hula girl base wobbles back and forth. Dangerous. That’s what it is. A fire hazard. I’d told Rob that he needed to get rid of it, and he’d promised he had—apparently another lie.

The guys are laughing, and even Keith has a smile on his face, something I haven’t seen since Pam moved out of their house. “That’s so Rob,” he sputters, and there’s more emotion in his eyes than humor. The two men were close.

“It’s tacky,” I manage to say around the emotion clogging my throat.

Through the windows of Keith’s office, I spy other customers stopping to stare at the hideous thing. I should be embarrassed. Stanville, Michigan, is a small town; probably most of those people know me. But after being married to Rob for seventeen years, I’m beyond embarrassment.

He once dressed up like a hula girl for Halloween, using the same excuse for his costume as he had for his purchase of the lamp—it reminded him of our Hawaiian honeymoon.

Now, staring at the lamp, I’m reminded of Rob in that coconut bra with his stomach spilling over the top of his grass skirt, his black wig flowing around his broad shoulders as he swayed back and forth like the bobbing lamp.

Now I’m laughing with Keith and the guys.

Staring at the wine bottles in Smiley’s store, I consider giving Pam the lamp as a housewarming gift instead. I’ve already been to all the other sections of Smiley’s General Store, and general covers a lot: groceries, clothing, housewares, hardware and party supplies. Yet I haven’t found a single appropriate thing for tonight.

I might as well go with inappropriate.

The truth is that I don’t really feel like giving her a gift at all, but she’s throwing herself a party.

Maybe bringing alcohol is a good idea. Even though she’ll use it to toast her new life, I get to drink it, too. I suspect I’m going to need it.

So now I switch from trying to figure out what she’d like. Keith hadn’t managed that in twenty-five years, so I’m not going to figure it out in twenty minutes. I concentrate on finding my favorite labels.

Whenever he worked late, Rob would bring home a bottle of Lambrusco to mellow me. I should have realized, it’s probably the sweetest wine available. Despite claiming it was for me, he’d drink most of it.

I’d always ask him, “Is this for me?”

He’d grin and reply, “Yes, I’m going to get you drunk so I can have my way with you.”

I’d laugh and point out that he’d never had to get me drunk for that.

My hand’s shaking as I reach for a bottle of Lambrusco. All this shaking today. Maybe it has nothing to do with the closing or stages, maybe I just had too much caffeine this morning. But then I remember that I drink decaf. Unlike Rob, I don’t cheat on my health.

My fingers miss the bottle; I’m not tall enough, and that irritates me. Claire is already taller than I am. I take after my petite mother in more than widowhood.

Off balance from the reach, I stumble back a few steps. My hip brushes against the display behind me, tumbling some cardboard boxes onto Smiley’s freshly waxed vinyl floor. I spin around to catch more before I cause an avalanche.

Startled, I see what’s in my hands—familiar boxes that I’ve found stashed all over the house and Rob’s office. The bright yellow packaging has a cellophane window in the middle displaying the heavily frosted, buttercream-filled cupcakes in their individual packages. Above the window, a little black kitten sits in the corner of the box, licking frosting from its whiskers. These are Kitty Cupcakes.

More like killer Kitty Cupcakes.

This time the anger rushes in so fast I can’t stop it. It roars in my ears and burns my face. My hands aren’t shaking anymore as I toss the boxes onto the floor.

Kitty’s staring up at me with her green eyes as I lift my foot and smash my heel right through the cellophane window. Frosting and bits of chocolate cake cling to my shoe as I lift it, then slam it down again into another box. I spread my arms, toppling the entire display and standing in the middle of it, jumping up and down as if I’m having one of the tantrums my daughter, Claire, used to throw when she was two.

Words are tumbling from my lips, but I can’t hear them. But they, and my actions, are drawing other shoppers to the end of the aisle.

Even though I can’t hear myself, I catch a little girl’s horrified whisper to her mother: “Mommy, why is that woman killing Kitty?”

The mother covers the child’s eyes as if they’ve stumbled into a strip joint. I’m not naked, but suddenly I feel that way.

The anger ebbs. I move to step away from the pile of crumpled boxes, but my heel slips, either on the waxed floor or the spilled frosting, and I go down.

The small crowd at the end of the aisle murmurs “Ahh!” I try to scramble up, but go down again to their “Ohhs.”

Frosting coats my fingers, and I glance down at the smart little suit I wore to the closing. Brown frosting clings to the black-and-white-houndstooth print like mud kicked up from the tires of a stuck truck.

I’m sure there’s some in my hair, too, since locks of it are sticking to my face. I push it back, forgetting my hands are coated, and leave more frosting across my cheek.

Even though the crowd is quiet, I can hear laughter. Maybe it’s coming from above; Rob would love this. Or maybe it’s bubbling up inside me. Either way, it feels good and I start smiling, probably looking like even more of a lunatic to the spectators gathered like gawkers at a traffic accident.

Someone gets brave enough to approach me, and extend a hand to help me up. I reach for it with my sticky fingers and glance up with an apologetic grimace.

A face similar to mine stares down at me, blue eyes as wide and horrified as those of the little girl who watched me kill Kitty. Emma’s fair skin tinted with the red blush of embarrassment, not for herself.

Before she can do more than get me to my feet, Smiley rushes up, rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the vinyl tiles. White brows lift high above his sharp eyes as he takes in the cupcake massacre. He asks the question burning in my sister’s blue eyes. “What the hell happened here?”

Emma’s faster on her feet than I am at the moment. Must be from dealing with all the teenagers she has, her own and step. “Smiley, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” She’s already drawing her wallet from her purse.

As Claire has done to me so many times, I tug on Emma’s sleeve, and point to the alcohol wall. “Get a bottle of Lambrusco, too. I couldn’t reach it.”

Then I walk away, head high, frosting-covered heels slipping. The shocked crowd parts as I near the end of the party aisle and walk out of Smiley’s.

STAGE 2

As I shut off the water and step from the shower, I hear voices through the door. “I don’t understand what happened. She’s been doing great.”

This is Pam, completely puzzled by the fact that I might miss my husband. She’s actually having a party over leaving hers. I wince at my cattiness. I’m not being fair. She’s been there for me, offering her love and support in myriad ways. And her opinion.

Pam has an opinion about everything. If I had let her win the suit argument, Rob would be haunting me more than he already does. I can still see her mouth screwed up tightly with disapproval over my choice of Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts for Rob’s funeral garb. I truly believe I saw him smirking at her from the casket, glib with victory in yet another one of their disagreements.

With a steady hand, I wipe the fog from the bathroom mirror and inspect my reflection. My hair is plastered to my head. Wet, it’s dark brown; dry, it’s golden. I push it behind my ears, checking for frosting back there. The ends drip water onto my shoulders and the towel I’ve wrapped around myself.

My suit lies in a corner of the tiny room, balled up in disgrace. I, curiously enough, feel none.

Knuckles brush softly against the other side of the door, its white paint peeling due to moisture in the unvented room.

“Are you okay?” Emma asks, her voice low with concern. The knob turns, and she opens the door, unwilling to wait for or untrusting of my response.

“I’m fine,” I assure her.

She studies my face with much more scrutiny than I’d given it in the now refogged mirror. Then she hands me one of Pam’s velour track suits. We’re at her new place, the cramped apartment above The Tearoom, the shop my mother owns less than a block from Smiley’s, in the heart of our small town.

Emma and I have houses on what’s left of our dad’s old dairy farm a few miles outside of town. Mom sold off most of the property after he died, dividing among the three of us what land was left and some of the money she made. The rest she used to buy this building and a condo. Pam has a house with Keith near mine and Emma’s. It’s a gorgeous modern contemporary with granite and slate and smooth white walls. Nothing like this place, with its exposed brick and dark wood.

