Oh, my.
Her most-like-Max child.
Ohhhhh.
“What did you say?” Danny was looking at her.
“Nothing.” She kissed his cheek. “Let her be for now.” Turning, she walked toward the kitchen and breathed a soft prayer. “Lord, have mercy.”
M
ax grinned across the kitchen table. “In love with Skylar?”
“I really think so,” Claire said.
“That’s, well, that’s . . .”
“Exactly.”
He took a bite out of his tuna sandwich.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Danny and Jenna had left; Skylar had not reappeared after they got home from church; Indio and Ben, Lexi, and Tuyen had gone to their respective homes on the property.
Max said, “We let it go.”
“I like her a lot. I would hate to try to run this place without her. She’s giving, loving, quirky, but—”
“Sweetheart.” He touched her hand. “We let it go. Do you know how often you tell me that? It’s all about surrendering, you say. Give up the past; it’s over. Give up the future; it may never come. Live in the moment.”
“But—” The whine grated on her nerves. She lowered her voice. “She has baggage.”
Max laughed. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Well.”
“Like none of us have baggage?”
“That’s not the point. What if Danny’s coming at this relation ship, consciously or not, with the attitude that he’s going to rescue her? He couldn’t rescue Faith, but now he can make right that failure. He’ll just hurt her and himself in the process. They’re too different on every level to become one.”
Max squeezed her hand. “Listen to yourself, Claire. What do you hear?”
“A concerned mother who just wants the best for her son.”
He shook his head. “It’s fear.”
Her stomach twisted and she heard the truth in his statement.
“This is why we reserved the weekend for us, right?”
She nodded. “We thought the memory of the fire might do a number on us. What do you think?”
He smiled gently. “What do you think?”
She closed her eyes. Things crept in now and then and undermined her peace. A sense of unreasonable fear. A sense of not being able to cope with the everyday. A sense of reluctance not to do something innocuous. Flashbacks of dark and smoke that triggered a rush of panic.
Max knew of such episodes. Often he was the one who pointed them out to her, much as he’d done just now about her overreaction to Danny and Skylar.
She looked at him. “Why isn’t it finished yet? God has brought me so far, but . . . it has been worse these past couple weeks.”
“It’s the same time of year. The earth is at its hottest and driest. Nothing like last year’s condition with the rain we’ve had, but similar enough for your unconscious to react to.”
She sighed. “I just accept and give myself a break.”
“Yep. Still.”
“Where are you?” Although Max’s experience with the fire was not hers, that night had been his worst. He’d had to process emotions as well.
“Ever since I told Dad yesterday that I’d go to Vietnam with him, I’ve regretted it. It seems the right thing to do for him and for myself, so why the worry? It finally came to me in church. It’s all about fear too. I’m afraid of being away from you. I’m afraid you’ll need me and I won’t be able to get to you.”
“Like that night. I’ve had similar thoughts.”
“I’m sure.” He leaned across the table, his eyes locked on hers. “I do believe it’s the right thing. I need to deal with this bag of trash—say good-bye to BJ and let go of my anger toward the government and the Vietcong.”
She winced. “I agree. I don’t like it, but I think I’m supposed to push through this one. Your absence doesn’t mean abandonment to me like it used to.”
“You’re not just being stoic?”
“No.” She smiled. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“Okay.” He straightened. “Did you and Mom decide if you want to formally mark the passing of this year?”
She’d been avoiding the subject like she’d been avoiding mention of his spur-of-the-moment trip idea. She sighed. Enough with the ostrich mime routine.
“Yes. We want to make a memorial, kind of like BJ’s, leave some mementos. Your mom has a stone angel. I have a wrought-iron garden cross. The gold mine seems the most appropriate place, but it really is too difficult for your folks to get there. We decided—” Her throat closed up.
“Aw, sweetheart.” Max moved to her side of the table and knelt beside her. “You decided what?”
That night rushed at her. Ben kept driving the Jeep up to a high point. From there he could see the fires in the far distant mountains. Although he knew what shifting winds could do, he initially believed the fires would not reach them.
