“He's at the hospital,” but she didn't want to mislead them, she knew that however terrible, she had to tell them, and deliver the blow that they would never forget. Forevermore, they would each have to live with this moment, and relive it a million times in memory … forever…. “He's at the hospital, but he died half an hour ago … and he loved you all very much. …” She clutched each of them close to her, in a bunch, her arms around all of them, pulling them toward her as they screamed in anguish. “I'm so sorry….” Liz said through her own sobs “I'm so sorry. …”

“No!” the girls screamed in unison, and Peter was wracked by sobs, as Jamie stared at his mother and stood up, pulling free of her embrace, and backing away from her slowly.

“I don't believe you. That's not true,” he said, and then ran up the stairs, as Liz quickly followed. She found him crouched in a corner of his room, curled into a ball, crying, with his arms over his head, as though to shield himself from the blow of her words and the horror of what had happened to them. And with difficulty she picked him up and sat on his bed with him, cradling him as they both cried.

“Your daddy loved you very much, Jamie. … I'm so sorry this happened.”

“I want him to come back now,” Jamie said through his sobs, and Liz continued to rock him.

“So do I.” She had never known an agony such as this, and she had no idea how to bring them comfort. There was none.

“Will he?”

“No, baby, he won't. He can't come back. He's gone.”

“Forever?” She nodded, unable to say the word herself. She held him for a few minutes more and then set him down gently, and stood up, as she took his hand in her own.

“Let's go back to the others.” Jamie nodded, and followed her downstairs, the others were holding each other and crying, and Carole and Jean were with them. It was a room full of tears and sorrow and anguish, and the Christmas tree and opened gifts looked like an offense now. It seemed incredible that two hours earlier they had all opened presents together and had breakfast, and now he was gone. Forever. It was unthinkable, unbearable. Where did one go from here? How did one do this? Liz had no idea what to do now. But inch by inch, piece by piece, bit by bit, she had to do what she was supposed to, and she knew it.

She shepherded them all into the kitchen, and she began to sob again when she saw that his coffee cup was still there, and his napkin. Carole put them away quietly, and poured a glass of water for each of them, and they sat crying together for what seemed like hours, and then finally, she took them all upstairs so Liz and Jean could talk about the arrangements. People had to be called, his parents had to be notified. They lived in Chicago and would want to come out. His brother in Washington. Her mother in Connecticut, her brother in New Jersey. Friends had to be called, the newspaper, the funeral home. She had to decide what she wanted to do. Colleagues and former associates and clients would all have to be called. Jean made rapid notes as they talked. Liz had to decide what kind of service she wanted. Did he want to be cremated or buried? They had never talked about it, and Liz felt sick as they did now. There was so much to think about and do. Hideous details to be coped with. The obituary had to be written, the minister called, the casket chosen, all of it so grim, so unbelievable, so terrifying.

And as Liz listened to Jean, she felt a wave of panic wash over her, and she suddenly stared at the woman who had worked with them for six years and all she wanted to do was scream. This couldn't be happening to them. Where was he? And how was she going to live without him? What would happen to her and her children?

All she did in the end was bow her head and sob, as it hit her with full force again, like an express train. Her husband had been shot and killed by a lunatic. Jack was gone. And she and the kids were alone now.





Chapter 3

For the rest of the day, Liz felt as though she were moving under water. People were called. Faces came and went. Flowers arrived. She was aware of a pain so enormous it was physical, and waves of panic washed over her with such force she was sure she would drown in them. The only reality she could relate to now was her constant worry about her children. What would happen to them? How could any of them live through this? The agony on their faces was a mirror of her own. This couldn't be happening to them, but it was, and there was nothing she could do to stop it or make it better for them. Her sense of helplessness was total and overwhelming. She was being driven by a life force so powerful it had no limits, and it felt as though she was being washed toward a brick wall, and could do nothing to stop it. But they had already hit the wall, the morning Phillip Parker shot her husband.

The neighbors brought food, and Jean had called everyone she could think of, including Victoria Waterman, Liz's closest friend in San Francisco. She was an attorney too, though she had given up her practice five years before, to stay home with her three children. She had had triplets through in vitro, after years of trying, and decided she wanted to stay home with them, to enjoy it. Victoria's was the only face Liz could focus on and remember. The others all seemed vague, and she couldn't remember from one hour to the next who had been there, and who she had talked to. Victoria arrived quietly with a small overnight bag. Her husband had agreed to take care of the boys, and she was planning to stay for the duration. And the moment Liz saw her standing in the bedroom doorway, she began to sob, and Victoria sat with her for an hour as she cried, and held her.

There was nothing Victoria could say, no words she could offer her that would make it all right, so she didn't even try. They just sat there, holding each other and crying together. Liz tried to explain what had happened, to sort it out for herself if nothing else, but it didn't make sense, especially to her, as she went over everything that had happened that morning. Liz was still wearing her bloodstained nightgown and hospital robe when Victoria arrived, and after a while, Victoria helped her take them off, and gently put her in the shower. But nothing changed anything, nothing helped, whether she ate or drank or cried or talked or didn't. The outcome was still the same no matter how she turned it around in her mind, no matter how many times she went over what had happened. It was as though saying it would make it come out different this time, but it didn't.

