The following Thursday dawned golden and unseasonably warm, even by coastal standards. January 31, 1974 was so perfect, like Spring, my favorite season. Years later, I look back and still feel the peaceful ambience of it. I’ve been told that the eye of a hurricane is that quiet and tranquil.

That morning was – Inow know – the pinnacle of my life.

I worked on a college English theme while Kirk, in gray coveralls, worked on our balky VW. That afternoon, he stopped long enough to collect the kids from school as I continued typing.

Krissie and Heather breezed in the door and I stretched my stiff back.

“Where’s Daddy?” I asked over my shoulder. “And Toby?”

I heard Heather’s bedroom door close behind her. Into her lair, my lovely one goes... When she’ll come out, nobody knows.

It’s not personal, I reminded myself.

“Ahh, he’s on the carport, working on the car. And Toby’s with him,” Krissie informed me as she put two eggs on to boil and poured a tall glass of iced tea, a ritual now for her as she fought to put on weight. Also ritual was record music blaring from her room, Harvest Kings’ tinkling rendition of “Dancing in the Moonlight.”

“Could you turn it down a tad, Krissie?” I called, frowning at the text staring back at me, challenging my concentration. I simply had to finish the darned paper today.

Immediately, the noise softened and I relaxed as she returned to the kitchen to fix a fat deviled egg sandwich to munch, then thoughtfully move to the den to eat, giving me solitude for my task. She only broke silence once, to tell me, “Grandma called last night and said a little girl named Tammy was kidnapped from a laundromat this week. They found her body in a river today. Grandma said for me to be careful and not talk to strangers.”

“Good advice,” I said, warmed by Anne’s call. True to her word, she had done everything in her power to make up to Trish for those wasted years. “Grandma’s smart. And she loves you like I do.” I resumed typing.

A little after three, Jaclyn Beauregard sauntered in, trailed by her younger brother, Zach. I barely looked up as they brushed past me to visit with the girls. Husky little Zach, twelve and ‘fudgy’ as Trish would say, with Indian dark hair, eyes and features, migrated toward Krissie, whom he saw at school, church and Hopewell Skateland Rink. Skating was their topic today.

“Man,” outgoing Zach gushed, “that Toby can skate good for a little kid.” Then he began singing, “Hey! Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?” a song played repeatedly at Skateland. Krissie sang along, blushing a little but obviously enjoying Zach’s uninhibitedness.

I smiled, glad Toby was hanging out with his Dad, watching him mechanic, asking endless questions. He wouldn’t cotton to being called a ‘little kid.’ I again receded into the aura of my essay theme, whose subject was Heather’s growing pains.

“Can Heather go home with me for awhile?”

I blinked at the intrusion and gazed up into Jaclyn Beauregard’s strong, dark features, ones that matched her assertiveness. “I – ahh – no, I don’t think so, Jaclyn.” Six months had not given me enough time to know these people that well. I knew I’d come across as standoffish, not a good thing with Kirk’s parishioners, but I couldn’t help it.

“Please?” she clasped her hands together, as in beg. And charm.

I frowned, fortifying myself. My gut said ‘no.’ “I’m sorry, honey. But I think not.”

Heather appeared behind another oak dinette chair, facing me. “Why not, Mama?” she challenged, though affably. “We have choir practice at six so she’s coming back this way.”

“Go ask your Dad.” Kirk would recognize my distress signal and issue a firm ‘no.’ I was astounded when moments later, they reappeared.

“It’s okay with him if it is with you,” Heather ventured. “See? I told you you’re too protective.” “...and you smother me,” she’d accused just days ago.

Was I? Being too protective? Smothery? I remembered my Dad’s heavy-handed control and nearly shuddered. Still –

“I don’t think so.” I began typing again, hoping to dispense them. “Besides, you haven’t cleaned your rooms.” I went back to pecking as they scattered, again battling the snobbery I whiffed in me.

Within minutes, they were back. “Now can she go?” the undaunted Jaclyn asked. “We cleaned their rooms.”

“Aww, Mama,” Krissie now joined the circle around the table, hooking her thin elbows over the chair back. “C’mon. Why doncha let her go?”

I gazed at her, moved. She, the overlooked, the uninvited, pleaded Heather’s cause.

An idea flashed. Without forethought, I said, “Only if Krissie can go, too.”

They’ll be safer together. Krissie would spread her wings and at the same time, with her little sis along, Heather wouldn’t be apt to misbehave.

The older girls looked at each other as in “what now?” Then they shrugged in unison. “Sure,” Jaclyn said.

“Neat!” Zach quipped, grinning broadly at Krissie, whose blue eyes rounded in surprise.

Suddenly, second thoughts ambushed me. Krissie, a homebody, may not want to go. She was too polite to refuse and chance offending the Beauregards.

“Of course, you have homework to do, Krissie.” I offered her a graceful way out. Her consistent studying had brought her grades up.

“I’ll help her,” Zach Beauregard chirped, beside himself with bliss, and I only then sensed his crush on my middle child.

“I’ll do homework there.” Krissie’s joy was gaining momentum. “We took the Achievement Tests today at school, Mama.” She then added quietly, “I think I did okay.”

“That’s great, honey.” Then beneath my breath, “Sure you want to go?”

Her countenance brightened. “Yeah, Mama.”

My doubts vanished at her happy face. “Okay.” I sighed and returned to my work.

“I’ll go change my top. This one’s too hot. Ya’ll wait for me!” Krissie cried and scampered off to her room to shed the red sweater for a cooler top to match her flared jeans. The day had warmed up during the morning until now, midafternoon, the outdoors beckoned.

Settling back down to my typing, I fought niggling little misgivings. I reassured myself again that together, the girls would be safer. Levelheaded Krissie would safeguard Heather’s good behavior. More relaxed about the whole thing, I proceeded with my paper and only glanced up when the four of them filed past me as they left.

Heather kissed my cheek, “Thanks, Mama.”

“Bye, Mama!” I glimpsed Krissie’s hummingbird departure over my shoulder. Still afraid they’ll leave her.

“Bye, honey,” I called as Zach sprinted out the back door last.

I sat very still, staring blankly at the typewriter and felt a strange compulsion to call over my shoulder. “Hey! Be good!” I glanced at the clock. It was three-thirty.

“We will,” came Zach’s faraway cry. “We always are!”

Toby played outside while I finished my paper and cooked a quick supper of grilled pork chops, rice, gravy, peas and fluffy buttermilk biscuits. The aroma was wonderful, reminding me that Krissie loved pork chops and Heather always oohed and ahhed over hot biscuits and my homemade strawberry jam.

At four-thirty, I moved to the phone, then stopped, my hand mid-motion. They’d only been gone little over an hour. “I told you you’re too protective, Mama.”

Am I? I lowered my hand. But Krissie loves pork chops. I aided and abetted her weight-gain efforts, which were beginning to fluff up her small hips in an attractive way. I lifted the receiver again.

Choir practice is at six. That’s only an hour and a half away. I put the phone down, feeling selfish. It was unreasonable of me to ask Jaclyn to drive the distance twice in less than an hour. At the same time, since I had no intention of allowing a repetition of today’s subtle coercion, I’d allow the girls to make an afternoon of it. It would have to last for a long spell.

Toby and I ate together. Kirk had driven into town to find needed repair parts. We finished our meal just as the Volkswagen pulled into the carport next to the kitchen.

I cleared the table, put away the food to heat up later and resumed work on my paper.

At five-fifteen, Kirk burst into the house. “Come on, Neecy!” He yanked off his oily coveralls in three swift movements.

“What?” I froze, recoiling from something in his voice, dreading I knew not what.

“The kids are gone,” he gasped, his green eyes wild. “Something’s happened to them! Come on.”

My bare feet remained riveted to the floor. My mind swirled. “What – who’s gone?” My words sounded far away. The earth tilted at a grotesque angle. I swayed and caught hold of the counter’s edge.

“Janeece!” Kirk implored frantically at my lack of response. “Get dressed quickly. We’ve got to find them!”

Jaclyn appeared in the doorway. I tried not to read her pale face.

Then Larry, Jaclyn’s older married brother who attended Solomon Methodist Church, appeared, his white face registering shock. He moved toward me...he and Jaclyn were both talking at once.

“Krissie and Zach went for a walk and we can’t find them.”

Panic seized me. “What do you mean, you can’t find them?” I steeled myself not to become hysterical. They’d probably wandered off somewhere. There’s hope.

I shook my head wildly, “But Krissie doesn’t do things like that. She’s so care – ”

Larry’s pasty features loomed before me. “Mrs. Crenshaw, they were walking on the trestle. A train came through – they radioed back to the caboose that they’d hit two kids.”