She had ridden with him one time to view the scene. And that was where it all started, the gnawing deep inside of her that the world was being flung out of control.
“Claire?”
“Your mom and I decided to go up to that spot where your dad watched.”
Max nodded. He knew the story and the place. “I’ve got something to add. Wait here.”
He went through the side door, into the laundry and mud room. A moment later he reappeared, a twist of blackened metal in his hand. He walked over to her.
“It’s a cross,” he said. “Not very pretty but I made it from—” Now his voice cracked. “From your car.”
Her car. They’d had to leave it in the parking lot when they evacuated. It burned, its trunk and backseat loaded with Indio’s special things.
“Oh, Max!”
“I remember that morning, when we drove up behind the ambulance. The first thing I spotted was your car. It was just a black shell. All I could think about was if you’d died.” He laid his gift on the floor and pulled her into his arms.
And then they both cried.
T
hey were beyond Estudillo Corners in Danny’s truck and on the downhill stretch into San Diego before either of them spoke. Not that Jenna was going to breathe a word unless her brother did first.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Jenna stared at him.
“I forget how awful this is for you, having Kevin fighting in that . . . that far-off war.”
She heard the unspoken expletive in his stutter. Despite his love for Kevin, his anger at the situation was always there just beneath the surface.
Danny reached over and touched her injured arm. “And now this. Truce?”
She was too tired to argue with him anymore. “Sure. Okay.”
He flicked on the turn signal. “Mind if we turn off for a few minutes?”
Every nerve in her body screamed in protest. “Yes, I mind! What are you doing?”
The truck slowed. “I need just a minute here.” He turned left onto a side road.
Jenna recognized where he was taking them, and her anxiety jumped another notch. “The lookout? Now?”
“You do know what the date is, right?” He glanced at her. “Or maybe not, considering.”
The date? All she could think of was Amber lying in the hospital. Or the morgue. Or wherever it was they took—
“The fire, Jen. It happened a year ago this week. I have to, I don’t know, have a moment of silence or something.”
Exasperated, she tilted her head back with a thump against the headrest.
“It’s good to remember,” he said.
“It’s one of the worst memories I have. Why would I want to remember?”
“To mark its passing. To thank God for keeping us all safe through it.”
“Oh, Danny! Can’t you do it some other time? I am so worried about Amber.”
He pulled into a parking lot along the side of the road and braked. “I want to do this with you. Dad says he’s coming later. Erik’s bringing Rosie up tonight.”
Jenna looked through the windshield. A panorama of mountains stretched forever toward the east. It was an incredibly gorgeous sight—one she had avoided for an entire year.
The afternoon sun threw the most distant ones into a purple haze; the nearer ones glowed in Technicolor: vegetation greens, blue-grays of rock . . . and black scars beneath it all.
“Oh, Danny,” she said again.
“Come on.” He got out of the truck.
She joined him at the edge of the lookout, at the low stonewall where one year they’d had a family photo taken for Christmas cards. It was a favorite spot of their mother’s.
Jenna linked her good arm with Danny’s and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Mom loved this spot.”
“I think she still does. It was bizarrely appropriate that we gathered here that night.”
She shuddered. The memory sprung upon her, fresher than the one of her mom bringing coffee to her that morning.
That night of the fire, the road up to the hacienda had been blocked off just beyond the lookout. No one had been allowed up to Santa Reina or even Estudillo Corners, the turn for the hacienda. Emergency workers and vehicles had filled the place where they now stood.
Jenna and Kevin had joined Danny, Erik, and their dad. The five of them waited through the cold night, huddled together, inhaling thick smoke, ash collecting in their hair. They flailed about in a no-man’s-space, having not one clue whether their mom, Lexi, Nana, or Papa were dead or alive. A firefighter pretended to update them; in truth he only repeated again and again, “No news. We can’t get in.”
It was such an unbelievable nightmare.
Danny unlaced his arm from hers, draped it around her shoulders, and hugged her tightly.
As he had done that night.
