“I can do that,” he said quickly.
“No...it’s okay.”
“I don’t think you should drive,” Luke said, coming back downstairs, a toddler in each arm.
At the sight of the smiling, oblivious girls, Lindsay’s knees started to shake and she bit back the emotions strangling her.
They would be too young to even remember their parents. Somehow she had to make sure they would know them as they grew up without them.
Another thing she had no idea how to do.
Noah sat next to her and accepted one of the girls from Luke, bouncing her gently on his knee. “It’s decided, then. I’ll drive you to pick up your parents.”
She had no fight in her to argue. Besides, it was probably a good idea. In her trance-like haze, anyone else would be safer behind the wheel.
Their family didn’t need another senseless tragedy.
* * *
“DAMN,” LINDSAY MUTTERED in the passenger seat of her Jeep as Noah took the exit onto the highway leading toward Newark.
Asking what’s wrong seemed like a dumb question that day, as nothing in the world felt right, so he placed a hand on her arm. “It’s going to be okay,” he said before realizing that didn’t sound much better. He had no idea if things were going to be okay. All he did know for sure was that he would be by her side through it all—whatever she needed. “I’m sorry.”
“No...um...thank you. I just realized I need to make another call and I left my cell at the B and B.”
“Do you know the number? You can borrow mine.” He handed it to her.
“It’s long distance.”
“It’s fine. Go ahead...please.”
“You sure?” She hesitated before starting to dial.
“Make a hundred if you need to, sweetheart,” he said, squeezing her arm, before turning his attention to the road to give her as much so-called privacy as possible.
He was so glad she hadn’t insisted on making this drive alone. Her mismatched flip-flops—one pink, one purple—further confirmed the fact she wasn’t thinking with a clear mind. How could she be? Her brother and sister-in-law had just died, leaving five small children in her care. At least he’d assumed, as their godparent, she’d be their new legal guardian, as well. A position everyone prayed they never had to step into when they agreed to such an important place in a child’s life.
“Hello...Ben,” she said a moment later.
Ben? He wasn’t sure who that was and he ignored the slight pull of jealousy in his chest.
“Yeah...I had fun the other night, too...” she mumbled, shooting a quick glance at Noah who pretended to be checking signs along the road. “Um, listen. I have to tell you something...about Nathan.”
Less than a minute later, after she had haltingly told him the bad news, she sat staring at the phone in her hand. “He hung up.”
“What?” Noah took the phone from her and tucked it into his pocket.
“That was Nathan’s friend—his business partner—in Newark. He hung up.”
“Did he say anything before he did?”
She shook her head.
Noah wasn’t an expert on the complexity of human emotions, but he could guess the meaning of this reaction. “He’s probably in shock, like the rest of us.”
She stared out the window in silence and he longed to pull over and wrap his arms around her. Instead he opened a bottle of water he’d brought along and handed it to her.
She took a sip before speaking. “He’s the children’s godfather.”
“Ben?”
“Yeah. He and Na—my brother went to university together. They started Walker Harper Developments, a property development company, five years ago. I can’t believe he hung up like that.”
Noah sighed as he reached across and took her hand in his. “Isn’t it the reaction we all would have liked to have had?”
She held his hand tight, her gaze still out the window. “I guess so. But, surely, after a moment to digest it, you’d call back?” She let out a deep breath as she leaned her head back against the seat. “I don’t think it’s even fully sunk in yet, you know?”
Noah nodded. He did. Even seeing the accident site the night before hadn’t made it more real.
“I keep expecting to wake up from this horrible nightmare.”
He nodded again, feeling useless. He had no idea what to say or even if she wanted him to say anything.
“We weren’t close,” she said after a long minute of silence. “We were so different, it was always hard to find common ground. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love him.” Her voice broke and tears gathered in her eyes.
His heart ached for her. Brushing her hair away from her face, he wiped the tears from her cheek. “I’m sure he knew that.”
“I’m not,” she whispered.
* * *
LINDSAY SAT ACROSS from her parents in the sitting area of the B and B the next morning, the bomb they’d dropped on her too much to take so soon after Nathan’s death. “Do we really need to discuss this right now?”
“The sooner the better,” her mother said calmly.
Her father’s gaze hadn’t shifted from the gazebo in the backyard and it was hard to tell if he was even listening. He wasn’t going to be of any help with her mother, not that he’d ever really stood up for what he’d wanted. Since his stroke the year before, he didn’t speak, and today he didn’t even seem to be in the same room.
Lindsay took a sip of her coffee. Her hand shaking, she spilled it down the side of the cup. She stood to get a napkin, but her mother caught her by the arm. “Leave it.”
She tensed, memories of her mother’s temper flashing in her mind. Growing up, they’d walked on eggshells around her, not sure if her ever-changing mood would earn them a hug or a smack.
She sat, feeling like a child again. She’d known having her parents here would only cause her more stress and anguish.
She hadn’t expected comfort at this difficult time.
She also hadn’t expected their immediate launch into the children’s future living situation. “Look, Mom, I really don’t know what the best thing—”
“We are the best thing,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument.
Lindsay seriously doubted that. How her sixty-year-old mother thought she could raise five children and take care of a husband with failing health was a mystery to her. And that she really thought they were the best choice of guardians over her was another knife to the chest. “The will states—”
Her mother scoffed. “The will is a piece of paper, Lindsay.”
She cringed at the way her mother said her name. Lindsay. Condescending, demeaning, as if she was stupid. Maybe she was, but she could barely think straight enough to get out of bed in the morning, how did her mother expect her to make any decisions right now? Why was it so important to decide anything right now?
“Look at your life. You work long hours and then you go out—everyone knows you like to have fun. You’re thirty-five-years old and not a long-term relationship to your credit. Nathan told me about that Facebook account.” She tutted.
Her brother’s never-ending search for approval from their mother had often extended to using their mutual disdain for her life choices as