The House on Hope Street - By Danielle Steel Page 0,20

prove her mother right and lose her house and her practice.

“You don't look it,” her mother said grimly. “Tomorrow, you should wash your hair and put on makeup.” Tomorrow, I should die so I don't have to live through this, Liz wanted to say to her, but couldn't. There was no point fighting with her on top of everything else. They had enough to worry about now, without adding family feuds into the bargain. Jack hadn't been close to his brother either, but at least he was there, and it was nice for the children to see him, Jack's parents, and her mother and brother.

She and Victoria lay in bed late that night, talking about him, and what had happened. It was a nightmare none of them would ever forget, and probably never recover from. Liz had already spoken to several people on the phone that day who had told her she'd never get over it, particularly a traumatic death like this, and two others had told her that the best thing she could do was get out in the world again as soon as possible, she might even be married again in six months, who knew, she might get lucky. Lucky? How did they figure that, and where did they get the courage to tell her what to do? Sell the house, move away, move into town, take a new associate in with her, give it up, what to tell the kids, what not to tell the kids, buy a dog, have him cremated, throw the ashes off the bridge, don't let the kids attend his funeral, make sure they see him before the casket was closed, make sure they don't so they don't remember him that way. Everyone had free advice to give, and an endless stream of opinions. She was already exhausted from listening to them. But all it boiled down to in the end was that Jack was gone, and she was on her own now.

She didn't fall asleep until five o'clock that morning, and Victoria lay awake and let her talk all night. And at six o'clock Jamie came in, and climbed into bed with them.

“Where's Daddy?” he asked, as he lay next to her, and Liz could feel her whole body shudder as he asked her. Was it possible he'd forgotten? Maybe it was so traumatic for him he'd repressed it.

“He died, sweetheart. A bad man shot him.”

“I know,” he said sensibly, looking up at her as they lay side by side in the bed that his father had slept in only a day before. “I mean now, where is he?” Jamie looked at her as though she were silly for thinking he'd forget, and she smiled sadly at him.

“He's at the funeral home, we're going there today. But he's really up in Heaven with God.” At least she hoped that was true and that everything she'd always believed was the way it happened. She hoped that he was happy and at peace, as she'd been told. But in her heart of hearts, she wasn't sure yet. She still wanted him back too much to entirely believe that.

“How can he be in two places?”

“His spirit, everything about him that we know and love, is in Heaven with God, and right here with us, in our hearts. His body is at the funeral home, kind of like he's sleeping.” Tears squeezed out of her eyes as she said it, and Jamie nodded, satisfied with her response.

“When will I see him again?”

“When we go to Heaven to be with him. Not till you're very, very old.”

“Why did the bad man shoot him?”

“Because he was very angry, and very crazy. He shot someone else too. And he killed himself, he won't come back here to hurt us.” She wondered if that was what he was thinking, and she wanted to allay his fears, whether or not he voiced them.

“Did Daddy do something bad to him?” It was a good question.

“Daddy did something that made him very angry, because the man had done some bad things to his wife. Daddy asked the judge to take away some money from him.”

“Did he shoot Daddy to get back his money?”

“Sort of.”

“Did he shoot the judge too?”

“No. He didn't.” Jamie nodded, mulling over what she'd said to him, and then he lay in bed next to her, just holding her close to him, and Victoria got up and went to take a shower. It was going to be a long day