Yesterday's Embers (Clayburn Novels Book 3) Read online

  How would he bear it? He couldn’t imagine going back to work, back to any kind of normalcy.

  But he had no choice. He had to think about the kids. He was grateful for his job at the print shop, glad to have paying work to return to. Still, he’d begged off his volunteer EMT and firefighting duties indefinitely. Right now, he didn’t trust his own judgment—even though Blaine Deaver, the fire chief, assured him there wasn’t anything he could have done to prevent what had happened to Kaye and Rachel.

  At the end of winter last year, Kaye had called a chimney sweep from Salina to come and clean out the fireplace and flue, but apparently with several freezes and the spring thaw since then, crumbling mortar and bricks had blocked the flue again.

  “Daddy?” Sadie and Sarah sang out in unison, their voices identical even if the girls were not. “What’re we havin’ for supper?”

  It seemed like they’d left the funeral dinner only minutes ago, but a glance at his watch told him little bellies would be hungry again. An odd sense of panic enveloped him.

  He was doing well to get the coffeemaker going in the morning. Kaye always teased him that if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t know how to boil water. Sadly, boiling water was as far as he’d gone in Kaye’s school of culinary skills. How was he going to fill his kids’ bellies tonight, let alone tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow after that?

  He opened the door to the din of utter silence. For four days, the house had swarmed with family and friends. This was the first time he’d been alone, just him and the kids, since he’d come home to find—

  He wouldn’t let his brain finish the sentence. He groped for the switch on the kitchen wall and flipped on the lights. The sight of countertops littered with cake stands and pie tins and plates full of cookies came as a strange relief. On one end of the counter, a stack of empty dishes Kaye’s mom had labeled for return reminded him that the refrigerator was still packed tight with casseroles neighbors and church friends had brought in. He didn’t have an appetite for any of it, but his kids needed to eat. And he was grateful someone had provided.

  Somehow he got everybody out of their coats and dress clothes and into jeans and T-shirts. He scooped spoonfuls of some cheese-laden casserole onto plates and put the first one in the microwave. “How long should I nuke this, Kayeleigh?”

  His oldest daughter looked at him like he’d grown another head. “For real? You don’t know?”

  “A minute, you think?” He punched the quick-minute button like he’d seen Kaye do whenever he’d worked late in the field or got called out on an ambulance run and she had to reheat his supper. He watched the digital numbers count the seconds off, wanting only to crawl in bed and pull the covers up over his head.

  Behind him, he heard Kayeleigh sniffling. Please don’t let her cry, Lord. Please.

  He couldn’t look at her but kept punching the quick-minute button until steam came off the lump of food in the middle. He heated one plate after another, thankful for the mindless task.

  “This one’s cold, Daddy.”

  Coming out of his fog, he saw Sarah beside him, jostling a plate in her pudgy hands. “This is still cold,” she said again, sliding the plate to the back of a counter she could barely see over. He opened the microwave, and the empty turntable came to a halt. He slid the plate in, trying to force his thoughts to the present.

  At the table, Kayeleigh sat in front of Harley’s highchair doing the airplane-spoon thing, trying to get the baby to eat. So like Kaye.

  He put a hand on Sarah’s head. “Okay, honey. Go sit down. It’ll only take a minute.”

  He finished heating the food, set a plate in front of Kayeleigh, and also one at his place. Then he sat down, feeling queasy just looking at the food. Careful not to meet any of his kids’ eyes, he stabbed a glutinous glob of casserole with his fork.

  “Aren’t we gonna say the blessing, Daddy?”

  He looked up. Sadie’s doleful blue eyes, so like her mother’s, bored into his.

  The blessing. The irony pierced like a sword. With effort, he bowed his head. He sensed the kids following his lead. “Heavenly Father, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies. In the name of Christ our Lord…”

  It was the rote prayer his own father had prayed. He didn’t know where he’d pulled it up from, but he lifted his head to see the kids gaping at him as if he’d prayed in Chinese.

  Sarah broke the silence. “Why are you prayin’ like that?”

