We had lived here for a little more than six years. Other than Blake, all of our kids were born into this home. We had gotten to know our neighbors as they each built around us and we had gotten our dream home, our forever home, when we were only twenty-six. We felt unbelievably blessed here when Grady was still healthy.
Now I felt drowned in memories of him. His ghost haunted me from every room, and lingered over each piece of furniture and hand-touched detail. This place by the island was where he would kiss me each morning and take his travel cup of coffee from me on his way to work. The long, weathered sectional couch in the living room was where we would cuddle up each night and fight over my reality shows vs.Sports Center. Our backyard was devastated by memories of him grilling, teaching the kids to play catch and enjoying nice evening nights as a family around the fire pit.
A consuming ache gripped at the center of my being and fractured my soul right down the middle. I felt the cracking intensely as it fissured out to each and every part of me, shattering my already broken spirit to pieces. Again.
“What am I going to do?” I whispered, ignoring the concerned look from Lucy. “How am I going to survive this,Em?”
Emma was bawling too by now. My hair was damp and matted from where her messy tears had fallen. But at my questions she straightened and cleared her throat. Using her mature voice again, she said, “First, you’re going to go take your run. I have to be back at the coffee shop by twelve to meet my study group so I don’t have a lot of time. And then… we will figure this out together, Lizbeth. You are not doing this alone.”
“Okay,” I agreed with a pathetic nod. I could do that. I could run. It would help me feel better anyway. I could use the time alone and the time to focus on at least one coherent thought.
“Mommy are you sad about daddy again?” Lucy asked, naïve, as any four-year-old would be.
I nodded, unable and unwilling to show her exactly how deep the sorrow was rooted.
“It’s okay to be sad, Mommy,” Lucy promised on a know-it-all whisper. “But don’t be sad all day. He only went on vacation. He wouldn’t leave us forever. He loves us too much.”
The tears immediately started again and in that moment I instinctively knew this day was only going to get worse.
Emma took that moment to ask, “Where’sJace?”
I listened for a second and heard only silence.
So, I immediately panicked.
Unlike Abby, there was no wayJacehad left this house without sounding alarm bells or leaving clues to what he was trying to do.Jace, in all his two-year-old glory, still hadn’t mastered the fine art of turning a doorknob. But he was dangerously quiet and that never signaled good things.
Emma and I raced through the kitchen and up the stairs. “He was playing in his room,” I panted as we careened down the hallway in search of him.
His room was empty, and so was his brother’s. There was a chance he was in Lucy’s room, so we headed that way next.
Then we heard the toilet flush. We changed paths and backtracked towards the kids’ bathroom, dread sending icicles of anxiety into every part of me.
There he was standing over the toilet looking down at a bowl filled to the brim with entire rolls of toilet paper. A mischievous smile played on his lips and he looked up at us with a giggle. His finger played with the flusher, as if he was getting ready to flush it again. Panic hazed my vision.
“Jace, don’t even think about it,” I threatened in a low voice.
Emma and I paused in the doorway, hands raised like he was a wild animal we were careful not to spook. He let out another devilish giggle and enthusiastically flushed the toilet.
Emma and I leapt toward him, watching in horror as the bowl filled with water and all the sacrificed rolls sloshed around in their sogginess. I shuddered at the mess and started to cry again when the water reached the brim of the white, porcelain bowl and spilled over onto the tiled floor.
My sister grabbedJaceso he wouldn’t get soaked and we all hopped back out of the way.Jacejust kept giggling and the water just kept gushing onto the floor.
My head fell into my hands and I moaned, “This is just not my day.”
I thought Emma would agree with me, instead she said, “Go, Lizzy. Go run. I’ll clean this up.”
“Emma, I cannot leave you with this mess. Are you kidding?”
“You need the run,” she shrugged, but her face was contorted in disgust at the mess the bathroom had become in just a few short seconds. “I’ll have this cleaned up by the time you get back.”
“I love you,” I whispered, still not able to get ahold of my emotions, but anxious for the opportunity to bale on this latest catastrophe. If I didn’t have to clean up just one of the many tragedies in my upside down life, it might be the difference between my sanity and a mental breakdown.
“Go!” she ordered. “Before I change my mind.”
And I obeyed. While she calmly chastisedJaceon his destruction techniques, I slipped on my tennis shoes and bolted out the front door. I ran away from the mess in the bathroom, away from children I couldn’t control on my own and away from a house so saturated with memories of the man I loved, I couldn’t breathe with him so close.
Chapter Three