I wonder again how she’ll be happy here without Keith. She says she’s leaving him because she was never happy with him. This is another rare thing Rob would have agreed with her on; he used to say Pam didn’t know how to be happy.

But she does know how to shop. My fingers sink into the velour as I take the pale yellow suit from Emma. “Thanks. I’ll get dressed and be right out.”

She looks at me as if she wants to stay, maybe help me dress as though I’m a small, clumsy child. But she’s raised three of her own and two of somebody else’s; she knows when to help and when to step back and let someone go. Although she’ll stop them from making dangerous decisions, she always says that kids have to make their own mistakes to grow. She leaves and shuts the door for me.

Yellow isn’t a color I usually wear, but at the moment I can’t be picky. Outside the bathroom, my sisters have lowered their voices to whispers. I can’t hear their words, only their hushed murmuring. It takes me back to when we were younger, Emma and Pam sharing all their scandalous secrets and leaving me out.

At thirty-eight, I’m six years younger than Emma, nine younger than Pam. Back then those years had made a difference, had made me the baby, but age hasn’t mattered for a long time. With Rob gone, I’m not anyone’s baby anymore.

In case there are other guests, I raid Pam’s medicine cabinet for powder and mascara so I look passably decent. Then I rescue my underwear from the frosted suit, hurrying to dress. I fling open the door, cutting my sisters off midwhisper as they hunch over the tiny table in Pam’s kitchen. It’s only the two of them, no one else.

“I hope you haven’t canceled the party,” I say to Pam, bracing myself to face her. I expect that same tight expression of disapproval she wore over Rob’s funeral attire. Instead she’s wide-eyed with concern, the way Emma looked in Smiley’s when she helped me up.

I don’t like that any more than the pitying glances I get from people since Rob died. “The poor widow.” If they only knew how many zeroes Keith had to work with.

Pam shakes her head, then runs her fingers through her new short bob. “No. This is it. Just us.”

No other friends? But then the three of us are so close, we are as much or more friends than sisters.

I smile at her, hoping to reassure her. Then I gesture toward the stained butcher-block counter where the Lambrusco sits. “Nobody’s opened the wine?”

Three short strides bring me to the counter, where, grateful for screw caps, I open the bottle. Pam’s wineglasses are on the counter, too, a bright red bow atop them; obviously they are Emma’s gift to her. I don’t worry about washing them before I pour burgundy liquid into three. I reach over, setting a glass in front of each of my sisters on the small, cottage-blue table. Wine sloshes close to each rim as the table teeters.

Pam looks from me to the glass clutched in my hand and back, her blue eyes full of questions. Unlike Emma, who exercises tact she’s had to learn when dealing with exes, hers and his, Pam asks, “What? Looking to drown your sorrows?”

“Hell no, I’m celebrating.” I lift the glass and offer a toast to myself instead of drinking to her new life. “I kicked Kitty’s ass.”

“Massacred is more like it,” Emma mutters, just loud enough that I catch it and am reminded of the little girl shopping with her mother.

A twinge of guilt steals some of my triumph. I hope I haven’t scarred her for life. But then if this incident keeps her away from the little killer cakes, I don’t feel bad at all. In fact I feel powerful. Wonder Woman and Charlie’s Angels all rolled into one small package.

I can feel my smile against the rim of the glass as I take a sip. The warm, sweet wine joins the laughter bubbling inside me. “Yeah, massacred,” I gloat.

“I can’t believe you—” Pam chokes out, for maybe the first time in her forty-seven years at a loss for words.

The mayor of our town is a bachelor, so as the bank manager’s wife, Pam has been the first lady of Stanville for as many years as Keith’s held his position. She’s used to maintaining a certain level of decorum, of class, and commanding respect because of that.

That’s probably why she and Rob had always clashed. Rob never cared what people thought of him. No, that’s not true. He wanted people to think he was fun, and enjoy being around him. He just hadn’t cared whether or not they’d respected him.

I wonder how much respect Pam is going to get for leaving her husband and moving into the tiny apartment above The Tearoom. But that’s her problem.

Right now she’s worried about mine, floundering to find words to no doubt offer her infinite opinions. I’m loving this more and more.

“Yes?” I tease, knowing that somewhere Rob is giving me a thumbs-up.

“You really…”

I catch Emma’s gaze, and she starts giggling now. “Oh, yeah, she really,” she adds to the bizarre conversation, one that would cause anyone eavesdropping to think we’d had more than a sip of wine.

“But Holly, how could—”

“She snapped,” Emma says, confirming my suspicion that she had watched the whole thing.

“I snapped,” I agree wholeheartedly.

Pam finally finds her voice and an opinion. “I think you better go back to that grief counselor.”

But this is the first time in six months I feel like I don’t need counseling. Everyone else might have thought I was doing better, but I didn’t. I felt as if I was in a haze, barely able to function.

Until now. I snapped, all right—everything back into place.

The setting sun is painting the lawn gold when I pull into the driveway. I press the button for the garage door, and as it’s opening I ease the Tahoe close to the stall on my side of the garage, except now both sides are mine.

Since I loaned Rob’s ridiculous orange Beetle to Emma’s college-commuting daughter, the garage is empty when I’m not home. Except for tonight. Tonight boxes randomly dot the cement floor. I press on the brakes to keep the Tahoe from crushing them. What’s happening now?

Has Keith snapped like I did tonight? Instead of letting Pam take her sweet time moving her things out, has he flung them into boxes and parked them in my garage while he’s changing the locks on the house?

She’s my sister, and I love her. But I feel nearly as much satisfaction in that as I had in crushing the Kitty Cupcake display.

Rob had often said that Keith needed to grow a set of balls. He always let Pam boss him around, telling him what to wear and how to act. I guess she’s like that because she’s the oldest, but Emma and I had never put up with her bossiness. Keith, on the other hand, had had no problem with it for twenty-five years.

Pam was the one to leave, although she and Keith had kept that to themselves for a while. Only a few more know it now. She stayed with me after Rob died, helping me through those first few weeks of paralyzing grief. I thought then that I had been her only reason for staying; I hadn’t known how unhappy she was in her marriage…until she admitted to needing to get away from it…and Keith.

She might have stayed with us indefinitely if not for Robbie taking over in the prank department for his father. Pam hadn’t appreciated his putting cellophane over the toilet seat in the guest bathroom, nor his switching of the hot and cold knobs in the shower. I probably should have gotten upset about his behavior, too, but it had felt good to laugh again. And because of Pam’s control-freak tendencies, I hadn’t wanted her to stay indefinitely.

So she’d gone back home, but she never returned to Keith’s bed, choosing to sleep in her daughter’s old room until she could find another place to live. He offered to move out, but Pam wouldn’t let him. Since the separation is her idea, she feels she needs to be the one to leave.

I think there’s more to her decision than fairness, though, because she had certainly never worried about that when we were growing up. I think she wants to leave the old farm, like Mom did when Dad died. Pam wants to get away from here and start over completely.

I can’t say the thought never crossed my mind during the past six months. But I’m not like Pam. I can’t consider just what I want. I have to think about the kids, even if they might not always believe that I do.

I park the Tahoe, and as I jump out, I glance across the gravel drive to where Pam’s modern house juts behind a stand of pines. The big tinted windows are aglow with the sunset; I can’t tell if Keith’s home or not. No locksmith truck is parked in the driveway. Maybe they’ve already been and gone. It’s pushing eight o’clock now.

I step over boxes on my way to the side door, which stands open. Light from the kitchen spills into the garage. “Hello?” I call out, a bit nervously. Since Rob’s death, I’m not quite sure of the reception I’ll get in my own home.

Some garbage bags sit outside the laundry room. I can’t believe the kids would have been cleaning while I was gone. They don’t do their chores when I’m here, nagging them. Like Pam, they’re using Rob’s death to excuse some of their behavior.

But maybe that has changed.