“Oh-h-h, Mama – ” Heather moaned from the doorway, her eyes stark with horror.

“Oh, God....” I groaned and turned away. This can’t be happening. It’s a bad dream. That’s all. It has to be. I turned to escape – God wouldn’t let this happen. He wouldn’t.

“Janeece!” Kirk’s commanding voice cut into my stupor. “Get dressed. We have to find them.”

In that moment, a terrible vision flashed before me, of faceless kids in the muddy river that runs beneath the trestle, drowning....

No! I blinked. No! Another memory zapped in like lightening – only last year I’d insisted that Hopewell Church fence in the parsonage yard, to protect our children from railway tracks that bordered the property.

How could I have let down my guard? I didn’t even know the Beauregards lived near the railroad. Dear Jesus....

I stumbled to the bedroom and with trembling hands, tore off the loose robe I’d earlier donned to type and cook in and somehow managed to hurriedly dress in slacks and pullover. Kirk and I dashed out the door and into the car to speed the two miles to the Beauregard home where our girls had been visiting.

Kirk drove, his knuckles white against the steering wheel, moaning, “Not our little Krissie...Oh, Neecy, how did it happen?”

His words fed a sunless atmosphere, eluding me.

Woodenly, I turned my head to gaze at him. He was crying. Kirk, who rarely cried.

Why wasn’t I crying? Why did I feel so – dead? Slowly, I began to realize that my body registered no sensation whatsoever, like I’d guzzled novocaine, went swimming in it. Kirk and I had always met each crisis head-on.

I stared at him. He was dealing with it, the phantasmal thing that evaded me. I clung to the detachment. Dry-eyed. I experienced a sense of shrinking, shriveling within myself. Diminishing.

Our VW whipped onto the Beauregard’s property that bordered the railroad, near a deserted old depot building. Today, paralyzed railway cars littered the horizon and blocked our view of the trestle, a half-mile, straight shot distance from the Beauregard’s front lawn. Pulling as close to the bridge as possible, Kirk bounded from the car and commenced running toward the hidden scene of the accident.

I climbed heavily from the car and began to wander, in no particular direction...away from people, from the horrible train, from me. My legs and feet grew more leaden with each laborious step. The phrase “something has happened” kept knocking around in my brain, trying to get a foothold. I desperately embraced the compartmentalization that now isolated me from a drama that grew and burgeoned on my dark periphery.

My shock-blurred gaze combed the endless trainload of piggybacked trucks that hid from me the thing trying to swamp me – to destroy me.

Words bleeped through my bleak numbness only to gel, unheeded, then dissolve into the nothingness surrounding me. A sense of helplessness began to steal into my nebulous consciousness... heavy and thick and smothery.

Faces invaded my space as I floated there, suspended, unaware of earth’s floor beneath me or her atmosphere or sound beyond, cocooned in merciful oblivion. Arms embraced me, words drifted around me. Eyes conveyed pity, horror and compassion – emotions that bounced off my shield of nonpresence. I tried to speak, but my tongue would not react, nor would my limbs carry me away from them. My arms would not lift to return embraces.

I wished them away.

Vaguely, like the roof’s drip, drip, drip after a heavy rain, “something has happened” imprinted itself, against my will, forcing my awareness that this tragedy was, somehow, mine. Again, zombie-like, I rebelled, somehow turning away, distancing myself further from those who knew. From the words hovering there, waiting to obliterate me.

Yet, an overriding certainty emerged. I faced an agonizing decision. I stood with my back to them – to it, when unexpectedly, Dale Evan’s words pierced my darkness: “God took my hand and led me into that funeral home – me who’d always had an aversion to death – and He helped me...helped me...that beautiful mangled flesh was only a shell of my Debbie. She’d already gone to be with the Lord.”

“Oh, Dale,” I moaned. “I didn’t realize – ” Was it only four days earlier that I’d sat on that blanket and listened with my ears but not my heart? Now, I stand where you stood. One of my children is – I can’t even acknowledge which one, can’t put a face to ‘it.’

Never, before or since, have I felt such humility as at that moment. Self-sufficiency crumbled, shriveled away. Mortality seemed imminent, so complete was the chastening. I would have, at that precise heartbeat, welcomed it. I stood beyond selfloathing, teetering between cataclysm and the dizzying black void clutching at me.

I took a deep breath. Blew it out. Hang in there coaxed my survival instinct.

How can I? flesh and blood groaned. Death’s black chasm yawned, pulling, pulling me toward its edge. Then I realized, I wanted to die. How could I have let it happen?

Lean on me, whispered the presence I’d listened to all through the years. You didn’t know that formulas don’t always work.

Then realization struck me like a thunderbolt. You prepared me for this moment four days ago, didn’t you? You knew.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. Oh, Lord – it will be so hard.

I then uttered the most difficult petition of my life: “Help me to realize what’s happened, God... and to accept it. And Lord,” I set my eyes toward Heaven, “give me strength. And courage. Especially courage.”

Then a force within pushed me slowly, ever so slowly back to that hazy intangible thing called reality. That day, as I turned to leave the scene of tragedy, God heard my cry of surrender. It took form. A face emerged, precious and indescribably sweet. From deep within, grief gushed forth, riding the essence that was my Krissie.

Tears came. Painfully. Slowly at first, then copiously. But just as the well sprang forth, as pain engulfed me, I saw Krissie, smiling, enfolded ever so gently in Jesus’ strong arms, ascending upward until they disappeared into frothy white clouds.

Kirk returned, anguish ravaging his features. My darling, who’d held out hope until the last moment, embraced me. “She’s with the Lord,” he sobbed.

“I know.” Over his shoulder, I glimpsed the ambulance departing, with the small covered form visible through the window. Again, reality hit like a sheet of lightning.

As if hearing me, Kirk lifted his head and gazed into my eyes, revealing his tortured soul. “At least, you were spared,” he said hoarsely, “seeing her lying on the cold ground – alone. Oh God!” He threw back his head and screamed in anguish. “She died all alone on that cold ground.”

On the ground.

My knees buckled and he caught hold, helping me to stand. “You mean – ” I whispered, “she wasn’t – ”

“No, she wasn’t on the tracks.” He shook his head as tears dripped from his cheeks. “Thank God, she wasn’t mutilated. They found her lying on the sand bar, where she fell from the ramp. There were no injuries except the blow to her head. Near her ear. You can’t even tell – ” He broke down again for long moments, then lifted his tear-streaked face, his watery eyes tortured. “She was only a few steps from safety.”

“Oh God....” Why, Krissie? You, who wouldn’t even close the bathroom door completely for fear of getting trapped inside. How did it happen?

“Zach?” I croaked.

Kirk shook his head, then fought for control. “He’s under the train.” Zach’s body wouldn’t be retrieved until the train – steel wheels now brake-flattened on one side – was moved. A difficult task because of the wobbly movement on the steel trestle structure, a thing, we later learned that had caused the train crew some tense, terrified moments before everything jerked to a final halt.

We embraced again, sharing sorrow uncoveted.

My perfect world, as I knew it, would never again be.

Heather slipped her hand in mine and we walked together to the Beauregard dwelling. Clancy Beauregard, Zach’s father, sat on the front steps of the big wraparound porch weeping inconsolably. His wife Norene stood on the porch with members of the Beauregard clan encircling her, all familiar faces from church. Clancy arose as I approached and I embraced him.

“Aww, Law, Mrs. Crenshaw,” he said brokenly, “I’m so sorry. I feel responsible. Your children visiting our home and something like this happening.”

My heart wrenched. “Please don’t feel this way. I don’t blame anybody. If your children had been visiting us, something could have happened.”

I sat down beside Clancy and felt Heather lower herself next to me. Kirk now spoke with Norene, whose Cherokee Indian stoicism held her erect and dry-eyed, only ashen features betraying her suffering. Her black eyes met mine and without a sound, we communicated maternal torment.

My mind began to formulate snatches of coherent thoughts, like a distorted kaleidoscope....Krissie’s gone! Oh, dear God, it can’t be....I’ve got to call Daddy and Anne...How did it happen?... Trish. I want to see Trish...Krissie – my sweet little girl. How can it be? You’ve always been the cautious one...I’ve failed you...I should have kept you under my wing. Why, oh, why didn’t I realize something like this could happen?...I don’t deserve to live.

I kept pushing it away – the guilt, knowing I couldn’t cope, knowing I had to survive for the sake of Kirk and the children.

In my weakest time, I was called upon to be my strongest.

On the silent drive home, my heart continued to break into a billion tiny pieces, like an atom, splitting and dividing, on and on. Several cars already lined the parsonage drive when we arrived. Kaye Tessner met me at the door and embraced me, speaking gently to me, her gray eyes deep pools of teary compassion, but I comprehended nothing of what she said.

