The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

“I don’t know, Dad. It could be the delicious selection of pulverized food you offer me every night,” he said, and laughed. But even his laugh sounded a little off. When his care attendant came at four, Leo asked him to put him in bed.

He looked so thin and uncomfortable in that hospital bed, and there was a crease between his eyes that hadn’t been there earlier. “Should I get Bob?” Emma asked.

“No, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me,” he said at Emma’s look of concern. “I’ve got a full night lined up—it’s the Real Housewives reunion show, and then hockey! I don’t even have time to explain to you how important this game is for the Bruins.”

“Thank God,” Emma said, and smiled at Leo. She touched his temple.

“Cut it out,” Leo said, his eyes twinkling above his permanently lopsided grin. “Dad will have a heart attack if he knows how into me you are.”

“He already knows. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, and leaned down to kiss the top of his head.

“Stop,” Leo groaned. “Get out of here. But you better come back here with some gossip! The Methodist ladies are coming over tomorrow afternoon, and if I don’t have some meat for them, they will draw blood.”

Emma laughed. The Methodist Women’s Group had adopted Leo as their cause. When they came to see him, they gathered around like hens, picking at the gossipy morsels Leo tossed out to them. “Don’t stay up too late,” she warned him. “You’re always such a grump if you stay up too late.”

“Hush, I can still catch the end of Dr. Phil,” Leo said.

Emma left him lying there, his gaze fixed on the TV.

She gathered her things, said goodbye to Bob and the nurse, and drove down Elm Street to the main drag. But instead of turning right to head out of town toward the ranch, she went left, into town, like she did every day the weather was good. She drove past the faux-Western storefronts, past Tag’s Outfitters, past the Grizzly Lodge. She drove until she reached the city park and playground on the other end of town.

Emma parked and walked to the wooden bench under the oak trees, taking a seat on the peeling paint, careful to avoid the old bird droppings. The faint smell of stale smoke wafting out from someone’s chimney filled the air. It was a bright day, but cool, and the sun was starting its slide down behind the mountaintops.

Emma pulled her sweater coat tightly around her and wished she’d thought to bring gloves. She trailed her forefinger over the name carved into the seat of the bench. Tashi. She wondered if Tashi was a boy or a girl. If Tashi was grown or one of the teenage girls who hung out at the park and, once, overtook her bench with their cell phones and magpie chatter. She wondered if Tashi was happy or if Tashi looked up at the sunlight glittering through the bare branches of the oak tree and wished to be far from Pine River, in a different family with different siblings and parents and friends.

With the exception of Tashi’s name, Emma liked this bench. Actually, she felt like she owned it. It was far enough from the playground so that she didn’t look like a stalker, and yet close enough that she could see the kids.

The kids, her kids, were outside today as she knew they would be—they were in the park every afternoon when the weather was good. They were three siblings, two girls and a boy, all within six to eight years old. They lived across the street from the park in one of the identical Craftsman houses that filled this neighborhood. Sometimes, Emma saw their mother on the porch, a cup of coffee in her hand, watching them. But most of the time the children were alone, probably watched by their mother through the big plate-glass windows of her house. Emma could picture her preparing an evening meal with one eye on her children through the windows. Spaghetti, Emma mused, to be heaped onto big plates, over which the kids would report the details of their day.

The three of them were a tribe, always on the move. Emma loved watching the paths their imaginations took them each afternoon, carrying them deep into a fantasy world where their characters took shape, rising up so real that Emma could almost see them: superheroes, moms and dads, teachers, spies, bad guys and good guys. Emma wanted to go with them, to disappear into the world they’d created.

Emma had named the kids, too. Finn was the boy. He was the ringleader, instructing the girls what to do, and deciding what make-believe would be played that day. Or at least it seemed so from where Emma sat. She’d named the girls Quinn and Brynn. They were very close in age. She liked how the two of them sported a different accessory each day—princess dress or cowboy hat, scepter or sword.

Emma had also envisioned a mother and father for these children, a hearth and home. She imagined them gathered around the kitchen table, coloring. Or after dinner, the family engaged in some board game, their Ozzie-and-Harriet parents lovingly admiring their brood.