All Liz wanted to do was run in and out of her bedroom to check on her children. Carole was sitting with Jamie and the girls, Peter had gone to Jessica's for a while, and Jean was making endless phone calls. Victoria tried to get Liz to lie down, but she wouldn't, and that afternoon, Jean said grimly that Liz had to think about the “arrangements.” It was a word she had come to hate, and never wanted to hear again. It held within its core all the horror of what had just happened to them. Arrangements. It meant picking a funeral home, and a casket, and a suit for him to wear, and the room where people would come to “view” him, like an object or a painting, and no longer a person.

Liz had already decided that she wanted the casket closed, she didn't want anyone to remember him that way, but only the person he had been, laughing and talking, and playing with his kids, and strutting around the courtroom. She didn't want anyone to see what he had become, the lifeless form that Phillip Parker had destroyed with a single bullet. And she knew that somewhere Amanda Parker's family was dealing with the same horror they were, and her children would be devastated. They were still young, and she had already been told that Amanda's sister would take them. But Liz couldn't think about them now, only her own. She asked Jean to send flowers to the funeral home for them the next day, and she was going to call Amanda's mother in a few days. But for the moment she was too distraught herself to do more than cry for them from the distance.

Jack's brother arrived from Washington that night, his parents from Chicago, and they went to the funeral home with Liz the next morning, to do what they had to do. Jean went with them, and Victoria came along, and held Liz's hand while they picked the casket. It was somber and dignified, mahogany, with brass handles and a white velvet lining. The people at the funeral home made it sound as though they were picking out a car for him, and told them of the various alternatives and features, and it was suddenly so horrible that it made Liz want to laugh hysterically. But as soon as she did, she was sobbing uncontrollably again. It was like having no control over yourself, and not being able to stop or change the constant wave of emotions that engulfed her. Destiny had put her on the crest of a tidal wave, and there was no way to get safely back onshore. She wondered if she would ever feel safe or normal again, or sane, or be able to laugh or smile, or read a magazine, or do any of the ordinary things people did. Their Christmas tree looked like an accusation, an ugly memory, the ghost of Christmas past, every time she walked by it.

There were a dozen people at their dinner table that night. Victoria, Carole, Jean, Jack's brother James, after whom Jamie had been named, his parents, her own brother, John, whom she had never been close to, Peter's girlfriend, Jessica, a friend from L.A. that Jack had gone to school with, and the children. Other faces came and went, the doorbell rang, flowers and food arrived. It suddenly seemed as though the whole world knew, and Jean was successfully keeping the press at bay. It was the headline in the evening paper, and the kids had watched the story on the news on TV, but Liz had made them turn it off when she saw them watching.

And as they talked about arrangements for the funeral at the dinner table after the kids went back upstairs, the doorbell rang, and Carole an swered it. It was Liz's mother, Helen, just arriving from Connecticut, and she started to cry the moment she saw her daughter.

“Oh, my God, Liz … you look awful….” “I know, Mother, I'm sorry … I …” She didn't know what to say to her, and the relationship they shared had never been overly warm, or comfortable for Liz. It was always easier dealing with her from a distance. Jack had always been the buffer for her when her mother disapproved of what they were doing. Liz had never forgiven her for her lack of support or compassion for her youngest grandson. Her mother thought it had been foolish of them to have a fifth child anyway. Four already seemed too many to her, and five was “ridiculous and excessive,” according to Helen.

Carole offered her dinner, but Helen said she'd eaten on the plane, and she sat down at the kitchen table with the others, and let Jean pour her a cup of coffee. “My God, Liz, what are you going to do now?” She dove right to the heart of the matter, without waiting to take her first sip of coffee. The others had all been crawling through the day, inch by inch, and minute by minute, trying to look no further ahead than the next hour, or voice any disturbing questions. But Liz's mother was never one to mince words or hesitate to tread where she shouldn't. “You'll have to give up the house, you know. It'll be too hard for you to handle it on your own … and close your practice. You can't do it without him.” It was just exactly what Liz felt and was afraid of. As usual, her mother had gone straight to the heart of the terror and stuck it right in her face, shoved it down her throat and up her nose, until she could hardly breathe thinking about it. It seemed like an echo of what she'd heard nine years before … you're not going to try and keep that baby at home, are you? My God, Liz, having a child like that in the house will destroy the other children. Her mother could always be counted on to voice everyone's greatest terrors. “The Voice of Doom” Jack had always called her, but he laughed when he said it. She can't make you do anything you don't want, Jack had reminded her. But where was he now? And what if she was right? … What if she did have to give up the house, and close their practice? How was she going to exist without him?

“All we have to do right now is get through Monday,” Victoria interrupted firmly. They had arranged to have the viewing at the funeral home over the weekend, and the funeral on Monday at Saint Hilary's. “The rest will take care of itself.” The funeral on Monday was their goal, the place where Liz had to focus. After that, they would all help her pick up the pieces, just as they were there for her now, and everyone at the table knew she didn't need to worry yet about the big picture. This was bad enough, and as they sat there, Liz's mind kept drifting back to Christmas. It really was a nightmare that would live on for them forever. The children would never again put up a Christmas tree, or hear a Christmas carol, or open a gift without remembering what had happened to their father on Christmas morning, and what it had been like for each of them right after it happened. Liz looked ravaged as she looked around the table at the people who had come together to help her.