Retribution (20 page)

Tears ran down Lillian's face. As she clutched the water bottle to her chest, she wasn't sure if her grief was for Margaret, Shannon, or for her own loss. Margaret had a toughness she didn't possess, and she wanted that strength, needed that determination to heal.

“I wanted my life to make a difference, like the nurses had made for Shannon and me, so after Shannon's death I went back to school and became an RN. And then a nurse practitioner. I decided to work with terminally ill children and their families because I have been where they are.”

“How you can emotionally handle that? Doesn't it remind you every day of your loss?” She thought of how she had reacted to Trina's pregnancy and the anger that consumed her each time she saw children.

“My
loss
?” Margaret stared at Lillian. “God gave me a gift when He gave me Shannon for those two short years. And He uses all things for His good, if we allow Him to. By sharing Shannon with me, He prepared me to do the work I'm doing. I honor Shannon's life and God's goodness every time I show up for work. Do I go home sometimes and cry my eyes out? Sure. But not often, and I may have cried even without having loved Shannon.”

Lillian stared at her hands gripped tightly in her lap. “I had a child once, too.” The words were barely a whisper. “And a husband. They died in a horrible accident. I should have been with them, but I wasn't.”

“Lillian, I'm so sorry. If you had been with them, would you have died too?”

“Maybe.”

Margaret slid her chair around the table, the scrapping of metal legs on cement echoing in the silent room. As she wrapped her arms around Lillian's shoulders, tears welled up in the corners of Lillian's eyes.

“You have to let the guilt go,” Margaret murmured. “If God had wanted you to be with them, He would have made sure you were there. Apparently He has other plans for your life.”

Margaret's breath against her face felt like angel wings. Someone had told her early in her grieving that God sent angels to comfort His people, and one can feel the touch of their wings. She gave Margaret a tentative smile. “You're the second person recently who has told me that God has plans for me.”

Margaret squeezed her shoulders. “Then maybe you should listen. Do you have good memories of your husband and daughter?”

Lillian wiped her eyes. “Of course I do. Craig was the kindest man ever, and our little Susan was the sunshine in our lives. She had my curls, but Craig's brown eyes. Her sweet spirit could make anyone smile.”

“Sounds like God gave you a gift with your husband and daughter.”

Were they a gift? A lifetime ago, she believed in God's goodness, but not anymore. “Then why did He take them away? Why didn't He protect them?” Angry words gushed from her mouth, the confusion that she kept stuffed inside rolled out. “I know you can't answer that. No one can. But I still don't understand how you can find anything good about God allowing your daughter to die. He literally jerked her from your arms.”

“Lillian, remember that God loves her too, and He knows what is best for her. Trust in it or not, God has a good life planned for you. You just need to listen to His voice.”

Even if Lillian forgave God, how could she listen for His voice when the person responsible for killing her family remained unpunished? Anger overpowered everything else; it reduced to nothingness friendship, love, and even God Himself. In addition to the guilt that twisted her mind during the day and haunted her dreams at night, it was anger that kept her locked in her own emotional horror. She hated the system that chose to accuse her of setting the fire while the true culprit ran free.

The law was broken, and no one cared. And now, with no new leads, the case of Craig and Susan Hunter had been closed. Unsolved.

And anger remained locked in a heart that secretly sought revenge.

~*~

The light reflected off the wet pavement as Lillian drove the short distance home. Why did the bed and breakfast feel like home with pregnant Trina and suspicious Bill?

A car passed, throwing water onto the windshield. As the wiper crossed the windshield, the film disappeared. What if life could be like that, with a single swipe, remove the parts that hurt, leaving the future clear for living?

Her thoughts landed on Paul. Tall and handsome. And funny. She smiled, remembering some of his jokes. And his way with little Jimmy—he would be a great father.

Her throat tightened. She could never have a life with Paul. Of all the people she had met in Darlington, Paul remained the most dangerous. As Roger said, Paul was a police officer first.

