Courage Tree (13 page)

“And that’s where I want to be,” he said quickly. “It’s been hard today and yesterday, not being able to be with you, with all that’s going on.”

“Come over,” she said. “Can you, please?”

“Why don’t you come here?”

She loved the tree house, and he knew it. But not tonight.

“I need to stay here,” she said. “In case…there’s any news.”

“Okay. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

She hung up the phone and walked into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and stared at its contents. It seemed as though it had been weeks since she’d looked in there, and nothing was appealing. Shutting the door, she wandered down the hall to Sophie’s dark room. The door was closed, and when she opened it, Sophie’s smell, that delicious scent of the balsam shampoo her daughter loved, greeted her,
and she felt weak-kneed. Sophie was still alive in this room. God willing, she was still alive wherever she was.

Picking up the teddy bear from the pillow, she lay down on Sophie’s bed and stared at the ceiling. She’d often wondered how parents dealt with the disappearance of their children. How did they survive that period of uncertainty? She was living it, and she still didn’t know the answer to that question.

Hugging the stuffed bear to her chest, she raised her head to look out the window.

Lucas, hurry, please.

She wondered how, just eight short months ago, she had seen him as an enemy.

“M
ommy, I think I’m going to throw up again,” Sophie said, as she and Janine got out of the car in the turnaround of the Ayr Creek driveway. The weather was growing cold. Thanksgiving was just a week away; the trees were bare and the estate was beginning to take on its gray, wintry look.

“Can you walk fast, honey?” Janine asked her. “Can you make it to the bathroom?”

“I don’t know.” Sophie swallowed hard, her skin pale and damp. She headed down the path toward the cottage, Janine close on her heels.

Lucas was kneeling at the edge of the driveway, wrapping the azaleas in burlap, and Janine put a protective hand on Sophie’s shoulder as she always did around him. He’d been working at Ayr Creek for a little over a month by then, and Janine had taken her parents’ warning about him to heart. Whether they were right or not about his being a pedophile, they were certainly right about his interest in Sophie. Janine had caught him staring at her when they were outside, and she
found herself nervous that he might peer through the cottage windows when he was working in the area.

“Hi, Mrs. Donohue.” Lucas stood up from his task. “Hi, Sophie.”

“Hi,” Janine said, almost under her breath. Her eyes were fixed on the knob of her front door, and with a sinking feeling, she suddenly remembered leaving the key inside the cottage when they left early that morning. She’d separated her car keys from the others in preparation for taking the car to be washed, and in her rush to get out of the house, she’d left the house key behind.

Sophie reached for the door knob.

“It’s locked, Sophie,” Janine said. “I just remembered I left the key inside. We’re locked out.”

“Do you have a problem?”

Janine turned to see Lucas leaning on the upright roll of burlap, staring at them. He’d heard her, even though she had been speaking softly and he was a good ten yards away. He had to have been listening very carefully.

“We’re locked out,” she told him.

“Mommy, I can’t wait,” Sophie said. “I’m going to throw up.”

“Move over here.” Janine guided her toward the mulch at the edge of the boxwood.

Lucas turned over the bucket near his feet, emptying it of weeds, and walked briskly to Sophie. He set the bucket in front of her just as she began to retch. Janine put an arm around her daughter, stroking her red hair back from her damp cheek. When Sophie had finished, she stood up, one hand on her stomach, and closed her eyes, leaning against her mother.

“You two are having a bad day,” Lucas said.

It was the closest Janine had ever been to him. The soft light of the November sun rested in his pale-gray eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses, and there was so much genuine sympathy in his gaze and such warmth in his voice, that her guard began to crack. She felt tears burn her eyes.

Lucas reached out as though he were going to touch her arm, then seemed to think better of it and dropped his hand to his side. “Where’s the key to the door?” he asked.

“I accidentally locked it inside.”

“Are any of the windows open?” He glanced toward the cottage. “How about the back door?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You and Sophie sit here on the stoop and I’ll check it out,” he said.

He disappeared around the corner of the cottage and Janine sat down with Sophie on the front step. She put her arm around her tremulous daughter again, and Sophie rested her head against her breast.

“Mommy, I’m too sick,” she said.

