“That’s preposterous.”
“I agree. But there’s more.
“She said she used to laugh at Sal when he showed off on the go-cart. When he raced ahead of us and then started doing figure eights and weaving back and forth on the highway.
“She said she’d laugh at him and when he got back to her he’d drive a big circle around us and the two of them would laugh and carry on and have great fun.”
“I remember that. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“She said if she hadn’t laughed at him he would have stopped doing it. That he wouldn’t have showed off and driven like a silly goof to make her laugh. And she thought that’s what he was trying to do when he got shot. And that’s why he drove out so far ahead of us.”
“Honey, that’s ridiculous. Nothing she did made that bastard ambush him for that go-cart. That would have happened whether they’d been horsing around or not.”
“I know. But you know how irrational kids can be.”
“Do you want me to talk to her?”
“No. But I want you to be very careful not to let her get too close to Woody. If she gets too close to Woody and he were to die before we leave in the spring, she’ll be crushed. She’ll mourn as much as she did when Sal died. Maybe more. She’ll never want to love anybody again.
“And… heaven forbid, if his death isn’t natural… if he dies tragically, she’s going to search for ways to blame herself. You know she will. And I can’t even imagine the torture that’ll put her through.”
Dave bit his tongue.
He had something to say, but he didn’t want to say it.
He looked away and tried to focus on a crack in the wall.
Then he tried to change the subject.
“Hey, Lilly said she has some jarred tomatoes in her root cellar. She told me while I was headed your way to ask you if you’d rather have those with the fish instead of instant mashed potatoes.”
She went silent.
Dave took his attention away from the crack and stole a quick glance at her.
Bad mistake.
Dave had never been able to keep a secret from Sarah.
It was why, on the day he decided to propose to her, he went out and bought the first engagement ring he looked at. Then he proposed to her an hour later.
Later, when she found out how he rushed the process, she asked why.
He said, “It was important to me to see the look of surprise on your beautiful face. And the only I could do that was to do everything immediately. If I waited until the next month or the next week or even the next day you’d have seen something on my face. You’d have interrogated me, given me the third degree. Water boarded me, even. You’d have pulled out my fingernails until I told you what I was up to. And that would rob me of seeing that look of surprise.”
Over the course of their marriage he’d tried keeping things from her but was never able to. The one and only time Sarah ever had a surprise birthday party was not of Dave’s doing. Lindsey set it up and kept it from him too.
Sarah always said Dave should never play poker because he didn’t have the face for it.
And it was true she could look at him and know instantly when something was up.
That’s the feeling she got now.
So he fessed up.
“Beth came to me this morning and asked me if I thought Woody would mind if she started calling him ‘Grandpa Woody.’
“I asked her why and she said he was very much like a grandpa to her. That she loved him and she was pretty sure he loved her too.”
Sarah said, “Oh my goodness. I was afraid this might happen, but I didn’t think it would be this soon.”
She looked again at Dave’s face and saw something there.
“Wait a minute. There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I told her I thought it would be perfectly fine to call him Grandpa Woody. I said I didn’t think he’d mind at all. I told her I thought he’d be honored.”
Sarah said something under her breath that Dave didn’t catch.
He could have asked her to repeat it, but he was pretty sure it was something he didn’t particularly want to hear.
“Well,” Sarah said, resigned to the situation, “We’ll only be here three, maybe four months. We’ll just pray that nothing happens to the man until after we leave, and odds are they’ll never see one another again after that.”
“Okay.”
“And you, Mister… I want you to follow that man around as much as possible. If he sneezes, you offer him a tissue. If he coughs, you offer him a cough drop.
“If he complains of any ailments at all, you get him over to Doc Matlock’s office to get checked out.”
“But why me?”
“This is your fault, Dave. Is it not?”
“Of course, honey.”
He sighed heavily.
“It always is…”
Chapter 6
Robert awoke before his sister Amy and padded down the stairs of the Spear house.
He’d heard the raindrops on the roof, but was unable to look out the bedroom window.
One of the things Dave had done immediately after the power went out was to turn his house into something of a fortress.
He also made it appear to be empty, so looters looking for food wouldn’t even bother with it.
He spray painted all the upstairs windows with black paint so candle light wouldn’t be visible to the street below. As an added measure, in case the paint should peel, he cut the seams of several black leaf bags and then taped them over the window boxes.
He removed the curtains and blinds from the picture window in front of the house and moved the furniture out as well.
On that window he taped a phony eviction notice from a local bank, and closed and sealed that room’s door which led into the rest of the house. Anyone peering in the picture window would clearly see the house was vacant and would move on to the next house.
