Blue Dahlia gt-1 Read online

  Kevin. Kevin.

  Her children screamed in delighted fear, and thunder rolled and burst overhead. In the kitchen, Stella

  slid to the floor as her world fractured.

  * * *

  They came to tell her Kevin was dead. Strangers at her door with solemn faces. She couldn't take it in, couldn't believe it. Though she'd known. She'd known the minute she heard the reporter's voice on her little kitchen television.

  Kevin couldn't be dead. He was young and healthy. He was coming home, and they were having chicken Alfredo for dinner.

  But she'd burned the sauce. The smoke had set off the alarms, and there was nothing but madness in her pretty house.

  She had to send her children to her neighbor's so it could be explained to her.

  But how could the impossible, the unthinkable ever be explained?

  A mistake. The storm, a strike of lightning, and everything changed forever. One instant of time, and the man she loved, the father of her children, no longer lived.

  Is there anyone you'd like to call?

  Who would she call but Kevin? He was her family, her friend, her life.

  They spoke of details that were like a buzz in her brain, of arrangements, of counseling. They were

  sorry for her loss.

  They were gone, and she was alone in the house she and Kevin had bought when she'd been pregnant with Luke. The house they'd saved for, and painted, and decorated together. The house with the

  gardens she'd designed herself.

  The storm was over, and it was quiet. Had it ever been so quiet? She could hear her own heartbeat, the hum of the heater as it kicked on, the drip of rain from the gutters.

  Then she could hear her own keening as she collapsed on the floor by her front door. Lying on her side, she gathered herself into a ball in defense, in denial. There weren't tears, not yet. They were massed into some kind of hard, hot knot inside her. The grief was so deep, tears couldn't reach it. She could only lie curled up there, with those wounded-animal sounds pouring out of her throat.

  It was dark when she pushed herself to her feet, swaying, light-headed and ill. Kevin. Somewhere in her brain his name still, over and over and over.

  She had to get her children, she had to bring her children home. She had to tell her babies.

  Oh, God. Oh, God, how could she tell them?

  She groped for the door, stepped out into the chilly dark, her mind blessedly blank. She left the door

  open at her back, walked down between the heavy-headed mums and asters, past the glossy green leaves of the azaleas she and Kevin had planted one blue spring day.

  She crossed the street like a blind woman, walking through puddles that soaked her shoes, over damp grass, toward her neighbor's porch light.

  What was her neighbor's name? Funny, she'd known her for four years. They carpooled, and sometimes shopped together. But she couldn't quite remember....

  Oh, yes, of course. Diane. Diane and Adam Perkins, and their children, Jessie and Wyatt. Nice family, she thought dully. Nice, normal family. They'd had a barbecue together just a couple weeks ago. Kevin had grilled chicken.

  He loved to grill. They'd had some good wine, some good laughs, and the kids had played. Wyatt had fallen and scraped his knee.

  Of course she remembered.

  But she stood in front of the door not quite sure what she was doing there.

  Her children. Of course. She'd come for her children. She had to tell them___

  Don't think. She held herself hard, rocked, held in. Don't think yet. If you think, you'll break apart. A million pieces you can never put together again.

  Her babies needed her. Needed her now. Only had her now.

  She bore down on that hot, hard knot and rang the bell.

  She saw Diane as if she were looking at her through a thin sheen of water. Rippling, and not quite there. She heard her dimly. Felt the arms that came around her in support and sympathy.

  But your husband's alive, you see, Stella thought. Your life isn't over. Your world's the same as it was five minutes ago. So you can't know. You can't.

  When she felt herself begin to shake, she pulled back. "Not now, please. I can't now. I have to take the boys home."

  "I can come with you." There were tears on Diane's cheeks as she reached out, touched Stella's hair. "Would you like me to come, to stay with you?"

  "No. Not now. I need ... the boys."

  "I'll get them. Come inside, Stella."

  But she only shook her head.

