ask the obvious. “Have you been sad too?” She nodded silently, and never raised her eyes from the sketch. And this time he purposely did not ask why. He could sense painful memories wafting around her, and he had to resist an urge to reach out and touch her hair or her hand. He didn't want to frighten her, or appear inappropriate by being overly familiar. “How are you now?” It seemed a safer question than other possibilities, and this time she looked up at him.
“I'm better. It's been nice at the beach. I think my mom is better too.”
“I'm glad to hear it. Maybe she'll start eating soon.”
“That's what my godmother said. She worries about my mom a lot too.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters, Pip?” Matt asked her. It seemed a safe question to him, and he was totally unprepared for the look in her eyes as she turned her face up to him. The look of sorrow in her eyes seared him to his very soul, and nearly knocked him off his stool.
“I…yes…” She hesitated, unable to speak for a moment, and then she went on, still looking at him with those sad amber eyes that seemed to draw him into her world. “No…I mean sort of… well, it's hard to explain. My brother's name was Chad. He's fifteen. Well…he was…he had an accident last October.…” Oh God, he hated himself for asking her, and now he understood why her mother was so devastated and wasn't eating. He couldn't even fathom it, but there was nothing worse than the loss of a child.
“I'm so sorry, Pip.…” He didn't know what elseto say.
“It's all right. He was very smart, like my father.” And what she said next nearly finished him and explained everything. “My dad's plane crashed, and they were both… they both died. It exploded,” she said with an audible lump in her throat, but she was glad she had told him. She wanted him to know.
Matt looked at her for an endless moment before he said a word, or could. “How terrible for all of you. I'm really sorry, Pip. How lucky for your mom that she has you.”
“I guess so,” Pip said thoughtfully, sounding unconvinced. “She's been pretty sad though. She stays in her room a lot.” At times Pip had wondered if her mother was sadder because Chad had died and not Pip. It was impossible to know, but the question had inevitably come to mind. She had been so close to Chad and was so destroyed now that he was gone.
“I would be too.” His own losses had damn near drowned him, but they were nothing like hers. His were far more ordinary, and the kind of thing you had to live with and accept. Losing a husband and son were far greater challenges than any he had weathered, and he could only imagine the blow it had been to Pip, particularly if her mother was depressed and withdrawn, which sounded as though it was the case from what Pip had said.
“She goes to a group in the city to talk about it. But I'm not sure it helps. She says everyone is really sad.” It sounded morbid to him, but he knew it was the thing to do these days, to go to groups for whatever miseries you had. But a group of mourning bereft people struggling with their losses sounded grim to him, and hardly the right thing to cheer you up.
“My dad was an inventor, sort of. He did things with energy. I don't know what he did, but he was really good at it. We used to be poor, and when I was six, we got a big house and he bought a plane.” It summed it up fairly succinctly, although it didn't entirely clarify what her father's profession was, but it was enough information for him. “Chad was really smart like him. I'm more like my mom.”
“What does that mean?” Matt took exception to the implication of what she was saying. She was an exceptionally bright, articulate little girl. “You're smart too, Pip. Very smart. Both your parents must be. And you certainly are.” It sounded like she had been pushed aside for a bright older brother, who was perhaps more interested in their father's field, whatever it was. It sounded like rank chauvinism to him, and he didn't like the impression it had obviously given her, of being second best, or worse yet, second rate.
“My dad and