The Promise of Home (4 page)

I
n the kitchen of Kyle's apartment, Claudia was trying to throw a salad together while he assembled sandwiches to grill. She opened his refrigerator and removed a withered brownish ball wrapped in plastic. “Is this what I think it is?” she asked, holding up the object.

“Oh,” Kyle said when he saw what was in her hand. He gave her a sheepish grin. “That would be the iceberg lettuce, I think. I must've forgotten about it in there.”

Claudia winced. Finding enough fresh vegetables for a salad was going to be a bigger challenge than she'd thought. “Okay…is there anything else lurking in your fridge that I should know about?”

“I'm not sure. There might be a few other things,” Kyle admitted. “Sorry. You know I'm not great at fridge organization.”

Claudia shook her head and set the lettuce on the counter. “Just so you know, I'm taking over that job once we move in together.”

“That would be great! One more way we complement each other,” Kyle said. He gave her a quick kiss before turning back to his sandwiches in the frying pan.

In spite of her disgust at the brown lettuce ball, Claudia smiled to herself. Since Kyle had asked her to marry him, she hadn't had a bad day. It didn't matter if the kids in her class at school got extra-rowdy or her alarm clock summoned her at an hour much earlier than she would have liked. Refusing donuts and pie from the bakery had become easy, with her gorgeous white wedding gown hanging in her closet. Even half-rotted Franken-produce in Kyle's fridge wasn't a big deal. A cloud of happiness seemed to have surrounded her, cushioning her against all the unpleasantness of life, and every glimmer of her engagement ring gave her mood a buzzy, giddy boost.

There was still the matter of the salad, however.

With a bit of trepidation, she started sorting through the contents of Kyle's refrigerator. She found some carrots and half a red onion that were good. There was a head of romaine lettuce, too. The outer leaves were dark and wilted, but the rest was fine. There were two cucumbers in one of the vegetable bins. The first one squished all over her hand when she grabbed it, but the other one was firm and edible. If she got lucky and found a can of olives in the pantry, she would be in business.

“You know, my brother called earlier today,” Kyle said as Claudia washed her hands at the sink. “He said that he and his new girlfriend, Misty, were thinking about coming to Vermont while the leaves are at their peak. I told him they should visit this weekend, since it's getting late for good foliage. We could all have lunch or dinner together somewhere. Neither of us have met Misty yet, and it might be nice to spend some time with the two of them before the wedding.”

“I'd love that,” Claudia said as her happy, buzzy feeling ramped up to full power. Kyle's younger brother was a sweet guy—shy at first, but able to find humor in almost every situation once he relaxed and started to talk. “He knows you want him to be your best man, right?”

“Yeah. I asked him right after we got engaged. He's pretty excited about it. So is Rowen, since she's going to be our flower girl. She's nuts about Kev. Which reminds me…” Kyle turned to yell down the hallway. “Rowen, dinner's about done. Can you set the table?”

“I'll be there in a minute, Dad,” Rowen called from her room.

“She'll be so thrilled if Kevin and Misty come for a visit,” Claudia said. “How long have they been dating?”

“Just a few months, I think.” Kyle paused and sighed. “My brother's never had great luck with women. His girlfriends have always turned out to be losers. But maybe this time will be different.”

Claudia wanted to ask more about Kevin's dating history, but she decided against it because Rowen entered the room. Kyle's daughter was holding a book up to her face as she walked; somehow, she had made it to the kitchen without bumping into anything. Her expression brightened when she saw what Kyle had prepared. “Oooh, grilled cheese. Did you put tomato on mine?”

“Sure did. Sliced onions, too, just how you like it.”

“What?” Rowen crowded up next to him at the stove. “But that's gross! I don't like onions on my grilled cheese. Are you kidding?”

“Yes. Gotcha.” Kyle grinned down at her, and Rowen shoved him sideways once she realized that he'd been teasing her.

“I can't wait until we're all living together,” Rowen said to Claudia. “Then he'll have someone to pick on besides me.”

