Chapter Two

“I’m not telling you again, Jeffy. Leave your sister alone. Stop bugging her.” Jeffy was in no mood to stop what he was doing, but Esme started crying loudly to make the situation worse. He glared at her and willed her to stop before their mother came to sort things out. Jeffy knew his Mom was not feeling well. She hadn’t been the same since his Dad had been killed. At 7, he was now the man of the family and he didn’t much like that idea. He felt disloyal to his father, as if he were trying to take his place. The tears had stopped, but he still felt the world had turned against him and his family.

“Jeffy, do something useful and get your little brother to hurry up. We have to leave soon.”

He didn’t feel like going anywhere. He didn’t feel like doing much of anything. And he let his mother know how he felt in no uncertain terms.

Elise sighed. It wasn’t as if Rick had helped much in caring for the kids. He worked long hours and plenty of overtime. The parenting fell mostly to her. Still, he had some days off and didn’t mind getting the three children to bed on school nights if Elise had something she wanted to do out of the house. And he was a good provider, working at a higher than average wage managing staff at a cabinet maker’s warehouse. The income was sufficient to keep the family comfortable after Elise left her part-time cashier job when Dylan had arrived. With three children, there wasn’t enough money to pay for childcare. She was making less than she was having to pay caregivers.

She was surprised when, six months ago, she opened the door to find two police officers on her porch. It was late on a Thursday night, when Rick was at his regular poker game at the local bar. Surprise soon turned to hysteria……. When the older officer, looking pained, spoke, he had informed her that her worst fear had been realized. Rick was dead. Murdered just outside the bar as he was leaving for home. It was obviously a robbery gone bad, the officer told her.

Elise had stopped listening after the word “dead” left the policeman’s lips. She felt the anguish as it choked her throat. Her breathing all but stopped. For a moment, she stood, palefaced and silent as the words, “We’re sorry for your loss, Ma’am,” sounded in the air. And then, after the oxygen returned to her airways, she began to scream, “No. NO. No. No. Rick. No!” She pounded the officer who had given her the news hard on his chest with both hands, “No No No” cascading from her pain. She stumbled a little in the doorway and, as both policemen reached out to steady her, she fainted.

When consciousness returned, her first thought was “The children. Where are the children?” Before she could utter the words, the younger of the two officers asked, “Are you alone, Ma’am? Do you have anyone you can call to be with you?”

Elise had no answer. She tried to stand up, but her legs felt like two soggy noodles.

“Where are your children, Ma’am?” she heard him ask. For what seemed an eternity she couldn’t think, couldn’t place her surroundings and stared blankly at the officer’s badge on his crisp black uniform. Mirrored in this cool silver badge was Rick’s face smiling at her, just as he’d done before he’d left for work that morning. Was it that morning? Her memory began conjuring the day’s events: Jeffy and Esme leaving for the day on the school bus, Jonathan in her arms as she waved them off. Where was Rick? Had he already left? She didn’t remember saying goodbye to him. There had been no kiss, not even a peck on the cheek. The images darted about her mind, coalescing in a fragmented picture book of everything that had surrounded the moment she last saw Rick’s face.

“They’re in bed. Oh God, the kids. I have to …”.

One of the officers cradled her right elbow as the other supported her when she finally tried to stand.

“My mother,” she began.

“Your mother?”

“I have to see her. I have to call her. And Rick’s dad. Oh, sweet Jesus, Rick. Rick?”

After the policemen left, Elise staggered to the family room couch and threw herself into the cushions, her face hot and sore from the tears she had already cried. Then she remembered the children upstairs, asleep. She prayed they were asleep, and had heard nothing.

“Oh God, how will I tell them?”

Rick and Elise had married just one month after her divorce from Greg had become final. Rick had already moved in to the home where Elise lived with her two children, and things had settled into a family routine. The children were too young to understand the changing circumstances, but they missed their Dad. Rick was good with the two and, when Elise gave birth to her third child, Rick’s first, he wore his fatherhood with pride and more love than he had ever thought possible.

Greg stayed in touch with Jeffy and Esme, and would take them for Friday night and Saturday to stay with him. He’d always planned what he knew would be an exciting time for them and Elise had a difficult time settling them back into their routine when Greg brought them back.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to fill them up with sugar?” Elise had groaned when Jeffy wouldn’t stop hitting Esme before they’d even got out of Greg’s car.

They were civil to each other during the Friday night pick-up and Saturday return. The children deserved that much. They all settled into a new normal until Greg remarried and quickly became father to twins. Elise worried about jealousy over their Dad’s new family, but Jeffy and Esme seemed to take it all in stride. Rick was on the scene and in their lives by then, so they weren’t overly upset that Greg wasn’t spending as much time with them. When he did make time for them, their stepmother and two half brothers were usually there. As time wore on, Elise’s kids were less interested in spending time with their father, and his prolonged absences didn’t seem to bother them.

When baby Jonathan arrived, Jeffy was thrilled that he would have have a brother not “a stupid old sister”, as he rudely termed Esme, much to his mother’s – and Esme’s – chagrin. The new family was a happy one, and Elise was grateful that her children didn’t seem to be negatively affected by their parents’ divorce.

Rick was everything that Greg wasn’t. He was considerate and accommodating, with a sense of humour that was the first thing Elise noticed about him. He had a great job and treated Elise’s children as his own. After too many years of constant arguing and fighting about money with Greg, Elise knew how lucky she was that Rick had happened into her life.

In the days that followed, life was a blur. Elise moved mechanically through the funeral and managing all that entailed. Her mother took over caring for the children and the two women planned for her to move in to the family home. She did her best to answer questions the police had about Rick’s friends and usual routine. When she was asked about their relationship, she slumped in the armchair and treated the detective to a long crying jag. Just before leaving, he had given Elise his contact information in case there were anything else she remembered that might be useful in making an arrest. He had been nice enough, but Elise knew there was no more information to be had. When he was gone, Elise looked at the card in her hand – “Detective Jake Munn, 35th Precinct”. Though there would be nothing else for her to tell, and no need to keep the card, she carefully put it in the coffee table drawer. Though it would be a sad reminder of her loss, it was a last link to the man who had made her happier than she had ever been.