Other familiar faces encouraged us as Kirk and I made our way to the privacy of Krissie’s room. There, we shut the door behind us. Kirk dropped to his knees beside her bed and great sounds of grief erupted from him, loud unrestrained mourning as I’ve never heard before nor since. I sat on the other side of her mattress, weeping softly, holding her pillow to my face, inhaling her scent, disappointed that well-meaning friends had already cleaned her room and were now laundering her last worn garments. They meant well, but I felt deprived that her existence was not allowed to continue for a bit longer.

Kirk’s weeping finally subsided and he raised his head to look at me, tears dripping from his face. “Neecy – I can’t go on. I can’t live with this.”

The plea in his voice smote me as he buried his face in her chenille spread and began to weep again. I closed my eyes and groped for strength. Krissie’s face appeared before me and in her eyes was a message: Trust. She’d always leaned on me and believed I could do anything.

I shoved away the guilt and clung to her image of me. I would be what she expected and I would preserve her memory with dignity and fortitude. This was my last gift to her. For the first time, something from which to give sparked to life inside me, splitting off from the raw, bleeding me and filled my mouth with soothing words.

“We’ll get through this, Kirk. I loved Krissie as much as a mother can love a child. I carried her in my womb for nine months, nursed her at my breast and cared for her. She was my little companion, so much like me we didn’t even have to speak to communicate. “But, honey, we have two other children who need us. And God will guide us, one minute at a time...a day at a time. We’ll take it just like that – one day at a time. Don’t look backward or ahead right now, honey. We’ll just have to accept God’s help for right now – this minute.”

Kirk wiped his eyes, embraced me and hand-in-hand, we walked through the door together to face friends who’d taken time to come and share in our sorrow.

The next week still blurs in my memory...Zach’s funeral held the following day because, due to the condition of his body, he could not be embalmed...Dad and Anne beside me, Dad crying with me in the wee hours, holding me, murmuring “I wish I could take this pain for you, honey”...Trish, upon arrival embracing me and whispering, “When I got the news, I dropped to my knees. I saw Krissie – going up into the clouds and Jesus was holding her!” and I said “me, too” and we gazed through tears at each other in joyful wonder and her husband Gene, inconsolable at first, raising his wet face, saying “I should be comforting you instead of you comforting me” and my reply, “you are comforting us, by sharing our grief...Toby’s quiet detachment from everything...Kirk wanting to conduct the funeral and my gentle insistence that he himself needed ministering, adding, “Heather, Toby and I need you beside us”...Mrs. Carter, Krissie’s teacher’s words to me “You are so brave, Mrs. Crenshaw” and me thinking “you just don’t know what I’m feeling inside”...

Amid the hazy recall, the next two days stand out with crystal clarity. I wanted to select Krissie’s burial gown. Kaye Tessner called several children’s boutiques to describe what I wanted. She located a shop in a nearby town that had three or four selections, which fit the description nicely, then drove me there mid-afternoon.

One of the dresses was perfect, a soft feminine white, spattered with tiny red Swiss dots, featuring a high lace collar and long lace-trimmed sleeves. A fitted bodice joined the long full skirt with a dainty red waistband, from which identical, slender red bands ran up over each shoulder, giving the impression of a peppermint pinafore. Mid-way, it hit me: This will be the last time I’ll get to deck out my little girl....I swallowed back tears and gave close, close attention. I would not relinquish this precious homage.

I asked Mr. Jones, the funeral director, to arrange with the florist to keep a fresh long-stemmed red rose in her hand until the time of burial. Later that afternoon, Kirk took my hand and we walked to the cemetery to select Krissie’s resting-place. “Someday,” I said, “we’ll move back upstate and – I know the wise thing is to bury her there. But Kirk,” I gazed at him, “I can’t part with her.”

“I know,” he murmured. “Neither can I.”

Then, I saw it. The perfect spot. A lovely grassy slope beneath the regal oak tree with its softly swaying shawl of Spanish moss. “Here she can remain close to us.” Kirk looked at me strangely. “What?” I whispered.

Tears gathered along his lower red rims. “This is the exact spot I chose – in the event I died while here at Solomon. This was where I wanted to be buried.”

The following day, we made the solemn pilgrimage to the funeral home. Then I saw her. How beautiful she was. So heartbreaking beautiful. New pain lanced me, hurt as I’d never known existed...the flawless complexion...the fine, delicate bone structure of the sweet face.

That little face. So peaceful. So innocent. I took her small hand in mine and kissed the cool soft cheek. “Ohh, Krissie,” I whispered, “I’m so sorry. Mama’s so sorry. Please forgive me for allowing this to happen. I’ve failed you.” I began to weep – for her, for the life ended too soon.

In the background, I heard a man crying brokenly. It was Kirk.

Toby stood near me, peering into the casket with a glazed expression on his small round face. “She looks like she’s asleep, doesn’t she, Mama?” he whispered.

“She is, Toby,” I murmured, pulling him into my embrace.

Heather slowly approached the quiet little form. She stood there for a long time, holding her sister’s hand, touching her hair, her face. She turned to me and burst into tears, “I love her so, Mama...and I never told her! Oh, Mama – ” I wept with her, knowing her remorse.

She leaned over and kissed the dear face. “Oh, Krissie,” she sobbed, “I love you so.”

I chose a funeral service that befitted our daughter’s extraordinary tenure on earth, selecting only those who loved her to participate. Krissie’s still-fresh trust in me gave rise to purpose, one that blazed and spurred my mind and limbs to do what needed to be done to ensure her earthly departure be one of honor. We asked Trish’s husband Gene to officiate, with Pastor Cheshire assisting. Both adored Krissie. Gene, though feeling he’d not hold up well, consented when he saw how much it meant to us.

I chose Krissie’s favorite songs and asked Julian Grimsley, a dear friend from the college choral group, to sing the joyful selections.

“But Mrs. Crenshaw,” Dixie Tessner sobbed when I asked her to play other Krissie-favorites on the organ, “I don’t t-think I can do it. Krissie was s-so special – I feel so close to her.”

“Exactly,” I replied. “That’s why it has to be you. Your love will shine through as you play. God will help you. Together, we can all get through this.”

Moment’s later, Heather slipped her hand into mine and joined me in my room for a short private interim. When the door closed behind us, she turned to face me and grasped my hands in hers. Her fingers were icy. I rubbed them gently. Her eyes, tear-filled, beseeched me in some way. “Mama,” she swallowed back a sob, “I was so afraid....”

“Of what, honey?” I put my arms around her and pulled her to me as she burst into tears.

“Th-that you and Daddy would b-blame me. I should have been watching out for her a-and – ”

I closed my eyes and swallowed back a bubble of alarm. “Oh, Heather, Heather.” I blinked back tears. “We don’t blame you, sweetheart. We don’t blame anybody. Please – ” I held her back and gazed into her eyes, “don’t ever, for one instant, blame yourself. Promise?”

She gulped and nodded and I held her close. Her weeping began to subside and, with it, the quivering. Poor baby. What a load she’d carried.

Not until I felt calmness overtake her did I release her and return to greet guests. I watched her rejoin her peers, whose vigilance sustained her through this lowest point of her short life. I’m glad I got through to her. In no way was her sister’s death her fault.

It was mine.

I awoke early the morning of the funeral, having slept very little, if any. That was the most difficult time, when sleep’s cocoon vanished, when I suffered raw reality. Loss tidal-waved and battered us into each other’s arms, Kirk and I, to sob out our sorrow together until we could arise and face going on. This would continue for days, weeks and months to come. But this morning, we knew: we must say goodbye to our flesh and blood Krissie...our Krissie.

Kirk joined Dad for coffee at the kitchen table just as MawMaw and Papa arrived.

“We had to come,” MawMaw’s mouth wobbled on the raspy words. “She was so sweet. Papa always got her to giggling – ” I nodded as she and Papa silently wept. We had visited them, on occasion, during the years. And they had, sporadically, popped in for weekends, as well. Not as often as I’d have liked, but Kirk and I had made sure the children knew their great-grandparents. I hugged them both, thankful for their presence. They joined Kirk and Dad at the table and for once, their relationship to my father didn’t matter.

I walked out onto the tiled front porch with its white columns.

Alone. I needed time with God.

The air was mild, the sun rising as though nothing unusual had transpired in the past forty-eight hours. I gazed up into the clear blue sky and shivered despite solar’s golden warmth. I tried to pray. Words would not come. Only memories...Krissie trying on Heather’s make-up and adult beauty filtering through – Oh God! She won’t ever grow up.... And with each surge of memory, pain’s dark chasm snarled and deepened.