Pulling into the driveway, she flexed one aching hand then the other. When had her tension grown to monster proportions?

She needed to patch things up with Roger, but the man frustrated her. What had upset him tonight? He was a nice man, caring—just in a different way than Paul. After all, it was Roger she had turned to after discovering the gas cans.

So why did her mind keep shifting to Paul? She slammed the car door, teeth grinding. First, the Paul/Roger debate had sent her spinning, and then the Darlington fires. Where was the quiet life of scholarly dedication and seclusion she had counted on?

Thanksgiving was only a week away. She would to go back to Cleveland for the holiday. The change might be good for her, and Beth would be there.

Rain pelted against her body and rivulets of water streamed down her face as she ran toward the house. Had her life really been that bad in Cleveland, or had she exaggerated the animosity? Had it only been six weeks since she had come south?

In five days, she would again pack everything she owned into her small car. The vision of her future lay blank before her.

15

Cleveland hadn't changed much in six weeks.

Lillian felt different, and had expected her environment to be different too.

The big city felt cold and rushed. Definitely more traffic than Darlington.

The tension that had driven her south in the first place remained. Both with her parents and when she sought out friends, the dance of pretense scraped against her nerves. She found herself cautious, as though some sense within her remained on high alert lest she do or say the wrong thing.

The kitchen smelled of roasting turkey. Every burner on the stove held a stainless steel pot, the moist heat reminding her of the homeless shelter. Her chest tightened with longing. But then memories of Roger's behavior erased the joy. She had been unable to see him before she had come home. The crack in their friendship caused her to be even more unsettled.

Sitting on a kitchen barstool, elbows propped on the white marble slab, she watched as her mother cut the apple and pumpkin pies bought from the Frazier Bakery. Their holiday pastries always came from Frazier's. Her mom declared them the best.

Lillian had agreed—until she ate Sandra's.

What were Trina and Ted, Bill and Sandra, and little Jimmy having for Thanksgiving dinner? She missed them, but tried to squeeze the thoughts of Darlington from her mind. After all, she was home with her family, her real family. She belonged in Cleveland, not in Darlington.

“Lillian, are you listening to me?” Her mother's voice cut through her musings. “You don't seem yourself.” Martha Goodson wiped her hands on a white towel with a large, colorful turkey appliquéd in the center. The Thanksgiving towel always came out the day before the holiday and was returned to storage the day after. Her mother folded the towel into exact thirds, and placed it, turkey facing out, in the center of the bar by the sink. “Are you sure living in the south is good for you?” Her lips puckered as she stared at Lillian, her gaze a challenge.

Lillian offered a wisp of a smile. How could she possibly describe the past six weeks when she couldn't wrap her mind around them herself? As an attorney, she had condensed the basest human actions into simple words, explainable to a jury. But now she couldn't define her own life for her mother. “I've made some good friends, and I love my job.” No need to mention the fires, or the fact that her heart had awakened. Why spawn questions she was unwilling to answer?

Her mother's stare drilled into her face. “Well, your dad and I think you are being foolish. But then, you always have gone your own way.”

The words stung as though she had been slapped. At the sound of rattling on the stove, her mom turned, lifted the lid off the front pot, stabbed at the potatoes with a fork, and then replaced the lid.

Simple actions completed through habit and routine. Should life be like that: a routine that one lived by, no matter what?

Nothing shook the stoic existence of her parents, and even though the predictability appealed to Lillian, the rigidity of their lives felt as false as hers had become lately.

In the letter of the law, her mother was right: she had gone her own way. Maybe it was time to grow up and come home. The time in Darlington had strengthened her, and she would miss Trina and the others immensely. Tears puddle in her eyes and she turned her back to her mother. Were the tears from her mother's hurtful words, or were they for a life that had never really belonged to her?

God held the answer, and she tried to trust, she really did, but her brain remained conflicted. Did God care about her anymore? Roger didn't seem to think so. She felt homeless as though the entire planet had cast her off, sending her spinning into the dark unknown.

