A California Christmas (Silver Springs #7) - Brenda Novak Page 0,44
grandchildren the way she’d had to worry about her children.
“Is it the stress of the wedding that’s bothering you?” Eli asked.
“No. I’m fine with the wedding.”
“You’re not having second thoughts...”
“No.”
“Good, because if you were to back out now, it would break poor Cal’s heart.”
That was true. He loved her fiercely, and he let her know it. “I would never do anything to hurt him.”
“So if it’s not the wedding, what is it? A particular boy or girl at the school who isn’t doing well?”
“There’s always someone to worry about at the school.” Sadly, more than one. But that was the nature of her business, what she’d chosen to do.
“Is this a little closer to home, then? Is it Dallas?”
When she didn’t answer, she knew Eli would understand he’d guessed correctly.
“What’s going on with Dallas?” he asked. “He seems to be doing okay to me. The same, anyway.”
“I just keep thinking...” She got up and began pacing around her bedroom. “What would make someone want to scale dizzyingly high, steep rocks—mountains—with no safety gear? When one mistake would mean certain death?”
In the daytime, when they were both busy, Eli would probably have said something like, “He’s not the only one who does it. It’s a sport, and all sports can be dangerous. He’ll be okay.” Although she didn’t buy that, she understood he said those kinds of things to relieve his own worry—to refuse to face the reality of the situation.
But late at night like this, when the immediate pressures of work and family felt so far away, he was prone to be more open and honest. They had their best discussions in moments like these. “Maybe he puts himself in such dangerous situations to make him fear death and want to live.”
“Meaning he doesn’t feel that way naturally?”
“I’m just throwing out ideas.”
“The chances he takes make me feel as though my heart is caught in a blender, and any moment it could switch on. I keep waiting for the phone to ring with news that would devastate me, and I never realize that more than when he’s home and I’m not scared for him. That’s the only time I get a reprieve, the only time the fear retreats and I can breathe freely.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. That’s the last thing he’d ever want to make you feel.”
“I agree. The fact that he does it anyway suggests he has to do it. But why? How many times can one person cheat death?”
“You know he feels responsible for his sister’s murder, feels as though Jenny might’ve been able to get out of the house if she hadn’t tried to draw their father’s attention away from him so he could hide.”
“I do. But he was so young—”
“Doesn’t matter. He has to cope with a great deal of survivor’s guilt.”
She opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out the letter she’d received from Dallas’s father. “And I gave the man who killed her Dallas’s address,” she said with a sigh.
“What? You’ve heard from his father?”
She took the letter from its envelope and stared at the tiny, cramped printing—all of it in pencil. “He wrote me from prison, pleading for a way to contact Dallas. And I...”
“Felt sorry for him?” Eli asked incredulously.
“No, not that. I was hoping he’d say something to Dallas that would heal old wounds, something that might make it possible for Dallas to forgive himself for living instead of dying that day. I thought maybe then Dallas would quit rambling around, taking such foolish chances and denying himself the community and support of his friends and family.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t work out that way.”
“Dallas isn’t happy that I gave Robert his address. He’s received a letter from him, but he hasn’t opened it. Says he’s not sure he ever will.”
“Maybe that’s for the best,” Eli said. “Maybe what his father has to say will only make matters worse.”
“In the letter he sent me, Robert sounds sincerely sorry. But you could be right. I might’ve made a mistake.”
“You never know,” Eli said. “It’s possible that it’s a good thing this is coming up again.”
“In what way?”
“If Dallas has to face it and rethink it all as a man, he might come to better conclusions than he did as a child, might finally be able to get beyond it.”
“I hope so. It’s not as if he’s been willing to go to therapy—not since I took him to that one psychologist, Dr. Smith, who retired after a couple of years with him. Remember?”