Yesterday's Embers Read online

  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, Dana Fremont, and 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 lighthearted 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 funeral.

  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 t
he 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.

  How many nights would this go on before Harley got used to her mommy being gone? Before he got used to it?

  Chapter Four

  The whimper turned into a wail, and Doug rolled over in bed. “Harley’s crying,” he mumbled, elbowing Kaye to get up.

  But his jab struck thin air, and it all came rushing back. The terrible thing that had happened to him. To them.

  For twenty-four days now, the sun had risen and set without his wife and daughter. It seemed like an eternity. Christmas was still ten days away, and he wore Trevor’s “just get through it” as if it were a life jacket.

  He tried to push away the awful images…calling home after Thanksgiving dinner that day to check on Kaye and Rachel. Not getting an answer. Leaving the kids—thank God—with Kaye’s mom and running home to check on his sick girls. Pushing open the door between the kitchen and the garage…the odd silence that met him. Then entering the living room and seeing them curled together on the couch, cuddling, the way he’d left them a few hours earlier.

  His relief at the poignant sight turned to a horror he would spend the rest of his life trying to erase. When he’d come closer, spoken Kaye’s name, he’d recognized the angry, unnatural color the poison of carbon monoxide had painted their skin….

  He threw his legs over the edge of the mattress and sat there, struggling to catch his breath. He stayed that way for a while, trying to wipe the haunting images from the slate of his mind.

  In the dim glow of the night-light, he watched Harley pull herself up on the crib mattress and stand there in her flannel nightie, whimpering.

  He rose and stumbled to the end of the bed, where she stood gripping the rails of her crib, her pudgy face shiny with tears. “What’s the matter, punkin?”

  She raised her arms, begging to be picked up. He scooped her into his arms, relishing her warmth, relishing the life in her. “You want a drink, sweetie?”

  “Mama?” Harley looked over his shoulder to the empty bed, a question in her sleepy eyes.

  Doug’s knees went weak. He slumped into the rocking chair beside the crib. “You wanna rock with Daddy?” he murmured, trying to ease her head onto his shoulder, praying she would go back to sleep.

  She pulled back and smiled at him, reaching again for the bed. “Mama?”

  Kaye was always the one who got up with the kids when one of them had a tummy ache or needed a drink. But he worked two jobs, getting up at the crack of dawn to work for Trevor in the pressroom—earlier on the days the Courier came out, or if they had a contract job to fulfill—then home and to the fields till dark. And if that wasn’t enough, he’d been a volunteer firefighter and EMT for the fire department.

  I’m sorry, Kaye. He whispered into the dark, “Oh, God, I am so sorry.” If he could only have her back, he would spend a lifetime making up to her what he’d not been able to provide in the thirteen years she’d been his. She’d deserved so much more than this little rundown farm. He’d hung on to it out of pride. It was where he’d grown up. The only inheritance his parents had left him.

  And though it took a second job and Kaye going to work to do so, he’d managed to hang on to the 240 acres his father had left him. Dad had always believed times would get better. Doug chose to believe the same.

  But for most of their marriage, what the crops brought in barely paid the bills, and he’d had to work “a real job,” as Kaye’s mother called it, to make ends meet. For a long time now, it had been his day job and Kaye’s that supported them, with an occasional dip into the small trust fund Kaye’s father had left.

  Harley squirmed in his lap and tried to get down. He carried her back to the crib. “It’s time to go night-night, Harley.”

  The second her feet touched the crib mattress, she let out a wail. “Mama!”

  “Harley. Stop it. Lay down, and Daddy will pat your back.” It was a trick he’d heard Kaye use, but the baby was having none of it tonight.

  She toddled across the mattress to the far corner of the crib, turning up the volume. “No! Mama. Want Mommy.”

  “Mommy’s not here, Harley.” He scooped her out of the crib again and started down the hall. “Let’s go get a drink.”

  In the kitchen he got her sippy cup from the refrigerator, but she knocked it out of his hand and shook her head like a rag doll.