“What’s going on?” I call out again, when no one joins me in the kitchen. My voice bounces off the antique-white cabinets and oak floor.

From the dirty dishes sitting on the Corian island instead of in the sink, I’m thinking not that much has changed. It’s good that the kids ate dinner while I was with my sisters, but they could have cleaned up the mess.

The garbage bags probably contain Pam’s clothes, things Keith hadn’t felt comfortable leaving in the garage. Even fed up, he could be considerate.

I hear a door open from one of the bedrooms off the hall at the other end of the great room. The master suite is next to the formal dining room, which is separated from the great room, kitchen and breakfast nook area by plaster columns. Rob and I spent a lot of time designing our home so everyone would have their privacy, most especially us.

Claire comes around the corner, her mouth pulled into its perpetual pout. Even with the sulky face, she’s a pretty girl with her father’s big, dark eyes and my golden-brown hair. I gesture to the dishes on the counter—I think kitchen cleanup was her chore tonight—but she crosses her arms across her blossoming chest instead.

If she’s hoping for a reaction, I don’t have one for her. Despite having only a half glass of Lambrusco, I’m feeling mellow tonight.

“Ohh, mutiny,” I tease her.

She glares at me, a look that threatens that I’ve seen nothing yet. Like everyone else, I could blame Rob for her recent change in behavior, but I think hormones might have as much or more to do with it. My mom warned me that this is the age at which my sisters started clashing with her. I, of course, was the perfect child.

“She’s home!” Claire screeches, and there’s pounding as Robbie runs up the steps from the walk-out basement, which is divided into our family room, Rob’s den and the guest suite where my son terrorized Pam. I don’t have to guess where he was; Robbie’s always on the computer in the den and too preoccupied to come when you call him. So why is tonight different?

Uneasiness tightens the knot in my chest, the one that has made it a little hard to breathe since Rob died. I ask again, “What’s going on?”

Robbie pushes his glasses up his nose, his big, dark eyes magnified by the thick lenses. At fifteen, he’s about the same height as Claire and probably weighs less, even though she’s a stick. Unlike his giant of a father, Robbie looks the part of the computer geek, complete with asthma inhaler. Even though he has physical limitations, he’s never felt inferior, thanks to all the time and attention Rob gave him. They’d shared so many interests, probably too many considering the pranks Robbie played on his aunt.

And Claire, she’d been the proverbial Daddy’s little girl, his spoiled princess. He’d forever been buying her stuffed animals and candy. I guess I’d been his princess, too, because he’d done the same for me. Of course, he’d eaten more of the candy than I had.

Despite Robbie’s and Claire’s mulish expressions, my heart softens for my fatherless children, and I start putting the dishes into the sink myself, triumphant all over again for what I did to Smiley’s display. Those damn cupcakes deserve far worse for what they stole from us. I wonder where the factory is…?

“Mom!” Rob shouts, drawing my full attention with his urgency. He usually speaks very softly, only raising his voice if Claire’s irritating him.

“What?”

“Did you really do it?” he asks, his words quivering with emotion.

Oh, crap. They heard already. Those probably aren’t Pam’s things packed in boxes and garbage bags; the kids probably packed mine, ready to commit me to the loony bin. How can I explain that the attack was a good thing?

“Who told you?” I ask.

Even though I’m stalling for time, I am also curious about who’d been in the crowd that had gathered for my performance.

Claire and Robbie share a quick glance.

“You told us…this morning…when you dropped us at school.” She says each part separately, as if reading a list of my offenses to a judge. Rob and I always said she’ll be a lawyer someday.

Since I hadn’t planned my victory over cupcake evil in Smiley’s, I realize with a quick flash of relief that they’re talking about something else. Should I tell them about Smiley’s before someone else does?

I answer myself with a shrug. They lived with their father for fifteen and eleven years respectively; they’re used to outlandish behavior. Their friends had envied them their “fun” dad. I’m not so sure a crazy mom is envy-inspiring, though.

“So what are we talking about here?” I ask.

“The business.” Robbie’s speaking through gritted teeth, his braces scraping together due to his overbite.

I wince over what the orthodontist will say at our next appointment.

“Did you really sell it?”

Okay, they still aren’t happy with my decision. “I told you why—”

“Told!” Robbie interrupts, his face flushing with bright red blotches. Maybe his acne is flaring up again. “You tell us what you’re doing. You don’t ask what we want!”

That’s kind of how it works since I’m the parent and they’re the children, but I don’t say this. I’ll let them vent. Tonight.

“It’s not fair,” Claire chimes in like a backup singer. This is a chorus she’s sung often.

“You got rid of Dad’s car—”

“Just a loan,” I remind them.

When, or should I say if, Robbie gets his license, the car will be back in the garage, waiting for him. A five-year-old Volkswagen is a little easier to hang on to than a business.

“And his clothes!”

No matter how much he grows, Robbie would never fit into those. Not that Rob had been obese. He’d been a bear of a man, six feet five with broad shoulders, big all over. I thought we’d all agreed that giving his clothes to the Salvation Army was a good thing, something Rob would have liked, giving help to the recent hurricane victims. Rob was the kind of guy who’d willingly give someone the shirt off his back. In the case of the loud Hawaiian shirts he’d favored, though, no one would probably want those.

“You’re getting rid of everything,” Claire says, her words followed by a little hiccupping sob.

Robbie straightens up, just a hair taller than his little sister. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him stand as tall as he is now. “We figure you’re probably selling the house next, so we started packing our stuff.”

So that’s what all the boxes and bags are for.

“C’mon, I’m not selling the house.”

Not that I hadn’t considered it. Living in my dream house without the man who had shared that dream had been a nightmare for a while. Guilt flashes through me, and I think they catch it.

Robbie’s face reddens more, and Claire’s expression gets sulkier. “You want to get rid of every trace of Dad,” he says accusingly.

“It’s not fair.” Claire sings her familiar chorus. “You’ve taken everything of Dad’s away from us!”

It’s not the first time I’ve heard this; they said it all, not as angrily, though, when I first told them of my intention to sell the business. But this is the first time I hear what they haven’t said—that they blame me for taking their father away.

Like I blame Kitty Cupcakes.

And before that the officer who’d brought me the news of Rob’s death.

Rob died in a car accident, having crashed his winter-beater, four-wheel drive vehicle into a tree. At first it had looked as if road conditions, icy even in March thanks to Michigan’s mercurial weather, might have caused the crash.

I’d sworn at the officer for not making the roads safe to drive, although now I’m pretty sure he hadn’t been responsible for that. I think I might have slugged him. In fact, I can’t remember exactly what I did.

I’m glad the kids hadn’t been home that night. I’d sent them over to Emma’s just a little bit before, to return the kitten they’d taken from her barn and sneaked into the house. I’m grateful they didn’t see me like that as I was more out of control than at any other time in my life—what happened in Smiley’s doesn’t even come close.

After the coroner ruled Rob’s death had been caused by a heart attack, I didn’t apologize to Deputy Westmoreland. I should, but I don’t know what to say.

I don’t know what to say to my kids now. I know how much of a release it is to have someone or something else to attack when you’re hurting inside, but they can’t really blame me for their father’s death…unless they think I should have stopped him from eating those cupcakes. Maybe they don’t realize how much I tried, and I should try to convince them that I did. But I don’t think they’re ready to listen to me.

Sometimes you have to let them go….

Despite my sister’s advice ringing in my ears, I follow my kids as they rush out of the kitchen and down the hall to their rooms. Ever since six months ago, I’ve been struggling with that letting-go part of parenting.

Rob’s parents wanted the kids to spend a couple of weeks with them this summer, but they live in Indiana, and that was too far away from me. Because of the business, I hadn’t been able to be away for that long. But I know my in-laws are hurting, too, so we compromised, and I brought the kids down for a weekend.