“Nah, he won't be doing much picking,” Claudia said. She looped her arm around Rowen's shoulders and pulled the girl in for a hug. “We'll form a united front. You know, girl power! That way, you and I can pick on
him
.”

Rowen laughed and squeezed her in return, and Claudia enjoyed another wave of pre-wedding bliss. As if it weren't enough to be marrying the man of her dreams, she was also gaining a precious stepdaughter whom she adored. Thinking about her soon-to-be-expanded family made her wonder again about Kevin and his new companion. Hopefully, Misty would also be someone whose company she would enjoy.

With a sigh, Emily slammed down the metal lid of her toolbox. The loud
clank
reverberated through the empty rooms of the McAllister mansion. Nothing she had in the box was small enough to fit in the tiny keyholes of the briefcase she had found. With her hammer and a chisel, she could easily break the locks and have the case open in a few minutes, and the idea was tempting. But besides the fact that the case wasn't hers, she couldn't bring herself to do anything that might damage it. She'd always been partial to antiques and furnishings of times past. She had built a career restoring old houses, after all. So, as curious as she was about the contents of the briefcase, she would baby it and find a way to open the locks properly.

Emily gathered up her purse and keys. There wasn't anything more she could do at the moment, and it was completely dark already. Her dog, Gus, was waiting for her at home and probably eager to be let outside.

She put the briefcase on the backseat of her car after she had locked up the marble mansion. On the short drive home, she thought about what she might have at her house that she could use to pick the locks. She had several small metal tools that she used to melt leftover bits of glass from her stained glass projects into beads. And there was no telling what she might find in her kitchen junk drawer.

Emily had just lugged everything into her house and let Gus run out to the backyard when someone knocked at her front door. Before she could get to it, the door opened and her mother stuck her head inside. “Em, it's me, honey. Are you home?”

“Barely,” Emily said. “What's up?”

Her mother stepped into the foyer dressed in her typical real estate agent uniform—a tailored pantsuit and comfortable pumps. Since it was Saturday, she'd undoubtedly been out showing houses most of the day.

“I picked up two new listings today,” she started, and Emily knew exactly where the conversation was heading. “They're both in pretty good shape, but one needs to have a few ghastly lighting fixtures swapped out, and the other has a really slow drain in one of the bathroom sinks. Do you think you'd have time tomorrow to take care of those things for me? I know I can sell them both quickly, but the drain worries me because it would show up on inspection.”

“I'll try,” Emily said, though she had no idea how she would squeeze in her mother's house maintenance projects. She was scheduled to open Turner's Hardware, where she worked part-time, in the morning, and she had been counting on having a solid block of time in the afternoon to finish the floors in the McAllister mansion.

“Thank you so much, honey,” her mother said. “I don't know what I'd do without you. How are things coming with the new bed-and-breakfast?”

“They're coming. Ruth wants to have a wedding party stay there right before Christmas, and there's a lot to do before then. I'll probably be working up there most of tomorrow afternoon.” Emily started toward the kitchen to let Gus back inside.

“I'll bet it's Kyle Hansen and Claudia Simon's wedding, right? Ruth was telling me they're engaged.”

“Um-hmm.” The big brown and white dog bolted through the door, tail wagging furiously. Emily managed to catch him by the collar before he could launch himself at her mother.

“Hello, Gus,” her mother said, already backpedaling toward the front door. “I don't want to risk him jumping up on me while I've got my good clothes on. By the way, I'm off Monday, and I invited Rose and her family to supper. Ivy's coming, too, and so should you. A home-cooked meal would do you good after a long day of work.”

“I'll try,” Emily said again.

Her mother nodded and backed out the door, calling, “Okay, then. Have a good night, honey,” as she closed it.

Emily released Gus and went to the kitchen. After she filled his bowl with dog food, she stood and stared into her refrigerator. She was starving but too tired to think about cooking anything. A simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich would do.

As she ate, she wandered from room to room, searching for something that would be suitable to pick the locks on the briefcase. There were some toothpicks in the junk drawer, along with an old nutpick, and she also gathered up a few of her smallest bead-making tools.

