The House on Hope Street - By Danielle Steel Page 0,15
stood sobbing in Jean's arms as she waited, trying to make sense of it, trying to get a grip on herself, and thinking of what she would tell the children. There was nothing she could tell them but the truth, but she knew that whatever she said now, and however she said it to them, would affect them for their entire lifetimes. It was an awesome burden. And she was still sobbing uncontrollably as Carole returned with the comb and a clean pink terry cloth bathrobe. She put it on over the gray cotton one, and combed her hair without looking.
“How do I look now?” she asked them, she didn't want to terrify her children before she even spoke to them.
“Honestly? You look like shit, but you're not going to scare them by the way you look. Do you want us to come in with you?” Liz nodded, and they followed her into the house from the garage, directly into the kitchen. They could hear the children in the living room, some of them at least, and she asked the two women to wait in the kitchen, until after she told the children. She felt she owed it to them to be alone with them, but she had no idea how to do this.
Peter and Jamie were playing on the couch when she walked in, roughhousing and teasing and laughing, and Jamie looked up at her before Peter did, and his whole being seemed to stop when he saw her.
“Where's Daddy?” he asked, as though he knew. But sometimes Jamie saw things the others didn't.
“He's not here,” Liz said honestly, fighting to keep control. “Where are the girls?”
“Upstairs,” Peter said, with worried eyes. “What's wrong, Mom?”
“Go and get them, sweetheart, will you please?” He was the head of the family now, although he did not yet know it.
Without a word, Peter bounded up the stairs, and a moment later, returned with his sisters. They all looked serious, as though they sensed that their lives were about to change forever, and they stared at their mother sitting on the couch looking dazed and disheveled.
“Come and sit down,” she said to them as gently as she could muster, and instinctively, they huddled close to her, and she reached out and touched each one, as tears began to slide down her cheeks despite all her efforts to stop them. She was touching all of their hands as she looked from one to the other, and pulled Jamie close to her.
“I have something terrible to tell you … something awful just happened….”
“What happened?” Megan spoke with a ring of panic in her voice, and began to cry before any of the others. “What is it?”
“It's Daddy,” Liz said simply. “He was shot by the husband of a client.”
“Where is he?” Annie asked, starting to cry, like her sister, and Peter and the others were staring at her in disbelief, as though they couldn't fathom what had happened. But how could they? Liz still couldn't understand it either.
“He's at the hospital,” but she didn't want to mislead them, she knew that however terrible, she had to tell them, and deliver the blow that they would never forget. Forevermore, they would each have to live with this moment, and relive it a million times in memory … forever…. “He's at the hospital, but he died half an hour ago … and he loved you all very much. …” She clutched each of them close to her, in a bunch, her arms around all of them, pulling them toward her as they screamed in anguish. “I'm so sorry….” Liz said through her own sobs “I'm so sorry. …”
“No!” the girls screamed in unison, and Peter was wracked by sobs, as Jamie stared at his mother and stood up, pulling free of her embrace, and backing away from her slowly.
“I don't believe you. That's not true,” he said, and then ran up the stairs, as Liz quickly followed. She found him crouched in a corner of his room, curled into a ball, crying, with his arms over his head, as though to shield himself from the blow of her words and the horror of what had happened to them. And with difficulty she picked him up and sat on his bed with him, cradling him as they both cried.
“Your daddy loved you very much, Jamie. … I'm so sorry this happened.”
“I want him to come back now,” Jamie said through his sobs, and Liz continued to rock him.