Or for his dad, Jamie realized, who would never see him ride a bike, serve a tennis ball, score a basket.
Aching inside, she gave him his milk, which he drank as he wandered around the kitchen. Then she fixed him a bowl of cereal, put it on the island counter, and reached for him. He had long since rejected a high chair, but now refused even the booster seat. “Dis one, Mamie,” he insisted, patting a stool, and when she set him there, he patted the stool beside it. “Mamie eat.”
Jamie wasn’t up for food, but after a few minutes, she went to the fridge for yogurt and fruit and, to encourage Tad, swallowed a few blueberries herself. When she put some in his cereal bowl, he howled in protest. “No blues!” She snatched them back out and crossed the kitchen to get another plate. By the time she returned, he had tipped the cereal bowl and was drawing pictures in the milk that pooled on the granite counter, and when she reached for a paper towel, half a dozen sheets left the roll.
She might have been upset if there hadn’t been so much else on her mind—like what to do with Tad when breakfast was done. They could play inside, outside, or at one of the playgrounds in town. But how could she play? How could she smile and laugh and run with the sun rising on the saddest possible day?
Focus, she told herself again. But how to do that with God-only-knew-what-else going on? Tad was lucky. He was a child. He could be blissfully ignorant. Or not.
“Where Mommy?” Big brown eyes held hers.
Uh. Uh. Omigod. What to say?
“She had to go out” seemed the best stopgap, and yes, the child was blissfully ignorant of the absurdity of Jess going out at this hour. “You’re stuck with Mamie today,” she said and let him help mop up the milk. He had fun with that. She let him drag it out.
She barely made it to seven before texting her mother. It was a few minutes before an answer came, and the exchange that followed was choppy. Caroline was driving Theo home. There was no word on Jess. Funeral plans would wait until they knew more. Theo wanted her to start calling MacAfee people.
You can do this, Jamie, read her final text, and while Jamie needed more, she understood. It sounded like Caroline had her hands full with Theo, perhaps even more so than Jamie with Tad. Theo knew what was happening.
* * *
Brad’s appearance at Roy’s shortly thereafter was small comfort. His hair was mussed, his face pale, his eyes shadowed. When she asked for details of the accident, he just shook his head, then did it again when she asked how Jess was, and when she tried to verbalize what had been hovering in the back of her mind, haunting her, his bleak look cut her off before she said a word.
Had the remoteness of the scene affected the outcome? Would Roy be alive if help had arrived sooner? Would they ever know?
Thinking that the answer was no to all three, but that Brad was grappling with gruesome images and could probably use breakfast, she left him in the den to play with Tad, but within seconds of her leaving the room, the boy followed, and she didn’t mind. His presence filled a void and kept her mind from dwelling on Roy. Brad might have been the one physically viewing the scene of the crash, but her imagination pinned her right there as well.
She returned to the den for pieces of the wooden train, then set it back up in the kitchen while Brad planted himself on a stool with his forearms on the granite and his eyes distant. When she rubbed his shoulder, he gave her a weak smile.
She could have used words of solace in return. But what did one say in a situation like this?
* * *
What one said, she discovered when, within the hour, the phone started to ring, was Thank you, I appreciate your thoughts, Yes, we’re shocked. What one said, she realized when more calls came and the questions narrowed, was I’m sorry, I don’t know, Maybe, No plans yet. And when the calls grew solicitous, she could only express gratitude. I’ll remember that, I haven’t thought that far, Thank you for offering.
The last had to do with watching Tad, even for the funeral, but she couldn’t go there yet. She couldn’t think beyond the next hour.
* * *
There was a certain cruelty to the sun shining after the havoc wreaked by the storm the night before, but Jamie needed to get out. Brad had barely eaten and remained in a visible pall. Was it easy for her to carry on? No, but someone had to do it for Tad. She told herself that the child was too young to grasp what had happened, but even apart from the occasional cry for his mother, if the way he was clinging to Jamie meant anything, he sensed something was up.
Before they could make it to the backyard, though, Maureen Olson arrived in a deluge of tears. Tests had shown an absence of activity in Jess’s brain. The local team had even consulted with neurologists at two other hospitals, but “brain dead” stood. Machines were all that kept her alive.
Jamie was crushed. When her eyes filled with tears, it wasn’t so much for Maureen as for Tad. He would never see his mother again. She would never be coming home. Jamie had always prayed that he wouldn’t have to be a child of divorce, but this? Unimaginably worse.
Maureen spoke in a rush, explaining that she had begged the doctors to tell her there was even the smallest sign of life, had begged them to try something, anything, but they insisted that nothing would change what the tests showed … that she thought it better to let her daughter die with dignity … that she couldn’t possibly take Tad back to Leominster with her, that her other children were grown, her husband couldn’t take the noise, and she couldn’t handle a toddler.
As if Jamie would have even considered letting him go?
Misinterpreting her horrified expression, Maureen blathered on about money, time, arthritis, even a planned cruise, until Jamie stopped it with a hand on her arm.
