No Place to Hide (41 page)

“Sssh,” Sallie Jo soothed, tightening her hold on Justine’s hand. “You’re going to be OK, just take it easy now.”

Justine tried to speak, but the words couldn’t make it past the dryness in her throat.

She closed her eyes and sank slowly back into oblivion, down and down, deeper and deeper, all the way through the years to their flat in London where Abby was sitting on the bed with Matt and three-month-old Ben, reading them a story.

Justine went to embrace them and they laughed as they tumbled onto the floor in front of the fire in the farmhouse. It was Christmas, the tree was glowing with musical lights, snowflakes were sprayed on the windows, torn wrapping paper was all over the floor.

Ben snatched up his bow and arrow. “This is a bad-luck house,” he shouted, fixing his aim on Abby.

“The place is cursed,” Maddy insisted. “That’s why you got it cheap.”

“I gave the girl the razor blade,” Melanie told her. “She took it to him, because I wanted him gone.”

“Abby might have saved herself if she’d run,” Ben shouted. “I was on fire that day.”

Lula was singing her a song. Something about boogieing and dying

“No, you mustn’t die,” Justine broke in hoarsely.

“Why don’t you try ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’?” Sallie Jo suggested to Lula.

Obediently Lula started to sing, and as she listened Justine watched her face changing to Abby’s, who was in the school hall, playing her guitar, her beautiful hair swept over one shoulder as she sang, “Those were the days…”

“Stop!” Justine cried in distress.

Lula’s face crumpled.

“It’s OK,” Sallie Jo assured her. “Mommy didn’t mean you. She’s having a bad dream, that’s all.”

“I want her to wake up,” Lula said brokenly.

“I know, and she will soon.”

“Can she see me?”

“Sometimes, yes. She just needs to get lots of rest, and then she’ll be able to see you all the time.”

A baby was crying and crying. It was Ben, begging her to come. “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy.” The wind suddenly snatched the cry away, threw it into the clouds, turning it as loud and deep as thunder.
“Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!”

—

Her delirium and exhaustion continued all through the weekend and into the next week, with only short bouts of semi-consciousness when she was able to stumble to the bathroom or to down some soup.

She was dimly aware of people coming and going, Lula, Sallie Jo, Angela, the doctor, and a man who said his name was Al. She felt sure she knew him, but her mind wouldn’t focus long enough to remember from where.

“Have you booked your flight yet?” she asked Matt.

“I’m sorry, but I won’t be coming,” he told her. “I have to stay with Marcus and Hayley.”

“Because he’s your son?”

“Yes, he is.”

Abby was singing again, very softly, one of Justine and Matt’s favorite songs,
When I fall in love, it will be forever…

Lula was there, her baby, cradling her little dog in her arms and trying to stop Rosie from licking Justine’s face.

“Rosie?” Justine murmured hoarsely.

“Yes, it’s Rosie,” Lula told her.

Justine held out a hand, and Rosie buried her adorable furry face in her palm. “Is she really here?” Justine croaked.

“Yes, and Daddy is too,” Lula answered.

Justine’s eyes closed again. “Daddy’s not coming,” she said softly.

“He’s here,” Matt told her, coming to sit on the bed.

Justine’s heart twisted, and she hardly dared to open her eyes.

Matt lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips.

She looked up at him and felt two large tears roll slowly, wetly into her hair.

“Hey, you,” he said with an ironic smile.

“You’ve been asleep for a long, long time,” Lula told her.

“How long?” Justine whispered.

“Almost a week,” Matt replied.

She looked at him, half afraid he was going to disappear. “When did you get here?”

“About an hour ago. Your cousin Al came to get us from the airport in his truck, thank God, or we might never have got through.”

Justine turned to the window. The night was illuminated by the brightness of snow. “What day is it?” she thought to ask.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he replied, and as Lula leaned into him he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Justine had a quick vision of him kissing Abby that way, and felt more tears welling up from her broken heart.

“Are you really here?” she asked, tightening her fingers around his.

“I’m really here,” he promised.

