Jamie and Stephanie sat in the backseat, huddled together. There had been no clamoring to sit up with Dad. Not this time.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. “We’d better get going. You don’t want to miss your flight.”
“That’s for sure,” Jamie said, reaching for the door handle. “We want to get the hell out of this state.”
Stephanie threw Jack a sympathetic look, then followed her sister out of the car. They didn’t wait for Jack. Instead, they bolted for the terminal, walking so fast it looked as if they were fleeing a crime scene. Through the endless security checks, neither girl looked at him.
With a sigh, Jack followed them.
At the gate, they were forced to stop. Jamie finally turned to him. For a single second, their gazes met and her armor weakened. In her blue eyes, he saw a pain so raw and deep it rocked him back. She was hurting so damned much …
And he and Birdie had caused it. An ache spread through his heart, a combination of guilt and shame and regret. Regret most of all.
“Jamie,” he said, moving toward her, hands outstretched.
“You do not want to touch me right now,” she said loudly, stepping away from him.
He knew then the truth of a broken heart; it wasn’t some poetic metaphor. It was muscle and sinew tearing away from bone. It hurt more than any blown knee ever could. “I’m sorry, Jamie. We’re sorry.”
Jamie’s face crumpled. She appeared unsteady on her feet. “Bite me.” She turned and stomped away from him. Even after she’d reached the Jetway door and stopped, she didn’t look back.
“You know Jamie,” Stephanie said, “when she gets scared, she gets pissed off.”
Jack wanted to say, I’m scared, too, but he didn’t know how to be that honest with his daughters. It was his job to be the family’s strength. “I guess we’re all scared.”
Stephanie was doing her best not to cry. It was a terrible thing for a father to watch. His Stephie, always so strong, looking as if she were held together by old Scotch tape. “It’s like discovering one day that you’re schizophrenic. Everything you’ve believed in is suddenly suspect. I don’t know how to live in a world where our family is broken up.”
“Keep believing in all of us, Steph. Someday you’ll understand. Mom and I have been together since we were your age. That’s a long time. Things … pile up between people. But we’re not even talking about divorce.”
Stephanie gave him a pathetically hopeful look. “We thought you were lying about that.”
“No. We’re just taking a little breathing room; that’s all for now.”
“Oh.”
In the background, a voice came over the loudspeaker, announced the boarding of flight 967.
Jack glanced over at Jamie. Her back was to him. Even from this distance, he could see how stiff she was.
Poor Jamie. Always so terrified of bending. She was probably tearing apart inside, but she wouldn’t show it. “Take care of your sister. She acts tough …” He couldn’t go on. He remembered the day Jamie had broken her arm. All the way to the doctor’s office, she’d sat stoically silent. It hadn’t been until late that night, in her dark bedroom with its Big Bird nightlight that she’d finally cried. She’d curled into Jack’s arms and whispered, It hurts, Daddy.
Back then, all he’d had to do was stroke her hair and tell her a bedtime story.
“She’s really pissed off at you and Mom. Did you see her at the house? She wouldn’t even let Mom ride to the airport with us. I’ve never seen her so mad.”
“I wonder how long she can avoid talking to us.”
“Jamie? How long until the polar ice cap melts?”
“Take care of her. And of yourself. I love you, Stephie.”
Stephanie looked up at him. “Be honest with us, Daddy, okay? If it’s time for us to stop hoping, tell us.”
“I promise.” He saw by the look on her face that he’d said the wrong thing. Of course. In the past, his promises hadn’t meant much. It was another change he’d have to make in the future.
They called the flight again.
“Come on, Stephanie!” Jamie yelled, waving her sister over.
“Bye, Dad.” Stephanie shouldered her carry-on bag and hurried toward Jamie. They both boarded the plane without a backward glance.
Jack went to the window and stared out. A hazy reflection of his own face stared back at him. Beyond it, the plane pulled away from the Jetway. Slowly, Jack headed for his own gate.
The make-believe spring lasted until the end of March. Then the rains returned with a vengeance. Each day, Elizabeth walked to the mailbox in her Eddie Bauer raincoat and knee-high boots, with high hopes. Time and again, she returned empty-handed. Twice in the past weeks, Stephanie had written. Short, pointed letters; each one contained a burning, unanswerable question.
Who stopped loving whom?
Were you lying to us all those years?
Do you want a divorce?