Blueprints: A Novel (15 page)

In lieu of that, she texted Brad.
Where are you?

At the scene. You don’t want to come.

Bad?

Yes. Happened earlier than we thought. Took a long time to find and extricate.

She pictured a large clawed machine being brought in to lift the tree that had fallen and remove the roof of the car. And the scene beneath?

Squeezing her eyes shut, she was trying to blot out the image when Brad texted again.
Your mother just got here with Theo.

How is he?

Stoic. Did you call Jess’s mother?

Yes. She’s going to the hospital. Any news from there?

Life support.

Jamie let the phone fall to her side. Jess gone, too? No. No. If miracles happened, she could still wake up. But whole and functioning?

*   *   *

By the time dawn arrived, Jamie had wandered through the first floor of the house over and over again, library to living room to dining room to great room, hating the place more with each round. She felt like she was in a mausoleum. Aside from a small den filled with sturdy leather and toys, the decor was an ultratraditional mix of velvet and silk, with elaborate mahogany millwork and brocades of blue and gold. The walls were jam-packed with paintings, the tables with bowls, vases, and lamps. Had these things been family heirlooms, the effect might have been different, but the family heirlooms were at Theo’s. Roy had simply bought what the designer advised, that designer being Roy’s favorite, a longtime MacAfee employee whose style was too busy for Jamie’s. She felt suffocated here; with so much stuff packed in, she couldn’t breathe. And it wasn’t just the current horror that made it so. She had never been able to handle staying here for more than a day or two; when she was watching Tad for longer, she brought him to her condo.

This house was a showpiece, no doubt about that, but the thought of raising a child here gave her the chills. Not that Tad had free run of the place. His things were consolidated in kitchen, bedroom, and den. He could also play in a finished basement, a paved driveway, and a huge backyard. He wasn’t deprived by a long shot.

Not materially at least. But to lose parents who would be only the merest threads of memory?
Stuff
was worth squat compared to that.

The circles she walked didn’t include the upstairs. She couldn’t bear to see the room that Roy had shared with Jess. Rather, her base was the kitchen counter, where her cell phone lay beside the baby monitor, both of which lay beside the Keurig, which she had repeatedly used more for warmth than caffeine. She was chilled to the bone, perhaps because Roy kept the AC low, perhaps because she was in a state of shock. She hadn’t slept, doubted she could have even if she tried. Her thoughts were a muddle of disbelief and fear, her mind a demon of gruesome images, and her insides wouldn’t stop shaking.

Brad and Caroline were with Theo, and while she wished one or the other were with her, she understood Theo’s need. She exchanged texts with them, but there was little of comfort to be had there. Nor did repeated calls to the hospital help. None offered good news.

*   *   *

When she heard Tad crying at six, she panicked. Praying he might fall back to sleep, she didn’t move. Barely a minute passed before he called again, this time with more force.
“Mommmeee.”

Swallowing a cry of anguish, Jamie headed for the stairs. She knew the early morning drill—change diaper, warm sippy cup of milk, fix breakfast. She had stayed with Tad enough to know that when she opened his door he would be standing against the bars of his crib—and there he was. His milk-chocolate hair stuck up in random curls; his brown eyes were clear, his cheeks pink. His thumb was in his mouth but popped out when he saw her. In his innocence, he wasn’t confused at all but cried her name in delight.

It was so sweet, so
sad,
that she thought she would die. He had no idea how his life had changed. It was all she could do not to bawl.

“Hi, monkey,” she whispered so that he wouldn’t hear the shake in her voice. He held out his arms as she neared the crib. Gathering him close, she left his arms around her neck while she unzipped his sleep sack. Then she scooped him into a tight hug, rocking him from side to side as she struggled not to cry.

Focus, Jamie. That’s a big fat diaper against your arm.

Regaining a bit of control, she eased off the hug. “Did you have a good sleep?”

“I wan Moose,” he said and reached back toward the crib. She put the pet in his arms and tried to lay him on the dressing table, but he squirmed until she set him on his feet on the floor. This was a change since she had stayed with him last. But okay. Doable.