Lula said, “Billy Jakes brought us some rabbits. Not wild ones to eat, but little white fluffy ones that we can keep in a cage.”

“That was kind of him,” Justine murmured.

“He said they’re for Christmas.”

Finally connecting with how special tonight was for Lula, Justine tried to sit up. She had little strength and felt horribly sweaty and stiff, but with Matt’s help she managed to swing her legs over the side of the bed.

“Go and tell everyone we’ll be ready for dinner in about half an hour,” Matt said to Lula.

“Everyone?” Justine echoed, feeling vaguely light-headed.

Counting on her fingers, Lula announced, “Sallie Jo and Hazel are here with Dizzy, and Hazel’s grandma and grandpa. Uncle Al’s just popped home for some things, but he’s coming back, so that makes five. Oh yes, and there’s you, me, and Daddy. That makes eight.”

As she ran off with Rosie and Daisy at her heels, Matt said, “Sallie Jo and her family were worried you might not be yourself tomorrow, so they decided that instead of us going to them for Christmas, they’d come here. That way Lula wouldn’t have to leave you, or miss out.”

Touched by so much kindness, Justine hardly knew what to say. “They’ve been such good friends,” she finally murmured as Matt held her close. “I don’t know how I’d have managed without them.”

“They seem a very special family,” he agreed. “I’m looking forward to getting to know them, and to seeing the house on the lake I’ve heard so much about, but I guess that won’t happen anytime soon with the weather the way it is.”

Remembering that she hadn’t yet told him about the paintings, or even really considered what to do about the house, she gazed into his eyes and decided it could all wait for now. He was as exhausted by everything they’d been through as she was, and she knew in her heart that there was still a very long way to go…

—

The holidays passed in a flurry of presents, log fires, baked hams, Christmas movies, snowman building, and hilarious skating sessions on Lake Maxinkuckee. Most of the town was out, flying about the solidly packed ice like angels, or heffalumps, depending on their skill. There were many ice-fishing and ice-sculpting competitions, ice-dance tournaments, snowball fights, and much sledding down through the frozen summer camp at the Academies.

Though Justine was still weak, and nervous about feeling happy in case it was brutally snatched away again, she knew she was improving now that Matt was there. What was concerning her mainly was how desperately hard he was trying to hide the ravaging depths of his own grief. Since leaving England and stepping into this new life he had no more duties, excuses, or easy denials to hold him back from the edge, and she could tell it was drawing him closer all the time.

At the start of January severe blizzard warnings began hitting every news bulletin and weather forecast; by the fifth the storm was fiercely under way, with a biting polar vortex sending temperatures plummeting to minus twenty by day and minus thirty by night. Most of the time it was too cold to go outside, since it took only minutes for frostbite or even hypothermia to set in.

To everyone’s dismay, especially Sallie Jo’s, Al was unable to make it from North Liberty for several days. Most roads were impassable, and those people crazy enough to try driving while conditions were so harsh usually found themselves stranded and then fined.

Stay off the roads
was the unequivocal message from NIPSCO—the Northern Indiana Public Service Company.
Don’t let it be your abandoned vehicle that prevents the emergency services getting through.

“Apparently they’ve closed the Academies,” Sallie Jo told them on the phone. “A lot of students are on their way back after the holidays, but they can’t get through, and Ed Forth, who owns one of the boat-storage companies, says the roofs of at least two of his buildings are in danger of collapse.”

“With everyone’s boats inside?” Justine cried, aghast.

“Exactly. We’ve just got to hope the owners have insurance in place, or they’re standing to lose a lot of money.”

A day later the first building went down, destroying everything inside, followed by the second building the day after that. Boathouses and pontoons around the lake were also collapsing under their own burden of snow, and in some places power lines gave out too, leaving many homes without heat or light.

At the end of the month, following a longed-for break in the weather, the town was just beginning to function again when another severe storm hit. As soon as they knew it was coming, Justine and Matt arranged for Lula and the dogs to sit it out with Sallie Jo, Hazel, and Dizzy at Angela and Frank’s cottage on the lake. This way the girls would have each other to help alleviate the boredom of their enforced confinement, while Justine and Matt could have some private time to continue with their grief.

