The One Safe Place (14 page)

As he passed behind her to put away a bowl, he rested his hand briefly on her shoulder. “Bravo,” he said softly.

She looked up. “For what?” Then she smiled. “Oh, you mean because I didn't completely ruin dinner? Just the edges this time. I actually am getting better, don't you think?”

He took the clean platter from her hands. He had
the most ridiculous urge to say,
No, how could you get better? You were damn near perfect already.

“Yes,” he said. “It was actually pretty good. Natalie must have given you some excellent cooking advice.”

To his surprise, she blushed slightly. “Well,” she said with a small smile. “It was certainly interesting.”

She fished around in the hot water for the last of the silverware. “But tell us more about the scarecrow contest. Spencer and I are city people. We don't have any idea how you actually build a scarecrow.”

Spencer put his crayons down and watched Reed intently. It was clear he didn't want to miss a word.

“It's easy,” Reed said. “Mostly you just need two poles, some straw, some old clothes and something to make a head. After that, it's all up to the designer. You can get as fancy as you want.”

He reached out toward Spencer. “Got an extra crayon?”

Spencer handed over his box and sketch paper willingly. Reed sat at the table and doodled out a basic scarecrow, with crazy hair, a jack-o-lantern face and a straw hat.

“For hair, you can use an old mop, or yarn, or pipe cleaners. Anything you can shred, really. The head, well, that's the fun part. You can use a basketball, or a pumpkin, an old pillowcase stuffed with straw, or even a really big squash.”

He grinned at Spencer. “Of course show-offs like
Suzie Strickland make elaborate papier-mâché masks and stuff, but most of us settle for burlap sacks and a magic marker.”

Faith cast a wry glance at him over her shoulder. “Sounds as if you've done this before.”

He smiled, remembering the terrific designs Melissa used to create. One year she'd created a scarecrow gymnast, who appeared to be in the middle of turning a cartwheel. He never had really understood how she had pulled that one off.

But he did know she'd be happy that he was planning to enter the contest again.

“I used to,” he said. “I haven't lately, not for a couple of years.”

Spencer grabbed one of the crayons and began to draw a scarecrow of his own. Reed sat back, delighted to see that his idea had been a success.

“We'll have to decide what ours should be. The theme this year is ‘The Guardian.'”

Spencer looked up, a question in his eyes.

“Guardians are people who protect things. Scarecrows protect the crops—corn or wheat or apples or whatever—from the big birds who might come around and eat them up. That's how they got their name. They literally scare the crows away.”

Spencer laughed. He picked up the black crayon and drew a gigantic black bird flying above his scarecrow.

Faith let the water out of the sink, and, drying her
hands, she came to sit beside them. “So if the theme is guardian, what shall we make?”

Reed thought. “How about a policeman? Or maybe a fireman?”

Spencer looked up and nodded, smiling.

“I know!” Faith clapped her hands. “How about an angel? A beautiful guardian angel.”

Silence. The two males frowned.

Spencer, who was young enough to bypass diplomacy, shook his head emphatically and made a gagging noise.

“Sorry,” Reed explained. “Too girlie.” He turned to Spencer. “How about a dragon?”

Spencer nodded and began to draw a big red dragon next to the scarecrow on the paper.

Reed kept the ideas coming. Trolls and knights and kings, doctors and astronauts and cowboys. Superheroes who looked like bats, or spiders, or muscular green giants. The suggestions got wilder and more testosterone-driven with every minute.

Faith sat there, with her chin in her hand, smiling wryly. He grinned over at her, hoping she didn't think they were carrying this male bonding thing a little too far.

She grinned back. “I still don't see what's wrong with an angel,” she muttered.

When Reed ran out of ideas, Spencer picked up his crayon one more time and began to draw. He sketched a man, a man with brown hair who wore a white coat, strangely reminiscent of a lab coat. Then he drew a
crude stethoscope around the man's neck. Finally he added a basket full of kittens at the man's feet.

The implication was obvious—and a little overwhelming. In Spencer's eyes, Reed himself was a guardian. Reed was a superhero.

Oh, man.

Now what should he say?