  Sadie’s crinkled brow matched her twin’s. “Does Mommy’s body get food in the ground?”

  “Sadie!” Kayeleigh hissed.

  Sadie ignored her big sister and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Does it, Daddy?”

  “What are you talking about, honey?”

  “What you prayed…’bout the food and ‘nurshment’ for our bodies. Is that what Mama’s body gets?”

  Maybe he’d been wrong to let the kids view Kaye’s and Rachel’s bodies. The twins especially had seemed obsessed with the topic since that night at the funeral home. He shoveled tasteless bites of casserole into his mouth, afraid he’d choke. “Eat your supper, girls. It’s almost time for bed.”

  Landon twisted in his chair and stared out at the pinkening sky beyond the bank of windows on the west wall. “It’s not even dark outside.”

  Doug looked past Landon out the window, at the line of trees in the distance, tracing the banks of the Smoky Hill River, and between the house and the river, acres of rolling farm ground his father had entrusted to him. Land he’d always hoped to someday pass on to Landon. With Kaye gone, it seemed a paltry promise to make his son.

  Kaye’s cheery red and white cherry-dotted curtains framed the view. She’d sewn those curtains right at this table on a little Singer sewing machine that had been her grandmother’s. He’d always meant to buy her a new one. One of those fancy machines that cost as much as a good riding lawn mower—and that Kaye declared would be worth every penny.

  “It’ll be dark soon.” Doug gestured with his fork. “Eat.”

  Kayeleigh scraped her chair back. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Sit down, Kayeleigh.” He stared her down.

  But she dipped her head and mumbled, “Can I be excused, please?” Without waiting for a reply, she pushed away from the table and rushed down the hallway to the room the girls shared.

  He let her go. He didn’t have the energy—or the will—to argue with her. Not tonight.

  Somehow he managed to clean up the kitchen a little bit and get the kids in bed. Even Kayeleigh was in bed—or in her room anyway—by eight-thirty.

  Now the evening stretched out in front of him. The silence of the house echoed through his head and he rubbed away the beginnings of a headache. He should have taken Kaye’s mom up on her offer to come and stay with them tonight, to be here for the kids. But that would have meant making Harriet sleep on the sofa—or giving up the bed that smelled like Kaye.

  Besides, they’d been surrounded by people for four days. He was ready to be alone. He huffed out a breath. What was he thinking? He would have done anything, given anything to not be alone right now.

  At ten o’clock, he locked up the house, checked on the kids one last time, and crawled under the covers. In the crib at the foot of his bed, Harley’s deep, even breathing brought a pang of envy. The baby couldn’t understand that Mommy was never coming back, but she’d seemed to accept the kids’ matter-of-fact explanation—“Mommy’s not here, Harley. She’s in heaven now”—as if they’d said, “Mommy went to the grocery store.”

  He wondered if his baby girl would carry any memories of Kaye and Rachel. His own earliest memories didn’t begin until he was about four, when his grandfather had moved in with them after Grandma died. He had hazy memories of Grandpa lying on his bed in this very spot, making a strangled, pitiful sound as he wept, not knowing Doug was listening at the door.

  He hadn’t understood the old man’s loss then. Now he pulled the covers up and rolled away from the empty side of the bed to
face the wall.

  He wanted to weep the way his grandfather had. But the tears would not come.

  Chapter 3

  Doug unlocked the back door to the print shop and let himself in. Flipping on the lights, he waited for his eyes to adjust, inhaling the smells of the pressroom…paper, ink, dust, and yesterday’s coffee.

  It was a relief to leave the kids with Kaye’s mom each morning and escape to the print shop. Today, like every Thursday, would be slow. The weekly Clayburn Courier was printed and mailed on Wednesdays, and the mad rush to get next week’s thin issue out didn’t start in earnest until Monday—at least for him.

  He traded his coat for a printer’s apron on the hook by the door and slipped the canvas strap over his head. Tying the ink-stained apron at his waist, he walked past the layout banks where next week’s pages were already beginning to take shape. The Courier staff––Trevor and Dana, plus a couple of part-timers––still put the weekly paper together the old-fashioned cut-and-paste way, although much to Dana’s dismay, Trevor was working with a program that would soon move it all to the computer.