Over the following days, as the polar vortex whipped its icy might through the whole of the Midwest and more drifts built up around Waseya, as though the weather itself seemed to recognize Justine and Matt’s need to be alone, they began taking the threads of each other’s memories and weaving them into such vivid episodes from the past that at times they were almost too painful to bear. They cried many tears together, laughed more than they’d expected, and even found the courage to play some of Abby’s songs.

All through those frozen months, while it wasn’t possible to do much else, they did their best to start putting the past behind them in order to plan the future. They understood that in spite of the progress they were making, trying to advise and support themselves without proper help was like trying to carry a heavy bag from the inside. The outside would inevitably collapse and allow all sorts of demons back in. So they sought a recommendation from the doctor and made a pact that as soon as they were able to get to South Bend, they’d consult an experienced bereavement counselor.

By the time they were able to get that far, April had come around, and several other decisions had been reached, not the least of which was that they were going to restore May’s cottage. It might take a small fortune, but one thing they weren’t short of was money, especially now the farmhouse had sold. Apparently a developer had bought all the properties in the vale at a knockdown price, with the intention of razing them and building a supermarket in their place. Matt and Justine had agreed that even a supermarket was preferable to the sick pilgrimages some people were still making to the scene of the crime.

The Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings, still in storage in South Bend, had been authenticated by two separate experts. However, after seeking a valuation and catching Matt as he pretended to faint, Justine decided against selling, and applied for permission to convert two empty shops on Culver’s Main Street into one. Her plan was to turn them into a gallery for the Cantrell Collection. Sallie Jo wasted no time getting in touch with her old professor, who immediately offered to fly up from Memphis to advise on restoration and display. Meantime, Matt began interviewing potential security companies and website designers, while Angela volunteered her services as chief marketer and publicist—a role she’d held for many years before her retirement.

It was an early April afternoon, with a glorious wash of bright sunlight helping along the big thaw, when Matt found Justine in the smaller of the two shops on Main Street, patching the damaged walls with filler. Since no one, including the town manager, foresaw any problem with permits when the project was going to bring many tourists to the area, there seemed no reason not to carry on as though everything was already settled.

“Hi,” she said, glancing over her shoulder as he came in the door. “You’re back sooner than I expected.” His plan for the day had been to spend time over in Wakarusa with the Mennonite builders who’d come highly recommended for the work on May’s cottage.

Before he could answer, she went on, “I had an email from Rob earlier confirming that he, Maggie, and Francine, plus Mum, will definitely be here for Easter. Flights are already booked, apparently, so we’re going to be quite a houseful with your mum, Simon, and Gina as well. Luckily Angela’s offered to let anyone stay at the cottage who wants to, so I’m thinking we should probably have our mothers with us so they can make a fuss of Lula, and the others can enjoy being right on the lake.”

“Good call,” he agreed, taking in the broken floorboards and collapsing ceiling. “Anyway, I hope you’re in the mood for surprises, because I happen to have one.”

Her instant reaction was to tense; a beat later common sense prevailed. He’d never dress bad news up that way.

“Actually, it’s quite a big surprise,” he cautioned, “but I think you’re going to like it.”

Intrigued, she watched him turn back to the door, open it and gesture for someone to come in.

The instant she saw who it was, tears rushed to her eyes. “Cheryl,” she gasped, dropping her filler and tool.

Biting her lip to try to stop herself crying too, Cheryl came forward with her arms open. “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered hoarsely as Justine wrapped her up so hard she almost crushed her.

“I’ve missed you too,” Justine wept. “Oh God, I can’t believe you’re here. Let me look at you.” Holding her at arm’s length, she gazed wonderingly into Cheryl’s lovely gray eyes, taking in her delicate cheekbones and jawline, the familiar wispy dark curls and quirky smile. She was the same Cheryl, although different in a way that Justine couldn’t yet fathom. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you,” she murmured. “I’ve been so worried. No one knew where you were.”

With a mischievous twinkle, Cheryl said, “Wait for this: I’ve been at a spiritual retreat getting my head sorted out.”