“I think so too,” Jamie said with a yawn, and she scratched his back for a minute when he turned on his side. He was asleep before she ever left his bedroom. And she was still smiling to herself as she walked back to her own room. Peter had gone out by then, and he had taken Megan with him to a movie. Rachel and Annie were watching a video, and Liz walked quietly into her room, thinking about her husband.

“We did it,” she whispered in the dark. And as she looked around the empty room, she could almost feel him. It was a presence, and a force, and a love that was not easily forgotten. “Thank you,” she said softly as she turned on the light, but she no longer expected to see him, or him to come back. But what he had left her with was infinitely precious.





Chapter 6

They left for Tahoe three days after the Special Olympics. And Jamie was still in high spirits. They all were. An old friend of Jack's had lent her his house in Homewood. It was a rambling old house they'd borrowed from him before. His wife didn't like Tahoe, his kids were grown, and they seldom used it. And it was perfect for Liz and the children. It had a wide, sheltered porch, and you could see the lake from most of the bedrooms. It was surrounded by five acres of land. There were big, beautiful trees, and everyone was in a great mood when they got there.

Peter and the girls helped Liz get everything out of the car, and Jamie took the groceries into the house and helped her unpack them. Carole had gone to Santa Barbara for a week to stay with her sister.

“What about a swim?” Peter suggested almost as soon as they arrived. And half an hour later, they were all jumping off the nearby dock, shivering in the cold water. But that was part of the fun of it, and Liz had arranged for them to go water-skiing the next morning.

She cooked dinner for them that night, and Peter helped with the barbecue. His father had taught him how to do it. And they sat in front of the fireplace afterwards, telling stories and roasting marshmallows. And after awhile, Annie told a funny story about their father. Liz smiled as she listened, and it reminded her of another time, and another story. She told it, and they all laughed, and then Rachel reminded them of when Dad had accidentally locked himself into a cabin they'd rented and had to climb out the window. And after a while it was a contest of who could remember the silliest stories. It was a way of bringing him back to them, in a way they could all tolerate now. The months that had passed had taken the edge off the pain for them, and left them with not just the tears, but the laughter.

And when they all finally went upstairs to go to bed, Liz felt better than she had in months. She still missed him, but she wasn't quite as sad, and they were all happy to be there. It was a vacation they all needed, and she was glad that Peter had managed to get the time off to come with them. He was doing such a good job at the pet hospital that they had given him the week off and told him to enjoy it.

They all went waterskiing the next day, and Peter took Rachel and Jamie fishing in the stream behind the house, and they caught a fish. And the next day they took out the small boat that was tied to the dock, and both boys caught fish, and then Megan landed a big one. They caught crawdads near the dock, and Liz cooked them that night for dinner. It was an easy, happy time for all of them, and they slept on the porch one night in sleeping bags, and looked up at the stars. It was a perfect vacation.

And when they packed their things at the end of the week, they were all genuinely sorry to leave, and made Liz promise to do it again that summer. She thought they might borrow the house again on Labor Day. It was a way of avoiding the party they always gave then. Like the Fourth of July picnic they had decided not to give this year, their end of summer party on Labor Day was a family tradition. But going to Lake Tahoe instead was an ideal substitute for it.

They were all relaxed and happy when they drove home the next day, and stopped at Ikeda's in Auburn for hamburgers and milk shakes.

“I hate to go back to work,” Liz confessed to her oldest son as they both finished their milk shakes. “This was so much fun, I wish I could be lazy for the rest of the summer.”

“Why don't you take some more time off, Mom?” he suggested, and she shook her head. She could just imagine what was waiting for her now at the office, she had court appearances scheduled all through the month, and a trial in early September she had to prepare for.

“I'm swamped.”

“You work too hard, Mom.” But they both knew she was still trying to carry her own load and his father's. “Why don't you hire another lawyer to help you?”

“I've thought about it. But somehow I think your father wouldn't have liked that.”

“He wouldn't have wanted you to kill yourself working this hard either.” Jack had always known how to have a good time, and as compulsive as he was about their work, no one liked a vacation better than he did. He would have loved the week they had just spent at Lake Tahoe.

“I'll see. Maybe in a few months I'll bring another lawyer into the practice. But so far, I'm doing okay by myself.” As long as she never stopped to read a book or a magazine, or have lunch with a friend or get her hair done. As long as she kept her nose to the grindstone every minute she wasn't with the kids, it worked fine, but it wasn't much of a life for her, and she knew it. And apparently, so did her children.

“Don't wait forever, Mom,” Peter admonished her, and rounded the others up. They were buying candy, and carried bags of it back to the car to take home with them. It was part of the charm of Ikeda's. It was one of their favorite stops. They usually stopped there too on their way to ski at Tahoe in the winter.

Carole was waiting for them when they got home, and Liz knew that the next few weeks would be busy for her, before the kids went back to school. Peter would still be working at the pet hospital for another week or two, but the others would be spending all their time around the pool, and inviting friends over to hang out with them. Carole would fix lunch for half a dozen kids or more every day, and sometimes twice that many at dinner. But Liz liked knowing where they were, and that their friends were welcome to visit.