The kids are not happy I followed them to their rooms now. They’ve turned and are glaring at me from just inside their doorways. So I don’t make things worse; I stop myself from yelling at them for yelling at me. But I can’t think of anything to say in lieu of yelling. They, however, don’t have that problem.

“I hate you!” they both shout before slamming their doors, in such perfect unison that I wonder if they practiced while I was gone. That opinion is the only one they have shared since thinking macaroni and cheese the perfect side dish to every meal, which is probably only marginally healthier than Kitty Cupcakes.

I know they don’t mean it, and that eventually they’ll get over this. They’re good kids, and we’ve always been close. But as I head toward my empty master suite at the other side of the house, I don’t feel so powerful anymore.

Then I remind myself, Wonder Woman didn’t have any kids. Neither did any of Charlie’s Angels.

STAGE 3

I notice the sign as I pull out of the driveway. I’m not sure if I missed it the night before, or if they put it up when they headed out to the bus this morning. It’s a For Sale sign, Worst Offer, for our once happy home.

Despite the sentiment, or shall I say resentment, behind it, I find myself chuckling. Even though their grades, usually straight A’s, have been slipping since school started a few weeks ago, I’m reassured that they’re still smart. Asses. But smart.

They might not be doing their homework lately, as much from laziness as taking advantage of their teacher’s sympathy over their loss, but they worked last night. Between packing up their stuff and making this sign, they were very busy. Mother’s pride spreads warmth through my chest, dispelling some of the tightness their angry words had left me with last night.

I glance in the rearview mirror, at the box in the back of the Tahoe, and chuckle louder. As the tires bounce over the ruts in our private dirt road, I imagine the hula girl swaying madly inside the box.

Just inside town, I drive by the drop box for Goodwill. I should leave the lamp there, but for some reason, possibly the guilt trip the kids laid on me last night, I keep driving on through Stanville. With its canopied storefronts and brick sidewalks, it could grace any Christmas card, it’s that quaint.

I’m almost to work when I remember I don’t work there anymore. Brad asked me to stay on, but I refused, as I don’t believe they really want me there. He was just being sweet, and I wouldn’t feel right about it; the business is theirs now. I’ve taken them on as a client, though, for my accounting business. I’ll do their bookkeeping and payroll, just as I’ve been doing for my mom’s tearoom, from the office I’ll have in my house, in Rob’s old den. But for the day-to-day stuff, for the past six months I’ve been training Steve’s mom to answer the phones and set appointments.

It’s likely the training took so long because of that haze I was in, or maybe she doesn’t pick up on things as quickly as her son. Any of the guys could have learned to do those duties themselves, but they may have wanted to keep that maternal influence in the office. For years, I’d been the maternal element.

I miss it now—I’d be lying if I said I didn’t—but I won’t miss being there without Rob and feeling guilty because he’s not. I only worked there to spend time with him. He’s the one who loved the place. He started it so he could quit his IT job in the city, save the commute and avoid the travel he’d had to do, and spend more time with his family.

Being at the office since Rob’s death only served to remind me that he hadn’t been able to live that part of his dream, hadn’t been able to spend more time with us. So I actually feel relief that I sold it. I smile as I let the feeling wash over me like the light rain that’s falling, washing the dust off the Tahoe.

The kids might be mad now, but in time they’ll see it was the right decision, not just for me but for them, too. I’ll have more time to spend with them now, since I’ll be working from home. I’m not sure how they’ll feel about my converting Rob’s den, though. But if they’re going to heal, they have to accept that he’s gone, and they can’t do that if I leave everything the same, as if he’ll walk through the door any minute and break our tense silence with his big, booming laugh.

I pull into one of the diagonal spaces in front of The Tearoom. I’d been much older than my children, in my early thirties, when my dad died, but I’d resented some of the decisions my mom had made. Selling the farm. Buying this place.

I hadn’t understood the stages of grief then. I hadn’t accepted that Dad wasn’t coming back. I’d thought we should keep the farm for him because he’d loved it so much.

At that time, I hadn’t realized that my mom had to do what was right for her, so that she could move on. So that she could find her way past her grief and be there for us again. Hopefully, my kids will understand that someday, as well. Since they’re younger than I was when Dad died, I have to be patient, have to give them more time.

When I step through The Tearoom’s door, I catch a mad flurry of movement behind the counter. My mother is quickly draping napkins over the pastries in the display case.

Despite the crowd, driven in, no doubt, by the hunger for gossip as much as the rain, the room is dead silent, like Rob’s funeral had been when the DJ had played the first few notes of the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Rob had loved The Big Chill so much he’d worn out two VHS tapes and a DVD of it.

My mother says to me, her small arms spread wide and protectively across the counter, “Please, don’t hurt them! They can’t defend themselves!”

The room erupts into raucous laughter, just as it had at Rob’s funeral. He was only her son by marriage, but they shared a lot of the same traits, such as knowing how to work a room.

I take an exaggerated bow, and everyone applauds.

I’m still laughing as I join her behind the counter, where she grabs me in a fierce hug. I see the concern darkening her blue eyes to navy, and know that what she did wasn’t a joke but damage control. For me.

“I’m okay,” I tell her.

She arches a golden brow in disbelief. She’s dainty and petite, and my dad, although not as big as Rob, had been really strong from all his hard work on the farm. But she was the one we feared as we were growing up. While Dad was easygoing, Mom never let us get away with anything. Then or now.

“I needed to do that,” I tell her. “I’m really okay. You know.”

Nobody knows like she does.

Less than a decade ago, she stood in my shoes. I’ve found comfort in that, in having her as my little hundred-pound guidebook to widowhood. I tried doing everything she did, moving on like she has, but I couldn’t do it just like she did. I needed to find my own way…in Smiley’s store.

“I know you’re okay now, sweetie,” she says with a smile, and wraps her hand tight around mine.

Not for the first time, I see how similar they are—blue veins running under thin white skin. Initially I noticed at Rob’s funeral, when she’d taken my hand in support. They’re good hands. Strong, capable hands.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say, squeezing hers before releasing it so she can rush off to serve customers.

She needed this place when my dad died. She’d needed to be needed, to wait on people, to take care of them. With us grown and Dad gone, she’d had no one else to satisfy her desire to nurture.

Coffeepot in one hand, hot water in the other, she pauses on the other side of the counter and turns toward me again. “I have a carrot cake in the back that’s been giving me trouble. You want to take care of it?”

Would I ever! With a fork and knife instead of my fists and feet. I’m not a complete militant when it comes to sweets. I have my weaknesses, and my mother knows them. She winks before trotting off.

She’s sixty-seven now, but men’s heads still turn when she walks past. I don’t think it has as much to do with her youthful face and figure or her golden-blond hair and bright eyes as her spirit.

She’s indomitable.

I will be, too. I just need to figure out the rest of it. What happened in Smiley’s yesterday wasn’t planned. As I admitted to my sisters, I just snapped.

I’m sitting at the counter, a pot of fruit-and-almond decaf tea steeping in front of me. Mom always collected tea sets, but the collection had gotten out of control as my dad, my sisters and I had given one to her for every birthday, Mother’s Day, Christmas and anniversary. She’d had very little to buy, other than the building, to start her business. I guess she was right, six years ago, when she tried to convince us that selling the farm and starting this tea shop was meant to be.

The pot that sits before me now is one Rob bought for her, a ceramic one with a face like Groucho Marx with the bushy eyebrows, big nose and cigar. I smile at it as I fork small bites of carrot cake into my mouth. I’m savoring the sweet combination of cream cheese and my mother’s secret spices when Pam plops down next to me.

“Hypocrite,” she mutters as she clutches a mug of coffee between her hands, inhaling the scent of the beans Mom uses.