I need you, God. You said you’d be here. The accusation was listless and weary. Desperate. Pray. I need to pray.... What? How? No thoughts formed – the need was too vast. Beyond articulation.

The next time I opened my mouth, language I’d never before heard issued forth in a flow as rich and smooth as nectar and I knew from whence it came and from whom because a supernatural strength began to enter me that lifted me above human debilitation and with it came courage and calmness I had encountered only once previously.

Six years earlier, my Aunt Mary, Daddy’s older Pentecostal sister, took me into the privacy of her bedroom during a family gathering and insisted on praying for my migraine and me.

Aunt Mary was the most flamboyantly religious person I’d ever known, marching to a drumbeat so far out I was embarrassed at times to acknowledge her as kin. Yet I loved her and refused to join in when her Bible Belt, hard-shell Baptist and Methodist siblings lightly poked fun at her unorthodox stance. Underdogs always draw my sympathy, Mary being no exception. But that day, I groaned and sank down onto her red bedspread, determined to humor her then swallow three aspirin and get the heck out of there.

I tried not to recoil when she lowered her hand on my bowed, throbbing head.

“Lord,” she commenced praying softly, “heal this headache.”

Aunt Mary stopped for a long moment, then hissed, “You’re a liar Satan! Get outta here, you scum. You’re not gonna cheat Neecy out of what God’s got for ‘er. Ya hear? Scat!”

Goosebumps scattered over me and my mind stopped thinking.

“Now, Lord,” said Aunt Mary in her that’s-taken-care-of way, “heal Neecy from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.”

She removed her hand from my head and immediately a force, like a solid slab of lumber, slammed into my crown and moved slowly, slowly down my body, not missing an atom, synchronized and level, in smooth sustained passage until it reached my feet.

At the tips of my toes, it stopped.

My eyes popped open and I marveled at the rightness of what I felt. It began to move back up my ankles, calves, over my hips up my torso, shoulders and reached the base of my skull, where the wildfire, knotted pain threatened to rupture into a cerebral hemorrhage. Then, in two heartbeats, perhaps three, the phantom-slab hoisted the infirmity out my crown, tumbling my head forward with relief. I reached up to grope for proof that I still had a head.

“It’s gone, Aunt Mary.” I gazed at her, astonished. “It’s gone!” I sprang to my feet and strode about grinning, then laughing and bubbling with joy and the certainty of a holy presence.

Aunt Mary smiled. Suddenly, she didn’t look peculiar. She looked intelligent and saintly and compassionate. “Neecy,” she said softly, extending her palm, “God’s not through yet. My hand is still warm.” She placed it on my head again. “Now, Lord, fill Neecy with your Spirit.” Again, she stepped back.

An invisible gate flung open above me. I felt it with every fiber of my being and something like a vacuum drew my gaze, my hands, my arms, the whole of me upward, upward in mystical expectancy until I no longer felt the floor beneath me and I was alone in a golden realm with this incredible energy.

Quietness settled over my new realm, so silent that a faint brush against crystal would sound as cymbals and the tug grew more powerful and complex, with the open window a two-way channel, hurtling us together: Me and IT. What IT was, I still didn’t know except that it was Holy and good and I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. Anticipation and joy crescendoed like harp arpeggios as my upstretched fingertips connected with it. From it, something quite like honey began to pour over me and into me until I felt submerged and floating, filled with a calm serenity that surpassed anything I’d ever encountered. It was a warm, warm thing that permeated everything ME: the physical, emotional and spiritual.

“I am here.” I felt the words. My eyes popped open, my gaze still drawn upward. The aura above had no face, only brilliance and soothing warmth and peace and in that instant, it touched my throat. A physical touch from invisible fingers, at the base of my tongue – much as the phantom-slab, only now localized in that tiny speech area. And my tongue, of its own volition, began to move quite freely. I felt no fear. Calmly, my gaze sought and glimpsed Aunt Mary’s serene face through the ivory mist. She nodded and smiled. “Give Him your voice,” she said softly. And I did.

Today, the same melodious utterances spilled from my throat and lips as had gushed forth that day following the miraculous migraine-healing, accompanied by the same incredible tranquility and strength. And I knew, as before, the source.

The Comforter.

God had, after all, kept His promise.

After a quick shower, I dressed, then asked Anne to accompany me to the funeral home. This morning was to be my time alone with my daughter and I wanted every moment to count. Never before nor since has my mind had such clarity. Decisions came without hesitation.

A fresh long-stemmed red rose replaced yesterday’s. I carefully placed the discarded one in tissue, hoping to dry and treat it. How I wanted to keep it. I brushed her hair and the thick blonde tendrils curled softly toward her face. How many times I’d performed this act, knowing every contour of the precious little head.

I touched each familiar feature...soft, slightly tilted nose, smooth forehead with high, perfectly arched brows, long lashes fanning over satiny, finely contoured cheeks with a tiny beauty mark just to the right of her nose. Just above the short feminine chin, beautiful full lips suggested a pink rosebud. I leaned to gently kiss them and to nestle my cheek against hers for one last time. It felt cool, yet soft as velvet, and held not a trace of strangeness and I realized death did not alter the fact of her. She was forever Krissie. My Krissie.

How I cherish those last moments of solitude with my daughter.

Anne hovered nearby, not in the least intrusive, weeping, wrestling with her own grief. She drove me back to the parsonage around noon, where driveway and lawn bulged with upstate cars. I was astonished that over a hundred friends and relatives made the five-hour trek.

Honoring our wishes, Krissie’s send-off to Heaven couldn’t have been more celebratory. Even Gene, after a moment’s breakdown, gave a happy eulogy that brought both laughter and tears to the packed gathering, which, after filling all pews and standing lined around sanctuary walls, spilled over into Sunday School rooms to listen over the intercom.

Julian’s medley of Krissie favorites was punctuated by the silent weeping of school classmates – her honorary escort – and teenagers who’d adored the shy, friendly Krissie, as well as youth who’d played and worshipped with the happy little blonde. Then, Pastor Cheshire, now aging and a bit stooped, shared marvelous little anecdotes from Krissie’s and Heather’s early romps and then comforted us with favorite, sustaining Bible verses.

Hand-in-hand, Kirk and I led the entourage from the sanctuary, across the verdant lawn to the white sandy path that led to a newly opened gravesite. We heard the organ playing familiar strains from Safe in the Arms of Jesus. Warm succor flushed through me, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Neecy?”

I swiped away tears and turned from the mound of flowers covering the new resting-place. The crowd now scattered and meandered about, distinctly reluctant to disperse. In the lingering, I felt profound love. The voice addressing me was familiar –

I squinted up into familiar features. The eyes, half-mooned, clued me.

“Moose?”

Huge arms folded me into a bear hug and I felt the bigboned, six-footer begin to tremble violently. “I-I’m so s-sorry, Neecy – ” He burst into weeping, his arms squeezing me.

I snuffled along with him as he rode the waves, patting his shoulder and rocking to and fro, until the trembling subsided. I disentangled myself and gazed up into his face, now elongated somewhat because he was at least fifty pounds lighter than I’d ever seen him.

“Moose McElrath. My goodness – how did you know?”

“Saw it in the paper – ’bout the accident.”

I knew accounts of the tragedy were in upstate papers, as well as local ones. “You came all this way down – ”

“I’m in Charleston now – in the Air Force. Been in for the last ten years. Just got transferred here four months ago.” He pulled out a white handkerchief and blew his nose soundly, then refolded and returned it to his hind pocket. “Didn’t know ya’ll was down here till I saw the newspaper headlines. God, Neecy – ” His eyes puddled again and he looked off, biting his bottom lip till it turned white.

I took his hand, still big with fingers like sausages. I felt the calluses on their tips and squeezed them. “Ah, Moose. Your coming is so – special.” He shuffled his feet, still gazing off, blinking rapidly. “Have you spoken to Kirk yet?”

“Naw.” He snuffled loudly, shrugged his wide shoulders, and shifted from one foot to the other. “He’s tied up with folks who’ve drove so far, I thought I’d wait till – ”

“Crap.” I took his arm firmly and pulled him along through the gathering to where Kirk stood, his face haggard and intent as he grappled to focus on Pastor Cheshire’s kind words.

Both men turned at our approach. “Look who’s here, Kirk.”

Kirk peered for a moment then exhaled audibly. “Oh my goodness, Moose.” Then they were hugging and Moose let loose again, crying brokenly. Kirk silently wept with our old friend, allowing Moose’s grief to buttress his own.

