Sleep No More (3 page)

He looked at his ex-mother-in-law, Constance. "I'm so sorry about your mother. Vera will be sorely missed."

Constance nodded as regally as a queen. "Thank you, Jason."

Lucy said in a chilly tone, "You don't need to be here."

Jason glanced at his seven-year-old daughter. She was looking at them with measuring eyes. He gave her a smile and a wink and received a bashful head duck in return. It broke his heart to see how far she had retreated into herself in the past year, since the finality of the divorce had officially broken their family in two.

"But I do," he said to Lucy. "Vera was Bryce and Brenna's great-grandmother. We're family." Sometimes Lucy got so tied up in her own emotions, she forgot that her children had feelings, too.

Bryce stepped forward and gave Jason a quick hug. "Thanks for coming, Dad."

His seventeen-year-old stepson only called him Dad when he was feeling particularly vulnerable. His biological father had died of testicular cancer when Bryce had been only two. Lucy had been adamant about keeping her first husband's memory sacred. Jason had honored her decision, but even without adoption papers he felt as much Bryce's father as Brenna's.

Lucy turned her back on Jason. "You won't be sitting with the family."

Constance spoke up in a tone that left no room for argument. "If Brenna wants her father to sit with her, that's where he'll sit."

Surprised by her support, Jason nodded his appreciation. He knew Constance held him one hundred percent responsible for the divorce, that she considered it abandonment of the vilest kind. For better or worse, he'd taken the vow--and broken it.

He held out his hand to Brenna. She cast a skittish glance at her mother before she reached out and took it. But Lucy was walking away, diverting her attention to the flower arrangements being set at the front of the nave. She might not like being overridden by her mother, but she didn't have the backbone to defy her openly. It used to make Jason angry for her; he'd seen his ex-wife run roughshod by her mother enough to understand that Constance was part of Lucy's problem. But today he was selfishly grateful.

Bryce gave Jason an apologetic shrug and followed his mother.

Jason clasped his daughter's hand. "Come on, Peanut. Let's go sit down for a bit."

She smiled up at him, showing the adorable gap where she was missing a couple of teeth.

A lump gathered in Jason's throat. How was it possible to love someone this much?

He squeezed her hand more tightly as they walked into the sanctuary. He hadn't been inside St. Andrew's since Brenna's baptism. The church smelled of aged wood, lemon polish, and incense.

In her bleakest moments, Lucy liked to blame his refusal to convert to Catholicism (and his ambivalent approach to religion in general) as a major stumbling block in their marriage. Lucy liked to blame lots of things that took the spotlight off her own behavior.

Father Kevin Ferraro approached, meeting Jason and Brenna in the main aisle. "Good to see you, Jason."

They shook hands. "It's been a while."

Jason and Father Kevin were in the same golf league. Here in South Carolina there were few completely golf-unfriendly months, but this spring had produced one. In the past weeks the priest looked to have lost weight; his cheeks were hollowed and his eyes appeared sunken. Jason wondered if the man was ill.

"And Miss Brenna"--the priest placed a gentle hand to the top of her head--"have you been keeping up with your studies for your Parish School of Religion class?"

Jason knew the man used the full name of the class because he assumed Jason was ignorant of the abbreviation. But Jason was well aware of Brenna's love of her PSR studies. He was proud of her dedication to her spiritual responsibility, even though he sometimes worried that she used it as an escape.

"Yes, Father." Brenna smiled proudly, but her voice was barely audible even in the silent sanctuary.

"Wonderful. Wonderful," Father Kevin said. "Pretty soon you'll be old enough to be an altar server. We need more little girls like you here at St. Andrew's."

The priest moved on. Jason and Brenna took a seat in a pew near the rear of the church, and began quietly discussing what Brenna was learning in PSR. Listening to his shy, lonely little girl, Jason wished other less introverted parts of her young life could also inspire that kind of light.

Abby's morning had been so hectic that the muddy footprints were relegated to the periphery of her mind. Even so, the implications of their presence stuck there like a festering splinter as she rushed the last flower arrangement for Vera Marbury's funeral from the back of her van to the side door of St. Andrew's.

As always, Maggie was there on the doorstep to greet Abby with a wide smile. Father Kevin was guardian for his niece, a blue-eyed teen with a bright spirit, sharp wit, and Down syndrome. Maggie was Abby's right-hand gal for all events that required flowers at St. Andrew's.

Maggie crossed her arms over her chest. "You're late."

"I know, I know. Can you unwrap these and take them into the sanctuary?" Abby handed the bouquet to Maggie. "I have to go pick up Dad for the service."

"Sure, but you'd better not come in late. Uncle Father doesn't like it when people come in late."

Abby waved as she hurried back down the steps, smiling at Maggie's name for her uncle. Her parents had been killed in a helicopter crash two years ago while on a relief trip for Children of Conflict, the organization they'd founded to assist orphans of war-torn areas in Africa and the Middle East. They'd left both Maggie and COC in Father Kevin's capable hands.

Because everyone called him Father, Maggie had decided calling him Uncle Kevin wasn't respectful enough for her; Uncle Father was born.

There were ten stoplights in Preston. Abby had to drive through seven of them to reach her father's house. While sitting at the fifth, her cell phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. Her sister always called at the worst moments.

"Hi, Court."

"I was just thinking you need to hire someone to wash Dad's windows. I noticed when I was home for the funeral how dirty they are. Mom would have a fit."

At sixty-three Betsy Whitman had been taken by a massive stroke, her death a shock without warning. The funeral had brought about Courtney's only trip back to Preston since she'd left the day after she'd graduated from high school.