There’s no use talking to Pam until she’s had an IV of caffeine in the morning. I might have forgotten that from when we were younger if not for those weeks she stayed with me. Then I’d been careful not to talk to her in the morning, especially if Robbie had played one of his father’s pranks on her.

But today I risk it.

“I’m getting a serving of vegetables by eating this. It has carrots in it,” I point out.

She shakes her head, then takes a long drink of coffee. With the amount of steam rising from the mug, it’s a wonder she doesn’t burn her mouth.

I’m in no mood for her silent treatment and try again. “So you tattled on me?” I accuse her with heavy mockery.

“Hypocrite,” she says again.

“You have a rather limited vocabulary for a woman your age,” I remark, knowing how much those nine years she has on me bother her. I’ve been teasing Pam longer than Rob did, even though he was more inventive, but she’s always been more amused than annoyed by me.

She’s smiling against the mug as she takes a sip; I can tell by the widening of the lipstick marks she leaves on the rim. Pam goes nowhere without her makeup. I expect today she needs the armor more than any other.

I want to ask how she enjoyed her first night sleeping alone. But that question brings up painful memories. I didn’t sleep in our bed for weeks after Rob died. It was just too big and lonely without him.

“Hey, you tattled on me,” she reminds me.

Although a couple of weeks have passed since I told Mom about Pam’s plans, I feel enough guilt to squirm against the leather stool.

Mom’s restaurant looks more Irish pub than English tearoom with its rich brown leather stools and chairs, gleaming oak trim and floors and shiny brass fixtures. She did a lot of refurbishing down here, probably working out her anger over Dad’s death as I’d worked out mine in Smiley’s yesterday. But she’d done nothing with the upstairs, leaving the items the previous owners had stored up there.

“Mom needed to know why we were cleaning out the apartment,” I say in my defense.

“And the plan was to tell her that you were going to use it as an office for your bookkeeping since you sold Rob’s business,” Pam reminds me.

I shake my head. Although I often tease Pam about her age, she hasn’t been acting it lately. “I was not going to lie to Mom and sneak around behind her back.”

“Not perfect little Holly,” she agrees, transporting me back to my childhood.

She and Emma had been the ones to lie and sneak around, and because I was younger, they’d excluded me. Or maybe they’d excluded me because I had tattled back then, likely only out of revenge. It hadn’t mattered if I’d tattled or not, they always got caught and suffered the consequences.

Like Rob had. I shake off the maudlin thought; I’ve done enough wallowing. It’s time to move on. Maybe Pam has the right idea.

“Did you really think you could move in without her knowing?” I ask.

Pam shrugs, trying for nonchalance even as her face flushes with color. “I just wasn’t ready to tell her yet about leaving Keith.”

“You worried for nothing. Mom is okay with you staying here. She knows it’s just a separation.” A very temporary one, I suspect. Pam’s been married too long—she doesn’t remember how lonely being single is.

She shrugs again.

“Pam? You are going to try to save your marriage, aren’t you?”

“I worked on it for twenty-five years, Holly.”

Work? Was that what marriage was supposed to be, like a job you labored at twenty-four—seven? Mine hadn’t been like that, if you exclude the times I tried to get Rob to eat right. The rest of it had pretty much been a party, full of fun and games and lots of laughter.

Pam expels a weary breath, then adds, “I need a break.” From the exasperated look she shoots me, I suspect she doesn’t want a break just from her marriage but from her family’s questions about it, too. Not that Emma, Mom or I have asked her much about their problems. We hadn’t thought they had any, so we’ve been too shocked by the news to ask.

“Why are you here?” she asks me. “Books to do? Don’t let me keep you.”

I smile at the eagerness in her voice. She obviously wants to get rid of me. “I came to talk to Mom,” I say, but don’t tell her it’s because I need to see if there’s a chapter in the widow guidebook about how to deal with resentful children. If I admitted that, Pam might offer advice, or at least an opinion, since she has one about everything. But she really can’t understand. She has only one daughter, who was always sweet and loving. Of course Rachael doesn’t know her mom left her dad yet. After Rachael married, a little less than a year ago, she moved to the other side of the state, to Detroit, for her husband’s job.

“You wanted to warn her about your meltdown in Smiley’s,” Pam guesses.

“But someone already told her about that,” I say, glaring at my oldest sister.

“This is Stanville. You expected to keep a secret here?” she asks.

I don’t point out that she expected to do the same, and just continue to glare suspiciously at her.

“It wasn’t me. I haven’t even seen her yet.” She turns on her stool and waves at Mom across the room, where she’s leaning over a table. All the men over fifty, and some under, are staring at her behind. “Until just now.”

I could argue semantics with Pam, that she could have called instead of seeing her, but I know it’s not her way of doing things. And if it was, she might not have been the first and certainly wasn’t the last to share my Kitty Cupcake coup with Mom.

“I know it wasn’t you,” I admit, cutting Pam a break.

She’s going to need it. When she realizes she made a mistake, I hope Keith gives her one and takes her back. I’m almost relieved now knowing that the boxes and bags in the hall and the garage are full of my stuff, not hers.

The kids said the contents belonged to them, but when I checked, I found towels, blankets and pillows. Their “packing” had consisted of emptying the linen closet.

“It was probably Bulletin Bill,” she murmurs around her mug, shrugging a shoulder toward the end of the counter.

Bill Diller is the only man whose head doesn’t turn to watch my mother. We figured out when we were kids why that was, that he and our math teacher, Simon Van Otten, who is now the school principal, weren’t just fishing buddies. But since the locals keep electing Bill mayor, I doubt the rest of our little conservative town knows. They think he’s simply a confirmed bachelor. He and Simon are still fishing together exclusively.

As an old-timer gets up to leave, he stops by Bill, patting his shoulder. “Hey, Mayor, I’m going to see if anything’s biting since the rain stopped. You gonna let me in on the location of your secret fishing hole?”

Bill laughs and shakes his head, as it’s not a secret he’s willing to share. But that’s the only secret he’s ever kept. If I hadn’t told Mom about Pam walking out on her marriage, he would have.

“So how was it last night, by yourself?” I ask Pam despite myself.

She’s my sister. She was there for me. Even though I don’t agree with what she’s doing, I intend to support her.

“Quiet,” she says.

I remember those first nights after Rob died. The quiet had been deafening. Now I think back to how many times I jammed my elbow in his side and complained about his snoring until he rolled over, taking most of the blankets with him. What I wouldn’t give to lie shivering and wide-awake next to him. I’ve passed stage five and accepted that’s not going to happen. But Pam can still go home.

Before I can suggest it, she releases a deep breath. “It was heaven….”

“What?”

“The silence.”

“You liked it?”

“I loved it!”

So now is probably not a good time to mention going home to her. I’ll wait. She’ll get sick of the silence. I know. The kids gave me the silent treatment this morning, and I got sick of it in the amount of time it took them each to shovel down a bowl of cereal and rush out to catch the bus.

Pam jerks so suddenly that coffee sloshes over the rim of her mug. She lets out a soft whistle that only I can hear. When she’s with Emma and me, she’s not the banker’s wife, she’s the bossy older sister, but she can also be fun in her way.

My head swivels in the direction of her gaze. I hope it’s Keith, looking particularly handsome in one of his dark suits, that has her so interested. But this is a different man, one in uniform. He’s not a mailman or a meter reader but the officer the county sheriff assigned to serve and protect Stanville.

“He makes it tempting to break the law,” she murmurs.

Deputy Nathan Westmoreland is the man to whom I still owe an apology, and I’m not about to deliver it in front of the crowd in The Tearoom. Despite Mom’s damage control, I’ve already given them enough to talk about.

And talk they will.

If Smiley didn’t report me to the police, Bulletin Bill will. On spotting the deputy, who’s hard to miss with his wide shoulders and black hair, Bill jumps up from his stool and rushes over to him. The silver glitters around the huge stone of his turquoise ring as he pumps Westmoreland’s hand.