  He took her back to the bedroom and eased into the rocker with her again. “Come on, Harley. Shhh…”

  Any other night the whole routine would have merely frustrated him. Tonight her cries broke his heart. How many nights would this go on before Harley got used to her mommy being gone? Before he got used to it?

  He blanched at the thought. Trevor had been right. He didn’t want to get used to it.

  He held his daughter to his chest, even while she struggled, and rocked her the way he’d seen Kaye do. After a while she stopped fighting him, her sobs changing to stuttered whiffs. The sound did something to him. Paralyzed him. How would they ever make it without Kaye?

  There was no way by himself that he could keep the farm afloat, keep his pressroom job, keep the kids fed and clothed.

  His strength drained out of him, and he held on to the baby as if she might somehow support him.

  Kayeleigh lay flat on her back, staring at the ceiling fan as it turned languidly overhead. Languidly. She’d come across the word in the library book she’d been reading before turning out the lamp tonight. For once she hadn’t hurried over the sentence, trying to figure it out in context. It wasn’t a word they’d had in seventh-grade spelling yet, so she’d gone to Dad’s computer to look it up. Drooping, sluggish, listless, flagging. Then she’d had to look up flagging. She hated it when the dictionary used one hard-to-understand word to define another. Tonight, at least, it kept her from thinking about Mom and Rachel.

  She rolled over on her side. In the matching double bed on the opposite side of the room, she heard the twins’ even breaths. But the empty space beside her felt like a black hole. Rachel’s side of the bed.

  Grandma said they should talk about what happened. Remember stories about Mom and Rachel so they’d never forget them. Like that was going to happen. Sometimes she wished she could forget. It hurt too much to keep remembering. Most of the time she didn’t know who to cry for. When she thought about Rachel and sobbed for her, she felt like she was betraying Mom. And when she cried over Mom, she worried that Rachel would feel jealous. It helped a little to picture them together in heaven. At least they weren’t lonely up there.

  Or were they? She still had Dad and Landon and her other sisters down here, but if anything, that made what had happened seem worse. It killed her to see the faraway look in Dad’s eyes, to never see him smile. To see Landon curl
ing up into himself. To hear the twins constantly asking questions about Mom and heaven.

  Could Mom see them from up there? She couldn’t be happy in heaven if she saw how sad they all were down here.

  She wondered if Mom had remembered her birthday. Nobody else had. Kayeleigh Jane DeVore had turned twelve three days ago, and still no presents or balloons or the usual birthday girl treatment Mom had always been in charge of. Grandma brought over a card with a check for ten dollars, and Dad had pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it to her the morning of her birthday.

  Maybe there’d been a big celebration in heaven. Mom always said the angels in heaven had a party when it was your birthday. But it would have been nice to have a cake down here.

  A noise from downstairs made her sit straight up in bed. Harley. Crying for Mommy. Kayeleigh held her breath, waiting. Dad would get up with her.

  She put a pillow over her ears and drifted back to sleep. But a few minutes later, she started awake to a low-pitched wail. Harley was still crying. Why wasn’t Dad getting her? He had to hear her. The crib was two feet from his bed.

  She slid from beneath the quilts and sat on the edge of the mattress. The moon outside the second-story window cast a wedge of light on the wood floor, and Kayeleigh followed its path, picking her way through the maze of stuffed animals and Barbie dolls littering the floor.

  She tiptoed down the stairs, avoiding the places where the old steps creaked. But there was no need to tiptoe. Harley was crying loud enough to wake up the whole house.

  Crossing the living room, she tried not to think about the empty corner where the Christmas tree should have stood. They’d always put up their tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving. She knew there would be no tree this year. No Christmas. She didn’t want one.

  The door to Mom and Dad’s room was ajar, and from the hall she could see the empty crib. She stopped for a minute, suddenly feeling the way she had that early morning last summer when she’d walked in on Mom and Dad kissing and giggling, their shoulders naked above the sheets while Harley snored softly in the crib right next to their bed. A flush of heat crept up her neck at the remembrance.