She stepped back to admire the rose with a critical eye. “Dr. Mariana Silva.”
Amelia stepped forward again, grabbing another brush, looking for a good spot on the canvas. “Ah. There.”
She painted a door, a padlock, a tree, and the still face of a woman with the bluest eyes.
CHAPTER 47
Foster had requested a couple of hours of personal time. There were things she needed to do, things she’d neglected, things she had to be there for. She slid her car to the curb in front of Glynnis’s house and sat for a while watching kids play on the front lawn, birthday streamers festooned along the front door of the neat Georgian home. Balloons. It was Glynnis’s son’s birthday. Todd was ten today.
She didn’t see him roughhousing on the lawn with the other boys but didn’t have to wonder why. Glynnis’s death had hit them hard. She doubted Todd would be in much of a party mood. Leaning over to the back seat, she grabbed the brightly wrapped gift from the seat and got out. She’d bought him a model airplane, hopefully one he didn’t already have. She would have promised Glynnis that she would stay close to her family, be there for them, if she’d had the chance.
After weaving through the kids, she rang the doorbell and waited, the box in her hands, feeling a little self-conscious about being here, feeling like an outsider in a place that, until two months ago, had felt like a second home. There’d been backyard barbecues and dinners, cocktail hours where she’d find that Glynnis had invited an unattached man she thought Foster would hit it off with. Glynnis’s husband, Mike, had been a pallbearer at Reg’s funeral. He’d helped keep her upright at the grave site, she remembered, as the world had spun around and all she could see through tear-filled eyes was a silver casket with a Superman decal plastered on it, the casket holding all that she was or ever would be.
Mike smiled, happy to see her. “Hey there, stranger.” He opened the door to let her in, then gave her a hug that threatened to crush the box. “Glad you could make it.”
“Like I’d miss Toddie’s birthday.”
“Thanks. Here. Let me take that.” He reached over and took the box, setting it on a side table of gifts piled high. “He’s in the back, I think. They’re tossing the football around. C’mon.”
She followed him back, past a few adults—parents of the kids outside, she figured—offering nods and smiles as she passed through the front room and the hall, past Glynnis’s perfect sunny kitchen, to the open back door. Through the screen she could see Todd sitting on a swing, languidly moving back and forth, watching three boys about his age scramble over a dusty football on the patchy grass, their party clothes in disarray, grass stains at the knees. He looked so small and so much like Glynnis—a mess of brown curly hair, thin, eyes the color of a cherished teddy bear.
“Oh crap,” Mike said, taking in the scene. “He was playing with them a second ago. One minute it looks like he’s okay, the next . . .”
“He and Jamie aren’t doing well?”
Mike turned to her, true heartbreak on his face. “They’re not doing great. It’s just . . . how do you get past it? I have no idea what to say to help them process what happened.”
“Having your mom here’s got to help.”
“I couldn’t do this without her, that’s for sure. But it doesn’t take the place of their mother, does it? I’ve put us all in therapy. I need my boys to come out of this whole. I want that for myself too.”
She gave his arm a comforting squeeze but said nothing. He was right. Nothing could ever take the place of their mother, and therapy was good. Glynnis would approve. She stepped out onto the patio. “Let me wish him a happy birthday. I can’t stay long. I’ve got to get back. I’ll come find you on my way out. Say goodbye.”
“Wait, you haven’t said how you’re doing. You two were besties. Hell, I think she liked you more than she liked me half the time. Now you’ve got this monster case. Three women? How’re you holding up?”
Foster thought for a moment. There was so much she could say, so much she didn’t want to. She settled on the latter, giving the standard response. “I’m good. We’ll find him.” She could see the worry settle on Mike’s face, but she looked past it.
“I have no doubt,” he said. “Hey, when you come back through, I’ll introduce you to those half-soused parents up front.” He leaned in. “In fact, there’s a single dad in there who . . .”
She chuckled, then punched him lightly on the arm. “Get away from me.”
He gave her a playful wink. “Glynnie would have.”
“I know.”
As she stepped off the patio onto the grass, she could hear him still laughing as she approached the swing.
“Hey, Toddie.”
The boy looked up, his long face brightening. “Aunt Harri. You came.”
She sat down on the other swing. “Sure I did. You’re one of my favorite people. And ten’s a big birthday. Double digits.” She looked over at the boys running in the yard. “Why aren’t you over there?”
“I was. It was stupid, so I stopped.”
The two swung at the same lazy pace for a while, watching the boys play and squeal and gleefully run amok. She wouldn’t push him.
“I don’t see Jamie. Where is he?”
“In his room. He’s always in his room now. Because he’s thirteen . . . and weird.”
She took comfort in the fact that the family was getting help. Mike was doing the right thing. “I’ll stop and say hello before I leave. So how have you been doing? How’s school?”
He stopped swinging, twisted around to face her, the chains crisscrossing. “I don’t want to talk about school.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know why she did it?”
Foster felt the air leave her lungs, rapidly, all in a rush. The earnest ten-year-old’s eyes stared at her without blinking, nailing her to the spot. He didn’t have to say who “she” was or what “it” was. “She” and “it” would be all they’d ever have to say to have everyone affected understand. But what did you say to a kid about the loss of a mother who’d taken her own life and left him behind?
Maybe this wasn’t her place. In fact, she was sure it wasn’t. She glanced over at the back door, hoping Mike was close by and she could signal him over, but he wasn’t there. “The question” was hers to grapple with here on the swings with Glynnis’s boy.
“Sometimes you don’t know why,” she said. “Sometimes you find out too late that people are suffering in some way.” Her eyes held his, those light-brown eyes filled with hurt and uncertainty. “Sometimes they can’t talk about it, so there’s nothing you can do to help them.”
“So I’ll never know why?”
“You might not. That’s the hard part.”
“You didn’t know?”
She tried taking a breath, but there was nothing there. She shook her head.
Todd twisted back. “Maybe it was me and Jamie? We fight a lot over stupid stuff. Like when he swiped my mitt and then hid it in the basement behind the washer. Maybe if we didn’t do stuff like that, she—”