Treading Water Read online

  “Take care, Fran.” He opened the car door and held it for her as she got in.

  She waved to him as she drove past him. Glancing in the mirror, she saw that he was still watching her. Now what did that mean?

  Frannie moved in lock, stock, and easel to care for the girls while Jack made phone calls, searched the Internet, and consulted with doctors around the country. They all said the same thing—the longer the coma lasted, the less likely it became that Clare would recover.

  Since he refused to put Clare in a nursing home, Jack brought her home to the large contemporary house he’d designed and built as a surprise for her five years earlier. He had the first-floor dining room converted to accommodate a hospital bed and the equipment needed by the team of round-the-clock nurses. Most nights he slept on a sofa he’d dragged into the room so she’d never be alone.

  A week after Clare came home from the hospital, Jack received a call from Sergeant Curtis, the Newport police officer who’d investigated the accident. The driver had suffered a fatal heart attack, which explained why the car had been so out of control in the mall parking lot. Jack had thought the case was closed as far as the police were concerned.

  “I was wondering if I could come by for a few minutes,” Curtis said.

  “Is there something new with the case?”

  “I have something you need to see.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jack opened the door to the tall, blond cop, and they shook hands.

  “What’ve you got there?” He nodded at the disk in Curtis’s hand.

  “I was finally able to get a copy of the security video from the mall parking lot. I think you need to see it, but I have to warn you, it’s tough to watch.”

  Jack swallowed hard and gestured for Curtis to follow him into the family room. He fed the disk into the DVD player, turned on the television, and watched in stunned silence as his daughters jumped out of the way of the speeding car and then turned to scream at their mother to do the same. They’d had time to turn and scream. Clare had time to move, but she didn’t. She stood there and let the car hit her as her horrified daughters looked on.

  “I just don’t understand,” Jack whispered as he watched it a second time. “Why in the world would she do that?”

  “Can you, um, think of any reason why she’d want to end her life?”

  “Of course not,” he said, but after his conversation with Jill he wasn’t so sure anymore. “She’d never do that, especially in front of her children. They were her whole world.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to imply—”

  “That my wife was suicidal?”

  “It’s just, well… Why didn’t she move?”

  Crushed by yet another wave of helpless despair, Jack shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 2

  The video of Clare’s accident haunted Jack for months. He’d wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and breathing hard because he had once again relived the horror of it in a dream. It was the same thing every time—he saw the car coming toward her but couldn’t get to her in time to push her out of the way. He was equally plagued by the questions of why she hadn’t moved and what she’d been thinking in that final life-changing instant before the car hit her.

  After more than a year of waiting and hoping for some change in Clare’s condition, Frannie clued him in that the girls never brought their friends home anymore because their house had become a hospital staffed by round-the-clock nurses. In light of this revelation, he’d made the unbearable decision to move Clare into a nearby place of her own, her care overseen by the same team of nurses.

  Jack had taken the day after the move to wallow in his grief, but now he had no choice but to pull himself together. Jamie had been running the architectural firm they owned for more than a year on his own, the girls needed their father, and he had to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. While he’d much prefer to ignore all these pressing issues, he couldn’t do that any longer.

  Standing in front of the mirror, he dragged a razor over his face for the first time in several days. He went through the rote motions the way he did everything lately—out of necessity. His face seemed a little thinner than it had been the last time he’d looked closely. On the inside, he was totally numb. Would it always be this way? From now on, would he go through life without feeling anything? Without experiencing joy? Was that his fate?

  As he started the water in the shower, his thoughts turned once again to Clare. Since memories were all he had left of her, he allowed himself to revisit them often. He vividly remembered the first time he ever saw her. She’d been tending bar at the National Hotel on Block Island. In constant motion, she’d been a whirling dervish of activity and banter and wit as she made drinks, washed glasses, talked to customers, rang up sales, and carried on a good-natured sparring match with the other two bartenders.

  She’d looked then much as she did twenty years later: petite with unruly blonde hair and the most amazing blue eyes he’d ever seen.

  From across the bar, she’d glared at him. “You got a problem, buddy?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I’ve just never seen anyone get so much done in as little time as you do.”

  Collecting abandoned glasses, she worked her way to his end of the bar. “I don’t let any grass grow. That’s why they ask me back every year.”

  “You’ve worked here before? I don’t remember you.”

  “This is my fifth summer. I bussed tables until I was old enough to bartend. Ready for a refill?”

  He pushed his mug forward. “Heineken, please. Funny, I’m sure I’d remember you.”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.” She winked and moved on to other customers.

  Jack continued to watch her—without staring—while he ate dinner and drank another beer. The bar got busier, and though he’d planned to hit some of the island’s other hot spots, he was still there at last call.

  “One more for the road?” she asked as she cleaned up discarded glasses and dishes.

  Since he wasn’t driving, he said, “Sure, thanks.”

  When she brought him the beer, he asked what she did the rest of the year.

  “I teach third grade in Mystic.”

  “I had you pegged as a college kid.”