Robert loved looking at the rain.
In the chaotic and austere household he was raised in it was one of his rare escapes.
But in the house he now lived in he was unable to do that.
Unless, of course, he went downstairs and sat on the covered deck just outside the back door.
That was where he retreated on this particular morning.
He hadn’t slept well at all.
When it rains in San Antonio it tends to rain for several days in a row.
This was the third consecutive day, and without a working television or radio there was no way of knowing how much longer the rain would continue.
He’d gone to sleep the night before listening to the pitter-patter upon the roof and missing his mother. For watching the rain come down was something they often did together.
In the night he’d dreamed, first of Monica’s smiling face and warm bear hugs.
Then of his father Ronald beating him for some unknown transgression. And when Monica intervened, beating her instead.
Robert remembered hating his mother’s beatings much worse than his own, for he felt guilty when she took his punishment for him.
His anguish woke him up long before daybreak. But in a room which was completely dark twenty four seven, and which had no working clock, he didn’t know that.
When he went out onto the patio and saw for himself how dark the sky was he almost went back up the stairs and back to bed.
But who was he fooling? There was no way he’d be able to go back to sleep.
Sitting there alone, on the darkened deck, he’d have to settle for listening to the raindrops.
Around his feet were over a dozen fuzzy creatures taking shelter from the weather. A couple of the rabbits sat against his stocking feet to rob some of their warmth.
Others soon came and joined the party, and after ten minutes they were all snuggled around him.
He didn’t mind.
For their furry
little bodies helped keep his feet warm as well.
It was what his mother would have called a “win/win situation.”
God, he missed her.
He started to sniffle, then to sob.
Then he remembered the long talks he had with his momma in the weeks before she died.
Monica was all about preparing them; helping them learn, and providing them the skills they’d need to survive without her after she was gone.
It wasn’t all hands-on skills she tried to teach them.
She also tried to teach them emotional strength. Coping skills. She wanted her death to make them stronger and more determined and more self-confident.
She didn’t want them to break down when she passed, for that would spell doom for them.
“You’ll want to cry, little man,” she told him when they talked of her passing. “Don’t let yourself do it. If anyone sees you they’ll think of you as weak and vulnerable. They’ll see you as easy prey and will steal from you before they’ll steal from someone else.
“Hold back the tears, and show the world what a strong little man you are.”
He tried, he really did.
But he’d been holding them in for so long.
It was hard, surviving day to day without their mom. On some days it seemed downright impossible.
Here, now, he was struggling as never before.
Here, now, the darkness hid him from view of anyone out there who might be watching. The sound of the rain muffled the sound of his sobs.
There was no better time than now to cry openly without anyone seeing him and thinking him weak.
Despite his mother’s warnings he let loose.
He openly and unashamedly bawled for the first time since they buried her.
Chapter 7
Amy crept down the stairs, not quite sure what she’d heard.
It was faint, and she was still sleepy, but it was somehow familiar.
Like a wounded animal, almost.
Whatever it was she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until she investigated it and made sure it presented no danger for herself or her brother.
She tiptoed past Robert’s bedroom, not even checking to see if he was still in bed. And really, why would she? The lazy guy always slept way past daybreak, a couple of hours after Amy was up and hard at work.
Down the staircase she went on socked feet, tightly gripping one of the handguns Dave had hidden in the basement. And hoping against hope she didn’t have to use it.
She liked the added sense of security it gave her, but she’d never fired it and wasn’t sure she could. Not at a man, anyway. And it was so darned heavy she could barely hold it with both hands without her skinny little arms shaking.
Still, she knew, it was better than going into battle unarmed.
She stopped and froze like a statue as she heard the sound again.
It wasn’t a wounded animal. It wasn’t an animal at all.
It sounded like someone… crying.
She walked to the front of the house first, past the big ugly plywood safe room Dave built in the den. Sometimes in the daytime when she was scared or lonely she took refuge there, because it was closed in and cozy. She headed for the front door to make sure no one had broken in.
It was still secure, as was the locked and barricaded door which opened into the empty room at the front of the house.
She ruled out a break-in, because any intruders would have come in one of those two places.
No one would take the time and trouble to bring a ladder to an abandoned house and use it to climb up to an upstairs window.
And they couldn’t climb over the privacy fence and come through the back doors or windows.
Dave took care of that months before by screwing sharp wood screws through each of the privacy fence’s slats, each screw an inch from the top of the fence.
No one could scale the fence without tearing their hands to shreds.
And, given every indication was that the house was vacant, certainly no one would even try.
