Amanda registered Jeb’s words and decided that she preferred to remember Mark this way. At least then maybe she wouldn’t awaken from nightmares for the rest of her life, seeing him come after her or Chloe. She resisted the press of Jeb’s palm and turned, still safe in his embrace, to stare at her dead husband. All she could think was that God had answered her prayer. Mark would never harm Chloe again.
* * *
Amanda had to answer only a few questions once the police descended upon the courtroom. Mark had made his last attempt on her life in front of too many witnesses, a judge included, for there to be any uncertainties about the cause of his injury. Amanda would always remember the judge’s kindly gaze settling briefly upon her face before she told the police, “Leave the poor woman alone. He tried to kill her. I saw it, and his death was an accident. When Mr. Johnson tackled him to protect his client, Mr. Banning fell onto the lethal weapon in his hand and impaled himself.”
The police officers seemed disinclined to badger a presiding judge with questions. The usual investigative procedures were disregarded. Paramedics removed Mark’s body from the scene, and all that remained of him was a dark, quickly drying pool of blood on the mottled gray tile. Spectators lingered until the judge ordered everyone but the involved parties to leave her courtroom.
Still robed, she descended from her bench to approach Amanda, who remained in the safe circle of Jeb’s arms. Jeb released her to stand alone to face the judge, but he kept a firm grip on her elbow in case her legs went out from under her.
The older woman grasped Amanda’s icy hands. “I apologize for this. The metal detector couldn’t pick up on a plastic weapon, and the officers obviously failed to check the forearms during their standard pat-down.”
Amanda struggled to register what the judge said. Her voice seemed to ping off the walls of her mind like ricocheting BBs.
The judge went on to say, “That knife probably lay flat against his arm, not creating the usual bulge, so the court deputy might have missed it if he did pat the forearms. Mr. Banning filed the handle down to make it as streamlined as possible.” She squeezed Amanda’s hands, then glanced at the crimson evidence of Mark’s sudden departure from this world. “It’s clear to me that your husband knew that he would be prosecuted and serve a sentence for the horrible things he did to you and your little girl. Today’s hearing and my judgment pushed him over the edge.”
Amanda finally collected her wits. “He saw his life crumbling.”
“I’ve had many men like Mark Banning come before my bench.” The judge stepped back. Tipping her blond head, she studied Jeb’s tanned countenance. With a smile at Amanda, she said, “I think you’ve found happiness now with someone else. You need to move forward and put the past behind you. I know it will be difficult, but try your best not to hate Mr. Banning. You’ll heal more quickly and be better off in the long run if you simply accept that he couldn’t help being what he was.”
At that moment, Amanda was too shaken to consider how she was meant to move forward. So she said, “Thank you for your kindness, Your Honor.”
The judge nodded. “Your little girl has already been removed from the building by her grandmothers. They waited until the emergency vehicles left so the child wouldn’t be traumatized. One of the court deputies says that your daughter was complaining about missing the last part of her movie and was promised by her grandmothers that she could watch the rest at home.”
Jeb sighed. “That sounds like our Chloe.”
Smiling, the judge replied, “She is a happy, normal little girl. Think carefully before telling her how her father died. Children don’t always need to hear the absolute truth. Sometimes they handle things better if they are told a different version of the truth, with some sort of happy ending. You can give her no greater gift than that.”
Amanda sagged against Jeb as the judge turned away.
* * *
Once they were home—and Amanda had come to consider Jeb’s house as her home—she felt like a bit of dandelion fluff floating along on the surface of a babbling brook, where the sound of water gurgling over stones surrounded her. Her mom and all of Jeb’s family crowded the house, creating a drone of conversation that changed pitches. She noticed that Jeb was nowhere to be seen and wandered numbly from room to room in search of him.
Jeremiah caught her hand. “Hey, sweetheart, you look worried. What’s wrong?”
Amanda struggled to speak. “I can’t find Jeb.” She felt as if she were emerging from a thick, blinding fog. “Mark—he’s really dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. At some point in your life, you must have loved him.”