We insisted Moose return to the parsonage with us and stay awhile. The house swelled with relatives, friends and church folk, but the atmosphere was appropriately subdued. Betty, Kirk’s mom, had driven down that day with Mitzi and Randolph Scott for the funeral. Kirk, drawn in so many directions at once, spent little time with his mother and siblings, but I hugged Betty – still gaunt and haunt-eyed in widowhood – and thanked her for being there for Kirk.

Trish and Anne moved quietly in the background, answering the phone and exchanging pleasantries with guests. Later, church ladies brought covered dishes and served dinner to the remaining family and upstate visitors. Kirk talked quietly with Moose as I said endless goodbyes at the door and in the driveway.

MawMaw and Papa hugged me bye just as dusk settled over the sandhills. “Be careful,” I cautioned because MawMaw had divulged that Papa now suffered from a bit of night blindness.

“Aww,” Papa’s beefy hand flicked away my concern, “I can see all right. Don’t you worry none, Neecy.”

For once, MawMaw held her tongue and didn’t argue the point. Teary-eyed, she waved until they were out of sight. I went back inside where I trekked to the bathroom and while relieving myself, spied Krissie’s pink toothbrush lying on the vanity, again experiencing the wham of loss, of her absence. My little shadow.... I quickly returned to the den, where my gaze sought Heather, who huddled in the dining room with Dixie and Jaclyn Beauregard, who’d dropped by after the services. Jaclyn rose and came to hug me and lingered in my embrace for long moments as we shared our common sorrow. I said soothing words to her, knowing how she had adored her brother Zach and knowing how difficult this time was for her family.

Then I returned to the den, lowering myself beside Kirk on the harvest brown sofa and immediately felt Toby plop down next to me. I smiled at him and he snuggled against me. He’s tired. I’d seen little of him during the past two days, except glimpses coming and going. He mostly played outside with church kids except for sporadic little interludes, like now. He’d shown little to no reaction to what was happening. I figured that, inevitably, he would grieve.

“Moose tells me he’s got something going with a pretty young thing,” Kirk said quietly, winking at Moose, who blushed but shot me his half-mooned-eyes grin.

“Oh? Who?” I asked, curious. “From here?”

Moose looked away for a long moment, the smile fading. “Ahh – she’s not from here, but she lives here now.”

“Where does she work?” Kirk asked, as nosy as I.

“She – ah – she’s kinda in show business,” Moose replied, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“We-e-ell,” I slanted him an impressed look, “A singer? Actress?”

“Uhh,” Moose’s neck turkeyed and his shoulders rolled over a couple of times, as if his shirt was too tight. “She’s – actually,” he resolutely looked me in the eye, “she’s a dancer.”

“Aha.” That gave me pause. What exactly was my friend Moose getting into?

“So how long have you been here?” Kirk promptly switched subjects and Toby whispered in my ear that he would like a piece of Betsy Clemmon’s Texas Chocolate Cake.

As I made my escape from Moose’s news and sliced my son’s fudgy portion of dessert, I experienced mixed emotions. I was relieved that Toby lent me continuity during this time but was puzzled at his non-involvement in what was going on around him.

I tried to eat a small piece of the cake, but it turned to sawdust in my mouth. Toby’s plate was clean when he rushed off to greet Bobby Clemmons, whose parents Fred and Betsy talked quietly with Dad and Anne before heading my way. Trish offered me coffee, which I accepted to make her feel better. I glanced again at Toby, who took his friend’s hand and eagerly tugged him to his room to show him something.

I sighed. He’s so young. Will he remember her?

Will I remember her? Fear spliced through me and propelled me to my feet. What a thought – of course, I wouldn’t forget Krissie. I took my cup to the sink and began vigorously washing it and searching for others to assault. “Sis,” Trish’s hand gently grasped my shoulder. “Don’t. Come sit down.”

She knew. My sister knew that, when cornered, I always attacked clutter.

Woodenly, I allowed her to lead me away from the sink but not from the idea now gyrating in my head. Krissie, Krissie...why did you have to go and die?

“Come on, honey,” Kirk coaxed, “It’ll do you good. Moose wants us to meet Roxie. It’s all he talks about.” He sat down beside me on the sofa and tweaked my chin. “It’d be fun.”

I stared dully at him, with my feet curled up under me and an unopened magazine on my lap. “I don’t feel like it. Okay, Kirk?” Rarely had I ever denied my husband’s requests, until recently. “I’m sure Roxie is a barrel of laughs but – ” I cut him a weary, wry glance.

“Neecy,” Kirk scolded softly. “That doesn’t even sound like you.”

I looked away, slightly repentant but too numb to appreciate fully any wisdom at that precise moment. Roxie was an ‘exotic’ dancer, quote Moose – who, by trying to upgrade his girl’s status from ‘burlesque’ to ‘exotic’ only worsened it.

“She doesn’t sound like Moose’s type, much less mine.” I laid my head back and closed my eyes, giving in to the apathy swathing me day and night, draining me, leaving me limp and uncaring of life, exhausted by late afternoon by living, emotionally, years in the space of short hours. A week and a half had passed since my family and friends departed, leaving us to fend on our own. And with their departure, my initial drive, fueled by Krissie’s faith in me, fizzled.

Finality set in. And with it, a permeating indifference to living. The degree of apathy changed hourly. The enormity of loss rose sharply by the moment. One moment, I was amused at something silly Toby said, the next, dissolving into sobs.

I thought again of the irony: just when folks think you got it all together and leave you alone, reality sets in. Even Kirk had his church duties and the kids, school. I couldn’t yet face returning to classes at Coastal. A refrain ran over and over in my head: Nobody needs me.

Krissie always needed me. More pain. Will it never end?

“Neecy, look at me,” Kirk’s finger gently guided my chin around and I opened my eyes. “Don’t forget where I was when God rescued me. He can do the same for Roxie. For Moose. For anybody, in fact. But you know that.” He gently brushed my hair from my forehead. “This is not like you.”

It wasn’t. I sighed and shook his finger loose. “I know,” my voice was dull, flat. “Tell Moose we’ll go.”

The next night, Saturday, we drove into Charleston to dine at Bessinger’s.

“Man,” Moose crowed, “this barbecue’s great, doncha think, Roxie?”

The redhead slid her agog suitor a seductive, amber appraisal.

“Yeah,” she droned lazily. “Marvelous, Moose. Just marve-lous.” Her appraisal skipped me and lit on Kirk, who seemed too busy cutting his chicken to notice.

“Where are you from originally?” I asked her politely, trying not to gape at her low-cut, clingy sweater and abundant cleavage set above a wasp waistline and softly rounded hips fastened to Rockettes-long legs.

She tore her gaze loose from Kirk and focused on me as though I’d just walked in. “Oh – all over. My daddy, he was in the Army, ya know?” Then she tore into her food like she hadn’t eaten in days, saying little for the remainder of the meal.

Kirk and Moose reminisced and for the first time in days, I felt myself lifted from the dark here and now and transported back to when. The guys reminisced about a ruckus during our Senior Prom, when Kirk had sailed to a drunken Moose’s aid, after Moose had gotten into a fight outside the school with trespassing Grey High rivals. My pal Callie had seen the whole thing, jumping and screaming obscenities at the interlopers till she nearly got herself arrested, along with Moose, the five rivals, Kirk and Hugh Nighthawk. That was the only thorn Kirk sustained in an otherwise honorable fight, during which he was ambushed and held down by two of the rivals while another beat him senseless – Nighthawk had rushed in and in Cal’s words, “Beat the crap outta all of’em.”

“Remember ol’ Nighthawk jumpin’ in that night you got beat up on and – ”

“No.” Kirk grinned and tried to change the subject. “I don’t remember.”

“Fortunately,” I inserted, “the thing was over by the time the police arrived and everybody had scattered.”

“It was really ol’ Hugh Nighthawk who done saved your tail,” Moose insisted, then guffawed, knowing Kirk hated Nighthawk’s guts after the half-Cherokee Indian had put the make on me. I still believe, all these years later, that if he’d had his rathers, Kirk would rather have served time than be saved by Nighthawk.

That may seem ungrateful to some and perhaps it is but that’s Kirk and on his priority list, except when dealing with family, nobility doesn’t rank all that high.

“C’mon, Kirk,” Moose prodded good-naturedly, “’fess up.”

Kirk laughed, but I saw the fire flicker in his eyes as he glanced my way. “On second thought, I do remember Nighthawk jumping in. Poor guy,” Kirk shook his head. “That boy’s face looked like a swelled up prune next day.”

“Almost as bad as yours,” Moose reminded him.

I laughed and it sounded foreign – Kirk glanced at me and I thought of all the times he would have gotten angry at me laughing at his expense. Tonight, he didn’t.