  Doug flipped through a fresh copy of yesterday’s edition, surprised to realize that for the first time in almost three weeks, the paper was void of news about his tragedy. Instead, Christmas ruled the headlines, and cheery ads proclaimed only twelve more shopping days. A strange mix of relief and disappointment infused him. He’d hated seeing Kaye and Rachel smiling back at him from photos he’d supplied at Trevor’s request. At the same time, it pierced him to see how the rest of the town could move so casually into celebration.

  He shook off the resentment that tried to attach itself to him and went back to clean off the desk everyone called his. His wasn’t exactly a desk job, and his desk usually ended up collecting odds and ends that no one knew where else to put.

  He was about to finish the job when the lights in the front office flickered on. Through the half-mast blinds he saw Dana moving about in the front office. A minute later, the alley door opened and Trevor backed in, a stack of boxes balanced in his arms.

  Doug hurried to hold the door for him, but Seth Berger, the kid who’d started working for Trevor on Saturday mornings, came in behind Trevor and beat him to it.

  Doug nodded good morning.

  Trevor set down the boxes and put a hand on Seth’s shoulder, steering him over to Doug. “Seth, this is Doug DeVore, my pressman.”

  Seth shifted from one foot to the other. “Yeah…I know.”

  Doug put out a hand and, for a few uncomfortable seconds, was afraid Seth was going to ignore it. Finally the kid offered a brief, sweaty handshake.

  “Besides his Saturday hours, Seth’s going to try to pick up some extra hours a few days a week before school,” Trevor explained.

  Seth was in Kayeleigh’s class at school, but Doug remembered Kaye saying he’d been held back a year. Maybe two, by the looks of him. The seventh-grade boys Doug knew were pencil-armed shrimps, but this kid was a full foot taller than Kayeleigh and had a good start on some rather impressive biceps. He was apparently proud of them, too. Who wore a muscle shirt in the dead of December?

  Doug glanced up at the clock over the door. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school now?” Doug hadn’t made Kayeleigh and Landon go back to school yet, but he was pretty sure there weren’t any school holidays this close to Christmas.

  “The second bell doesn’t ring till eight-ten.” Seth jerked his head toward the clock and lifted one cocky shoulder. “It’s only a quarter till. Besides, it’s no big deal if I get a tardy.”

  The little smart aleck would be lucky if he got in twenty minutes of work before he had to clock out. But Trevor didn’t say anything, so Doug bit his tongue, stifling the lecture he would have given if Seth were his kid. Shaking his head, he went back to his desk.

  Around eleven-thirty Trevor came back to where Doug was cleaning the old Heidelberg press. “I’m heading over to the coffee shop to get a sandwich. You want to come?”

  Out of habit, he started shaking his head.

  “Come on,” Trevor said. “I’m buying.”

  Doug took a deep breath. He’d kept a low profile since the funeral, and he wasn’t up for the load of sympathy he was sure to get if he went downtown. “I think I’ll pass.”

  Trevor cocked his head and studied Doug. “Hey…I know what it’s like. I remember how hard it was to get out there—to go out in public—after I lost Amy…”

  Watching Trevor, Doug tried to imagine himself four or five years out. Would he look as normal, as happy as Trevor did?

  Trevor took a step backward toward the door, his smile a challenge and a warm invitation at the same time. “Come on. It helps to just get it over with, you know? People mean well, no matter what they say, and after a while they start acting normal again. Quit crying when they talk to you. And hey, I can run interference. You see somebody coming you don’t want to talk to, just give me a high sign and we’re outta there.”

  Doug hesitated for a moment, then slipped the knot from the apron and ducked out of it. “You’re buying, right?” he joked.

  Trevor laughed. “You bet. Get your coat.”

  Doug hung up the apron, grabbed his jacket off the hook, and slipped an arm through the sleeve. “Lucky for you, Vienne doesn’t sell T-bones at the coffee shop.”