Not when there were several other vacant houses on the same block with no such obstacles.
Once she knew no one had broken in she relaxed a bit and breathed a sigh of relief.
It was only then it finally struck her.
She knew what the sound was. It was indeed someone crying.
And she recognized the sobbing as her little brother Robert.
It shouldn’t have taken her so long to recognize it. Even with the sound of the heavy rain masking it she should have known.
In the weeks since their mother died she’d heard him crying several times. Always in the night. And always trying to hide his sobs beneath a pillow.
She called his name.
“Robert? Robert, where are you?”
Nothing.
She made her way back through the den, toward the back of the house.
She called again as she entered the kitchen.
“Robert? Where are you?”
Even as she spoke the sobbing started again. But when he heard her words he stopped immediately.
He called back, “Out here. On the deck.”
Had he closed the sliding glass door all the way she likely wouldn’t have heard him at all. He likely would have finished his cry and gone back to bed on his own.
Sometimes our subconscious minds make us say or do things for our own benefit, without making us aware they’re doing so.
Perhaps it was his subconscious mind which prevented him from shutting the door all the way.
It was only open four inches or so.
But it was enough to allow sounds to pass back and forth.
Robert hated to appear babyish to his sister, because she frequently called him on it.
And because his mother asked him to try his best to be brave after she was gone.
Oh, he tried, he really did.
But every man has his moments.
Even the toughest guys in the world, those who chew nails and spit rivets, tear up while watching Old Yeller. If they say they don’t they’re liars.
Amy wouldn’t call him out this morning.
For she had her weak moments too.
And she knew that his crying embarrassed him. She gave him credit for sneaking out of the house so he wouldn’t wake her. That was very considerate of him.
She went out and slid the door closed behind her.
“Hey buddy. Good morning.”
“Hey. Sorry I woke…”
“Shhhh… it’s okay. I was pretty much awake anyway. You just listening to the rain and keeping the rabbits company?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s kind of chilly out here. Want me to go in and get your coat?”
“No, thanks. I’ll go back inside in a few minutes.”
Both went silent for a couple of minutes, just listening to the raindrops pelt the tin roof above their heads.
Amy continued, “You know, I miss her too.”
“I know. I just didn’t think it would be this hard.”
“I didn’t either. Every time she talked about it she sounded… cheerful, almost. Like it was no big deal.”
“I think she was trying to spare us as much pain as she could. She didn’t want us to grieve for her before she was actually gone.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Do you think she’s up there watching us?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure of it.”
“Do you think she’s upset at me when I cry?”
“No, of course not. She knows that the older we get the less we’ll cry for her.”
“But she’ll understand we’ll still miss her and love her, right?”
“Of course. And I know she misses us and loves us too.”
“You don’t think she’s crying for us up in heaven, do you?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
They went silent again.
Robert’s tears were dry now. His bad moment was gone.
Amy said, “Wan
t something hot for breakfast?”
“Sure. But how we gonna cook it? We can’t do a campfire in the rain.
“We’ll crank up the generator and use the hot plate in the basement. How do pancakes sound?”
“Only as awesome as awesome can be.”
It was a phrase Monica used often when she was excited about something.
Robert certainly hadn’t intended it to, but his choice of words put a tear in Amy’s eye as well.
No sense letting him see it though. She stood up and led the way back into the house, using the cover from the still-dark deck as she casually wiped her eyes on her pajama sleeve.
The pair had almost been torn apart when Monica died. They argued almost constantly about every little thing and were at each other’s throats every hour of every day.
Now, though, several weeks out, they were starting to adjust. Both of them were thinking about the other’s thoughts and feelings more and more.
They were becoming a team again.
They were going to make it.
Chapter 8
Monica worked very hard, because of her pending demise, to teach them how to carry on without her.
Dave went through great lengths to hide the fact the house came with a full basement. Most houses in the neighborhood weren’t built with basements and the extra space was a big selling point when he and Sarah purchased the house years before.
It was a simple process, really, though he had to develop it himself. It seemed none of the prepper shows he watched or the prepper books he purchased had plans for hiding a basement.
He removed the door frame where the door opened into the house, just off the living room.
He placed a large bookcase in the spot, and notched the baseboard on both sides so the shelf fit flush against the wall.
His next step was to replace the basement door. It was an exterior door and as such was insulated. But it wasn’t sturdy enough to support the bookshelf and the bookshelf’s contents without cracking or breaking.
So he installed heavy duty hinges and placed a solid wood door there.
An Unwelcome Homecoming Page 3