If only it were true. He would love to be able to raise his magic sword and protect these two people from everything—from Doug Lambert to Boxer Barnes, from bad dreams to bad luck, from stubbed toes to the common cold.

Well, sure. And he would love to have been able to save Melissa, too.

But some things could defeat even heroes.

And he was no hero.

Spencer was staring up at him, a glaze of admiration in his eyes, the same kind of awed adoration Reed had seen in his gaze after the delivery of the foal.

Oh, hell.

For a dozen reasons, big and small, he suddenly saw what a mistake it was to let this needy little boy count on him too much. Spencer and Faith were only here for a short while, just until it was safe for them to go home, back to their real lives. Autumn House was merely a temporary haven.

But wasn't that a concept no six-year-old child could ever fully grasp? Sometimes Reed himself forgot that this wasn't real life.

Eventually they would go home—Faith probably woke up every morning, hoping today would be the day. And what would happen then? Soon, a few weeks at most, Reed Fairmont and Firefly Glen would disappear from Spencer's life. Just as his father and mother had disappeared.

Knowing all that, was it fair of him to let Spencer get too close?

Reed glanced at Faith. She was staring at the drawing, and her expression was very strange.

What did she want him to do? Pull back—or come closer? Insist on a hurtful distance now, or allow for the possibility of heartbreak later?

Oh, yeah, he definitely wished he were a superhero.

Right now, it would be damn useful to be able to read her mind.

 

F
AITH HAD BEEN
relieved when Reed laughed off Spencer's scarecrow suggestion and carefully shepherded the ideas in another direction.

During their few weeks here, she had of course seen how much Spencer was growing to like Reed, and she had been glad. Anything that made Spencer happy seemed by definition a good thing.

But not until she saw that drawing, and the naked admiration in Spencer's eyes, had she realized the dangers. She hadn't fully understood that Spencer might think of Reed as more than a friend. She hadn't seen that he might already be thinking of him as…

As a father figure.

Thanks to Reed's subtle guidance, Spencer abandoned the idea of a scarecrow vet and ended up believing he had wanted to make a policeman all along. Spencer kept their scarecrow in his room all weekend, through every stage of its creation.

It sat on his chair, a crude, lumpy, straw-stuffed man in a blue hat that clearly symbolized safety to the little boy. Since Grace's death, Spencer had been waking up frequently, plagued by nightmares. But that weekend, with the scarecrow and the puppy for protection, Spencer had slept the whole night through.

Until Sunday night, the night before Halloween.

At midnight, Faith was alone in her room, reading a cookbook by the last of the dying firelight, when she heard Spencer's footsteps coming down from the loft. The clatter of Tigger's feet followed, as the sleepy puppy struggled to keep pace.

Faith put her book down and glanced toward the door, expecting any second to see Spencer's frightened little face. Another nightmare, poor baby. She closed her eyes, which suddenly stung. Did he dream of Grace, lying on the floor? Or Doug, hiding in the shadows? Or something shapeless and evil that he could never put a name to?

She scooted to one side of the bed and pulled the soft green spread down, making room for Spencer to climb under the covers. But several seconds ticked quietly by on the mantel clock, and Spencer didn't come.

Where had he gone? She wasn't worried, exactly,
but any variation in his routine felt a little uncomfortable. She'd better go see.

She stood, knotting the belt of her robe tightly around her waist and sliding her feet into her slippers. She went out into the hall, which was glowing with nightlights Reed had installed as soon as he realized Spencer had bad dreams.

To her surprise, Spencer stood at the open door to Reed's office, wearing only the bottoms of his Lassie pajamas. Tigger waited patiently at his side.

By the golden glow of the office desk lamp, Faith could see Reed sitting there, his back to the door, going over veterinary journals. He often did that until the very early hours of the morning.

She started to call to Spencer, warning him not to bother Reed while he was working. But something in the little boy's posture stopped her. He had his hand on the doorknob, and, though she couldn't see his face, the muscles in his skinny back looked as tightly drawn as piano wire.

And suddenly, breaking the stillness of the midnight hallway, she heard a sound she had been afraid she'd never hear again.