So do I, breathed that presence I felt at all times now. Not ever in-my-face. But there. I existed on two planes. On the one level, I remained raw and torn, frustrated and deprived, clawing my way through each moment, while higher, on the spiritual rung, a strange compelling peace enveloped me. Amid all this was an ‘okay’ to deal with the human aspects of my psyche, permission to seek answers that would give my troubled mind solace. This presence carried me, like a swaddled babe at times, spanning the black abyss of hopelessness, nursing me through nights when defenses took flight and I awakened on a sob and curled into a fetal knot, weeping my devastation.

“Neecy, I don’t know how you put up with this guy,” Moose teased, “he was always tighter’n a drill sergeant. Now he’s a preacher, he’s really on a high horse.”

Again, laughter spilled from me and I marveled that it was in me.

“Now, Moose,” Kirk leaned forward on his elbows and grew serious. “You know you need to be in church.” Then he grinned that crooked grin of his, a rare one that disarmed even the most cynical personalities. “Can’t be running with a heathen, now can we, Neecy?” He laid his arm across the back of my chair and winked at me. I rustled up a passable nod, my fleeting response to humor having evaporated.

My emotions remained jumbled. Perhaps I would survive, I thought while staring dully at Moose. Didn’t time heal all wounds?

I picked up my iced tea and made a pretense of sipping. But did I truly want to go on? One moment apathy swooped as a listless black crow perched on my shoulder, filtering into my spirit a don’t care that pinned me to sofa, lounge, chair or bed, staring at life with unseeing eyes until Kirk nudged me to do something with him. The next, it came as a raging black bull with red eyes and smoking nostrils, that pawed the earth and insisted that I must die. Go join Krissie. Then, Toby or Heather would tug at my sleeve and pull me back.

I was needed, though briefly and sporadically. Need: the catalyst that tethered me to earth.

“Okay,” Moose turkey necked and nodded vigorously. “Me and Roxie’ll see ya’ll in church tomorrow, won’t we, sug?”

And though Roxie rolled her eyes and half-heartedly agreed, I couldn’t help but be lifted by our pal’s exuberance. Again, my mouth pulled into a genuine smile and despite its heaviness, my heart lifted just a bit at the possibility of two changed lives.

It was a beginning.

“Hello?” I wondered who would be calling at five a.m., though Kirk and I had already awoken and wept together.

“Neecy? This is Callie.”

“Lord help us – Callie? Is it really you?”

“Last time I looked. Naw – this isn’t the time to joke. Listen, Neecy – I didn’t know about Krissie till Mama called me. I was out of town when she tried to let me know.”

“Oh, Callie – ” My words choked off. Her voice, so dear and familiar, melted away any constraint I’d acquired in the wee early hours.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you, Neecy—Oh, God.” She began to wail and cry and I was amazed at the depth of her caring, again struck with the sense of a change in her and for long moments, we mourned together. “I-I’m not doing this good, am I?” she croaked.

“Yes, you are, Callie,” I snuffled, “the best.” Then, “I wish you’d been here with me, too. But I understand.”

“There’s something else, Neecy. Lots of things have changed in my life – your letter started it, remember? But it took this thing with Krissie to push me to where I needed to be. And – I need to ask a favor of you.”

“Anything.”

“Can I come stay with you a few days? I’ve got to get outta here.”

“My door is already open.”

She arrived barely six hours later, announcing that she’d already been packed when she called. “I’m not going to impose on you and Kirk at a time like this,” she insisted while hugging me. “I’m going to get a place – ”

“Don’t be silly,” I reared back to gaze at her. “Of course, you’ll stay here.”

“Tonight,” Callie insisted, shucking off her red wool coat. “Tomorrow, I’ll go apartment hunting.”

“Apartment – are you planning to move here?” I asked, my heart almost doing a leap. Almost.

“If it’s where God wants me,” she said matter-of-factly, looking me straight in the eye.

God? A word that had never, ever, in my experience, appeared in Callie’s vocabulary?

“I got saved recently. But don’t look too close,” she huffed a laugh. “I’m still under construction.”

“Oh, Cal,” I grabbed her and held on for dear life, laughing and crying all at once.

“I know, I know,” Callie quipped and snuffled, squeezing me. “Who’d have ever thunk it?”

“Where’s – Jim?” I asked, uncertain.

“Jack. Number four is now history. After him, I decided I don’t need a man.” Her words were firm but surprisingly gentle. “I’m not bitter, Neecy,” she shrugged. “Brought most of it on myself. Not to excuse his cruelty, mind you. But once I got my life on track, he really turned mean. I prayed about it and then, filed for divorce.”

“How does he feel now? I mean – ”

“Aw,” she waved it away with her well-manicured hand, “he’s okay about the divorce. After the initial shock, he sorta – got spooked by the change in me. Know what I mean? Jack – well, he likes to party and drink and have never-ending fun and laughs. He didn’t figure on losing his party girl.” She crossed her eyes and lolled her tongue out the side of her mouth.

I laughed and then she laughed and it felt good. I took her by the arm and led her to Heather’s room, where she would sleep. Knowing intuitively that being bunked in Krissie’s old room might bother Callie, Heather had thoughtfully volunteered to sleep there.

“Let’s eat supper and then, you can tell me all about it.”

“How would you like a job in the church?” Kirk asked Callie between bites of a chicken casserole Donna Huntly had dropped by. We’d located Callie a small, inexpensive apartment in downtown Solomon, near the park, the day after she arrived. Now, a day later, she needed a livelihood.

“You serious?” she paused, fork midair, then put it down.

“The church secretary, Tillie Dawson, is on maternity leave and I hear from reliable sources that she’s not planning to return. Betsy is grumbling about having to fill-in for her. So, I need somebody desperately.” He shrugged and raised his brow. I still marveled at his change of heart toward my old pal. But the spiritual Kirk had a pastor’s heart and anybody who tried at all in those days, he was there to help

Callie’s mouth worked but no sound came forth for a long moment. Then, she cleared her throat and I saw the moistness in her chocolate eyes. “Thank you, Kirk.”

“You didn’t even ask how much it pays,” Kirk reminded her, grinning.

“Don’t matter. God will provide.” Hers were not maudlin’ words but an affirmation.

During our long conversations since her arrival, Callie had told of praying for guidance, desperate to escape Jack Farentino’s sadistic grasp. She didn’t feel she could go home and burden her mom, who had her own battles with an increasingly alcoholic husband. “I’d be jumping from one frying pan into another,” she said flatly. “Anyway, Mama can handle her own woes better than she can mine. She’s one hundred per cent maternal. I can’t unload on her. I’m letting her down easy, saying Jack and I are just separated, to see how we feel about each other. I haven’t told her the whole story. Probably won’t, either.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “I was praying about where to go and Mama called. She told me about Krissie and immediately, my heart was drawn this way. I packed my clothes, then called you, Neecy, and as soon as I heard your voice, I knew.”

Callie had been right. I needed her. She needed me. And the church.

I marveled daily at how love, pure and simple, kept me – us – going in this minute by minute trek.

Toby jumped up from the table and sprinted to the back door, then, remembering, turned and muttered, “s’cuse me,” and banged out the door. I arose and peered through the window at him climbing on his bike to disappear toward the white path. During the past days, Toby’s face still gave no indication that he felt the enormity of what had happened.

Will he forget her? The old familiar fear pierced my haze of pain. I honestly didn’t know what to say to him and when I tried – something always stopped me.

“Mom?” Heather stuck her head around the hall entrance, “can you help me hem these slacks?”

“Sure, honey.”

We sat on Krissie’s bed, our hangout place together, and reminisced about happy times as I stitched the bell-bottom trouser legs to accommodate Heather’s less than statuesque height. Actually, her five-foot-four is normal, but alongside Callie and Roxie, she felt like a, quote, “stunted dwarf.”

“You’re lovely,” I insisted. “Perfect.”

“Aww,” Heather protested, blushing, “Mamas always say that.”

“Maybe so. But to me – ” I looked her in the eye, “you are.”

My hands stilled when I saw the tears in her blue eyes. I lay the sewing aside and held out my arms. “Come here.”

She moved into them and snuggled to my bosom, silently shedding tears. I felt her heartbeat as she nestled there. My throat closed and throbbed. The pulse was so miraculous – so profound in that moment. Life. Precious life.

“Mama,” Heather said hoarsely, pulling away and looking sadly at me. “I know you miss Krissie. But Mama – ” She took both my hands in hers and her lips trembled, “you still have us.”

The words tumbled so straight from her heart they pierced my soul like a bullet. And I knew, in that moment, it was not selfishness or irreverence toward her sister but a need to be validated. Like me at her age, she was trapped in a dark drama, one not asked for nor deserved. One over which she had no control, that had reduced her to a non-person.

