Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,50

pretty table for them. She knew Aden wanted to see all his friends while he was home. The house would be bustling again, with kids arriving at all hours, Aden ordering pizzas for them, and all the boys watching football over the holiday weekend. Christmas was just around the corner, with Brad’s anniversary date first, the anniversary of the crash. She hoped the media wouldn’t hound her, looking for a follow-up to the story. There wasn’t any at her end. She had read that some of the families hadn’t settled with the airline, and were suing, and the airline was trying to keep it quiet.

* * *

—

She was finally feeling better by the time Aden got home. The nightmares had subsided again, and she’d only had one bad headache. The doctors had told her it would be that way, that the PTSD would flare up at times, particularly if something upset her, and then would calm down again. They had warned her that the flashbacks she had in her nightmares might continue for several years. But it was already significantly better after one. She was still aware of it at times, but not to the same degree, and she had stopped seeing the psychiatrist. There was nothing more she could do, and she thought Maggie had adjusted well. The trip to Europe was a good sign. And Maggie hadn’t been back to see her since her return.

* * *

—

The house came to life instantly when Aden came home. His friends arrived within the hour he did. The kitchen was crammed full of young male bodies, voices calling to each other, laughter, doorbells ringing, you could hear them all over the house. Maggie loved it.

She was thrilled to see her son, and he was happy to be home, although he loved college and living in Boston.

The chaos only calmed down significantly on Thanksgiving Day, when his friends had to be at home with their families. But by nightfall they were back, louder than ever. It made Maggie smile listening to them. They all seemed to have grown up in the last three months.

The day after Thanksgiving, Aden was out with his friends all day. They were meeting up with some girls, dropping in at each other’s houses, driving around to visit. Everything seemed lively, and Aden had brought home a mountain of laundry. She was even happy to do it. It made her feel useful.

On Friday night, a bunch of them piled into her basement playroom to watch a movie. They were still there, laughing and talking, when she went to bed. She liked it when Aden had friends over and she saw familiar faces from his school days.

She was surprised to see a lot of them back on Saturday morning, when she came out of the laundry room with an armload of clean clothes for him to take back to Boston. She noticed that they were watching a car race. It was in the heat of the race, and the commentator was excited. He was speaking over an announcer in another language, which sounded like Spanish. Instinctively, she stopped for a minute to watch it. Just as she did, she saw two cars crash into each other in a dramatic collision and then hit a third car. Within seconds, two of the cars burst into flames. As people screamed and others ran toward it, firemen leapt to the scene, and Aden and his friends were shouting and pointing at what was happening on the screen. It was a grisly scene as the drivers were pulled from the cars. One looked lifeless, and firefighters were fighting the flames as the crowd was roaring. Aden and his friends were agitated, and she hated watching but couldn’t stop. One of the announcers said that a driver called Garcia-Marques appeared to be dead, another was carried away by paramedics, while the third one had escaped the blaze with parts of his driving suit on fire as he leapt from the car, and then had been surrounded by firemen and medical personnel putting the flames out. It was an impressive sight. Maggie was watching the screen as the boys stared in horror at what was happening and talked animatedly.

“Where is that?” she asked, setting the laundry down for a minute.

“Spain,” one of the boys answered, still watching the TV, and then she heard his name, as the announcer explained that the man whose suit was in flames was the legendary Formula One