Courtney didn't give Abby a chance to respond before she added, "You know I'd do it myself, but..." She paused. "Well, you know how it is with people in Preston...." Her voice slid into that tone that chafed Abby's ass like wool underwear.

"I'll take care of it." She immediately regretted her sharp tone. After all, it was her fault Courtney felt uneasy in Preston.

She bore horrible scars from the fire and had always felt everyone here strained to see them, no matter what she did to cover them up. The plastic surgeon had done what he could, but he'd reminded them at every operation that childhood burn scars were the worst. There was only so much medically possible.

Courtney now lived like a hermit in a cinderblock house (as fireproof as she could get) in New Mexico. Both decisions she wouldn't have made if Abby hadn't been sleepwalking and set the house on fire.

The light turned green and Abby crossed the intersection.

"Have you seen him today?" Courtney asked.

"Not yet. I'm headed to his house right now."

"Abby! You are
not
taking him to that funeral!"

"He wants to go." Vera Marbury's daughter, Constance, and Betsy had been close friends.

"It's too soon," Court said direly. "He's not up to it."

Court always had such grim predictions. She lived over fifteen hundred miles away and rarely talked to their father because it made her "sad." How in the hell could she assess his emotional state?

"If I don't show up to get him," Abby said, "he'll just go by himself. I don't want him going alone. Listen, I'm here; I have to go. I'll call you later. Bye." Abby disconnected the call, shame and aggravation scrapping like selfish children for the upper hand.

She stopped at the curb and honked the horn; he was supposed to be watching for her.

As she sat there, she looked at the windows. Crap, they
were
dirty.

She hoped she wouldn't have to concede Court was right about the funeral, too.

Her dad's front door remained closed. Abby shut off the car and hurried inside the house. She found him in his favorite chair, the newspaper in front of him.

When he heard her come in, he lowered it and smiled. "There's my girl."

"Ready to go?"

For a brief second, he looked blank. Then he put down the paper and rose from the chair. "Of course. Ready."

When they got outside the front door, her father reached into his suit pocket. "Uh-oh. No keys." He opened the door again.

"I have a key," she said. "I'll lock up."

Her dad continued into the house. "I have to find my keys."

Abby glanced at her watch. "Dad, we're going to be late."

"I'm sure I left them on the kitchen counter," he called back to her.

A full minute passed and her father didn't return. Abby went inside.

She found him in the kitchen, ripping open drawers and rummaging through them.

"I can't find my keys!"

"It's okay, Dad." Abby smiled to herself. Her mom had called him the absentminded inventor. Even though he'd been a science teacher his entire career, he constantly dabbled in the basement working on one project or another. The man was brilliant, but seriously could not find his socks when they were on his feet. "I have a set. Let's go and I'll help you find them when we get back."

"But I need to know where they are." His voice held an unusual edge.

"They're probably in a jacket pocket. We'll find them, but we need to go or we're going to miss the service."

"No! I have to find my keys!" With increasing agitation, he opened the flour canister, looked in, and shook it.

"Stop and think about what you were doing the last time you had them." She started looking, too.

Three minutes later, she found them--in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom when she'd decided she needed something for a rapidly escalating headache.

She dashed back into the bedroom, jangling the keys. Her father had every pair of pants he owned out on the bed, searching through pockets.

"Where were they?" he asked, his face beaded with perspiration.

"Medicine cabinet. You must have had them in your hand when you came home from the drugstore and put things away."

He blinked. Then he shrugged. "Must have."

"No matter. Let's go." She hurried him to the car and headed back across town.

As she drove she thought about her Dad looking in the flour canister. He was absentminded, but that seemed out there even for him. Surely it was just the panic that had made him do something so incongruous.

The funeral was small. At ninety-one, Vera Marbury had outlived most of her contemporaries. During the organ solo before the service, Abby stole a look at her dad out of the corner of her eye. He sat with his hands relaxed in his lap and a serene look on his face. Being here was not catapulting him back into raw grief. At least that was one
I told you so
Abby wouldn't have to hear from her sister.

The last breathy notes left the brass pipes of the organ and Father Kevin stood. He began with a prayer. It was a long one.

Unused to such forced stillness, Abby shifted in her seat. Her foot began to jiggle.

Her father's hand closed over hers. He whispered, "Easy, Jitterbug."

He hadn't called her Jitterbug in years. It was the nickname Abby's mother had given her even before she'd been born, saying that Abby had been incapable of a still moment even in the womb.

Abby looked over at her dad. A melancholy smile graced his face and an unshed tear pooled in his eye.

She tensed. Was this the beginning of an emotional landslide?

Then he winked and Abby released the breath she'd been holding.

She returned his smile and squeezed his hand. She also stilled her foot--at least for the moment.

There was much to admire in a Catholic funeral. Having it in the church that had seen many of the significant events of a person's life felt right, the completion of a circle. And the ritual was comforting. Not to mention it allowed a person to move around; stand, respond, sit, kneel, sit, stand. Catholic aerobics.

When time came for communion, non-Catholics Abby and her father remained in their pew. She noticed that Jason Coble, Lucy's ex-husband, also remained behind, the only one left in the family's seating area.

Abby had always thought he and Lucy were an odd match, but could never say exactly why. Not that she knew either of them all that well. Even though Betsy and Constance had been close, Lucy and Abby had not. Lucy had been a few years ahead of Abby in school, but even if they'd been the same age, Abby doubted they would ever have been more than passing acquaintances. Lucy was breathtaking; an exotic hothouse flower, a beautiful contrast of pure, delicate white and vivid fuchsia. Abby was a common carnation; a filler flower.