The House on Hope Street - By Danielle Steel Page 0,66

them to Peter, but he was too tall and too young to wear them, and it was easier to dispose of them than to see someone else wear them.

It had taken her two hours to empty the drawers and the hanging part of the closet, when Megan walked into her room and saw what she was doing. Megan started to cry, and for an instant Liz felt as though she had killed him. Megan stood there staring at the neat piles of his clothes on the floor and sobbed, and as Liz looked at her she started crying, for her children, for him, for herself. But no matter what she hung on to now, they had lost him. He wasn't coming back, and he didn't need the clothes anymore. It was better to give his things away, she told herself, but as she saw Megan's distress over it, she wondered.

“Why are you doing that now? It's because of him, isn't it?” They both knew she meant Bill, and Liz shook her head, as they both stood in the walk-in closet crying.

“It's time, Meg. … I had to…. It hurts me too much to see them,” Liz said, as she cried and reached out to her daughter, but Megan pulled away, ran to her room, and slammed the door, and a few minutes later, Liz followed. But Megan didn't want to talk to her, and Liz went back to her own room, to put Jack's clothes in boxes. Peter walked by her room and saw what she was doing, stopped and looked at her, and then quietly offered to help her.

“I'll do it for you, Mom. You don't have to do that.”

“I want to,” she said sadly. It was the last remnant of him that he had left behind, other than his trophies, and his photographs, and a few mementos, and of course their children.

Peter helped her take it all out to the car, and as though sensing that a turning point had come, one by one the children came and watched her. There was a look of loss evident in their eyes, and at the very last, Megan came out of her room and looked at her mother. It was obvious that it wasn't easy for Liz either, and then, as a silent move of support for her, each of the children picked something up, a box, a bag, a coat, and carried it to the car. It was a last gesture of good-bye to their father. And at the very end, Megan came, carrying the last armload.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” she whispered through her tears, and Liz turned and clung to her, grateful for the bond between them.

“I love you, Meg.” Mother and daughter cried as they held each other, and the others were crying too by the time the car was full.

“I love you too, Mom,” Megan said softly, and the others came to hug her.

She was taking the clothes to a local charity drop, and Peter offered to drive her.

“I'm okay. I can do it alone,” she reassured him. He was wearing a smaller neck brace by then, and had just begun to drive again, and he insisted on driving her. She was too upset to drive the car and she knew it. And together, they drove slowly out of the driveway, with the car piled high with his father's things, as the others watched.

They were back half an hour later, and Liz looked ravaged, and when she walked back into her closet that afternoon and saw the empty space, her heart gave a little tug, remembering what had been there, but she felt freer. It had taken her a long time, but she knew she had been right to wait until she was ready, despite the endless advice she'd been given about when to put away Jack's clothes.

She sat in her room for a long time, staring out the window, and thinking of him, and when Bill called late that afternoon, he could hear in her voice that something had happened.

“Are you okay?” He sounded worried.

“More or less.” She told him what she had done that day, and how hard it had been, and his heart ached as he listened. In the past two months, he had come to care about her deeply.

“I'm sorry, Liz.” He knew it was a sign of some kind, a symbol of the fact that she was slowly letting go of the past, and saying a last good-bye to her husband. He