Amanda tried to remember when she’d loved Mark—or at least believed she had. Now that she had found true love with Jeb, her girlhood concepts of the emotion seemed foolish, and they’d turned out to be dangerous, too. “I need Jeb. I can’t find him.”
Jeremiah gathered her close in his strong arms. “Chloe overheard someone say that her daddy died today. Jeb took her upstairs to do some damage control.”
After receiving strength and warmth from Jeremiah’s embrace, Amanda went upstairs. Damage control. On the way home, she and Jeb had decided to stick as close to the truth as possible when they told Chloe about her father’s death, saying that he’d been killed in a horrible accident. Amanda was thankful that Jeb had taken the initiative to talk with Chloe, because she couldn’t think clearly right now, and her daughter needed honest but gentle answers to her questions.
Amanda opened the door to what had once been her and Chloe’s barricaded sanctuary. Jeb lay on the bed with Chloe cuddled close against his chest, the slobbery Bozo and the tiny Frosty snuggling on the mattress beside them. Amanda took care, even in her dazed state, to enter and close the door without making a sound. She could trust Jeb to take care of her daughter.
Chloe said, “So my mean daddy fell on a knife?”
Jeb stroked her hair and drew her closer. “Yes. It was an awful accident. The ambulance came right away, but the paramedics couldn’t help. Your daddy was already gone.”
“Why did he have a knife?” Chloe asked.
Jeb smoothed her hair. “No one really knows, but lots of men carry knives.” He fished in his pocket for the utility knife that Amanda had gotten him for Christmas. “See mine? Ever since your mommy gave it to me, I’ve carried it almost constantly.”
“Did they take my mean daddy to a place where they keep dead people in a great big refrigerator?”
Even in her fog, Amanda winced. How had Chloe learned about morgues? Please, Jeb, don’t leave her with that awful picture in her mind.
Jeb gave the girl a gentle jostle. “Heck, no. The angels came and took your father straight to heaven, honey.”
“But where’s his earth body?”
Pain settled behind Amanda’s eyes. Her daughter was too smart for her own good.
Jeb said, “It doesn’t matter, Chloe. When people die and go to heaven to be with God, their bodies aren’t part of them anymore.”
“I don’t know if God will want him,” Chloe murmured.
“Of course He will. I’m not saying that your daddy was good. I know he was really, really mean to you and your mommy. But that was down here. In heaven, nobody’s mean. Everyone loves each other.”
“So he’ll never be a mean daddy again?”
“Nope,” Jeb replied.
“Not even if a puppy piddles on the floor? I had a puppy named Spots, and my mean daddy threw him against a wall and broke his neck.”
Amanda leaned more heavily against the closed door, so exhausted that she could no longer trust her legs. She clung to Jeb’s words just as much as her daughter did. As the judge had said, Mark hadn’t been able to help being what he was. Surely God, in His Goodness, would bar nobody from heaven for being sick. And Mark had been so very sick.
“In heaven, puppies piddle on
the clouds, and it doesn’t make a mess,” Jeb said. “And everyone loves them and takes good care of them. Now that your daddy is in heaven, he’ll feel sorry that he hurt your puppy down here on earth, and from now on they’ll be best pals, because your daddy won’t ever be mean again.”
“Will God be mad at me if I feel a little bit glad that my mean daddy fell on his knife?” Chloe asked.
Jeb planted a kiss on her forehead. “Not for a second. You were afraid of your father, and it’s natural for you to feel a little bit glad that you’ll never have to feel afraid again. It’s not that you’re glad your daddy died, honey. You’re just relieved because now you and your mommy can feel safe.”
“You make me feel very safe,” Chloe said. “You and Bozo.”
“That’s nice. I’m happy we make you feel protected.”
Chloe placed a tiny hand on Jeb’s cheek. “I love you, Daddy Jeb.”
“I love you, too, princess. You’ll never know how much until you hold your own little girl in your arms.”
Chloe grinned. “Will you love me even if I turn all your chickens loose again?”
Jeb chuckled. “I will, but can you wait until the ice melts? I fall a lot farther than you do, and hitting the ice hurt my bum.”