“I’m so thankful to have you, sweetheart.” I squeezed her fingers. “Right now, I’m consumed with grief. I’m sorry. I can’t change that. Time will help. In the meantime, I want you to know this: God divided my heart into equal compartments and each one is reserved for you, Toby and Krissie. I love you differently but equally. No matter what happens, that space is yours. Forever.”

I resolved in that moment that I would henceforth attempt to shield her a bit more from the grimness surrounding her.

We embraced and lay there on Krissie’s bed for a long, long time.

Callie slid into the secretary’s role as effortlessly as an otter into water and every bit as gracefully. To me, she was still beautiful, despite her nose, slightly crooked since being broken – compliments of Jack – and the small scars on her neck and arm where he cut her. The nose alteration made her look – interesting. Anyway, that’s what I kept telling her, though I don’t think she fully believed me. Modest but fashionably fitted clothing replaced her minis and snug sweaters, while she traded her Farah Fawcett mane for a modest but luxurious shag style. She was determined to be a credit to Kirk and the church. But first, quote Callie, to the Almighty.

Her coming to Solomon was a balm to me and when she moved into her apartment, I missed her. When she and Moose reunited, it was a hoot of all hoots.

“What happened to you, Moosey?” she eyed him up and down just before we sat down to dine at Bessingers. “Some other little pig been beatin’ you to the trough?”

Moose explained that a bad case of flu had started the weight decline, after which he simply flowed with less food. With his weight down, he qualified to join the Air Force. “Found out I felt better not stuffin’ everythin’ ‘at didn’t move into my mouth,” he declared, then gazed adoringly at Roxie, who maintained her all-male vigilance like a trooper. “B’sides, if I hadn’t ‘a slimmed down, Roxie wouldn’t ‘a give me a tumble, would you, Roxie?”

“Huh uh. Not on your life, precious,” she droned in her nasal way, never looking at Moose, who didn’t seem to notice or care. Just being in her presence sustained him in some way I’d not yet divined.

Callie cocked one brow at me but kept her mouth shut. She was slowly acquiring the art of discretion.

“You and I could’ve danced on the table naked and she’d never have noticed,” she commented later in the ladies’ room on Roxie’s fetish with the opposite sex. “What’s got into Moose? Don’t he even notice she eyeballs every man in the place except him? I thought he had more sense. Course, Moosey does bring home a good paycheck, which could account for her sacrificial offering of self.”

She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Forgive me, Lord,” she muttered without remorse.

“Well, she’s coming to church with Moose at least,” I said. “There’s always hope.”

“I’m glad you didn’t say faith. In this case, I’d sure have to dig for it.”

“You need to get back in school, honey. It’s been nearly two weeks since – Well, you need to get out of the house.”

I gazed unseeing out our rain-spattered bedroom window, toward the cemetery. I still hadn’t gotten past the nightly head count mothers do. I tried not to agonize that her grave was wet and cold.

Kirk thrust his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, Neecy. Your Dad’s worried about you. When they visited last weekend, he said he’s concerned you spend so much of your time at the graveside.”

I whirled about to face my husband. “How dare you or anybody tell me how to grieve, Kirk Crenshaw. Do I tell you how? Huh?”

Kirk’s shock at my outburst registered in his face. “No, you don’t. Your Dad is just worried about you.”

“Well, Daddy can just get over it.” Anger caused me to tremble and brought tears to my eyes. “I walk in the cemetery every day, for goodness sake. I did before Krissie’s death and I still do. It’s my favorite quiet place to take a blanket and to sit and write under that shade tree. It’s my meditation place. And yes! I do want to be close to my daughter right now, okay? That doesn’t make me a nut case.”

I started to leave then turned again. “And I’ll go back to school when I doggone well please.”

Kirk remained in the bedroom for a long time before approaching me in the den, where, because of the weather, I was forced to remain indoors and stare at the television screen, unseeing, while Toby watched afternoon cartoons.

The phone rang. Woodenly, I answered it. “Hello.”

“Mrs. Crenshaw, this is Mrs. Carter, Krissie’s teacher. I’ve got something I think you’d like to have.” Her voice quavered with emotion. “Remember the little girl named Joanne, Krissie’s classmate? She was the black student Krissie befriended. I noticed her playing with Joanne often before her accident.”

“Yes. I remember.” Kirk kissed my cheek and his concerned eyes lingered on me before I forced a smile to reassure him. I heard him quietly close the door behind him on his way out.

“I asked the class to write an essay entitled ‘The Person I Admire the Most’ and Joanne wrote about Krissie.” She began to weep softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call and upset you, but you’ve just got to read this. You’d just have to know Joanne – who didn’t, before Krissie, trust or open up to anybody. She’s been abused and – ”

I listened to her snuffle and wiped my own tears away. “I’d love to have it.”

“Another thing, Mrs. Crenshaw. The Achievement Test Scores just came back today.”

“Her score was quite high,” Mrs. Carter stated with audible pride.

“Krissie was a bright little girl.”

I dozed the next morning after Kirk left to take Toby and Heather to school. Usually, he did hospital visitation after dropping them off at respective locations, leaving me alone for long spells, some of the most difficult to span so I tried to delay starting the day as long as possible. I heard the back door open.

Eyes closed, I listened to footsteps falling heavily down our green shag-carpeted hall.

A weight fell across me, jolting me to full wakefulness.

My hand touched Kirk’s head, pressed to my bosom. His arms grasped me and his body shook violently. He’s crying.

“Oh Neecy,” he wailed. “I miss her so-o-o.”

I stroked his head and felt fresh tears scald my red lids, swollen from earlier weeping. “I know, honey. I know,” I murmured, realizing he’d been holding all this in during recent days, only allowing the early morning valve release and then going about his day as though nothing were any different. Doing his denial thing. But denial had run out this morning.

In the midst of the squall, he sprang to his feet and dashed across the hall into Krissie’s room. I heard rummaging in her drawers and presently return with the clear plastic zip-lock bag bearing our daughter’s thick, glossy wheat-blonde tendrils she’d so painstakingly gathered from the carpet to save. He clutched them to his chest and fell across me again.

Kirk cried until drained and limp. “I was listening to the cassette of the Carpenters music,” he said hoarsely, “the one Krissie liked, that we play every morning on the way to school.” He gulped back a fresh sob. “That song – We’ve Only Just Begun...I can still hear her singing along with it. How am I ever going to make it through this?”

I hugged him to me, soothing and stroking his brow, wanting more than anything to ease his pain but knowing I could not. Some things aren’t fixable. Some things we all must walk through.

“Y’know,” I said softly, “I once thought my faith would insulate me from this kind of anguish. But it doesn’t. I think the more spiritual we are, the more vulnerable we are to truly feeling things. Death hits us as hard as anyone.”

Kirk stirred and gazed up at me. “The Bible doesn’t say we won’t grieve. It says we won’t grieve as those who have no hope. Even Jesus wept when Lazarus died.”

We lay together in silence for long moments, absorbing that, absorbing each other, our affinity spiraling to new depths.

I sighed deeply as Kirk raised up on his elbow, still inclining himself across my midriff, “It’s amazing what well-meaning folks say to me right now. Pearl Stone said, ‘God knows best. He takes the best to come live with Him in heaven, don’t you know? Cliches.” I huffed a sad laugh. “I’ll never again utter those glib responses to somebody’s heartache. Those who’ve gone through losing a child are the ones who don’t say a thing except ‘I know what you’re going through. I’m sorry’ or they just simply hold you and weep with you. Worst of all, some folks think we’re past the worst in a few days and begin to avoid talking about Krissie altogether.”

Kirk reached to brush hair from my temple and said gently. “I love you, Janeece Crenshaw. Sometimes, your wisdom astounds me.”

I gazed at him, my love surging so, it could have washed us out to sea.

Kirk slowly shook his head, solemn as I’d ever seen him. “What if we’d never connected?”

I smiled. “But we did.”

His answering smile soon faded as great tears puddled his tired lids. “Oh Neecy,” he said hoarsely, “if only I hadn’t moved us down here. We could have stayed on at Hopewell for years to come. And Krissie would be alive. It’s all – ”

“Kirk,” I put my fingers over his lips. “Stop doing this to yourself. I could have discouraged the notion of relocating. I didn’t.”

He pulled my hand away and laced his fingers through mine. “Another thing – if I hadn’t been working on that blasted car the day of the accident, I’d not have sent the kids back to you. I’d have said ‘no, you can’t visit today.’ Deep down, I knew you wanted me to intervene but I was so aggravated with missing tools and trying to find the right parts.”