She heard Spencer's high, innocent voice.

“Reed?” The little boy paused. “Reed, can I come in?”

“C
AN
I
COME IN
?”

The sound of the little boy's voice hung like a bubble in the air. Though he was utterly shocked, Reed forced himself to put his pen down slowly, aware that one wrong move and the bubble could pop.

He smiled, but the little boy didn't smile back. Spencer just stared at Reed, his brown eyes very large and intent, yet oddly unfocused.

Once, when Reed was a child, his pet collie had run away and, somewhere on the mountain roads, had been hit by a car. Though the dog's back legs no longer moved, he had used his front legs to drag himself home on his belly. Reed still remembered the dog's eyes, black with pain but tuned to an inner, inarticulate faith that somehow Reed could help.

Spencer's eyes were like that now.

“Of course you can come in,” Reed said, his tone measured. He knew better than to whoop with joy that Spencer had actually spoken. He hadn't forgotten that much about being a kid. Sometimes the mere fact that grown-ups wanted you to do something was reason enough to refuse to do it.

Not that Spencer was looking particularly defiant. He just looked lost.

Reed swiveled his desk chair so that his lap was reachable, just in case Spencer wanted to climb up. He didn't hold out his arms, though—he mustn't push. He could only wait, poised to receive whatever Spencer was ready to give.

Spencer took a couple of steps into the room. Then a few more. He stopped only an arm's length away from Reed.

His small fingers toyed with the edge of the two-hundred-year-old chestnut desk. Reed noticed that Spencer's fingernails were clean, for once, and his hair was softly shining. Faith must have won the bathtub battle tonight.

“What's up, buddy? Did you have a bad dream?”

Spencer shook his head. “No. I didn't sleep yet.”

“How come?”

“I don't know.” Spencer was staring at his fingers while he pointlessly picked at the wood. His hands were stiff and awkward. “I couldn't.”

Reed looked at the little boy's profile. His lips pressed together so tightly the edges were rimmed in white. He breathed fast and ragged, as if he were fighting tears.

Waiting silently for Spencer to continue required more self-control than almost anything Reed had ever done.

But it paid off.

“Sometimes it's hard to sleep.” Spencer poked his
finger into a small scratch in the wood. “I keep thinking about Mommy.”

“Yeah.” Reed concentrated on keeping his body relaxed. No signals of stress, no alarming overreactions. “I bet you miss her a lot.”

Spencer nodded, staring at the desk as if his job was to memorize every whorl. He took a breath, but the breath broke, and he just nodded again.

No, no, no.
Reed wanted to say.
Don't go back to that. Keep talking to me, buddy.

But somehow he made himself keep waiting.

Finally, after seconds so long they seemed to be made of hours, Spencer looked up. His brown eyes shone, glassy and helpless.

“It's my fault, you know,” he whispered through those stiff white lips. He made a choking sound. “It's my fault my mom died.”

Reed felt his own eyes burn. It was impossible to look on such naked grief and not feel your own heart crack a little. But he refused to let the burn become anything as self-indulgent as a tear. This pain belonged to Spencer. And he'd been carrying it around for far, far, too long.

“Your fault?” Reed said calmly—surprising himself with his own control. “That's kind of hard for me to believe.”

The little boy lifted his chin. He was fighting like a man to keep his own tears from falling. Reed wanted to take him into his arms and tell him it was
all right. When you were six, and your mother had been murdered, it was impossible not to cry.

But the kid had courage. He had self-reliance. He'd been using it like a shield for almost two months now. Reed wouldn't rip that away from him before he was ready.

He wouldn't automatically dismiss his guilt, either. Whether it seemed rational to Reed or not, the guilt was Spencer's reality. And, like any genuine emotion, it had profound power. It deserved respect.

“Tell me why you think so,” Reed said. “Tell me why you think it was your fault.”

“I—” Spencer knitted his brows together hard, digging deep lines in that young, unmarked brow. “I was supposed to take care of my mom. Everybody said so. After Daddy died. Everybody said I was the man of the house now. They said I was supposed to take care of Mommy.”