“I know, sweetie,” Janine soothed, pondering Sophie’s choice of words. Too sick for what? she wondered. Too sick to be able to run and play and go to school like other seven-year-olds? Too sick to stay out here in the cool weather? Too sick to live much longer? That was what the doctor had told Janine that morning. “She doesn’t have much more time,” he’d said. “Make her life as full as you’re able.”

Lucas returned around the other side of the cottage and knelt down in front of them. “You’re locked up tight,” he said. “Is there a spare key in the mansion?”

“Yes, but my parents are out and they always lock the house when they leave.” Was it stupid of her to tell him her parents were not at home? There seemed to be no one around except the three of them, and one of them had demonstrated an unnatural interest in little girls.

“I can get in the back door, but I’ll have to break the glass to do it,” he said. “I can repair it for you tomorrow, though. I’ll just need to get another piece of glass.”

Against her cheek, Janine felt the heat rising from Sophie’s forehead. “Yes, please, if you could,” she said.

She and Sophie waited as he walked around the house
again. They heard the sharp crack of breaking glass, followed by the tinkling sound of the shards hitting the linoleum floor of the kitchen. In a moment, the front door opened and Lucas stood in the living room.

“The deed is done,” he said. “Come in, and I’ll clean up the glass.”

Janine helped Sophie to her feet, then reached for the bucket.

“Leave it,” Lucas said. “I’ll take care of it later.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want you to have to—”

“Leave it, Janine,” he repeated. “It’s not a problem. Get Sophie inside here.” It was the first time he had called her by her name, and she thought she should be incensed at him for taking that liberty. Instead, she found herself liking that intimacy from him. She wished he would say her name again.

She walked Sophie into the house. “Let’s get you to bed,” she said, guiding her toward the hallway. She looked at Lucas, who was indeed staring at Sophie, but the look on his face was one of concern, nothing more. She should thank him and see him out the door, but she owed him more than that. “Would you like some lemonade or iced tea?” she offered.

“Just a little cold water would be great.” Lucas smiled.

“There’s a pitcher in the fridge. Help yourself. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Sophie fell onto her made bed, eyes shut, instantly asleep, and Janine sat next to her for a moment. In the afternoon light from the window, Sophie’s eyelids were nearly translucent; Janine could almost see the blue orbs beneath them. The lightly freckled skin on Sophie’s face, across her nose and in the gaunt hollows of her cheeks, had that same translucent quality, as though Sophie were slowly becoming invisible, fading away. Janine unfolded the light throw at the foot of the bed and laid it gently over her daughter before leaving the room.

She found Lucas standing in the kitchen, leaning against
the old coral-colored tile counter, a glass of water in his hand. “I poured a lemonade for you,” he said, nodding toward the glass on the table.

“Thank you.” She had not really been in the mood for lemonade, but it suddenly looked delicious, and she took a swallow.

“Do you have a broom?” he asked. “I should get this broken glass off the floor. And I can cover the window with a piece of cardboard and some tape for you, so the cold doesn’t pour in tonight.”

Janine looked at the glass on the floor and the broken window. He had already done enough. “I’ll get it later, thanks,” she said. “Let’s sit in the living room while you finish your water.”

He followed her into the small, square living room.

“I’ve wondered what it was like in here,” he said, as he sat down on the sofa. “This was once the slave quarters, right?”

She nodded as she sat on the leather armchair. “Yes. Twenty people lived in here at one time. Can you imagine what that was like?”

“I did some reading about Ayr Creek before I started working here,” he said. “Isn’t there supposed to be a ghost in this cottage?”

“Not in the cottage,” Janine replied. “She’s supposed to be in the woods, searching for her little girl. The woman’s name was Orla. Some other slave owner wanted her little girl to work for him, and Angus Campbell, the owner of Ayr Creek, promised Orla he wouldn’t split up her family. But one night the little girl disappeared. He’d sold her to the other guy, of course, but he told Orla he had no idea what happened to her. Orla apparently went crazy then, talking to herself and spending every night walking through the woods, hunting for her daughter. You can hear her out there sometimes, keening.”

“Do you believe the story?”