That said, changing his diaper while he was standing up was a challenge. If he wasn’t dancing off toward his Playskool garage, he was reaching for a dump truck or twisting to pick up the driver when it fell out of the cab. Thinking that he definitely needed to be potty trained—
would Jess be here to do it?
—Jamie struggled with the clean diaper. She had never been as adept at this as Jess, simply hadn’t done it as much, and Tad wasn’t helping her out. It took three tries before the tapes were tight enough, and then she pulled on a pair of jeans to hold the diaper in place.

Sitting on the floor, he played with the truck and a bulldozer, gathering other drivers, handing one to Jamie and telling her what to do. He was actually quite clear with his instructions. “Put man dere … No, dis one … Brrrrm, brrrrrrm … Dump, Mamie.” Having her here was a game.

She was thinking how grateful she was that he didn’t know better when without warning he ran out the door toward the stairs. Heart pounding, she caught him just as he might have tumbled, though once she was beside him, she saw that he was already holding the banister. He climbed down facing front, knew to take one step at a time and move his hands accordingly. Physical coordination had never been a problem for him.

Or for his dad,
Jamie realized,
who would never see him ride a bike, serve a tennis ball, score a basket.

Aching inside, she gave him his milk, which he drank as he wandered around the kitchen. Then she fixed him a bowl of cereal, put it on the island counter, and reached for him. He had long since rejected a high chair, but now refused even the booster seat. “Dis one, Mamie,” he insisted, patting a stool, and when she set him there, he patted the stool beside it. “Mamie eat.”

Jamie wasn’t up for food, but after a few minutes, she went to the fridge for yogurt and fruit and, to encourage Tad, swallowed a few blueberries herself. When she put some in his cereal bowl, he howled in protest.
“No blues!”
She snatched them back out and crossed the kitchen to get another plate. By the time she returned, he had tipped the cereal bowl and was drawing pictures in the milk that pooled on the granite counter, and when she reached for a paper towel, half a dozen sheets left the roll.

She might have been upset if there hadn’t been so much else on her mind—like what to do with Tad when breakfast was done. They could play inside, outside, or at one of the playgrounds in town. But how could she play? How could she smile and laugh and run with the sun rising on the saddest possible day?

Focus,
she told herself again. But how to do that with God-only-knew-what-else going on? Tad was lucky. He was a child. He could be blissfully ignorant. Or not.

“Where Mommy?” Big brown eyes held hers.

Uh. Uh. Omigod. What to say?

“She had to go out” seemed the best stopgap, and yes, the child was blissfully ignorant of the absurdity of Jess going out at this hour. “You’re stuck with Mamie today,” she said and let him help mop up the milk. He had fun with that. She let him drag it out.

She barely made it to seven before texting her mother. It was a few minutes before an answer came, and the exchange that followed was choppy. Caroline was driving Theo home. There was no word on Jess. Funeral plans would wait until they knew more. Theo wanted her to start calling MacAfee people.

You can do this, Jamie,
read her final text, and while Jamie needed more, she understood. It sounded like Caroline had her hands full with Theo, perhaps even more so than Jamie with Tad. Theo knew what was happening.

*   *   *

Brad’s appearance at Roy’s shortly thereafter was small comfort. His hair was mussed, his face pale, his eyes shadowed. When she asked for details of the accident, he just shook his head, then did it again when she asked how Jess was, and when she tried to verbalize what had been hovering in the back of her mind, haunting her, his bleak look cut her off before she said a word.

Had the remoteness of the scene affected the outcome? Would Roy be alive if help had arrived sooner? Would they ever know?

Thinking that the answer was no to all three, but that Brad was grappling with gruesome images and could probably use breakfast, she left him in the den to play with Tad, but within seconds of her leaving the room, the boy followed, and she didn’t mind. His presence filled a void and kept her mind from dwelling on Roy. Brad might have been the one physically viewing the scene of the crash, but her imagination pinned her right there as well.

She returned to the den for pieces of the wooden train, then set it back up in the kitchen while Brad planted himself on a stool with his forearms on the granite and his eyes distant. When she rubbed his shoulder, he gave her a weak smile.

