I shut down the first floor of my beautiful, hand-crafted house that represented Grady almost as much as his children and walked upstairs with slow feet.
Crawling into my bed was something I dreaded every single night.
By the time I brushed my teeth and washed my face, my phone had buzzed twice. I didn’t check it again until I was in bed and snuggled under warm quilts.
You, Liz Carlson, are a surprise.
When I hadn’t answered after several minutes, he had texted one more time to say, Goodnight.
“Goodnight, Ben,” I whispered to my phone as I shut it off and turned around. After my earlier breakdown, I had dreaded going to sleep tonight.
I could never seem to fall asleep after that kind of emotional trauma. There was a bottle of sleeping pills in my medicine cabinet that had been given to me right after Grady had died. I’d taken them a few times when my parents stayed with us because I felt safer with them here to watch over the kids.
I kept them just in case I was desperate. And during my breakdown I had contemplated using them. Just for tonight.
But Ben’s text message had helped calm my frantic spirit. He’d managed to pull me out of my darkness and shine a bit of light on me. I closed my eyes and drifted easily to sleep, thankful for my sister that indulged me and for my next door neighbor that could make me smile when I thought I would never smile again.
Chapter Eleven
Thanksgiving.
Had there ever been a more awful holiday?
In fact the entire day set me on edge.
I didn’t want to wake up grateful for the things I still had or spend time counting my blessings. I didn’t want to remember why I was so blessed or teach my children to count every little thing as a gift.
I wanted to stay in my three-day-old pajamas and wallow in self-pity. I wanted to drink myself through the day and eat my weight in Ben and Jerry’s. I wanted to pull all of my children into my big bed and fill it up for a change, and then I wanted to hold them close and weep.
I hadn’t cried since last Friday night. The week had passed quickly and the kids had been out of school yesterday. I enlisted them to help bake some holiday goodies and we’d turned on Top Forty and danced around the kitchen-anything to keep the shadow of our first major holiday without Grady out of their heads.
This morning I’d woken up early to Abby having a terrible nightmare. She’d screamed at the top of her lungs. I rushed to her, terrified something was wrong. She hadn’t even woken up when I crawled into bed with her and wrapped my arms around her tiny waist. She nuzzled against me and immediately quieted down.
I whispered soothing words for another hour before she woke up for good.
“Mommy?” She was so sleepily confused that I couldn’t help but smile. Her curly hair was riotous around her freckled face and her green eyes had trouble focusing. She could be a handful, but she was my handful. I loved this little thing.
“You had a nightmare,” I told her.
“I know,” she whispered back.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head and hugged me tighter. “It will make you sad.”
I hadn’t pressed her. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have encouraged her to talk about it, get it out of her head and help her process. But I was afraid she was right. I didn’t want to be more depressed than I already was. The idea that Abby had a nightmare about losing her daddy paralyzed me with grief. I couldn’t do anything but hug her and promise her that it was going to be okay, even if I didn’t believe that ugly, empty promise.
I couldn’t lie to her about anything else though. So I didn’t bother telling her she wouldn’t have another nightmare or that she would feel better soon. I just made sure she knew that I was there for her, that she could come sleep with me anytime she was scared and that I would always be here for her if she couldn’t sleep.
I didn’t know if my words helped or hurt her in the long term, but frankly I didn’t care. This was the best I could do.
Abby and I stayed in bed a long time, just holding on to each other for dear life. Eventually the other kids trickled in as they woke up and we added them to our pile.
We didn’t have to be at lunch until eleven and so it wasn’t until Jace couldn’t stand being hungry anymore that we dragged ourselves from the warmth of the bed to the sustenance in the kitchen.
Now we stood on the stoop to Katherine’s quaint, all-brick house and I had started to contemplate throwing the kids back in the car and driving to the nearest Denny’s.
“Why are we just standing here?” Blake reached for the doorbell.
“I just want to make sure we’re ready,” I sighed. My children looked at me like the crazy woman that I was. Jace tried to jump out of my arms and dive for his nana’s house. Blake pushed the doorbell to get us out of the cold.
Trevor opened the door and mayhem ensued. The children attacked him and he wrestled them into the living room.
I set my purse down and went back to the car for the pies the kids had helped me make. I balanced the apple in one hand and the cherry in the other as I stepped over kicking little feet and Trevor’s arm as he played dead for the kids.
Katherine stood at the stove, checking the various casseroles in the oven. She looked over her shoulder when I greeted her and gave me a soft smile.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” she said.
“Happy Thanksgiving to you too.”
She examined my pies and immediately my hackles rose, maybe unfairly, but it didn’t matter. “Did the kids help you make those?”
“Yes.”
“I admire you for baking with so many children. I only had the two boys, but I couldn’t seem to manage them in the kitchen.”
I gave her a tight smile while irrational anger burned low in my stomach. I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have two kids and I didn’t have the luxury of help. She knew this. I didn’t know why she felt the need to point it out.
I decided changing the subject would be better for both of us. “Do you need any help?”