“Tad is mine,” she said. Her heart beat wildly as the fact of that set in for the very first time. Needing an anchor, she looked back at Brad. “When he was first born, they named me his legal guardian, but I never, ever thought…” With Brad looking as stunned as she felt, she faced Maureen again. “We’ll bury Jess with Roy.”
The woman simply nodded, gave Tad an awkward hug, and excused herself to return to the hospital.
Tad is mine Tad is mine Tad is mine. The words echoed along with the deeper meaning that they implied. With Brad remaining silent, Jamie shifted her frustration to Maureen, wondering how in the world the woman could so easily walk away from the only thing she had left of Jess.
Feeling rejected on Tad’s behalf, she gathered him up and held his face to her shoulder. His warm little body settling into hers was an unexpected comfort. He’s all I have left of my father, Jamie thought, but an even more terrifying thought came fast on that.
I’m all he has.
Without a word to Brad, she went out the back door.
ten
When Brad joined Jamie a short time later, Tad was gliding forward and back in his bucket swing. The movement was repetitive, predictable, mindless, all of which she needed. When the bucket came back at her, she gave it a push, then raised anguished eyes to Brad.
He looked drained. A living nightmare and zero sleep could do that to a person. But she was living the same nightmare, and she needed comfort. She needed reassurance that things would be okay, that they could handle this, that he would be a father to Tad.
Instead, he stood at her side without a word.
To get him talking, Jamie asked, “Will she have them turn off the machines?”
“I’d guess.”
“I don’t envy her that.”
The swing returned. She sent it forward again. And again. And again.
Brad remained silent.
Having been leaning over the front of the bucket, Tad straightened and looked back as the bucket approached her. “Out, Mamie!”
Catching the swing, she lowered it to a stop and lifted him, but the bucket twisted when his sneaker caught in the leg hole. “Brad…” She breathed a plea for help—he was standing right there—but by the time he figured out what to do, she had freed the sneaker herself.
“Not her mother.”
“No. Jess became a third wheel the minute Maureen remarried. It got worse when the half sibs were born. I guess it’s in character that she’s washing her hands of Tad, but it still boggles my mind.”
“She was being honest. She’s not prepared to take in a child.”
“Neither am I, but do I have a choice?”
Brad didn’t reply.
“Neither do you,” she said quietly. “This is my lot now.”
“I didn’t know you were his guardian.”
“I never thought to tell you. I never thought it would happen.”
“You’re not set up for it.”
“I can be.”
“How will you work?”
“I haven’t thought that far.”
“You’ll have to soon.”
“Dad hasn’t been dead a day,” she protested and might have said more if a sudden scream from Tad hadn’t brought her head around. One look at him sprawled on his face, apparently having tripped climbing out of the sandbox, and she bolted forward in a fit of worry and guilt. Had she been standing right there, paying closer attention, she would have caught him before he fell.
By the time she reached him, he was on all fours and crying bitterly. Snatching him up, she saw dirt on his knees but no blood. Heart pounding, she clutched him to her. “It’s okay, baby, shhhh, you’re okay, I gotcha.”
“I wan Mommy.”
Jamie identified with that, oh boy, did she ever. There was something about letting it all go and sobbing for a mother to make everything better. She was bereft about Roy, distanced from Caroline, uneasy over Brad, and Tad was crying his little heart out. She felt his pain, felt as lost and alone as he did.
Holding him back, she wiped big tears from his cheeks with her thumbs, kissed his forehead, and hugged him again. “You’re such a good boy, Mamie’s right here, I am not letting go.”
And she didn’t. Ignoring the phone, she held him while he ate a snack. When family friends arrived and began congregating in the kitchen and living room to murmur together in horror and shock, she escaped with Tad to the den, where she held him on her lap and read board book after board book. When he began to squirm, she took him outside again, this time to the toy-filled garage. The child wanted for nothing except a mother and father.
And how cruel is that? Jamie wondered in silent anguish.
Well-wishers joined them, speaking kind words that inevitably led to questions she couldn’t answer. She did her best to be polite, but after a while, her mind clotted. Leaving them texting others in town, she pushed Tad down the sidewalk on his tricycle while he walked his feet along. She went farther than she should have and ended up walking back with him on her hip and the tricycle trailing off her hand. By the time she reached the house, Brad was gone, headed to Theo’s to help make calls.
People left. More arrived. Some were personal friends of Roy and Jess, some friends of the business. They were devastated and didn’t know how to help, but the best Jamie could do was promise to let them know when she figured it out herself.
By midday, the people who came carried food. Sandwiches and casseroles, cookies and cakes, a watermelon filled with cut fruit—all so generous, she knew. But the gift she appreciated most was the arrival of Desideria Carmel, who cleaned for Roy and Jess and was stricken. Desperate to help, she took over the kitchen.
When it came to helping with Tad, though, Jamie smiled a thanks-but-no-thanks. She needed to do this herself. Sifting through foil-covered dishes, she took bits of chicken and pasta and sat him on her lap. He didn’t eat much. There were too many people around, too many voices droning on through the house. She had a little more luck with fruit, and total luck with a cookie, but even before the last of that was gone, he was rubbing his eyes with his fists.
He was exhausted. So was she. She carried him upstairs, changed him, and put him in his crib. He was asleep within minutes, and within minutes of that, slumped in a nearby rocker, so was she.