  Trevor clapped him on the back and followed him through the front office and out to Main Street. It was only a block up the street to the coffee shop, the former Clayburn Café. The owner’s daughter, Vienne Kenney, had recently turned it into an upscale coffee bar and renamed it Latte-dah. Most people still called it the café, even though Ingrid Kenney’s home cooking was sadly absent from the menu now that she’d moved to the nursing home. But they served a decent sandwich and the soup they served through the winter months wasn’t bad. Soup sounded good about now. The wind was bitter cold, and he was grateful for a reason to pull his collar up around his face as they walked up Main.

  There were only two people in line at the counter, and they didn’t seem to notice him. But when it was Doug’s turn, Vienne gave him that smile and the mournful, dropped-head “Hey, Doug” that seemed to be part of a new language everyone suddenly spoke around him.

  Trevor stepped up to the counter, fishing his wallet out of his pocket. “How’s it going, Vienne? Wedding plans going okay? That’s coming right up, isn’t it?”

  Doug took a step back and breathed easier, grateful for Trevor’s deft deflection.

  Vienne beamed. “Two and a half months. But tons to do still. What’ll you guys have this morning?”

  Trevor eyed a tray of wrapped sandwiches in the deli case. “I’ll have the turkey. And a bowl of soup.”

  “Sounds good,” Doug said, glad to have the choice made for him.

  “Two turkeys with minestrone, coming up.” Vienne arranged the sandwiches on trays and hooked a thumb at the microwave behind her. “You guys want those sandwiches nuked?”

  “No, it’s fine like this,” Trevor said, touching the plastic wrapper.

  Doug agreed and eyed a table in the back corner near the fireplace. But after Trevor paid, he headed for a table near the front door. Doug followed and took the chair that allowed him to sit with his back to the door.

  They talked shop while they ate, and as the noon crowd trickled in, Doug was grateful for Trevor’s casual greetings, bringing him into the light-hearted small-town chatter, but again, warding off any undue attention.

  They were finishing thick slices of apple pie that Vienne had talked them into, when Phil Grady, the pastor of Community Christian, the church Doug and Trevor attended, came in with the new youth minister from Clayburn Lutheran. Doug recognized the man from a photo that had been in the Courier. Pastor Grady went from table to table, introducing the new guy around.

  Doug had always liked Phil Grady. His sermons were laced with humor but hard-hitting and straight from the Bible. He’d been a steady rock in the storm of that terrible Thanksgiving Day, and the aftermath of the f
uneral.

  Doug hadn’t been in church since the funeral. Even if he could have managed to get five kids ready for church on time, it was too hard to think about facing everyone. Too hard to think about sitting alone in a pew after the kids all went off to children’s church.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Phil and the young man headed their way. Trevor apparently saw too, for he scraped his chair back and rose to meet Phil. Doug followed suit.

  Phil smiled and made introductions. An ornery glint came to his eye, and he put a hand on Doug’s shoulder. “Now listen, John, Doug here has a whole passel of kids, and Trevor’s got one on the way, but just so you know, I’ve got dibs on every last one of ’em.”

  They all laughed and for the first time in a long time, Doug remembered what it was like to be an ordinary man having an ordinary day. It was a good feeling.

  They left the coffee shop and headed back to the print shop. “Thanks, man…” Doug unexpectedly choked up. “For lunch. But for getting me out, too. It…wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

  Trevor shook his head. “Hey, I remember what it was like. It’s not easy.” His Adam’s apple worked in his throat.

  Doug could almost see the memories swirling in Trevor’s head. He could picture that little boy—a miniature of Trevor, but with Amy’s coloring. He’d forgotten Trevor’s son’s name already, and he felt awful about that. Because it meant people would forget Rachel’s name. And Kaye’s.

  Trevor put a hand briefly on his shoulder. “Just…get through this first year. Be glad you can get this first Christmas without them over with right away. Next year will be a little easier. And the one after that. I know that doesn’t seem possible right now. Right now you maybe don’t want it to ever get easier. But trust me. It’s a terrible cliché, but it’s true. Time helps. It really does. I think that’s the way God intended it.”

  For one moment, Doug could almost believe him.