Pam and I look at each other and roll our eyes. She shrugs. “I can’t fault his taste.”

“I hope the principal doesn’t catch him,” I whisper. “I can’t stay,” I add, getting up from the stool. I need to do a little damage control of my own and have a few ideas on how to start. I’ll pick Mom’s brain another time.

As I slip out the door, I turn back and my gaze briefly meets the deputy’s. We nod at each other, and I feel my face flush. I really don’t care if everyone tells him what happened at Smiley’s. He’s seen me far more out of control than that.

Claire slams the door so hard that the Tahoe shakes. Then she settles into the back seat without as much as a hello. But at least she’s here. Her brother wasn’t when I stopped by the high school to pick him up first.

“Hi,” I say.

I get nothing but a huffy breath in reply. I’m not sure if that’s about last night and she’s holding a grudge or if it’s just her usual attitude. Since she hit puberty, she lets out more hot air than a ballooning contest.

I understand hormones. I can remember letting out a few of those huffy breaths myself, and I’d been a relatively perfect child, at least compared to my older sisters. But I’m in no mood for her attitude after waiting for Robbie.

“So you heard me this morning when I said I’d pick you up from school.”

This time she answers me although her tone is not to my liking. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Oh, yeah, but your brother wasn’t.”

“I have piano.”

That’s why I always pick her up on Thursdays. Robbie and I usually hang out at the office or The Tearoom until Claire’s done with her lesson with the mayor’s mother. Mrs. Diller used to be the music teacher at the elementary school when my sisters and I went there.

“Didn’t Rob know I was picking him up, too?”

“I guess he didn’t feel like waiting.”

It’s odd that she’s defending him. Usually she’s tattling on him the way I used to tattle on Pam and Emma.

“So he took the bus home.”

No big deal, unless he gets into the special gordita dinner before Claire and I get home. I chopped up all the peppers, tomatoes and onions before I left. Even though I washed my hands, I can smell the onions yet. The leather steering wheel will probably smell like them for some time to come.

I’m not so worried about Robbie eating the healthy things. But if he eats all the strawberry shortcake, his favorite food, before we get home, he’ll be in trouble.

“Maybe that’s what he did,” Claire says, in that I-know-a-secret tone every sister learns. Usually she uses it on him, though, not me.

I should be happy that they’re getting along, for that hasn’t been the case since Claire learned to talk. Like sisters everywhere, she knows which buttons to push for the biggest reaction, and pesters and teases Robbie incessantly. Robbie is typically quiet and mild-mannered; she’s always been the only one who can set off his temper…until now.

Now everything’s changed. The only reason they seem to be getting along is that they have something in common—being mad at me. I know they’re not automatically going to forgive me just because I made their favorite dinner, but it’s a start.

Besides, I owe them some homemade dinners. I’ve been so busy lately with trying to get everything ready for the closing with the business, training Steve’s mom, going over records while we waited for all the paperwork to be processed regarding Rob’s estate.

It got so bad that Claire and Robbie started complaining about eating pizza too much. Maybe Pam’s right—I am a hypocrite. Just because my children are both probably underweight doesn’t mean that now is not the time to instill healthy eating habits in them. I used to, back when I’d had Rob on that diet.

I remember the days they used to beg for Rob to pick up a pizza on his way home from work. He’d had one with him that night….

“Mom!”

I step on the brakes. “What?”

“You almost passed Mrs. Diller’s.”

I glance around and see that I am just past the short picket fence that marks her property line. Behind it stands a little white bungalow, its yard aglow with the riotous colors of all the mums she’s planted.

Despite her age, Mrs. Diller rises agilely from her knees and peels off her gardening gloves and floppy straw hat. As Claire hops out to join her without so much as a goodbye, Mrs. Diller waves her hat at me.

I hesitate before pulling away. Robbie’s not with me and I’m not sure what to do, so I watch Claire for a moment. I watch the sulkiness leave her face as a smile spreads across it. I watch her snuggle into Mrs. Diller’s quick embrace before walking with her into the house. The storm door bounces twice against the frame before closing behind them and shutting me out.

My chest hurts. I want to see that smile on Claire’s face again. For me.

“Everyone grieves in his or her own way,” the grief counselor had informed me. That was about all she could offer regarding the kids’ feelings, since they wouldn’t share any of them with her.

Until last night they hadn’t shared that much with me, either. The tears in the early days. The shock. The denial. Last night was the first that I’ve felt their anger. Ironically, the same day I really gave in to mine. Maybe everyone in my house grieves in the same way.

“Give them time,” my mother said the day of the funeral and several times since. With the business sold, I can give them all my time now. Tonight’s dinner is just the beginning.

Since I’ve waited at the curb so long, I don’t have time to drive home and back. I’ll let Robbie wait at home—if that’s where he is—for a while longer so he can cool off.

Instead I run into town to check on Pam. The outside door for the stairwell to her apartment is locked. She’s probably at her yoga class in Grand Rapids, which is about a forty-five-minute drive away from Stanville.

Thinking I might collect some paperwork, I use my key to let myself into The Tearoom. It closes at three-thirty every day. It’s only four now, so the air is still rich with the mingled aromas of coffee, herbal teas and cinnamon. I breathe deeply, appreciating now why this place means so much to my mother.

Even empty, it’s still abuzz with the chatter from the day, the gossip, which was probably mostly about me. Really, Pam owes me. If not for my incident at Smiley’s, folks would have all been talking about her separation.

I wonder how long it took Bulletin Bill to spill the news about me to the deputy. Not long, I’m sure. But I bet Westmoreland wasn’t surprised. What does surprise him? He was solemn but not upset the night he brought me the news about Rob.

Westmoreland’s not from here, but he’s lived in Stanville long enough to be accepted. A few years? I can’t remember when he came or where he’s from, probably a big city where he’s seen far more than a heart-attack-induced traffic accident.

For him that was routine.

For me, it was the end of every routine I’ve ever known.

I glance at my watch, then lock the door as I leave to pick up Claire. She grunts when I ask her how her lesson went. That’s still better than the silent treatment from the morning. Not much, but better.

The house is quiet when we step inside. Some of the bags by the back door are missing. That’s good. Robbie’s already begun to put some of it away, tantrum over as quickly as mine had passed in Smiley’s. Robbie’s still my mild-mannered boy.

“Call your brother for dinner,” I tell Claire, as I open the fridge and bring out the seasoned strips of steak and chicken, which I’ve already sautéed. They just need to be popped into the microwave for a quick reheat. I reach for a plate on the counter when my sleeve brushes against something that rustles. A folded piece of paper with “Mom” scrawled across it.

I pick up the note and unfold it.

“Since you’re getting rid of everything that reminds you of Dad, I figure you’re going to get rid of me next. So I’m saving you the trouble.”

STAGE 4

I am not stupid, nor did I raise stupid children. I don’t really believe that Robbie has run away.

Despite living in a small town, he is aware of the dangers that might befall a teenager traveling on his own, and because of our small town, traveling would not be easy. The closest bus terminal is a forty-five-minute drive away, the same for the train station and airport.

How would he get to Grand Rapids? Once again, I am glad that I loaned out Rob’s Beetle. And because of the asthma that has excused him from every Phys Ed class, I know that Robbie did not run away.

If he were truly like his father, this would be one of those pranks he’s been pulling lately, and I would open his bedroom door and he’d be standing there with a big grin on his face, thinking he is so funny even though he’s not.

But his room is empty.

I know this without even stepping inside because the door is open. His bedroom door is never open.

Neither is Claire’s. Hers is shut now, with signs posted all over that No Trespassers Are Allowed. Those used to be meant for Robbie. Now I’m not so sure to whom she is referring, but I don’t care what she thinks. I am not a trespasser in my own home.