He looked at Reed. And finally the tears, which had been massing like an army behind his eyes, won the war. They poured down his cheeks in shining white lines, and his chest began to heave.

“But I didn't,” he said, his voice high as he tried to push it through a throat narrowed with pain. “I didn't take care of her. I wasn't even there.”

To hell with “handling” the situation cautiously. With a low sound, Reed reached out and picked up the sobbing little boy. He held him close. The kid didn't have on his pajama shirt—probably the heater had been set too high. But on his bare, wiry back,
Reed could feel the bones of his shoulder blades, and the knobby vertebrae of his spine. It was strangely poignant. It was as if Reed suddenly realized that this rough-and-tumble child was actually made of very fragile, mortal building blocks.

As, in the end, all human beings were.

Spencer didn't resist him, not even for an instant. He curled up in Reed's lap, grabbing his shirt, and tucked his head against Reed's shoulder, the way a bird might duck its head under a sheltering wing. And he wept without any more holding back.

Over the little boy's racked body, Reed suddenly saw Faith, standing in the hallway, staring into the room. She squeezed her hands against her chest, as if she needed to apply pressure to her heart to keep it from bleeding. She wasn't crying. She seemed to be beyond tears.

He met her gaze across the dimly lit spaces. He nodded his head, just a little, just enough for her to see.
It's all right,
he said with his eyes.
Let him cry.

It probably went against every nurturing instinct she possessed, to let her nephew weep and weep, and keep weeping, to the point of exhaustion, and not try to stop it. But Reed knew these tears had been inside too long. They'd poison Spencer permanently if he didn't let them out.

And thank goodness Faith seemed to understand—or if not to understand, at least to trust Reed's instincts. She didn't move a muscle.

Gradually the sobbing grew quieter, and Reed thought
Spencer might just fall asleep, which would be okay, really. He'd come so far tonight. They could make the rest of this journey later, when he had more energy.

But soon, tired and strangely flat, his little voice spoke again.

“I'm right, though, huh? It was my fault, wasn't it?”

Reed took a minute, as if he were weighing the question seriously. He could sense that Spencer was hoping against hope that Reed could persuade him it wasn't true.

Reed met Faith's eyes again. She almost appeared to be praying, but her eyes were locked on him, and for a moment he knew real fear. What if he screwed this up? If psychiatrists and their dozens of years studying “maladaptive stress reactions” hadn't been able to help, what made him think he could?

But he didn't have a choice. He had to try. He sent Faith a look that promised only that. He would try.

He took a deep breath.

“No,” he said finally. “I actually don't think it was your fault, Spence. You see, I know that wasn't what everybody meant when they said you should take care of your mom.”

Spencer sniffed dubiously. “It wasn't?”

“No, it wasn't. Little boys aren't supposed to take care of their mothers in that way, in a practical, physical way. They aren't supposed to earn money, or fix dinner, or get the car repaired, or even watch out for
bad guys. They can't. They're too young. They're still learning how to do all those things.”

Spencer lifted his head. His eyes were bleary, but focused. “Then what are they supposed to do? How are they supposed to take care of their moms?”

“They're supposed to make them happy.”

Spencer frowned and sniffed again. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “That's it?”

“That's a lot. Some little boys don't make their families happy at all.” He gave Spencer a serious look. “But what about you? Do you think you made your mom happy? Did you ever let her play games or draw pictures with you?”

Spencer nodded. “Yeah. We played ‘I Spy,' and we tickled a lot. And we colored together every night before bed. I drew dogs, she drew cats. We'd pretend to make them fight.”

“Good.” Reed remained somber. “And did you ever make her laugh? Did you give her lots of hugs and kisses?”

“All the time.” Spencer almost smiled. “She was like Aunt Faith, she wanted millions of hugs and kisses.”

Reed gave him a guy-to-guy nod of understanding. “Girls are like that. But mostly we don't really mind, do we?”

Spencer wrinkled his nose. “Mostly we don't,” he said. “Unless Chad Mixler is looking. But Mom knew about Chad Mixler, so she didn't kiss me much at school.”