When the doorbell rang, she bolted awake. That brief sleep had been so deep that it was a minute before she got her bearings, at which point reality returned in a biting rush. Stomach knotting, she scrambled up to check Tad. Mercifully, he slept on. Likewise, mercifully, everything downstairs was under control. With more people than ever milling about, the dining room table was beautifully set and offered a spread of food and drinks. There were no paper goods here, but rather the fine china and crystal for which Jessica had registered before the wedding. The elegance of it all would have pleased Roy.
He would not have been pleased with Jamie’s T-shirt and jeans—it seemed a lifetime ago that she had pulled them on—but there was nothing to be done. She refused to run home for nicer clothes lest Tad wake while she was gone, and a good decision that was. Nicer clothes wouldn’t have worked. By the time he woke up, she had so OD’d on well-meaning friends that she knew if she didn’t escape she would go mad.
* * *
The town playground was a five-minute drive from the house. Jamie had driven Jess’s SUV often enough that the eeriness of doing it now wasn’t so bad. But then, she had no alternative. Her convertible didn’t have a backseat, and the playground was a must.
Always before, though, she had taken Tad here during the week. This being Sunday, the place was packed with families, so arriving alone with Tad was a stark reminder of their loss. She actually stood at the fence for a minute, wondering if she could bear it. If a break from people was what she needed, she could always drive around for an hour.
But Tad was standing between her legs, his little fingers clutching the links and impatiently rattling the gate. Telling herself that his needs came first, she lifted the latch. He ran off toward a broad climbing dome, and though she was quickly there, he knew this piece of equipment. Scrambling up, he sprawled from one foothold to another, reckless and unafraid.
Jamie was moving around the dome in anticipation of where he might fall off when she was spotted. Even wearing sunglasses, she was a familiar face, if not as a former classmate then as a MacAfee.
“Jamie! Oh my God! You poor thing,” cried one parent. And another, “Jess was my playground buddy. We always sat here together.” And a third, this a dad who sold flooring to MacAfee designers, “We heard the sirens, but had no idea it was Roy.”
Nodding, Jamie continued to shadow Tad around the dome. When he slid off and raced to a nearby rope ladder, others migrated there as well. She kept her eye on Tad, saying only as much as was necessary to avoid rudeness, but all the while she was growing frantic, wondering how word had spread so fast and why these people couldn’t see that she needed to pretend, for a few minutes at least, that this hadn’t happened. She helped Tad climb to the top of the ladder, then lifted him off, knowing that he was going to have to learn how to climb down as well, but not today.
Today she needed a quiet corner. There was only one—the old sandbox, which was huge and contained many more pails and shovels than children. Only one little boy was there; she guessed him to be three or four. The man she assumed to be his father sat alone on a bench on the far side. He wore sunglasses and a ball cap and was reading a book.
Thinking that something about him was keeping the other parents away and that maybe, just maybe, the repellent would work for her, too, she sat down at the end of his bench. She had no idea if he saw her. He didn’t say anything. Which was good.
Her eyes hung on Tad, who stood utterly still by the rim of the box as he watched the other child shovel sand into a pail, pack it down, and turn it over. The sand was damp; after last night’s rain, it would be a while drying out. Climbing in, Tad went to within three feet of the child and continued to watch.
“Will you have custody of him?” came the low voice of a woman kneeling at Jamie’s elbow.
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Jamie hadn’t seen her coming. She cleared her throat. “Uh, yes. I will.”
A minute passed. Then the woman said, “Jessica adored Tad. She was good with other kids, too. She told me she wanted another one and that she was trying to get pregnant, but I guess it hadn’t happened yet.”
Jamie swallowed. She tried to let the words go over her head, but they only created another source of loss.
“If I can help, you know, maybe host a play date for Tad, will you let me know?” She rattled off her name; Jamie didn’t catch it. She was thinking that she couldn’t process play dates just yet when she saw Tad pick up a shovel and dig into the sand. Without a word to the woman, she left the bench and entered the sandbox. Pulling over a pail, she set to helping Tad fill it with sand. When it was full, she tipped it to make a mound beside the three that the other child now had. None was perfect. All were crumbling somewhere or other, but that didn’t matter. Looking around, she spotted a plastic piece in a castle shape, but while the other child helped her fill it, Tad sat on his haunches and watched.
They worked in silence. Jamie thought about asking for the boy’s name. Or his age. But doing something, anything, without having to think was a respite. So she let it go.
When she returned to the bench, the woman was gone. Jamie dug out her cell and called Caroline. She didn’t care if her mother was busy. She needed to hear her voice.
“Mom,” she breathed, bending over herself in dire relief. “Mom.” Barely a sound.
“Oh, baby. You sound awful.”
She took a steadying breath. “Is Jess gone?”
There was a pause, then a sad “Yes. Theo just got the call.”
Jamie wrapped her free arm over her head. “Oh God,” she whispered.
“I know,” Caroline whispered. “The enormity…” Her voice trailed off, then, “I’m guessing the funeral will be Wednesday.”
“Together?”
Blueprints Page 12