“Oh, I believe it, all right,” she said. “It’s a matter of history.
But I certainly don’t believe that Orla’s ghost is haunting the woods. I’ve heard the sound that people attribute to her, though, and it
is
weird and eerie, but I’m sure it’s just a possum or some other nocturnal animal. You hear it mainly in the summer, late at night, when you’re trying to sleep. Sophie gets a bit freaked out by it.”

Lucas looked down at his water, swirling it around the inside of his glass.

“Tell me about Sophie,” he said. “Her illness…it’s very serious, isn’t it.” It was a statement rather than a question, and once again his voice was so kind that, without any warning, she began to cry. He said nothing as she lowered her head into her hands and let go of the tears she’d been holding in all morning for Sophie’s sake. Finally she raised her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry for.” He brushed a blade of grass from the blue splint on his wrist. “Is it something you can talk about? Can you tell me what her problem is?”

“It’s her kidneys. She has a rare disease that usually only affects boys this seriously, but somehow, she was unlucky. She developed it when she was three, and it’s just gotten worse.”

“Would a transplant help?”

“I gave her one of my kidneys when her symptoms got bad enough, but she rejected it.” She bit her lip and looked toward the kitchen. Through the now empty pane of the back door, she could see the woods closing in on the cottage. “She’s been through so much. She has dialysis every night, and—”

“Peritoneal?” he asked, surprising her. Most people didn’t know that dialysis could be performed at home, using the membrane in the abdomen as the filter for the blood.

“Yes,” she said. “We have the machine here in her bedroom.”

“How has she done with it?”

“It’s not holding her,” she answered, and her voice caught in her throat. “This morning her doctor told me there isn’t
anything else they can do for her. He said flat out that she probably has less than a year left.”

Lucas shook his head very slowly. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “What terrible news.”

“It wasn’t really news.” Janine sighed. “Just a confirmation of what I’ve known would happen if she didn’t turn around with the latest treatment they’ve had her on. Now I have to call her father and tell him.”

“Is he very close to her?”

“Yes. He’s been a much better dad than he ever was a husband.” She smiled weakly, regretting instantly that she’d criticized Joe to this stranger.

“Isn’t most kidney disease inherited?” he asked.

“Some, yes, but not all. The type she has usually is, but there isn’t any of it in my family. We really don’t know much about Joe’s roots, because he’s never had contact with his mother’s side of his family—she left him when he was little. His father’s dead, but there were no kidney problems on his side that we know of, although we really aren’t close to them.” She took a swallow of the lemonade, but found it hard to swallow, and she set the glass down on the end table. “Actually, I don’t think Sophie inherited it.”

“What do you mean?” Lucas asked.

“Do you know about Gulf War Illness?” she asked.

“Well, I know that some of the soldiers who fought in the Persian Gulf think they contracted something while they were there. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. And some of them are producing children with medical problems.”

Lucas looked confused. “I’m not sure I’m following you. Was Sophie’s father in the military? Did he fight in Desert Storm?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “But I did.”

He looked surprised. “You’re kidding. What branch of the military were you in?”

“Army Reserves,” she said. “I flew a helicopter in the Gulf.”

“Well.” He smiled. “I have to say I’m impressed.”

“There’s nothing impressive about it,” she said. “It was a selfish decision on my part. I wanted to learn to fly, the reserves seemed like an easy way to do it. But it took me away from Joe for long periods of time. And ultimately—” she lowered her voice “—I’m afraid it’s going to cost my daughter her life.”

“You mean…you think you picked up something over there that caused you to give Sophie her kidney problems?”

“Yes. I don’t have any symptoms myself, but I got pregnant with Sophie right after I returned from the Gulf. It fits.”

He shook his head, almost violently. “No, it doesn’t fit. Those kids have deformities, not renal disease.”

“Not just deformities. I’ve heard of other diseases appearing in the children of Gulf War soldiers.”

“But diseases appear in kids no matter what.”

She felt herself sink deeper into her chair, deeper into her gloom. “I’d like to believe you, but I don’t. I blame myself for what’s happening to Sophie. My parents blame me. And so does Joe. He never says as much, but—”

Lucas stood up from the sofa and walked over to her. Sitting down on the leather ottoman in front of her chair, arms folded and resting on his knees, he looked directly into her eyes.