With a sudden sigh, he let his head drop back onto Reed's shoulder. He sat there quietly for a while, sniffing now and then but mostly just thinking. Faith was still watching, still frozen in place—but tears were falling now, winding crazy crystal paths down her cheeks. Those beautiful tears of joy.

“I'm pretty sure I made her happy,” Spencer said after a while. “She called me her sunshine. But not in front of Chad Mixler.”

“Well, of course not. Your mom wasn't dumb.”

“No, she wasn't.” Spencer tilted a look up. “That's what sunshine means, isn't it? When you call somebody sunshine, it means they make you happy.”

Reed had to take an extra breath himself before he could answer.

“It sure does, buddy,” he said. His gaze locked with Faith's. “It means you make them happier than anything else in the world.”

 

A
FTER THEY PUT HIM TO BED
, Faith sat with Spencer for almost an hour.

They talked about little things, easy things, like Tigger and the Halloween festival, and the color of the autumn leaves. They didn't talk about Grace, or Doug Lambert, or when they were going home.

Those subjects were for later, when they were both stronger. Tonight, it was enough to share the simplest of words and thoughts and hugs and smiles.

When, at nearly two in the morning, it began to rain, he seemed finally to realize how tired he was.
Even the elation of being able to talk freely had worn off. Spencer's eyes drifted three-quarters closed, and his chattering slowed to a murmur.

Faith watched him, her heart full of inexpressible things. He looked so young. So peaceful, now that some of the guilt had been lifted. They had a long way to go yet. But the journey toward recovery had begun.

Finally she pulled up the covers and kissed him softly, swallowing back the lump in her throat.

“Go to sleep, pumpkin. Tomorrow's a busy day, you know.”

Spencer smiled sleepily. “Yes,” he said. “It's Halloween. Say good night to Tigger.”

“Good night, Tigger.”

“And to Sergeant Braveheart.”

She looked over at the scarecrow, who flopped against Spencer's armchair, his button eyes shiny brown over his Magic Marker smile. Spencer had adamantly insisted on brown buttons instead of the black Faith had first offered. More shades of Reed, she'd thought. Reed's brown eyes were very special. So full of kindness and understanding.

“Good night, Sergeant Braveheart,” she said, smiling as she straightened his straw body a little. He smiled back at her, unblinking. “I didn't even know you had a name.”

Spencer chuckled and yawned at the same time. He checked under his pillow, where he always kept
Faith's new cell phone. “Of course he has a name. Good night, Sergeant.”

Faith was all the way to the door, ready to dim the light, when Spencer spoke again.

“Aunt Faith,” he said softly. He paused. “I'm sorry I stopped talking to everybody.”

She slid the switch down slowly, deepening the shadows until the room was soft and gray with rainy moonlight.

“That's okay, sweetheart,” she said, resisting the urge to sweep back into the room and clutch him one more time. “I knew you would talk when you were ready.”

Right after that she went looking for Reed. After the four of them—Reed, Faith, Spencer and Tigger—had walked together up to the third-floor loft, which was Spencer's special sanctum, Reed had thoughtfully left them alone.

But he wasn't in his office, or in his bedroom, or anywhere on the second floor. Faith hesitated, wondering if he might have gone out to the clinic, when she heard the low throb of soft music coming up through the stairwell.

He must be down in the great room. She'd seen him there on other nights, very late, staring at a dying fire and listening to jazz on a stereo turned down so low she wondered how he could enjoy it.

She walked down the twisting wooden staircase now, and, by the time she reached the second landing, she could see him. He sat on one side of the large,
soft green sofa, so utterly still she couldn't tell whether he was awake or sleeping.

She tiptoed down the last few stairs just in case. But he heard her. He turned his head as she approached. The amber firelight played across one cheek. The other was dark, reflecting the midnight rain from the picture window behind him.

“Is Spencer sleeping?”

She nodded. She went over and sat beside him on the sofa. She kicked off her slippers and hugged her knees to her chest. She was so excited, so flush with relief, that she didn't know if she'd ever sleep again.

“I don't know how to thank you,” she said. “I—There aren't even words for how happy I am. It's a miracle.”