Home Front

Home Front Page 19

Make breakfast. (Each morning came with its own carefully constructed meal plan.)

Get girls dressed. Make sure they brush their teeth.

Get Betsy on school bus. Arrival: 8:17.

Drop Lulu off at preschool. 8:30. She had provided him with an address, which pissed him off, both because she assumed he would need it and because, in fact, he did.

He threw back the covers and got out of bed, stumbling toward the bathroom. After a long, hot shower, he felt ready to start his day. Dressing in navy wool slacks and a crisp white Armani dress shirt, he left the room.

As he walked down the darkened hallway, he knocked on the girls’ doors, yelling for them to get up.

Downstairs, he made a pot of coffee, realizing too late that he’d made enough for two. Then he stood there, waiting impatiently. As soon as it was done, he pulled out the glass carafe and poured himself a cup.

Only it wasn’t done; coffee dripped down, splattering and burning on the warming pad below. He shoved the carafe back into place, ignoring the steaming sizzle, and looked at his list.

Today was “clown” pancake breakfast day.

Ha.

Instead, he rifled through the cupboards, found some cereal, and thumped it down on the table. Tossing some bowls and spoons alongside it, he grabbed the newspaper from the porch and sat down to read it.

The next time he looked up, it was 8:07.

“Shit.” He threw down the paper and ran up the stairs, opening Betsy’s door.

His daughter was still asleep.

“Damn it, Betsy, get up.”

She sat up in bed slowly, blinking, and glanced sleepily at the clock by her bed and then screamed.

“You didn’t wake me up in time!” The horror on her face would have been funny any other time. He knew how precise Betsy was, just like her mom; she hated to be rushed.

“I knocked on your door and yelled at you,” he said, clapping his hands. “Get going.”

“I don’t have time. I don’t have time.” She jumped out of bed and looked in the mirror. “My hair,” she groaned.

“You have five minutes to be at the table for breakfast.”

“No shower?” Again, the horror. “You can’t mean it.”

“Oh. I mean it. You’re twelve. How dirty can you be? Go.”

She glared at him.

“Move it.” He strode down the hall to Lulu’s room. As usual, his youngest daughter slept spread-eagle on top of the blankets with a zoo of stuffed animals gathered around her. He threw the toys aside and kissed her cheek, pushing her tangled hair aside. “Lulu, honey, it’s time to wake up.”

“I don’t wanna,” she said, rolling away from him.

“Time to go to preschool.”

“I don’t wanna.”

He turned on the light and went to her dresser. Opening the top drawer, he pulled out some tiny pink-flowered underwear and a pair of small elastic-waisted yellow corduroy pants and a green sweater. “Come on, Lulu, we need to get you dressed.”

“Those are summer clothes, Daddy. And they don’t go together. Get the yellow sweater.”

“This is what you’re wearing.”

“Am not.”

“Are, too.”

“Mommy lets me pick—”

“Come here, Lucy,” he said sternly.

Scrunching her face up, she climbed out of bed and padded toward him. All the time he was dressing her, she was complaining.

“There,” he said when she was dressed. “Pretty as a picture.”

“I look ugly.”

“Hardly.”

She reached up for the pair of wings on the dresser top. “Pin it on me, Daddy. It means she’s thinking of me. Ow! You poked me.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. Picking her up, he carried her downstairs and into the kitchen. There, he put her in her chair and poured her a bowl of cereal.

“It’s clown pancake day,” she informed him crisply, looking down at her wings. “Look at the calendar.”

“It’s Captain Crunch day.”

“That’s for special. Is Mommy coming home?”

“Not today.” He poured the milk into her bowl.

Betsy came running into the kitchen and stopped dead. “I can’t go to school like this,” she cried, flinging out her arms dramatically. “Look at my hair.”

She did sort of look as if she’d just undergone electric shock therapy. “Put a twisty thing in it.”

Betsy’s eyes widened at the thought, her face paled. “You’re ruining my life already.”

“Mommy’s not coming home yet,” Lulu said and burst into tears.

“Eat,” Michael snapped to Lulu; to Betsy, he said, “Sit down. Now.”

Outside, he heard the grinding of gears, the rattling of an old engine. He looked through the kitchen window and saw the yellow blur of a school bus pull up at the end of his driveway.

“I’m late,” Betsy howled. “See?”

Michael ran to the back door and flung it open, yelling, “Wait—”

But it was too late. The bus was pulling away.

He slammed the door shut. “When does school start? That wasn’t on her damn list.”

Betsy stared at him. “You don’t even know?”

“Eat. Then go brush your teeth. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

“I’m not going to first period,” Betsy said. “Ooooh no I’m not. Zoe’s in that class. And Sienna. When they see my hair—”

“You’re going to school. I have a ferry to catch.” Michael looked at the wall clock and grimaced. He was going to miss his ferry, which meant he was going to miss his first meeting of the day.