  She laughed. “Everyone always thinks I’m too young to be the teacher, but I’m going into my third year. What about you?” While they talked, she cleared off the bar, washed dishes, and ran credit cards.

  “I’m an architect. Just finished graduate school last week. I’m taking a break before I go back to work.”

  “I love architecture. I’ve always been interested in how buildings are designed and put together. It sounds like it would be a lot of fun.”

  “It is.” He sipped the beer, trying to make it last so she would keep talking to him. “I’ve had the opportunity to work on some great projects, and I’ve got a couple of others waiting for me when I get back.”

  She crooked a skeptical eyebrow. “If you just graduated, how is it you’ve already worked on such great stuff? Doesn’t that usually come after school?”

  “I worked for a Boston firm while I was in grad school.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Berkeley and Harvard.”

  She let out a low whistle. “Oh, well, don’t mind me, Harvard boy. La-di-da.”

  “It’s just a school.”

  “Yeah, right. Just a school we mere mortals couldn’t begin to aspire to. So what’ve you worked on? Anything I might’ve heard about?” Her pace slowed as the crowd filtered out to find after-hours fun elsewhere.

  “The new symphony hall in Boston, for one.”

  “Didn’t Neil Booth design that?”

  Impressed, he looked at her with new appreciation. “You do pay attention. I work for Neil. My friend Jamie is his son.” He wasn’t sure why he told her that. He usually didn’t mention it since Jamie was sensitive about the advantages that came
from being Neil’s son in their profession.

  “Well, well. This just gets more and more interesting, doesn’t it?”

  “Neil is a terrific guy. Very normal despite the fame.”

  “I took an architecture class in college. I read a lot about his work.” She scooped up Jack’s empty glass.

  As he got up to leave, he tried to recall the last time he’d enjoyed a conversation with a woman this much. Most of the women he met were either not interested in his work or totally self-absorbed. The tiny dynamo with the blonde hair and startling blue eyes was different.

  “Could I walk you home, or do you have other plans?”

  She studied him for a long time before she answered. “I don’t have any plans, but how do I know you aren’t a freak? We get a lot of freaks around here in the summer,” she said with a teasing grin. “Besides, I don’t even know your name.”

  “It’s Jack Harrington.”

  She made him suffer through a seemingly endless minute before she said, “I’ll go with you, Jack Harrington, but I still have another half hour or so here.”

  “I’ll wait.” His heart skipped a beat, and somehow he knew everything was about to change.

  The sting of shampoo in his eyes interrupted Jack’s remembrances. Rinsing off the soap, he realized he’d been in there a long time and shut off the shower.

  He got dressed and straightened the messy room. Stripping the sheets from the bed, he tossed them into the washer along with the clothes that had piled up the last few days. After he remade the bed, he wandered outside to the deck. With only the relentless pounding of the ocean below for company, Jack sat there until the sun began to dip toward the horizon, thinking about his daughters, the huge job his company had been awarded to build the Infinity Group’s Newport hotel, and the staggering list of things he needed to do to get his life in order. First on the list was reconnecting with his kids.

  He eventually wandered downstairs, where Frannie and the girls were about to sit down for dinner.

  Frannie offered him a warm smile. “It’s good to see you.”

  “I’m sorry I punched out yesterday. I just needed a little time.”

  “I understand. We’re glad to see you, aren’t we, girls?”

  Their replies were mostly mumbles: uh-huh, sure, I guess.

  “Are you hungry?” Frannie asked.

  “I could eat.”

  “Great. Maggie, set another place, please.”

  Jack felt like a visitor in the home he’d built largely with his own hands. Since the girls seemed to have nothing to say to him, he took the opportunity to study them, to really look at them for the first time in longer than he could remember.

  Each of them had healthy tans from long days at the beach. While he hadn’t been paying attention, Jill and Kate had become young women, and Maggie had lost the baby fat in her cheeks.

  Jill was sixteen and the image of him—tall and dark-haired with gray-blue eyes. Kate, at fifteen, had Clare’s blonde hair and her shocking blue eyes, but was tall like him. Ten-year-old Maggie was a combination of the two of them: Jack’s dark hair and Clare’s eyes. He and Clare had always joked that they each had a “mini-me” and then, as a surprise, along came a “mini-we.”

  He hadn’t thought about that in a long time, and the memory made him yearn for her.

  His attempts to make conversation with the girls were greeted with one-word answers. Only Frannie seemed glad to have him there. Clearly, he had his work cut out for him.

  “I’d like to go out to the island this weekend,” he said as they were finishing up.

  “Have fun,” Jill said.

  “I want you girls to come with me.”

  They all spoke at once.

  “I have plans.”

  “Meghan’s sleepover is this weekend.”

  “I’m babysitting.”

  “I want you to come with me.” Making eye contact with each of them, he added, “It’s important.” He had no idea what he’d do if they refused.

  His mother owned Haven Hill, a house on the island, and some of their happiest times together as a family had been spent there. Jack was counting on the house to work its magic and help him reconnect with his daughters.