I open her door without knocking. She whirls away from her bed, where she is pulling stuff from her backpack. I step close enough that I can see a couple of wadded-up T-shirts and some CDs. Packing or unpacking? Is she intending to leave me a note, too?

“I told you to call Robbie for dinner,” I remind her, watching her face.

Her mouth twists into the familiar sulky pout. “I didn’t hear you,” she claims. The pout becomes a sneer. “I didn’t hear you knock, either.”

I swallow the words threatening to erupt. This is my house. I don’t knock on doors in my own house. Those were my mother’s words whenever Pam or Emma protested her “invading” their privacy. She’d never had to invade mine. I’d never kept any secrets from her. And Claire never used to keep any secrets from me.

She and I had been close…until a few months ago. So much has changed since then. She is no longer my little girl. She’s as tall as I am and poised on the brink of adolescence. Even her room reflects this. Not much of the soft yellow walls can be seen through the odd mixture of rock posters and pictures of kitties curled in baskets or hanging from tree limbs. Although she wants to, she’s not quite sure how to grow up. So she’s pushing me, testing her limits.

And mine.

Back when she used to share stuff with me, she’d told me about a friend of hers who purposely makes her mother mad because she thinks it’s funny to watch her turn red, and hear her swear. I suspect that is what she and Robbie have been trying with me, not because they think it’s funny, but because they’re stuck in stage two: anger. They’re lashing out like I did in Smiley’s.

I am the cupcake now.

“So where is Robbie?” I ask her, ignoring the odd little flutter in my chest. I refuse to panic. There’s no reason for it. Robbie has not run away, he’s just trying to make a point.

Claire shrugs and looks down at the T-shirts on the unmade bed. “I don’t know. Probably downstairs.”

In his father’s den. He still spends all his time there, playing on the computer. He’s not going to be pleased when I take over the room for my office, but Robbie has a laptop he can use anywhere. I need the space for files.

“I don’t think he’s there,” I say, knowing I will check anyway.

“Whatever…”

That is another chorus she sings, like the “it’s not fair” one.

“What’s with the stuff in your backpack?” I ask her, wanting to know if she thinks she’s leaving, too. Is this something they planned together, like the packed bags and boxes and the For Sale sign on the front lawn?

“I got it back from Heather.”

She and her friends share clothes and CDs so this is not unusual. But I detect that surly note in her voice, not directed at me for once. “Are you and Heather fighting?”

It would not surprise or disappoint me if Claire said yes. This is the girl who purposely makes her mother mad.

She nods. “Yeah, she’s a lying bitch!”

“Claire!” Despite our house rule against swearing, she’s called her brother names many times, but never a friend, even a friend like Heather.

“I don’t need her.” Her dark eyes tell me more, that she doesn’t think she needs anyone.

I’ve wondered why the phone, which used to ring incessantly, has been so quiet. I want to talk to her about this, about her isolation from her friends, because I understand. My friends have stopped calling, too. They expressed their sympathy at the funeral, but now they don’t know what to say to me. And if adults can’t figure it out, I doubt young girls can.

I want to explain this to her, but don’t believe she’ll listen to me now. I need to find Robbie and treat them both to their favorite dinner first. I hand her the note.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“You tell me.” They are too close now for her not to know.

She reads it through narrowed eyes. “He ran away?”

“You tell me,” I say again. “Earlier, when I asked you about his not riding the bus, you acted like you knew something. Did you know about this?”

“No!” she cries, tossing the note back at me. Her hands are shaking. She’s madder now, at him, than at Heather or me. I don’t think it’s because he ran away but because he ran away without her. “All he told me was that he wasn’t waiting for you to pick him up. He didn’t say anything else. He’s a liar!”

She may think she doesn’t need anyone, but she’s come to depend on her brother. Regardless of their past relationship as pest-pestee, they are the only ones who truly understand what each other is going through, more so than I do. With Rob’s passing, I lost my husband; they lost their father.

“I doubt he’s really run away,” I assure her, as she’s blinking back tears. “We’ll find him.”

I reach to put my arm around her, but she pulls away from me.

“Whatever…”

I am mad now, not worried. I still believe he is too smart to have run away. I’m mad because he’s so smart that he has hidden well. He’s not with his friends. I have called their houses, had their mothers search their rooms, as I have searched every room of my house.

And the garage.

And the shed in the back.

And now, as I stand at the kitchen window of Emma’s farmhouse, I watch flashlight beams bounce around in the woods like huge fireflies. Others are searching for him now.

But he isn’t out there.

Autumn, even this early, and his asthma are a bad combination. If he’s out among the rotting leaves, he’ll be breathing so hard that they’ll hear him, the flashlights unnecessary. But it’s important to them that they search. Keith is looking, with Emma’s husband, Troy, and her oldest son, Dylan. It’s how men react; they have to fix things. That was how Rob got into computer repair in the first place. He was a fixer, too.

But his expression would not be as grim as theirs had been when they learned Robbie was missing. He’d be smiling, cracking jokes or sleeping. I remember how he used to play hide-n-go-seek with the kids when they were little. He’d created his own version: hide-n-go-sleep.

While Robbie and Claire hid away, being absolutely quiet so he wouldn’t hear them, Rob would lie down on the couch where he’d been counting, and fall asleep. His snoring would eventually draw them from their hiding places, and he’d catch them when he awoke, without ever leaving the couch.

Maybe I should have tried that. But I’m too mad to sleep. And not just at Robbie for pulling this stunt, but at Rob for not being here to handle it.

My trembling fingers close over one of the ceramic roosters sitting on the windowsill. Like Mom with the teapots, this is what Emma collects, claiming they are required in a country kitchen. While not as bad as the hula lamp, they are tacky. She has too many. Would she mind if I picked up this one and hurled it against the wall? Or through the window? I need to break something so that I don’t.

Because if Rob were here, Robbie would be, too. He wouldn’t run away from his father. Just me. I’d thought what he and Claire had said before slamming their bedroom doors last night had been in the heat of the moment, but what if he meant it? What if he hates me? Then he really would have run away….

“Where do you think he could be?” I ask Emma, who stands anxiously behind me. I see her reflection in the glass, the tight expression on her face, the worry in her eyes. It’s my face that’s staring back at me, the mirror image. There’s a catch in my voice as I tell her, “I checked with everyone.”

I called my mom on the off chance Robbie walked to town, but she hadn’t seen him. I convinced her not to come out, that the guys had the search under control. Pam still hadn’t been home, not that I could see Robbie crashing with his least-favorite aunt. It’s probably just out of loyalty to Rob that he doesn’t like Pam, and why he played the pranks on her. He’d heard them argue too many times.

Emma puts her arm around my shoulders. Unlike Claire, who’d pulled away from me, I lean into her, appreciating her warmth and support. If only it were Rob’s strong arm around me, his big body to lean against for support….

I blink back the tears burning my eyes.

“I don’t know,” she says.

I was so sure he’d be here, in the old farmhouse where I’d grown up, probably doubting Emma would notice one more teenager with five of them already. Or believing that if she did, she would let him stay anyway.

He and Claire think Emma is more lenient than I am, but that’s just because her house has two sets of rules. Emma has one set for her kids; Troy has another for his. And neither of them disciplines the other’s. They agreed on this arrangement to protect their marriage. Sometimes I think it does more harm, but Emma will do whatever necessary to make this relationship work, since she really loves Troy.

I understand Emma. I always do. It’s Pam who rarely makes sense to me. Then Emma says, “You need to try Deputy Westmoreland again.”

Now I wonder about her. “I didn’t call him.” But I did call the police department. “They’re already sending an officer to check the bus and train terminals for a boy matching the description I gave them.”

Emma squeezes my shoulder. “Deputy Westmoreland is the one who works with teenagers at the high school.”

At-risk teens. Robbie is not at risk. He’s just pissed off that I sold his father’s business. I’m deliberately obtuse. “Robbie’s not at the high school.”