  "All right. They're in the family room. I'll bring them. Stella, if there's anything, anything at all. You've only to call. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

  She stood in the dark, looking in at the light, and waited.

  She heard the protests, the complaints, then the scrambling of feet. And there were her boys—Gavin

  with his father's sunny hair, Luke with his father's mouth.

  "We don't want to go yet," Gavin told her. "We're playing a game. Can't we finish?"

  "Not now. We have to go home now."

  "But I'm winning. It's not fair, and—"

  "Gavin. We have to go."

  "Is Daddy home?"

  She looked down at Luke, his happy, innocent face, and nearly broke. "No." Reaching down, she picked him up, touched her lips to the mouth that was so like Kevin's. "Let's go home."

  She took Gavin's hand and began the walk back to her empty house.

  "If Daddy was home, he'd let me finish." Cranky tears smeared Gavin's voice. "I want Daddy."

  "I know. I do too."

  "Can we have a dog?" Luke wanted to know, and turned her face to his with his hands. "Can we ask Daddy? Can we have a dog like Jessie and Wyatt?"

  "We'll talk about it later."

  "I want Daddy," Gavin said again, with a rising pitch in his voice.

  He knows, Stella thought. He knows something is wrong, something's terribly wrong. I have to do this.

  I have to do it now.

  "We need to sit down." Carefully, very carefully, she closed the door behind her, carried Luke to the couch. She sat with him in her lap and laid her arm over Gavin's shoulder.

  "If I had a dog," Luke told her soberly, "I'd take care of him. When's Daddy coming?"

  "He can't come."

  " 'Cause of the busy trip?"

  "He ..." Help me. God, help me do this. "There was an accident. Daddy was in an accident."

  "Like when the cars smash?" Luke asked, and Gavin said nothing, nothing at all as his eyes burned into her face.

  "It was a very bad accident. Daddy had to go to heaven."

  "But he has to come home after."

  "He can't. He can't come home anymore. He has to stay in heaven now."

  "I don't want him there." Gavin tried to wrench away, but she held him tightly. "I want him to come home now."

  "I don't want him there either, baby. But he can't come back anymore, no matter how much we want it."

  Luke's lips trembled. "Is he mad at us?"

  "No. No, no, no, baby. No." She pressed her face to his hair as her stomach pitched and what was left

  of her heart throbbed like a wound. "He's not mad at us. He loves us. He'll always love us."

  "He's dead." There was fury in Gavin's voice, rage on his face. Then it crumpled, and he was just a little boy, weeping in his mother's arms.

  She held them until they slept, then carried them to her bed so none of them would wake alone. As she had countless times before, she slipped off their shoes, tucked blankets around them.

  She left a light burning while she walked—it felt like floating—through the house, locking doors, checking windows. When she knew everything was safe, she closed herself into the bathroom. She ran a bath so hot the steam rose off the water and misted the room.

  Only when she slipped into the tub, submerged herself in the steaming water, did she allow that knot to snap. With her boys sleeping, and her body shivering in the hot water, she wept and wept and wept.

&nbs
p; * * *

  She got through it. A few friends suggested she might take a tranquilizer, but she didn't want to block the feelings. Nor did she want to have a muzzy head when she had her children to think of.

  She kept-it simple. Kevin would have wanted simple. She chose every detail—the music, the flowers, the photographs—of his memorial service. She selected a silver box for his ashes and planned to scatter them on the lake. He'd proposed to her on the lake, in a rented boat on a summer afternoon.

  She wore black for the service, a widow of thirty-one, with two young boys and a mortgage, and a heart so broken she wondered if she would feel pieces of it piercing her soul for the rest of her life.

  She kept her children close, and made appointments with a grief counselor for all of them.

  Details. She could handle the details. As long as there was something to do, something definite, she could hold on. She could be strong.

  Friends came, with their sympathy and covered dishes and teary eyes. She was grateful to them more for the distraction than the condolences. There was no condolence for her.