  “I think that’s a great idea, Jack,” Frannie said with a meaningful look at each girl. “Some time away together will be great for all of you.”

  They never came right out and said they’d go, but they stopped protesting when Frannie weighed in.

  Jack sent her a grateful smile.

  After dinner, the girls scattered. Jack helped Frannie clean up the kitchen and then set out for a walk on the beach. Usually, he ran at this time of day, but today he didn’t feel like it. Taking in the soft late spring air and relieved to be out of the house, he walked for miles and visited with Clare for a short time. He returned home well after dark and took a moment to stare into the dining room, which once again boasted a table and chairs where a hospital bed had been for more than a year. Even though he knew he’d done the right thing for his kids, it would take some time to get used to not having Clare close by.

  He trudged upstairs, halting when he heard sniffling in Maggie’s room.

  He peeked in to find her tucked into bed with her favorite sleeping buddy, Froggie. She looked so cute in her yellow pajamas with her cheeks pink from the day at the beach and her dark hair shining.

  “Maggie? Are you are all right?” When she scrambled to wipe her face on the sheet, his heart began to ache.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Stepping into the room, he moved hesitantly toward the bed, not sure if he’d be welcome. “Can I get you anything? Some water, maybe?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Okay.” As he turned to leave, something stopped him. He wasn’t sure if it was Clare looking down on him from wherever she was just then or what, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave his child crying in her bed. Summoning courage, he sat on the edge of the bed. “You want to talk about it?”

  She bit her lip, and his heart broke all over again when her eyes filled with new tears. “Is Mommy ever coming back?” The small voice was so unlike her. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one adjusting to yet another change in their lives.

  “Oh, honey, I don’t think so.”

  She sat up and reached for him. “Why did Mommy let that car hit her?” she asked with a sob as she clung to him.

  How long had she waited to ask him these questions? “Baby, she didn’t do it on purpose. She froze because she was scared. The accident hurt something in her brain, so she can’t be with us. But inside, where her heart is, she still loves you and Kate and Jill and me very, very much. You have to believe that.” He settled her back onto the pillow and tucked her in again.

  “I do,” she said, wiping her face.

  “Good, because as long as you believe it, then you’ll feel Mommy’s love, no matter where she is.” He wished he could believe it.

  “Will you be here when I wake up?”

  The question tugged at his already raw emotions. “You bet. I’ll even make my famous chocolate chip pancakes.” It was the only thing they allowed him to cook.

  “Awesome!” she said, sounding more like herself again.

  “See you in the morning.”

  He walked out to find Frannie waiting for him in the hallway. She had gathered her long auburn hair into a ponytail and was dressed for bed in a T-shirt and sweats.

  Spent, he rubbed the back of his neck. “How much did you hear?”

  “Enough. You said all the right things.”

  “I’m so tired,” he said, anxious to get upstairs where he could be alone.

  “Go to bed. I’ll wait up for Jill.”

  “Where is she?”

  “On a date.”

  “With who?”

  “A boy in her class named Kyle. I’ve met him. Seems nice.”

  Jack realized that he should’ve met the boy his daughter was out with. Next time, he’d make sure he did. “Well,
if you don’t mind waiting up…”

  “I’ve got a movie to watch. Go to bed.”

  “Thanks, Frannie. For everything.”

  “My pleasure.” She kissed his cheek and headed downstairs.

  Jack went up the spiral stairs to his room and wandered again to the deck overlooking the pool and ocean farther below. He waited to crawl into bed until he was certain he was tired enough to drift off to sleep without being tortured by unpleasant thoughts. Just as sleep overtook him, the phone rang, jarring him awake.

  He waited, hoping Frannie would answer it. On the third ring, he grabbed it.

  “Dad?” Jill sounded a bit frantic. “Can you get Frannie?”

  “She must’ve fallen asleep downstairs. She didn’t pick up.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  Something about Jill’s tone and the slight slur to her speech caught his attention. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need a ride home.”

  “What happened to your date?”

  “Can you just get Frannie? Please?”

  “I’ll come get you. Where are you?”

  “That’s all right. I’ll find a ride.”

  “Jill. Tell me where you are. Right now.”

  Reluctantly, or so it seemed to him, she gave him the address.

  “I’ll be right there. Don’t move.”

  He threw on clothes, grabbed his keys and cell phone, and went downstairs, where Frannie was curled up on the sofa sound asleep. Not at all sure of what he would find when he got there, he drove into downtown Newport. At the address Jill had given him, several police officers were attempting to break up a raging party. His heart in his throat, he called Jill’s cell. “Hurry up and get out here. The place is crawling with cops.”

  Jack watched the police drag one teenager away in handcuffs while another puked in the empty lot across the street before Jill materialized out of the darkness.

  She slid into the car and slammed the door.

  “What’re you doing here? Have you been drinking?”

  “Spare me the fatherly concern, will you?”

  “Fine, then let me get one of the cops to take you for a sleepover at the city jail.” He reached for the door handle.