I already called Principal Van Otten…at the mayor’s house. Robbie had attended school today, but I learned there were some other days that he’d missed.

When I find him, I intend to make it clear to him that skipping school is unacceptable and he has detention to serve. At least I assume that is what Mr. Van Otten wants to discuss during the meeting he scheduled with me for tomorrow, provided I find Robbie by then. I have to find Robbie by then. My fingers tighten so hard around the rooster that I imagine I hear a quiet crack. I force my grip to loosen.

Mr. Van Otten also checked with the bus driver and called me back to confirm that Robbie had taken the bus home this afternoon. I doubt he could have gotten as far as the bus or train terminals. He has to be around here somewhere. I continue to watch the lights bouncing around in the woods.

“Holly,” Emma says in that long-suffering, patient tone that has me squirming like one of her children. “Deputy Westmoreland knows where all the teenagers hang out.”

“I’m sure he’s not the only one in the police department who knows. I know.”

The cemetery. The park. The football field. Nothing much changes in Stanville, or Standstill, which is what we called it as kids, which is what the kids call it now. “I’ll go look for him.”

“You should stay here,” she insists. “In case he comes home.”

He better. And soon. Once he does, he’ll never run away again because he won’t be leaving the house. Maybe I’ll homeschool, then I won’t have to worry about his skipping or running away. I have the time now.

But Rob will haunt me. He had strong opinions about kids needing the social aspect of public school, especially someone like Robbie, who’s so shy. Too shy to be hanging out at the cemetery. Or the park. Or the football field. Looking for him at any of those places would be a waste of time.

“Deputy Westmoreland knows what Robbie looks like,” Emma continues. “He was at Rob’s funeral.”

I’ll have to take her word for it, since I didn’t see him there. I really don’t care who looks for Robbie, as long as someone is. “I called the police,” I remind her again. “And I have pictures of him, you know.”

His class photos had come back earlier this week. Maybe I shouldn’t have paid extra for the professional touch-up. His skin isn’t really that clear, but still they’ll be able to recognize him. If it comes to that.

I hope it doesn’t. But if they can’t find Robbie outside, I need to call the kind-voiced police dispatcher back and have them send an officer out so I can file an official report. A missing person’s report.

My son is missing. For a moment I can’t breathe, my lungs crushed from the pressure on my chest. I can’t lose Robbie, too. I need to do something. I’m tired of standing here, watching other people search for my son. “Do you have another flashlight?” I ask Emma.

She shakes her head. “Come on, Holly. You know he’s not out there.”

I know he’s not. Robbie hates camping, probably because of his asthma. The outdoors, campfire thing was never for him, and our family vacations were all spent in nice hotels.

“He must have new friends,” I say, “because he hasn’t spent much time with the ones he used to have.”

Like Claire, does he think he doesn’t need them? But I actually like Robbie’s friends. They’re sweet and shy like him, like he used to be.

“I’ll ask Jason,” Emma says. Jason is her stepson who’s in the same grade as Robbie, even though he’s a year older. Before she leaves the kitchen, she presses a card into my hand. “His cell phone number is on here. Call him.”

I open my fingers around the ivory paper. Deputy Westmoreland’s name and badge number are on the card, along with the number for the police department that I’ve already called. Someone has also written in his cell number. From the bold scrawl, I figure he wrote it down himself.

When did Emma get this? At the funeral? Had the deputy thought then that Robbie would be “at risk” just because his father had died? Now I’m mad at Westmoreland again. Or still. I can’t remember which, but he really has no business getting in my business.

If I call him, I would tell him that and…that my son is missing. Emma’s right. He should be the officer with whom I file the “official” report. He knows the situation, unlike the dispatcher, who’d been kind but not particularly concerned. “He’s a teenage boy,” he’d said. “He’s probably hanging out with friends. But we can take a report….”

I’d held off then, wanting to let the guys finish their search first, but I can’t wait any longer. Turning away from the window, I cross to where Emma’s cordless phone sits on the counter. It’s still warm from all the calls I made earlier. I’ve punched in two numbers when a clamor erupts upstairs. Raised voices. Jason’s. Then Emma’s. Emma hardly ever raises her voice. Then there are footsteps on the stairs.

“You aren’t supposed to come into my room!” Jason’s shouting.

Unlike me, Emma is sometimes considered a trespasser in her own house because of the house rules. She’s not allowed to enter Troy’s kids’ rooms. He respects their privacy, sometimes more than I think he respects Emma. Rob and I hadn’t parented like that. We’d been equal partners, which is probably why it’s so hard going it alone.

“What’s going on?” I ask, as she charges back into the kitchen.

Her face is red, and she’s dragging someone—Jason?—behind her. All I see is an arm. Then the rest of the slight body follows.

“Robbie!”

Relief floods me. Until this moment I didn’t think I was worried, not really worried, but my knees are a little weak now. If I’d lost him, too…

I reach for him to throw my arms around him, but he steps back. His reaction isn’t the same as Claire’s rejection of my comfort, though, because there’s something in his dark eyes, a fear of me magnified by his thick lenses, that’s never been there before.

Maybe it’s good that he fears me a little. He should after this stunt he’s pulled. My hands are shaking as I close them over his shoulders, forcing him to look at me.

“What—” I bite my tongue. Damn our no-swearing rule “—were you thinking?”

“I want to live here,” he says, “with Aunt Emma.”

Pain grips my heart, squashing it as viciously as I had the Kitty Cupcakes yesterday.

Emma flashes me a look, one full of sympathy. As a mother she knows how much it hurts to have your child want to run away from you.

“That’s too bad,” I say, steeling my voice to cover the hurt. “We all want things we can’t have.”

I can’t have Rob back.

That’s what Robbie’s and Claire’s attitudes are all about. They blame me. Last night I let them. Tonight is another story—my patience has worn out.

That’s why I can’t homeschool. Rob’s wrath and socialization aside, I don’t have enough patience, not where my children are concerned.

Seeing that he’ll get nowhere with me, Robbie turns back to Emma. “Please, Aunt Em, I can’t live with her anymore. She doesn’t really want me there.”

And that’s why the fear is there. He’s scared that I really don’t want him.

“Don’t make me go back,” he begs.

Poor Emma, always stuck in the middle. I can see her soft heart in her eyes as she stares back at Robbie. “I’m sorry, honey….”

“She has too many kids already,” I remind them both.

At least one too many. Jason has come downstairs now, standing in the doorway behind Emma and Robbie. His hair is dyed black and his eyebrow, nose and lip are pierced. He’s only sixteen, but his father gave his permission for the self-mutilation.

With a little relief, I realize that the deputy probably did not give his card to Emma for me or Robbie. Robbie is not the at-risk teen.

Not yet.

But I have a horrible feeling that if I can’t reach him, he soon will be.

“Great,” Claire says, as she flops onto the living room couch next to Robbie. “It’s your fault we gotta listen to a lecture now.”

She shifts against the deep suede cushions and manages to elbow him in the ribs, a move both daring, because she does it in front of me, and subtle, because she can swear it was an accident. She’s good.

But then so am I. I paid attention growing up. I know what nonsense my sisters pulled on my parents. And I’m not going to let my children pull it on me. Rob and I had made that pact, along with others. Like we wouldn’t let them play us off against each other. No going to Dad with a request that Mom had already refused. We had vowed to keep a united front. That’s hard to do alone.

“Okay,” I say. “We need to talk.”

“You mean you need to talk,” Robbie says. “All we get to do is listen.”

“That would be nice,” I reply, “but apparently you don’t do that very well.”

His face flushes bright red.

Claire elbows him again. “Dork.”

“Enough,” I say. And I mean it.

“That’s another reason I want to live with Aunt Emma,” Robbie says. “Because she doesn’t.” He scowls at Claire.

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