Betsy crossed her arms. “I’m on a hunger strike.”

“Fine,” he snapped. “Be hungry.” He grabbed the dishes and put them in the sink, cereal and milk and all. In the mudroom, he found Lulu’s pink rubber boots and picked them up.

In the kitchen, Betsy hadn’t moved. She sat in the chair, looking mutinous, with her chin jutted out and her eyes narrowed.

“I’m not going in late. Everyone will stare at me,” she said.

“Who do you think you are, Madonna? A bad hair day doesn’t stop school. Get your backpack.”

“No.”

He looked at her. “Get your backpack and get ready, Betsy, or I’ll walk you in to first period, holding your hand.”

She opened her mouth in horror, then clamped it shut. “Whatever. I’m going.”

He looked through the kitchen to the family room, where Lulu lay curled on the couch, with her blanket and a stuffed orca, watching the video of Jolene reading her a story. “Lulu, come let me put your boots on you. Lulu. Come here.”

“She’s wearing the headband,” Betsy said primly.

Michael marched into the family room and picked Lulu up. At the movement, the headband slid off her head.

“I’m inbisible!” she screamed.

He carried her screaming and squealing out to the car and strapped her into her car seat. Betsy, silent and glowering, climbed in beside her.

Lulu burst into tears. “I want my mommy!”

“Yeah,” Michael said, starting the car. “Don’t we all?”

The first week without Jolene almost drove Michael into the ground. He’d had no idea how much there was to do around the house and with the kids. If his mother hadn’t had such boundless energy, he would have had to hire full-time help. She’d been a lifesaver, no doubt about it. Jolene had enrolled Lulu in after-preschool day care, which lasted until four o’clock. That meant his mother could work until almost four, and then pick Lulu up from day care, and get to Michael’s house in time to meet Betsy so that she never came home to an empty house—one of Jolene’s strictest rules. By the time Michael got home at six, his mom had usually started dinner and done some laundry. She was shouldering a big part of his burden.

Even so, he wasn’t doing well. Betsy was a whirling dervish; he never seemed to be able to anticipate her reaction to the simplest of things. She could burst into tears over nothing and then be mad as a hornet five seconds later. And Lulu wasn’t much easier to handle. She had taken to wearing her ratty gray cat ears almost all the time. She swore she was going to stay “inbisible” until Jolene came home, and when Michael ignored the game and picked her up anyway, she screamed like a banshee and sobbed that she missed her mommy.

And then there was the Keller case, which was showing all the signs of becoming a disaster. Keith still hadn’t spoken to anyone, not even his court-appointed psychiatrist. Michael had waived his client’s right to a speedy trial, but at the moment competency to stand trial was a legitimate concern.

His intercom buzzed. “Michael? Mr. Keller is here to see you.”

“Send him in.” Michael closed up the file and opened a pad of paper.

Edward Keller walked into the office slowly, looking nervous. He was a big man with close-shaved black hair and a bushy black Tom Selleck mustache. He was pale and sweaty-looking in his plaid shirt and Wrangler jeans.

Michael stood up, extended his hand. “Hello, Ed. I’m Michael. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Ed shook his hand. “My wife wouldn’t come. She tried … she just can’t talk about it yet. Emily was like a daughter to us. It’s hard…”

“I understand,” Michael said, and he did. He lived in a world of crime and victims; he’d seen time and again how terrible a grief came with the realization that a loved one had committed a heinous crime. Ed and his wife were the forgotten victims in a case like this.

“He won’t talk to me,” Ed said. “He just sits there, staring at the wall.”

“To be blunt, Ed, that’s our real problem now. The only one doing the talking is the prosecuting attorney, and I don’t like what he’s saying. They’ve charged Keith with murder in the first degree, and they claim to have a witness who will testify that Keith confessed to the murder.”

Ed looked miserable. The man slumped in his chair. “He was such a good kid. Popular. Friendly. The kind of kid who asks you if you need help carryin’ in the groceries and how your day was. He dated lots of girls, cheerleader types, and had fun in high school, but when he met Emily, he knew right away she was the one.”

“When did it start going wrong?”

“What?”

“The marriage.”

“Oh. It never did.”

“Ed,” Michael said evenly. “Something went wrong.”

Ed looked down at his own hands. “We’ve asked ourselves that question a million times. Did he seem depressed? Did you ever hear them arguin’? Did he ever say he was unhappy? Our family has looked at it six ways to Sunday. They had a happy marriage; that’s what we think. She couldn’t wait for him to get home from Iraq. She wrote him every day.”

Michael looked up sharply. “Iraq? There’s no mention of him serving in Iraq in what I’ve got here. It just says he’s an honorably discharged marine.”

“He did two tours. When he came home the second time, he wasn’t the same.”