Carole had cooked a delicious dinner for them, and when they went to bed that night, they were happy to be home, and full of stories of the lake to tell her. And Liz still looked relaxed when she left for work the next morning. It lasted for all of about ten minutes. The stacks of work and files on her desk had multiplied dramatically while she was gone, and there were more phone messages than she had ever seen waiting for her. She was handling her cases too well. Both clients and other attorneys were constantly referring new cases to her. And she couldn't help but remember what Peter had said about taking another lawyer into the practice to help her.

She mentioned it to Jean that afternoon as they attacked her desk systematically, and Liz did some dictation.

“Do you have anyone in mind?” Jean asked with interest. She'd been thinking the same thing herself for quite a while, and applauded Peter for the astute suggestion.

“Not yet,” Liz admitted to her. “I don't even know if I want to do it.”

“You should give it some thought. He's right. You can't do it all yourself. It's too much for one person. It was almost too much for two before Jack died, and the practice has grown in the last six months. I don't know if you've noticed it, but I have. You're handling twice as many cases than you were when there were two of you to do them.”

“How did that happen?” Liz looked surprised as she acknowledged what Jean was saying.

“You're good at what you do, that's how,” Jean said with a smile.

“So was Jack.” Liz was quick to defend him. “I always thought he was a better lawyer than I was.”

“I wouldn't say that,” Jean said honestly, “but he turned away more cases than you do. You never have the heart to say no to anyone. If he didn't like a case, he booted it right out the door into the hands of some other lawyer.”

“Maybe I should do more of that,” she said thoughtfully.

“I'm not sure you could bring yourself to do it.” Jean knew her well. Liz was incredibly conscientious.

“Neither am I,” Liz said as she laughed, and they went back to work on the dictation. She had a number of things to send to various judges, and other attorneys, on the cases she was currently working on.

It was late when she got home that night, nearly eight o'clock, but she was paying her dues for her vacation. The kids were still sitting around the pool when she got home, and Carole was dishing out pizza.

“Hi, guys,” Liz said with a smile, and she was pleased to see Peter there, but less so when she saw two of his friends dive into the pool and play a little too roughly with the younger children when they all got into a game of Marco Polo. She told them to tone it down a little bit, and asked Peter to tell his friends not to play quite so roughly. “Someone's going to get hurt,” she said quietly to Carole, who agreed with her and said she had spent the whole afternoon telling Megan's friends the same thing. Liz was particularly worried about Jamie, who was only a fair swimmer.

And she warned them about it again that night after their friends left. “I don't want any accidents here … or any lawsuits!”

“You worry too much, Mom.” Annie dismissed her, and Liz told her that she meant it.

She reminded them of it again the next day when she left for work, and when she came home that night, things seemed a little calmer. But on Thursday, when she came home late again, and found half a dozen of Peter's friends in the pool with him, she watched them diving too fast, too soon, and not waiting until the other children had cleared the area, and she told him in no uncertain terms that his friends would be banned from the pool if they didn't observe basic safety rules, and respect the younger children.

“I don't want to have to remind you again,” she said sternly.

“You look tired, Mom,” he said gently.

“I am tired, but that's beside the point. I don't want an accident here. You can't rough-house in the pool, Peter, and I mean it.”

“Okay, Mom, I heard you.” He had grown up a lot in the past year, but not completely. He was still young, and some of his friends were daredevils and foolish, and she had always worried about it. Having someone get hurt was a headache she didn't need. They'd been through enough trauma for one year, and she wasn't afraid to say so to him, or his friends.

She went up to her room to work again that night, and she had an early appearance in court the next morning. She was tired and edgy, and she wanted to get a good night's sleep.

She was just leaving the courtroom in fact, at noon the next day, when her cellular rang. It was Carole, and she sounded precise and calm, as Liz stopped to talk to her on the steps of the courthouse.

“You need to come home right away,” she said clearly, and Liz felt her spine tense. Carole only sounded like that when one of the kids got hurt, or there was a serious problem.

“What happened? Is someone hurt?” She knew before Carole told her.

“It's Peter. He had a day off from work, and some of his friends were here.” Liz interrupted her instantly in a shrill tone that was unfamiliar to her own ears, but her nerves were no longer what they once had been.

“What happened?”

“We don't know yet. He was diving and he hit his head, I think. The ambulance is here.”

“Is he bleeding?” All she could think of was Jack as he lay on their office floor with blood everywhere. If there was blood, to her now it meant disaster.

“No,” Carole said with a calm she didn't feel. She had hated to be the one to tell her, but she knew she had to. “He's unconscious.” She didn't have the heart to tell her he might have broken his neck. They weren't sure yet. “They're taking him to Marin General. You can meet him there. Liz, I'm sorry.”

“Is everyone else okay?” She was running to the car as she asked her.

“No one else was hurt. Just Peter.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

No one really knew. There were paramedics everywhere, and Liz could hear the sirens start to wail as they took off with him as she asked the question.

“I think so. I don't know much, Liz. I was watching them … I told them. …” Carole started to cry as she said it, and Liz started her car, and ended the conversation as she pulled away from the curb, praying that he'd be all right. He had to be. They couldn't live through another disaster, or God forbid, losing him. She just couldn't. She drove to the hospital as fast as she could without running lights or hitting pedestrians, and she pulled into the parking lot shortly after they rushed Peter into the emergency room. They had taken him straight to the trauma unit, and they directed Liz to it as soon as she got there.