“Lillian!” Her mother's sharp voice cut through her thoughts. “Am I so beneath you that you can't pay attention to me for even a few minutes?”

“Hey, Lilly!” Beth called from the next room. “Come help me set the table.”

Her mom heaved a deep sigh. “Go,” she said, brushing Lillian from the room with a swish of her hands.

Beth stood beside the table, a goofy grin spread across her face and one of the good china plates from the gold-rimmed set gripped in her hand. The white, linen, holiday tablecloth already covered the dark wood of the formal table.

Even though she was grateful to escape her mother's probing accusations, the dining room failed to offer the expected relief. Something felt wrong.

“Thought you might need an excuse to get away from the hundred questions,” Beth said, setting the plate on the table.

“Thanks.” She hugged her younger sister, trying to ignore the uncomfortable itch.

Beth placed the second plate on the table.

“The table! That's the problem!” She pumped her fist into the air as a sense of release filled her. One itch solved. Maybe life was doable.

“What's wrong with the table?”

“You don't know?”

The dining room had been the source of numerous arguments between her parents. Her mother thought the room too small and wanted to move in order to have a larger formal space for guests. But her father disagreed, stressing the quality of the current home and their history there.

“You didn't put the table extensions in. Where is everyone going to sit?”

Beth stared with unblinking eyes. “They didn't tell you.” She looked at the floor. “There'll only be the four of us.”

Her parents entertaining skills shined during the holidays. Thanksgiving meant at least a dozen close friends sharing a feast.

She looked at the table again, diminished in size and importance, still draped in white, still adorned with the good china, but no longer filling the room with its imposing presence. “Just the four of us?”

“I guess they wanted you all to themselves.” Beth placed another plate on the table.

There had only been two pies. She had assumed there were more in the pantry. Her mother's characteristic flutter had been replaced by jerking tension. She hadn't seen it until now. Her breath hung in her throat. “What aren't you telling me?”

Beth grasped her hands. Pools of pain filled her eyes. “I heard Mom and Dad talking.” Her words were tight. “They weren't sure what you would be like when you came home.”

“What do you mean, what I would be like?” She snatched her hands away.

As the look of misery on Beth's face grew deeper, Lillian thought of the two years when Beth had been her only friend, the only person willing to listen as she had poured out her pain over and over. “It's you and me, Beth. We're sisters. We've always been there for each other.” Her voice softened. “You can tell me. What did they expect would happen when I moved to Darlington?”

A tear dribbled down Beth's cheek. “They thought you would fall apart, start doing strange things…or something. They thought when you came home you would be like you were after the fire.”

Lillian clenched her teeth, remembering the inconsolability, the consuming grief. The blank spaces in her memory, days that she simply couldn't remember. She thought of her mother's stories; how she had to be stopped from getting out of the house in the middle of the night, convinced that Susan or Craig needed her. But most frightening was her mother's need to hide the matches after she tried to set fire to her bed.

At the time, Dr. Widder had reassured her parents, claiming these were normal reactions to trauma and not a permanent condition.

Over the months, her gaps from reality had become less, and now she felt as sane as she had ever been. In Darlington she had made friends. They trusted her. She had a good job. A life. Did her parents have such little faith in her strength?

Tightening her shoulders, she grabbed the stack of linen napkins off the sideboard and threw them on the left side of each plate, just as she had been taught as a child. But as a child, she had made sure the loose ends were toward the plate, the folded edge out. Now she didn't care. “Let's just get this meal over with.”

Once her duty had been served, she escaped to her room and shut the door. She grabbed her Bible off the nightstand, hugged it to her chest, and flopped on the bed. She had turned to God's word less often over the course of the last six weeks. Guilt rose in her throat; she needed to be alone with God. He had not forgotten her, in spite of the fact that she had neglected Him. But He had been there. And He was here now. Tears spilled down her face.