She giggled. “It was so funny when you slid into the pigpen!”
Jeb grinned. “That’s it. You get the ultimate punishment!” He wiggled his fingertips over Chloe’s ribs, and she shrieked with laughter. “Tickle, tickle,” Jeb said.
Chloe began tickling him back, and Jeb pretended to go weak. When the game ended, Chloe snuggled against him and closed her eyes. Amanda saw the beautiful gift of acceptance and closure in the expression on her daughter’s face and slipped silently from the room. She moved toward the suite at the end of the hallway that she and Jeb shared, lay down on the bed, and held close what she’d heard Jeb tell her daughter.
It was over, finally over, and Amanda was able to bid Mark good-bye without any hatred. Perhaps he’d been born with something vital missing inside him. But it comforted Amanda to think that now, secure in heaven, Mark would be whole and filled only with love. It would be a good way for her to think of him from now on.
She closed her eyes, wishing that she could feel at least a trace of sadness. The father of her child was dead.
A moment later, the mattress sank under Jeb’s weight, and she turned to seek the haven of his arms.
“You must feel as if you’ve been hit by a train,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry, Mandy. It was a horrible way for his life to end.”
“I can’t feel sad,” she whispered. “What kind of person can’t feel sad when the father of her child dies?”
He tightened his arms around her. “Right now, you’re in shock. He tried his damnedest to kill you. Even worse, he must have spent hours filing down that knife, which means it was premeditated. Go easy on yourself, okay? In time, sadness will come, if for no other reason than because Mark’s life was such a waste.”
“Thank you for talking with Chloe. I overheard a lot of it, and you did a fabulous job, ending the conversation with laughter.”
He toyed with a tendril of hair at her temple. “I didn’t want it to be a talk that ended sadly, or for her to feel any trace of guilt. It’s time for both of you to move on. She fell asleep, and I think she’ll have sweet dreams.”
Amanda locked her arms around his neck. “Make the numbness go away, Jeb. I don’t want to sleep. I need you to make love to me. I need to feel alive.”
“Now that’s a request I can deliver on.” He left her briefly to lock their bedroom door, and as he walked back toward her, he stripped off his shirt. In the fading sunlight that came through the window, every burnished line of his upper body glimmered like a carving of oiled teak. When he slipped under the covers, he asked, “Have I told you today how much I love you?”
Amanda shifted to trail kisses across his chest. “I’d rather you show me.”
Epilogue
Eight months later . . .
Large with child, Amanda sat on a plastic lawn chair and sipped lemonade while watching Jeb put the finishing touches on two cradles, one smaller for Chloe’s doll, the other larger for their baby boy, due to make his debut in a month. Chloe played nearby. A warm, mid-September breeze wafted through the cavernous shop, dissipating the fumes of the stain Jeb was applying to the well-sanded wood. Amanda wished she could help, but standing for any period of time made her back hurt, and Jeb had grown paranoid about protecting her and their unborn son. She wasn’t allowed to reach up high to get anything off a shelf, because he’d been told that if a woman stretched, the umbilical cord could coil around the fetus’s neck. Old wives’ tale. She hadn’t been allowed to help hang wallpaper in the nursery, either, because the fumes from the paste might be bad for her. Now, if she even wandered close to admire the cradles, Jeb shooed her away.
She’d tossed a crumpled pink message at his feet that read, I don’t think a faint whiff of stain will hurt me or the baby. With his stout woodworking pencil, he’d written back and dropped his answer on her lap because bending over was difficult for her now. Humor me. I love both of you too much to take any chances.
Their occasional use of pink slips of paper to communicate had become a tradition that Amanda hoped would last a lifetime. She anticipated their children finding romantic messages all over the house, and being appalled once they became teenagers. When Jeb had to work in the field and leave her for the day, she found notes from him tucked in places where she’d be sure to find them. By the coffee machine, where she now made herbal tea, she’d find, Do you know how beautiful you are? Or stuffed among her cosmetics, which she could now afford, I didn’t want to wake you. You and the baby need your rest. Just want you to know how very much I love you.