“You were doing what you had to do, honey. That’s you. You take care of us. Stop beating yourself up over it. Here,” I reached to the bedside table and handed him the essay Mrs. Carter had personally dropped by the previous afternoon..

“It’s written by Joanna. Remember the little girl I told you Krissie befriended at school?”

He read it aloud: “The Person Who I Admire the Most...I admire Krissie Crenshaw the most of all people because she was the most prittiest girl of all. She was a very sweet girl who did everything her mother or father told her to do. I would like to be like her because she was so nice to everybody and she had many friends in her class. I would like to be like her because she was a cristian and when I die I would not have to worry about going to heaven because I would know I was going there. I would like to be like Krissie because she went to church every time there was services. I wish I could have been her because she was loved by everybody. She was my best friend in the whole world. Joanna Coggins.”

“Some tribute,” he said softly, his eyes moist.

“Her life did count,” I said.

We embraced and kissed before Kirk took his leave. I watched from my reclining position on the bed as he disappeared to do his Father’s bidding. How on earth could he feel responsible for Krissie’s death?

It was, after all, my fault.

“And we want you to sing at our wedding, Neecy,” Moose announced, grinning so big his eyes disappeared into the folds of his cheeks and brow. I forced my preacher’s wife smile. I’d deal with my feelings later. Right now, I needed to be there for Moose.

“Of course,” I said and hugged him, then waited until Roxie finished embracing Kirk, who seemed not at all disturbed that his pal was being railroaded. Rather, he grabbed Moose for a celebratory bear hug while I tentatively embraced the lovely fiancée, whose exuberance had waned by the time I reached her. She smelled heavenly. Chanel No. 5, I surmised, another expensive gift from Moose, no doubt. And she was beautiful, as usual, an effortless thing with her full auburn hair that tumbled loose and wild, a la Farah Fawcett, and enormous, exotic tawny-gold eyes that tilted in feline perfection. Her seafoam outfit today was no less sexy because of its more demure cut.

“Some females are cursed with beauty,” sniped Callie during one of her Roxie-assessments. “I’ve seen man-eaters, but this gal takes the prize.”

“She’s one of God’s creatures, Cal,” I’d reminded her – I fear more from duty than conviction. I struggled to cut Roxie some slack and tried not to judge what could actually be a slight personality conflict twixt her and Cal. Roxie was, after all, attending church now.

“Well, we better take off to shop for a ring,” Moose took Roxie’s limp hand, still grinning like he’d just won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. “April 20. Mark it on your calendar, Kirk. We want it done right, man.”

“Sure thing, Moose,” Kirk called, waving from the doorway.

Toby rushed past me, on his way outside again. Again.

Amid the blurred coming and going of loving, caring condolence-bearers, Toby still seemed set apart from the grim drama taking place around him. My curiosity rose and I went to the kitchen window to watch him. His play activity had changed recently, from solitary excursions on biking and trekking over nearby terrain to a role that required a shovel.

Annoyance pierced me today as I watched him, shovel gripped tightly, head for our property’s back corner, actually a low-country sand hill with marshy sod in places. His area of interest sloped away and downward, out of sight from the kitchen window. For days now, his backyard toil had continued and I now wondered what make-believe fantasy held him captive.

At first, his solitary activity didn’t seem extraordinary, since Toby now had no steady playmate. But when he continued to trudge over the hill, day in, day out, I’d asked him, “What’s going on?”

“It’s a surprise,” he’d informed me matter-of-factly. Toby had always been the fun-seeking adventurer of the family. Now, quite frankly, his enthusiasm stirred my anger. After all, he never mentioned Krissie. I certainly didn’t expect him to anguish as I did, but it didn’t seem right somehow that he ignored her absence.

Kirk kissed me goodbye and took off to do visitation.

I showered and dressed. My hair was still damp when the doorbell rang.

“I brought you a cake,” Donna Huntly’s moist eyes belied her flat way of expression. “I know Toby likes them.”

“Where is Toby?” Eddie, Donna’s nine-year-old, asked. I pointed him in Toby’s direction and visited with Donna for an hour or so. Today, Donna’s rather curt personality didn’t seem important. Her kind gesture and countenance revealed a bigger heart than I’d ever guessed.

When the Huntleys departed, Toby waved goodbye to Eddie from the hill, then returned to his play. I called him in for lunch, during which he gobbled down a ham and cheese sandwich in record time. Kirk called to say he’d grab a burger at Sally’s Grill. When I returned to the table, Toby said, “s’cuse me.”

“Toby, don’t you want a piece of Donna’s chocolate cake?” I asked as he dashed to the door.

“Later,” he replied and slammed out the back door.

I rushed to the door and flung it open. “What’s going on?” I called to his retreating backside, more irritated than ever at his preoccupation.

“You’ll see, Mom,” he yelled, disappearing over the hill.

I wanted to be alone. Clung to solitude. It had something to do with survival. What? I’d not yet discovered.

“Please, honey,” Kirk slid his arms around me from behind as I stood gazing at the hilltop beyond which Toby continued to migrate, “do it for me?”

School. Second semester was now in full swing. Classes. All that seemed eons ago.

“Neecy? Will you?” he persisted softly.

I took a deep, ragged breath. What choice did I have? He was right. “Okay.”

Callie hugged me. “You’ve made the right decision, Neece. School is what you need.”

I’d walked out to the church later that afternoon, where she prepared the Sunday Bulletin for the following day’s morning service. Hers was the small office through which one gained entrance to the pastor’s larger, more masculine study with its leather sofa and chairs, greenery and endless book shelves.

“Those are the last copies,” she said, shuffling and stacking them neatly on her desk.

“You work so hard, Cal.”

“This job is a piece of cake compared to my last one in car sales, Neecy.”

“I know Kirk appreciates all you do. Says you’ve taken lots of pressure off him.”

“Good.” She drew up to her full height, adjusting the belt of her tailored slacks and gazed around, looking for loose ends. Satisfied, she said, “Well, I’ll be off.”

I walked her to her car, a beat up gray hatchback Honda,which astounded me because the old Cal would have sold her soul for a Continental and designer fashions. Nothing but the best. This new Callie cared little for material gain. Her flip-coin side proved as passionate as its opposite one.

The next day at church, Moose had Roxie showing off her diamond, a rock big as the tip of my pointer finger. I squashed down my aversion to what I perceived as her shallowness and hugged her. “It’s lovely, Roxie.”

For the first time, I felt a response. She squeezed me back. “Thanks, Neecy.” Maybe I’d misjudged character this time. My heart began to open up a mite.

After service, Kirk invited Callie, Moose and Roxie to join us at a local restaurant featuring seafood where we had a wonderful meal. Afterward, everyone hung out at the parsonage, laughing and reminiscing the entire afternoon away.

“My goodness,” Kirk looked at his wristwatch, “Only an hour till evening service.”

We all walked to the church for an uplifting, serene time together, then returned to the house and raided the refrigerator and ate leftovers and sandwiches of all varieties. The pantry still bore soft drinks and chips brought in by folks days earlier during the funeral gathering.

I hugged our friends goodnight as they left, hating to see them go.

With the last one gone, I closed the door and locked it, then followed Kirk down the hall. At its end, I glimpsed Krissie’s bed through the open doorway and my heart lurched. We had not closed her room off, had allowed it to remain an integral part of our living. Not a shrine, simply a place in which to relax and remember the good times and as Kirk disappeared into our room, a collage of Krissie-snapshots strobed through my head: Krissie raking the perpetual carpet of brown pine needles into tidy little heaps...standing framed in her doorway, dressed in large loop costume earrings, Mom’s high heels and long sleeved blouse caught up and Gypsytied under her small bosom, and a pair of last summer’s shorts – until she gets my startled attention, erupts into giggles and goes clonking off down the hall, exaggerating the swing of her narrow hips...Krissie clowning, making rubber faces for small children....

I froze in my tracks gazing at the room’s stillness, absorbing its silence and Krissie’s non-being. Her absence clawed at my flesh and bones and my soul cried for a glimpse, a touch from her. My mind had, most of that day, taken other directions, had somehow ventured from now, across some invisible bridge that transported me to a place timeless and survival-friendly.

A place where memory slept.

In that moment, reality hit so forcefully I nearly fell to my knees.

I paid the price of the afternoon’s lapse, however unconscious and however needed. By pushing it away, I’d set myself up. The stark cruelty of death shredded me again.

I went into the room, lay on her bed and cried silently, pressing my face into her pillow, inhaling her lingering fragrance, wrapping bereftness about me like a cloak, so that soon, I felt the blessed apathy creep over me. Sorrow replaced the searing anguish.

And I wondered, Will the pain ever stop?

Looking back now, I’m glad I did not have the answer to that.