Step on a Crack (25 page)

THOUGH IT WAS FREEZING cold and windy, the sun was shining as we Bennetts resolutely made our way through the stone-walled entrance to Riverside Park on Saturday morning a week later. Beyond the bare trees, the Hudson River,
our river
as Maeve used to call it, looked like an endless field of molten silver.

It didn’t take very long for me to find the orange-taped stake. My darling wife and I had carefully placed it at the edge of a meadow overlooking the water just three months before.

I put down the oak sapling I was carrying on one shoulder and lifted the stake. I glanced at my oldest son. Brian nodded and stabbed the spade he was holding into the earth.

We all took turns. I had to help with Shawna and Chrissy, but Trent insisted on taking his turn by himself. I finally placed the sapling into the hole we’d made. Then I got down on my knees and started pushing the dirt back in with my hands. Pretty soon, I had a lot of help. All of us were down on the ground, hands buried in the fresh dirt.

I stood up finally, staring at the baby tree silently, feeling the cold, moist wind on my mud-covered hands. A tugboat, chugging lazily north on the river, seemed to be making the only sound on the earth.

I remembered watching the sun go down on a late picnic we’d had in summer the year before. Before the cancer, the last time things were really right. The kids catching fireflies as I rested my chin on Maeve’s shoulder, the sky turning aqua and gold. I could feel her now as I stood there without her, the weight of Maeve against me, the way an amputee feels a lost limb, a phantom pain in the heart.

“Mommy’s present to us,” Chrissy said finally, patting the slender tree trunk gently. “Right, Daddy?”

“That’s right, Chrissy,” I said, scooping up the baby and putting her on my shoulders. “Ever since you were little, this was Mommy’s favorite place in the world to take you guys. She told me that anytime you wanted to think about her or talk to her, she wanted you to be able to come here, or just look out your window at this spot and think of her.”

I held Julia’s and Bridget’s hands and gathered our family in a circle around the small tree. I was aware of the single earring I still wore in my left lobe, and would always wear, whatever the fashion, whatever my age.

“Mom brought us all together,” I said, looking at my kids’ faces one at a time. “So as long as we stay together, she’ll always be with us.”

I felt more than heard Chrissy start to cry as we were leaving across the grassy meadow. I lifted my daughter down from my shoulders and cradled her in my arms as she cried.

“What is it, honey?” I said.

“Baby Peep misses Mommy Peep,” she said inconsolably. “So much. So much.”

“I know,” I said, trying and failing to dry her tears and mine at the same time. The wind picked up, drew lines across the still river, painted icicles on our wet cheeks.

“Daddy Peep does too,” I said.

About the Authors

James Patterson is one of the best-known and bestselling writers of all time. He is the author of the two top-selling new detective series of the past decade: the Alex Cross novels, including
Cross, Mary, Mary, London Bridges, Kiss the Girls,
and
Along Came a Spider,
and the Women’s Murder Club series, including
1st to Die, 2nd Chance, 3rd Degree, 4th of July,
and
The 5th Horseman.
He has written many other #1 bestsellers, including
Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas, Lifeguard, Honeymoon, Beach Road,
and
Judge amp; Jury.
He lives in Florida.

Michael Ledwidge is the author of
The Narrowback, Bad Connection,
and
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.

 

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