  Her father and his wife flew up from Memphis, and them she leaned on. She let Jolene, her father's wife, fuss over her, and soothe and cuddle the children, while her own mother complained about having to be in the same room as that woman.

  When the service was over, after the friends drifted away, after she clung to her father and Jolene before their flight home, she made herself take off the black dress.

  She shoved it into a bag to send to a shelter. She never wanted to see it again.

  Her mother stayed. Stella had asked her to stay a few days. Surely under such circumstances she was entitled to her mother. Whatever friction was, and always had been, between them was nothing

  compared with death.

  When she went into the kitchen, her mother was brewing coffee. Stella was so grateful not to have to think of such a minor task, she crossed over and kissed Carla's cheek.

  "Thanks. I'm so sick of tea."

  "Every time I turned around that woman was making more damn tea."

  "She was trying to help, and I'm not sure I could've handled coffee until now."

  Carla turned. She was a slim woman with short blond hair. Over the years, she'd battled time with regular trips to the surgeon. Nips, tucks, lifts, injections had wiped away some of the years. And left her looking whittled and hard, Stella thought.

  She might pass for forty, but she'd never look happy about it.

  "You always take up for her."

  "I'm not taking up for Jolene, Mom." Wearily, Stella sat. No more details, she realized. No more something that has to be done.

  How would she get through the night?

  "I don't see why I had to tolerate her."

  "I'm sorry you were uncomfortable. But she was very kind. She and Dad have been married for, what, twenty-five years or so now. You ought to be used to it."

  "I don't like having her in my face, her and that twangy voice. Trailer trash."

  Stella opened her mouth, closed it again. Jolene hadn't come from a trailer park and was certainly not trash. But what good would it do to say so? Or to remind her mother that she'd been the one who'd wanted a divorce, the one to leave the marriage. Just as it wouldn't do any good to point out that Carla had been married twice since.

  "Well, she's gone now."

  "Good riddance."

  Stella took a deep breath. No arguments, she thought, as her stomach clenched and unclenched like a

  fist. Too tired to argue.

  "The kids are sleeping. They're just worn out. Tomorrow ... we'll just deal with tomorrow. I guess that's the way it's going to be." She let her head fall back, closed her eyes. "I keep thinking this is a horrible dream, and I'll wake up any second. Kevin will be here. I don't... I can't imagine life without him. I can't stand to imagine it."

  The tears started again. "Mom, I don't know what I'm going to do."

  "Had insurance, didn't he?"

  Stella blinked, stared as Carla set a cup of coffee in front of her. "What?"

  "Life insurance. He was covered?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "You ought to talk to a lawyer about suing the airline. Better start thinking of practicalities." She sat with her own coffee. "It's what you're best at, anyway."

  "Mom"—she spoke slowly as if translating a strange foreign language—"Kevin's dead."

  "I know that, Stella, and I'm sorry." Reaching over, Carla gave Stella's hand a pat. "I dropped everything to come here and give you a hand, didn't I?"

  "Yes." She had to remember that. Appreciate that.

  "It's a damn fucked-up world when a man of his age dies for no good reason. Useless waste. I'll never understand it."

  "No." Pulling a tissue out of her pocket, Stella rubbed the tears away. "Neither will I."

  "I liked him. But the fact is, you're in a fix now. Bills, kids to support. Widowed with two growing boys. Not many men want to take on ready-made families, let me tell you."

  "I don't want a man to take us on. God, Mom."

  "You will," Carla said with a nod. 'Take my advice and make sure the next one's got money. Don't make my mistakes. You lost your husband, and that's hard. It's really hard. But women lose husbands every day. It's better to lose one this way than to go through a divorce."

  The pain in Stella's stomach was too sharp for grief, too cold for rage. "Mom. We had Kevin's memorial service today. I have his ashes in a goddamn box in my bedroom."

  "You want my help." She waggled the spoon. "I'm trying to give it to you. You sue the pants off the airline, get yourself a solid nest egg. And don't hook yourself up with some loser like I always do. You don't think divorce is a hard knock, too? Haven't been through one, have you? Well, I have. Twice. And I might as well tell you it's coming up on three. I'm done with that stupid son of a bitch.

