No, please, no. She couldn’t bear it.
Vulnerability no longer skulked in the shadows; instead it hovered within view, a trap poised to spring.
Clark appeared in the open door, holding a darling chubby bundle of a baby boy. “There’s someone I think you might like to meet!” he called.
The thick, relentless ropes of worry tangling around my heart loosened their grip as we entered the living room, packed to the gills with family. In the old days, before Marshall and Ruthie went missing, it would have been what Clark called a ‘full house,’ each of his sons and their families in attendance: Garth and Becky and their two little boys; Sean and his girlfriend, Jessie; Quinn, Wy, Case’s brother, Gus, and Gus’s girlfriend, Lacy. In addition to the usual crowd and counting Case and me, Mathias, Camille, and their five rounded us out to an even twenty for dinner. Everyone called greetings; the air was scented with the warm, rich crackle of roasted chicken, garlic biscuits, and creamy au-gratin potatoes.
I will not think about Marsh and Ruthie for at least five minutes.
But it was a hopeless, worthless effort.
Everywhere I turned I saw their shadows, mocking my every sense. I pictured where they would be sitting just now, exactly how they would look and sound – Marsh would be wearing one of his old flannel shirts, untucked over faded jeans, his longish hair a little messy, as if Ruthie had buried her fingers in it prior to their arrival; his socks would be dirty and wouldn’t match. My little sister, whose angelically beautiful face was so deeply imprinted in my memory it was akin to a scar, would be wearing a big, soft sweater over her jeans and fuzzy wool socks, with her dark brown curls loose and swishing past her shoulder blades. She would be wearing gold hoop earrings and her diamond-and-garnet engagement ring.
She and Marshall would be unable to keep their gazes from each other, let alone their hands; they would be on the couch and Marsh would have an arm around her waist, teasing her, tucking her curls aside to whisper something in her ear while she flushed and giggled and pretended to struggle away. Periodically they would steal a quick kiss. They were like two teenagers with their constant, obnoxious flirting and I would have given almost anything to have them here right now; the desire centered behind my breastbone like growing flames, screaming-hot and unimaginably painful.
“Can I hold the baby?” I whispered to Clark.
“Of course.” Clark kissed my cheek as he passed James Boyd Carter into my arms. My newest nephew had been born last Halloween and I smiled even as tears leaked from my eyes; my emotions were in constant danger of wreckage these days. The baby’s hair was two inches long and stuck straight up, as though he’d been badly startled or was experiencing waves of static electricity, eyes round with wonder as he regarded this new stranger holding him; his irises were as blue as stars, just like Mathias’s.
“I’ve tried combing it down, but it doesn’t stay.” Camille smoothed two fingertips over her baby’s head; the love on her face renewed the twinge in my heart. “Diana said Mathias’s hair was just the same when he was little.”
“He’s so loud, Auntie Tish, you should hear him at night,” Millie Jo informed, hovering all-importantly at my elbow; I found myself remembering the night she was born, Valentine’s Day over a decade ago now. Sweet, observant Millie Jo resembled Camille to a marked degree with her lustrous hair and the gold-tinted hazel eyes so common to the women in our family. I wouldn’t hurry to mention it but I could detect hints of her father, Noah Utley, in Millie’s face; the shape of her mouth, the tiny cleft in her chin and her fair complexion, nothing like the olive-toned tan of Camille’s. It seemed as though a century had passed since I’d last seen Noah, let alone my family in Landon.
Camille poked her older daughter’s ribs. “You weren’t exactly a quiet baby yourself, Miss Millie.” She sighed, soft as a bird’s wing. “But it does seem like yesterday you were this small.”
“Yeah, James has got a set of pipes all right,” Mathias said, reaching to curl his fingertip under his son’s plump, silken chin, making the baby gurgle and smile; Mathias grinned in response, his whole face lighting with joy. I’d never met anyone who had longed to be a father more than Mathias; he and Camille proved a perfect match in that regard, and all others as far as I could tell. Their twins were roughhousing with Wy and Sean while four-year-old Lorie sat primly near Becky on the couch, holding Becky’s new baby with complete ease; I reasoned that my little niece probably had ten times more experience handling infants than me.
Dinner was a loud, messy affair; every topic of conversation was purposely kept light and the overall mood was jovial, if slightly forced. There were a hundred things needing discussing but an unspoken and temporary hold was placed on those as we ate; or, I amended, while everyone else ate and I pushed chicken and potatoes around my plate. Clark’s cooking was second to none but my stomach felt strange; hard edges seemed to poke outward deep inside my gut, unfurling like small metal flowers, even though I’d hardly touched food all day. I didn’t