When she had stuffed the last bit of sandwich into her mouth, she took the old briefcase into the living room, beside a bright reading lamp, and sat down with it on her lap. She soon shoved the briefcase aside and flopped back in her chair. Only the toothpicks were small enough to fit in the keyholes, but they weren't strong enough to withstand the pressure she applied in trying to open the locks. One of them nearly broke off inside.

With fatigue finally overcoming her curiosity, Emily decided to take a long hot shower and go to sleep early. She would bring the briefcase to the hardware store in the morning, where she would have at her disposal umpteen different tools to open it.

Long after Ben had fallen asleep, Karen Cooper sat on the sofa in her living room. She couldn't bear to turn on the television, with its blaring twenty-four-hour news stations going on and on about the latest accidents and atrocities. From time to time, she glanced at the phone, willing it to ring, to bring her good news about her husband.
We've found Nick and he's fine,
she imagined a voice on the line telling her. Maybe he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere in Riyadh. Or maybe his vehicle had broken down and he and his colleague had had trouble finding someone to help them. As much as she tried to console herself with potential explanations, she knew very well that her husband would not disappear for four days unless something was horribly wrong.

The need to touch Nick, to reach out and grab his hand, to reassure herself that he was there with her, was as overpowering as it was impossible to satisfy. Not knowing what else to do, Karen reached under the coffee table where they kept the family photo albums, and moved several of them to the couch cushion beside her. These were their older pictures, taken when they were newlyweds and new parents. Smartphones and digital pictures hadn't existed back then, and the images in the albums were precious and irreplaceable.

She had forgotten about the evening when she'd been hugely pregnant with Ben and Nick had decided to paint her tummy. He'd used her makeup to transform it into a face, complete with a protruding tongue made possible by her popped-out belly button. In between fits of laughter, they'd used the timer on the camera to take a close-up of Nick's face, with his tongue also stuck out, right next to her decorated stomach.

The next album held pictures of Ben as a four-year-old. She gently touched one of the few that included Nick. In it, he was dressed in fatigues, standing in front of their house on a Texas air base and holding their son on his shoulders. Both of them were smiling in the picture, taken just before Nick shipped out on a new deployment. As soon as Nick had left, she'd started to cry, and little Ben had kissed her wet cheeks “to make Mommy all better.”

Karen looked down at the third album. It was the only one that was white. She couldn't bring herself to look at their wedding pictures inside. In fact, she found that she couldn't stand to continue looking at the old pictures at all.

After pacing around the room for a few minutes, she went to check on Ben. Her son was sleeping on his side with his mouth open and a gangly arm resting outside his covers. On the nightstand next to his bed was a stack of postcards and opened letters. Karen knew without looking that they were from Nick.

Silently, she entered Ben's room and lifted the postcard from the top of the pile. The front of the card was an aerial photograph of Riyadh. The city was vast and dusty and lacked even a hint of green. The orderly blocks of buildings with cars parked alongside seemed to go on forever, disappearing at the edge of the postcard into a grayish, blurred horizon. Nick was somewhere in that huge desert metropolis.

Or maybe he wasn't.

Pushing that thought from her mind, Karen flipped over the postcard. Her heart broke a little at the sight of Nick's slanted scrawl. The body of the message was short, almost cursory, containing only a mention of how hot it was getting and a promise to send a longer letter soon. It was the closing that got her, though.

Miss you and Mom more than ever. Can't wait to come home.

Love,

Dad

Karen struggled to keep her ragged breathing from waking Ben. She placed the postcard back on his nightstand and started backing out of his room. It was all she could do to get into the hallway and close Ben's door before she crumpled to the carpeted floor.

Pull yourself together, Karen. Stay strong. Nick would want you to stay strong. You're all Ben has right now.

And yet fighting against that internal voice of strength was a sinister undercurrent that threatened to haul her into a black abyss. She remembered the last time she had succumbed to it. It had taken a hospital stay and lots of therapy to pull her back from the brink. Despite the debilitating effects of the darkness—lack of focus or interest in things she enjoyed, fatigue, trouble sleeping, and a crushing feeling of guilt about her condition—she couldn't let that happen again.