It was after seven o’clock when they arrived home. They’d spent much of the last hour crying, their heads spinning from trying to make sense of the evening’s revelations, but now their heads were clear and their eyes were dry. It was important to stay calm, to keep fury at bay. “You ready?” Caroline asked, turning off the car’s engine and swiveling toward the girl in the seat beside her.
Michelle nodded.
Caroline gave her daughter’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Then mother and daughter pushed open their car doors and exited the garage, cutting across the manicured lawn to the front door. A police car was sitting at the foot of the driveway, keeping the few still lingering reporters a respectful distance away. Hunter’s BMW was parked a few houses down, just behind Steve’s older-model Buick.
“Dad got here pretty fast.”
Caroline nodded. She’d called from the car and told him to get his ass back to her house as quickly as possible.
“Get my ass back…?” he was stammering as she disconnected the phone.
“Caroline,” a reporter called out now, “do you have time for a few questions?”
“Anything you’d like to add to what you said earlier?” another shouted as she opened her front door and stepped inside.
She turned toward them. “Stick around.”
“Stick around?” Hunter parroted from the foyer. “Did I just hear you tell a reporter to stick around?”
“Trust me,” Caroline said. “This is worth sticking around for.”
“You’re back,” Samantha said, joining them in the foyer, her relief at their safe return evident on her face.
“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Michelle said, sniffing at the air. “What smells so good?”
“Grandma Mary ordered Chinese. There’s lots left, if you want any.”
“Shit.”
“Is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?” Hunter pleaded.
“In a few minutes.” Caroline walked into the living room, noting the open cartons of Chinese food and multiple empty beer bottles covering the coffee table. “As soon as everyone else gets here.”
“Who else is coming?” Hunter asked.
“I invited a few more people,” Caroline said. “Thought we should celebrate.”
“Well, I wish you’d called and told me,” Mary said from the sofa, where she was balancing a plate of food on her lap and struggling with a pair of wooden chopsticks. “I would have ordered more.”
“That’s all right. I don’t think anybody’s going to be too interested in eating.”
“So,” Steve said to Michelle as he reached over from his chair to pile some more noodles on his plate, “I understand you were at the hospice. I hear people are just dying to get in.”
Michelle stiffened.
“Sorry. I guess you get that quite a bit,” he said with a laugh.
“I’d like to see it sometime,” Samantha said. “Maybe I could go with you one day.”
“Sure.”
“Are we really making small talk?” Hunter demanded. “Is that why I rushed over here like a lunatic? What the hell is going on?”
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said. “It shouldn’t be much longer.”
“Who are we waiting for?”
A car door closed. Hunter crossed to the window. “I rushed over here for Peggy and Fletcher?”
“I thought they deserved to be here.” Caroline walked to the door and beckoned them inside.
“Welcome,” Mary greeted them. “Help yourselves to some Chinese.”
“Thank you,” Peggy said, looking anxiously around the room, “but no thanks.”
“None for me,” Fletcher said.
“A beer?” Steve held up a freshly opened bottle. “For some reason I’m getting the feeling that a little alcohol might be a good idea.” When both Peggy and Fletcher declined, he took a swig himself.
“Is that everyone?” Hunter asked.
“Not quite.”
“For God’s sake, who else is coming?”
As if on cue, another car pulled up outside. “Sit tight, everyone,” Caroline said, heading for the front door and returning moments later, the latest arrivals in tow. “I think you know almost everyone,” she said.
“You gotta be kidding me,” whispered Hunter.
“Well, look who’s here,” Steve said, setting down both his beer and his plate of food and rising to his feet.
“Do I know these people?” Mary asked.
“I don’t think you’ve ever actually met,” Caroline said. “Mother, meet Jerrod and Rain Bolton. They were with us in Mexico. I believe they’d already left by the time you arrived.”