“Thank You, Lord,” he prayed, “for keeping them safe.”
As he had done that night.
She looked at him. “Danny, you prayed those words before we got to them. Before we even knew.”
He nodded.
“It was more than your twin mojo, right?” Through the years he and Lexi had often felt things about each other from a distance. That night he’d sensed that if Lexi were not safe, he would somehow know it.
“Yes.” He smiled. “More than the mojo. It was faith.” She saw a shimmer in his dark eyes.
“How do I get it?”
“You have it, Jen. You know God’s real. You recognize Him in this vista before us. In Nana’s love and wisdom. In your music and literature. The thing that takes practice is recognizing when He speaks to you.”
She didn’t bother to ask how and leaned her head against his shoulder. Danny was a mystery to her, which probably explained why he made her nuts at times.
After a moment he said, “Just now you
knew
my prayer that night came from something besides my connection with Lexi. That’s how faith is. When you
know
something in that intangible way, trust it. Go with it. Be open, and God will reveal Himself.”
She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up a knowing, an intuitive sense of something being true.
Her arm hurt. Bottom line, it hurt because the world was messy and unfair. Her heart ached. Same reason. Her husband was too far away. Same reason. She was afraid for Amber. Same reason.
Everything had a reason. She knew nothing by faith.
She felt the soft cotton of Danny’s T-shirt against her cheek and viewed the mountains from an angle. For the moment she was at peace, content to be still in the presence of her goofy brother who for once was still himself.
The two of them at that awful place of remembrance and yet at peace? She couldn’t explain that one away. Did that make it faith?
She highly doubted that conclusion.
D
anny braked near the hospital’s front entrance. “You should go home.”
She gathered her bag of clothes and opened the truck door. “Your reluctance is duly noted.”
“I can wait.”
She sighed. They’d already been through the argument of whether he would take her to her car or to the hospital. She would pop, she’d told him, if she didn’t see Amber as soon as possible. Given the fact that her car was still parked by the church, which was way beyond the hospital, he’d finally agreed.
“Danny, don’t wait. I’m sure others will be here by now. She has so many military wives for friends. I’ll get a ride to my car.” She smiled. “That’s what we Marine wives do, you know. We help each other out. We stick together. We semper fi.”
He chuckled. “But have you met any?”
She scrunched her nose at him. “Not yet.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Danny! Go home.” She slid from the car.
“If you need to, take a cab home and I’ll get you to your car later.”
“Good-bye.”
“You don’t look yourself.”
“Do I care?”
“Usually.”
Jenna imagined what he saw. She’d done her best. Thanks to Lexi and Tuyen, she wore a knit black skirt, a long-sleeved sea green top, sandals, and makeup. She really didn’t care. She had work to do. The love of her life was seven thousand, seven hundred, and thirty-one miles away.
“I showered,” she said.
He pointed to his eyes. “You need to recuperate.”
“Go home,
Mom
.” Jenna slammed the door and walked off, never glancing back.
She entered the hospital. Finding her way to the ICU floor required almost too much effort. The building was a maze. Every staff member she begged directions from asked if she were family because if she weren’t, she may as well forget about going there.
At last she recognized a hall and began eyeing nurses in hopes that Cathy—the helpful one who’d allowed her into Amber’s room—would be on duty again,.
“Jenna.”
At the sound of Cade’s voice, she turned. He approached.
And then, like a sudden clang of cymbals in a symphony, she heard what Danny was saying in all his words about not going to the hospital. He figured there was a chance Cade would be there again.
She had figured the same thing.
Danny was concerned about their connection.
So was she. Now that she saw him.
He smiled easily and stopped before her. “Amber’s the same. Don’t look so frightened. They keep saying ‘same’ is best for now.”
Jenna nodded, her throat too tight for vocalizing.
Not that she really had anything to say.
Mr. Ice Guy was in place. The smile belonged to him, the steady gray eyes. The proper space between them was his doing.
But it didn’t matter. She’d gotten more than a glimpse behind that cold persona. The lips she now watched moving in speech had kissed her.