The House on Hope Street - By Danielle Steel Page 0,17

all seemed vague, and she couldn't remember from one hour to the next who had been there, and who she had talked to. Victoria arrived quietly with a small overnight bag. Her husband had agreed to take care of the boys, and she was planning to stay for the duration. And the moment Liz saw her standing in the bedroom doorway, she began to sob, and Victoria sat with her for an hour as she cried, and held her.

There was nothing Victoria could say, no words she could offer her that would make it all right, so she didn't even try. They just sat there, holding each other and crying together. Liz tried to explain what had happened, to sort it out for herself if nothing else, but it didn't make sense, especially to her, as she went over everything that had happened that morning. Liz was still wearing her bloodstained nightgown and hospital robe when Victoria arrived, and after a while, Victoria helped her take them off, and gently put her in the shower. But nothing changed anything, nothing helped, whether she ate or drank or cried or talked or didn't. The outcome was still the same no matter how she turned it around in her mind, no matter how many times she went over what had happened. It was as though saying it would make it come out different this time, but it didn't.

All Liz wanted to do was run in and out of her bedroom to check on her children. Carole was sitting with Jamie and the girls, Peter had gone to Jessica's for a while, and Jean was making endless phone calls. Victoria tried to get Liz to lie down, but she wouldn't, and that afternoon, Jean said grimly that Liz had to think about the “arrangements.” It was a word she had come to hate, and never wanted to hear again. It held within its core all the horror of what had just happened to them. Arrangements. It meant picking a funeral home, and a casket, and a suit for him to wear, and the room where people would come to “view” him, like an object or a painting, and no longer a person.

Liz had already decided that she wanted the casket closed, she didn't want anyone to remember him that way, but only the person he had been, laughing and talking, and playing with his kids, and strutting around the courtroom. She didn't want anyone to see what he had become, the lifeless form that Phillip Parker had destroyed with a single bullet. And she knew that somewhere Amanda Parker's family was dealing with the same horror they were, and her children would be devastated. They were still young, and she had already been told that Amanda's sister would take them. But Liz couldn't think about them now, only her own. She asked Jean to send flowers to the funeral home for them the next day, and she was going to call Amanda's mother in a few days. But for the moment she was too distraught herself to do more than cry for them from the distance.

Jack's brother arrived from Washington that night, his parents from Chicago, and they went to the funeral home with Liz the next morning, to do what they had to do. Jean went with them, and Victoria came along, and held Liz's hand while they picked the casket. It was somber and dignified, mahogany, with brass handles and a white velvet lining. The people at the funeral home made it sound as though they were picking out a car for him, and told them of the various alternatives and features, and it was suddenly so horrible that it made Liz want to laugh hysterically. But as soon as she did, she was sobbing uncontrollably again. It was like having no control over yourself, and not being able to stop or change the constant wave of emotions that engulfed her. Destiny had put her on the crest of a tidal wave, and there was no way to get safely back onshore. She wondered if she would ever feel safe or normal again, or sane, or be able to laugh or smile, or read a magazine, or do any of the ordinary things people did. Their Christmas tree looked like an accusation, an ugly memory, the ghost of Christmas past, every time she walked by it.

There were a dozen people at their dinner table that night. Victoria, Carole, Jean, Jack's brother