“Does the family know?” Boone asked.
“No.” Sarah rose to turn on the gas beneath the kettle. “Meg only just left now with JJ, and it’s still the middle of the night here.” She leaned against the stove, squeezing her eyes shut. “How do I go home tomorrow, Boone? How do I just leave Meg here, like this?”
“You don’t, babe. You stay. Meg’s going to need you now.”
* * *
Meg and JJ returned to the house just as dawn was breaking. Sarah had made coffee and she poured Meg a cup when she entered the house. Meg didn’t drink it, though. She wandered around the kitchen, touching things, adjusting things, moving continuously while JJ went up to his room.
Sarah stood next to the coffee machine, watching Meg pace, understanding her need to move. Sarah didn’t want to walk. She wanted to run. She wanted to run as far away from Meg’s house as she could, dreading the moment the girls woke up and needed to be told what had happened.
She dreaded telling her own children what happened, but they were younger, and Ella wouldn’t really grasp the significance. Sarah was glad. Glad that Ella and Brennan would be shocked and sad, but grateful that Jack’s death wouldn’t impact their lives. They only saw their Uncle Jack now and then.
But Meg’s kids . . .
Sarah shuddered inwardly, anticipating their grief.
“It was him,” Meg said abruptly, sagging against the kitchen island, her hands on the marble counter. “I didn’t look at his face, though. They warned me. I’m glad they did. I didn’t want—” She broke off, swallowed. “But I saw his hand. It was his hand. He was wearing his wedding ring.” She drew a deep breath, struggled to smile. “He always had beautiful hands. An architect’s hands. He was such a brilliant architect, too.”
“Have you told his parents yet?”
“Haven’t called anyone. I was waiting to tell the girls, but maybe I should phone his parents now. It’s eight thirty on the East Coast. They’ll both be up.” Meg closed her eyes, shook her head. “He’s their only child. They’re going to be devastated.” She opened her eyes, looked at Sarah, the brown irises shimmering with tears. “If God wanted to punish me, He should punish me, but oh God, this hurts the children.”
Meg wouldn’t let Sarah comfort her, going instead into the family room to phone Jack’s parents, who’d divorced when he was a boy. The calls were short as there wasn’t much Meg could say after breaking the news. Both Jack’s mother and father wanted to know about services, and Sarah heard Meg say that Jack had wanted to be cremated, and she thought that probably on Friday or Saturday they’d have some kind of memorial service for him, but that was all up in the air.
Meg returned to the kitchen, wiping away tears. “That was awful,” she said, reaching for the coffee Sarah had poured twenty minutes ago. “Beyond awful.”
Sarah clutched her cup, needing its warmth. “Because it is awful. Meg, I can’t believe any of this is happening.”
“I can’t either. I keep thinking it’s all a dream, and any second now I’m going to wake up, and Jack will be here, and everything will be good—” She bit down into her quivering lower lip. “But it’s not, is it?”
“No.”
Tears filled Meg’s eyes. “I just don’t understand how it all fell apart. I did love Jack. Very, very much. I loved his mind and his wit and the way he saw the world . . . as something beautiful and creative. I loved his creativity, and his passion, and his ability to get lost in his work. And then somewhere along the way, I got frustrated that he lived in his head, and that his family . . . his children . . . were less interesting to him than his ideas and designs. I couldn’t understand how he could let his kids grow up without wanting to be more involved.”
Meg paused for breath, and Sarah said nothing. There was nothing she could say.
“And now he’s really gone and he will never know them, and they will never know him, and I just hope to God they remember him the way he was—brilliant, creative, loving.” She drank her coffee quickly, sloshing a little onto her shirt. She glanced down at the stain, blinking back tears. “It’s going to be horrible, telling the girls.”
“I know,” Sarah murmured.
“Need to call Dad. He’s going to be upset. He’ll be so worried about all of us, but this is the last thing he needs right now.”
“Dad will be fine. And in a weird way, it’ll be good for him. It’ll give him a sense of purpose. Helping you. Being here for the kids. I guarantee he’ll make every one of JJ’s games. In fact, he’ll be the one behind the dugout, shouting the loudest.”