  You've got no idea what he's put me through. Not only is he an inconsiderate, loudmouthed asshole, but

  I think he's been cheating on me."

  She pushed away from the table, rummaged around, then cut herself a piece of cake. "He thinks I'm going to tolerate that, he's mistaken. I'd just love to see his face when he gets served with the papers. Today."

  "I'm sorry your third marriage isn't working out," Stella said stiffly. "But it's a little hard for me to be sympathetic, since both the third marriage and the third divorce were your choice. Kevin's dead. My husband is dead, and that sure as hell wasn't my choice."

  "You think I want to go through this again? You think I want to come here to help you out, then have your father's bimbo shoved in my face?"

  "She's his wife, who has never been anything but decent to you and who has always treated me kindly."

  'To your face." Carla stuffed a bite of cake into her mouth. "You think you're the only one with problems? With heartache? You won't be so quick to shrug it off when you're pushing fifty and facing

  life alone."

  "You're pushing fifty from the back end, Mom, and being alone is, again, your choice."

  Temper turned Carla's eyes dark and sharp. "I don't appreciate that tone, Stella. I don't have to put up with it."

  "No, you don't. You certainly don't. In fact, it would probably be best for both of us if you left. Right now. This was a bad idea. I don't know what I was thinking."

  "You want me gone, fine." Carla shoved up from the table. "I'd just as soon get back to my own life.

  You never had any gratitude in you, and if you couldn't be on my back about something you weren't happy. Next time you want to cry on somebody's shoulder, call your country bumpkin stepmother."

  "Oh, I will," Stella murmured as Carla sailed out of the room. "Believe me."

  She rose to carry her cup to the sink, then gave in to the petty urge and smashed it. She wanted to break everything as she'd been broken. She wanted to wreak havoc on the world as it had been on her.

  Instead she stood gripping the edge of the sink and praying that her mother would pack and leave
quickly. She wanted her out. Why had she ever thought she wanted her to stay? It was always the same between them. Abrasive, combative. No connection, no common ground.

  But God, she'd wanted that shoulder. Needed it so much, just for one night. Tomorrow she would do whatever came next. But she'd wanted to be held and stroked and comforted tonight.

  With trembling fingers she cleaned the broken shards out of the sink, wept over them a little as she poured them into the trash. Then she walked to the phone and called a cab for her mother.

  They didn't speak again, and Stella decided that was for the best. She closed the door, listened to the

  cab drive away.

  Alone now, she checked on her sons, tucked blankets over them, laid her lips gently on their heads.

  They were all she had now. And she was all they had.

  She would be a better mother. She swore it. More patient. She would never, never let them down. She would never walk away when they needed her.

  And when they needed her shoulder, by God, she would give it. No matter what. No matter when.

  "You're first for me," she whispered. "You'll always be first for me."

  In her own room, she undressed again, then took Kevin's old flannel robe out of the closet. She wrapped herself in it, in the familiar, heartbreaking smell of him.

  Curling up on the bed, she hugged the robe close, shut her eyes, and prayed for morning. For what happened next.

  TWO

  Harper House

  January 2004

  She couldn't afford to be intimidated by the house, or by its mistress. They both had reputations.

  The house was said to be elegant and old,with gardens that rivaled Eden. She'd just confirmed that for herself.

  The woman was said to be interesting, somewhat solitary, and perhaps a bit "difficult." A word, Stella knew, that could mean anything from strong-willed to stone bitch.

  Either way, she could handle it, she reminded herself as she fought the need to get up and pace. She'd handled worse.

  She needed this job. Not just for the salary—and it was generous—but for the structure, for the challenge, for the doing. Doing more, she knew, than circling the wheel she'd fallen into back home.

  She needed a life, something more than clocking time, drawing a paycheck that would be soaked up by bills. She needed, however self-help-book it sounded, something that fulfilled and challenged her.