She could have used words of solace in return. But what did one say in a situation like this?

*   *   *

What one said, she discovered when, within the hour, the phone started to ring, was
Thank you, I appreciate your thoughts, Yes, we’re shocked.
What one said, she realized when more calls came and the questions narrowed, was
I’m sorry, I don’t know, Maybe, No plans yet.
And when the calls grew solicitous, she could only express gratitude.
I’ll remember that, I haven’t thought that far, Thank you for offering.

The last had to do with watching Tad, even for the funeral, but she couldn’t go there yet. She couldn’t think beyond the next hour.

*   *   *

There was a certain cruelty to the sun shining after the havoc wreaked by the storm the night before, but Jamie needed to get out. Brad had barely eaten and remained in a visible pall. Was it easy for
her
to carry on? No, but someone had to do it for Tad. She told herself that the child was too young to grasp what had happened, but even apart from the occasional cry for his mother, if the way he was clinging to Jamie meant anything, he sensed something was up.

Before they could make it to the backyard, though, Maureen Olson arrived in a deluge of tears. Tests had shown an absence of activity in Jess’s brain. The local team had even consulted with neurologists at two other hospitals, but “brain dead” stood. Machines were all that kept her alive.

Jamie was crushed. When her eyes filled with tears, it wasn’t so much for Maureen as for Tad. He would never see his mother again. She would never be coming home. Jamie had always prayed that he wouldn’t have to be a child of divorce, but this? Unimaginably worse.

Maureen spoke in a rush, explaining that she had begged the doctors to tell her there was even the smallest sign of life, had begged them to try something,
anything,
but they insisted that nothing would change what the tests showed … that she thought it better to let her daughter die with dignity … that she couldn’t possibly take Tad back to Leominster with her, that her other children were grown, her husband couldn’t take the noise, and she couldn’t handle a toddler.

As if Jamie would have even considered letting him go?

Misinterpreting her horrified expression, Maureen blathered on about money, time, arthritis, even a planned cruise, until Jamie stopped it with a hand on her arm.

“Tad is mine,” she said. Her heart beat wildly as the fact of that set in for the very first time. Needing an anchor, she looked back at Brad. “When he was first born, they named me his legal guardian, but I never,
ever
thought…” With Brad looking as stunned as she felt, she faced Maureen again. “We’ll bury Jess with Roy.”

The woman simply nodded, gave Tad an awkward hug, and excused herself to return to the hospital.

Tad is mine Tad is mine Tad is mine.
The words echoed along with the deeper meaning that they implied. With Brad remaining silent, Jamie shifted her frustration to Maureen, wondering how in the world the woman could so easily walk away from the only thing she had left of Jess.

Feeling rejected on Tad’s behalf, she gathered him up and held his face to her shoulder. His warm little body settling into hers was an unexpected comfort.
He’s all I have left of my father,
Jamie thought, but an even more terrifying thought came fast on that.

I’m all he has.

Without a word to Brad, she went out the back door.

ten

When Brad joined Jamie a short time later, Tad was gliding forward and back in his bucket swing. The movement was repetitive, predictable, mindless, all of which she needed. When the bucket came back at her, she gave it a push, then raised anguished eyes to Brad.

He looked drained. A living nightmare and zero sleep could do that to a person. But she was living the same nightmare, and she needed comfort. She needed reassurance that things would be okay, that they could handle this, that he would be a father to Tad.

Instead, he stood at her side without a word.

To get him talking, Jamie asked, “Will she have them turn off the machines?”

“I’d guess.”

“I don’t envy her that.”

The swing returned. She sent it forward again. And again. And again.

Brad remained silent.

Having been leaning over the front of the bucket, Tad straightened and looked back as the bucket approached her.
“Out, Mamie!”

Catching the swing, she lowered it to a stop and lifted him, but the bucket twisted when his sneaker caught in the leg hole. “Brad…” She breathed a plea for help—he was standing right there—but by the time he figured out what to do, she had freed the sneaker herself.