They’d also started to settle squabbles with what Jeb called pink slips. I’m sorry I was a witch, she’d write. And on the same paper, he’d reply, It’s only hormone fluctuations, honey. Or he’d jot, I’m sorry I was cranky last night. To Amanda, Jeb’s definition of cranky didn’t even rank on her charts. When he came home after a long workday, he liked to have a half hour of quiet time to read the daily news online, and Chloe, who adored him, often infringed upon his privacy and demanded attention. Sometimes he would be firm about her waiting until his thirty minutes was up; then later he’d feel guilty about it. Cranky? In Amanda’s opinion, he was only setting boundaries that Chloe needed to respect.
She sighed now, holding a palm over her belly to feel their son move inside her. A tiny miracle. Jeb shared that sentiment, pressing his ear to her abdomen to hear his son’s heartbeat and getting tears in his eyes when he felt the baby move. Life was good. In fact, life with Jeb, in and of itself, was also a miracle. She laughed often, and she felt cherished when he held her in his arms as they drifted off to sleep at night. How much better could it get?
Amanda was distracted from her musings by Chloe, who sat cross-legged on the floor, flanked by Bozo and Frosty, to play with Barbie and Ken. The dolls had been gifts from Chloe’s aunts, Adriel and Sarah, for Chloe’s big birthday party in May.
With a sharpened ear, Amanda listened to the pretend dialogue taking place between Ken and Barbie, all the words intoned by Chloe’s high-pitched voice. “I, Jebediah Paul Sterling, take thee, Amanda Marie Lang, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and better, for richer and richer, in good health and better health, to love and to cherish until we both go to heaven.” When the doll ceremony ended, Chloe threw pink slips of paper at Barbie and Ken before putting them in their car to go away on their honeymoon.
Amanda glanced at Jeb to see him grinning from ear to ear. This was one of his favorite doll enactments, re-creating their marriage on the Mystic Creek natural bridge. Jeb loved listening to Chloe’s projection of their future, that they’d be either rich or even richer, never sick, and would love each other for
ever. The word poor had no place in the girl’s predictions.
Listening to the child took Amanda back to that balmy day in early July when she and Jeb had exchanged their spiritual vows. Jeb had insisted that their marriage take place on the natural bridge, mostly to reassure Chloe that her mom and new daddy had found true and everlasting love. Nevertheless it had been beautiful, with Chloe giving away the bride. Already heavy with child and wearing a wedding dress that mostly hid her condition, Amanda had climbed to the apex of the rock archway from one side of the creek while Jeb approached from the other. They’d met in the middle to stand before Patrick Sully, the preacher from Praying Hands Community Church. After the nuptials, the reception had been held at Peck’s Red Rooster Restaurant, with guests overflowing onto the deck above the creek. When Amanda and Jeb escaped to his truck to leave for their honeymoon, the crowd of well-wishers threw pink slips of paper at them instead of confetti or rice. Kate and her daughters had spent hours online, finding short quotations about true love and pasting them into a document, which they later printed out on pink paper and cut into individual strips. People who’d volunteered to clean up after the party had found the inspirational messages. Love is a bridge over troubled water. True love waits. Love conquers all.
Suddenly tiring of her pretend world, Chloe frowned and scratched Bozo behind the ears. Then she angled her gaze at Amanda. “Mommy, I’ve changed my mind about wanting a baby brother. My friend Molly has one, and he’s a total brat who won’t leave us alone to play with our dolls.” Chloe made a face. “During our last playdate at her house, he pulled off her Barbie’s arm and hid it. Then their dog found it and ate it.”
Jeb flashed Amanda a look of alarm, a question in his eyes that couldn’t have been clearer if he’d said it aloud. What the hell do we say?
Amanda giggled. Placing a cupped palm over her swollen middle, she told her daughter, “You’ll just have to put your dolls away where they’re safe from your brother, Chloe. It’s a little too late to cancel our order for a baby. This little guy will arrive next month whether you still want him or not.”