A Family To Cherish. Carole Page Gift

just that you and Barbara are both so fond of children, I thought you might enjoy having a child in your home again.”

      Not on your life! Barbara wanted to shout, but she resisted the urge. “Are you telling us you don’t want to take Janee?” she asked instead.

      “You know us,” said Benny. “Pam and I decided right up front, no kids, ever. With both of us working twelve-hour days, what could we give a kid?”

      Love, for a start, thought Barbara. But a dark reality struck home. That was something she herself wasn’t ready to give. She had loved one child once. She couldn’t imagine ever loving another.

      “Besides, you work at home, Barb,” said Pam. “A child wouldn’t upset your routine. You could still give your piano lessons.”

      “Listen, this is a moot issue,” said Benny, raising his large, square hands like a referee. “I believe Nancy is going to get well, so taking care of the kid will be a temporary arrangement. You can handle that, right, Barbara?”

      Barbara pretended not to hear the question. At the moment, with Nancy’s life hanging in the balance, Barbara had all she could handle just sitting at this table carrying on a simple conversation and trying to keep her sanity.

      Doug reached across the table and cupped his hand over hers. “No one’s making any decisions about Janee tonight,” he said firmly. “Let’s all try to get a good night’s sleep—and see what tomorrow brings.”

      Chapter Four

      At dawn Barbara was awakened out of a deep, dream-filled sleep by the phone’s shrill ring. She raised up groggily on one elbow, trying to comprehend where she was. This wasn’t her room or her bed. Nothing was familiar. Then, as Doug grabbed the phone and sleepily barked hello, Barbara remembered with a spine-chilling shudder. Reality was worse than her troubled dreams.

      She mouthed the words Who is it? But Doug waved her off, his expression grim. “Yes, I understand, Doctor,” he said solemnly. “I know you did all you could. Thank you.”

      He hung up the receiver and turned to Barbara, his features stoic. But as she stared at him, his stony face crumbled and he began to weep. “She’s gone, Barbie,” he whispered.

      She moved quickly over to his side of the bed and enveloped him in her arms. His chest was bare and his skin cold to her touch. She wanted to say, It’ll be okay; Nancy just slipped away with the angels in her sleep. We’ll see her again someday. But she knew Doug didn’t want to hear such platitudes now, any more than she had wanted to hear them when Caitlin died, even though they were true. She and Doug clung to each other, rocking together with a slow, agonized rhythm. The sobs rose in his chest, and she could feel them in her own breast.

      They had wept like this four years ago, but then somehow they had broken apart and gone their separate ways, burying their grief where the other couldn’t find it. Why had it happened that way? Why had they bottled up their tears and retreated behind separate barricades as if they considered one another, rather than death, the enemy.

      “At least she went peacefully in her sleep,” said Doug in little more than a whisper. “There was no one like her, Barb. She was so full of life.”

      “And she never wasted a moment of it, darling.”

      Doug nodded. “If only we could all be like her.”

      “Maybe that’s her legacy. We can try to be.”

      Doug released Barbara, got up and put on a shirt, his fingers working the buttons as he said, “I’d better start making some phone calls. We’ve got a lot of arrangements to make.”

      “First you’d better call Pam and Benny at the hotel.”

      “I will. Put on the coffee, okay, Barb?”

      “You need more than coffee, Doug. I’ll fix something. Eggs. Cereal.”

      “Anything. I’m not hungry.”

      She drifted through the living room to the kitchen, her eyes moving over Nancy’s things—her paintings, her belongings, all the ordinary odds and ends that defined her life. I don’t belong here, Barbara thought. I shouldn’t be intruding. Surely Nancy will walk in at any moment and say, “Don’t disturb my things. Don’t dismantle my life. I’m not really gone.”

      A ridiculous notion, Barbara realized as she put on the coffeepot and browsed through the refrigerator. But then, wasn’t that exactly the attitude Barbara had maintained for four years—never allowing anything or anyone to disturb Caitlin’s room, as if she might come back at any moment and reclaim her things?

      A wave of emotion rocked through Barbara like a tidal wave. She stumbled over to the small oak table and sat down, putting her head in her hands, allowing the sobs to wash over her. It struck her that she wasn’t just weeping for Nancy and Paul; she was crying again for her own daughter. Why was it that every heartache and grief always brought her back to this one, leaving her mourning again for Caitlin as if it were the very first time?

      The next three days were among the busiest, the most hectic and exhausting Barbara had ever experienced. Together with Pam and Benny, she and Doug packed up Paul and Nancy’s belongings, carted crates to Goodwill and put the furniture in storage. Doug and Benny notified people, handled the business matters, and made funeral arrangements, while Barbara and Pam spent time at the hospital with Janee, assuring her she would be fine and they would take good care of her.

      On the third day they attended the double funeral in the morning, followed by a brief grave-side service at the nearby cemetery. They received condolences from Paul’s and Nancy’s many friends at a luncheon reception put on by their church; then they met with the probate attorney late that afternoon.

      Jonathan Wallace, a distinguished, gray-haired gentleman with a small goatee, had been Paul and Nancy’s attorney since their first year of marriage. After offering his sympathies and inviting the two couples to sit down across from his huge mahogany desk, he got right down to business. “Your sister and her husband had a living trust,” he said, opening a maroon portfolio and extracting several official-looking documents. “I won’t bore you with reams of details. You can read the papers at your convenience. Essentially, Paul and Nancy left a modest estate. However, they had a sizable life insurance policy which will provide a generous trust fund for their daughter, Janee. They specified that in the event of their death, Janee be placed with you, Dr. and Mrs. Logan. If for some reason you are not able to become Janee’s legal guardians, they wish her to be placed with the two of you, Mr. and Mrs. Cotter.”

      Pam spoke up. “Mr. Wallace, we’ve already talked about it and agreed that Barbara and Doug should take the child. I work full-time for an accounting firm and part-time for my husband, so I’m hardly ever home. But fortunately Barbara works at home giving piano lessons, so she’ll be available to care for Janee.”

      A tremor of alarm spiraled through Barbara’s stomach. “Wait a minute. We may have talked about this, but nothing was decided.”

      Doug reached over and seized Barbara’s hand. “What are you saying, Barb? You know Nancy wanted us to have Janee. We gave her our promise.”

      Barbara’s alarm turned to frantic butterflies, their fluttering wings doing a number on her digestive system. If they didn’t let up, she was going to be ill. “I can’t,” she said shakily. “I just can’t do it.”

      “Barbara, are you saying you won’t take Janee?” challenged Pam, her voice shrill. “Are you forcing her on us? You know we never wanted kids. Not our own or anyone else’s. We’ve made no bones about it.”

      “I—I’m just saying—”

      “I would think you’d be glad to have another little girl in your home,” said Benny in his booming baritone. “Man alive, Barbara, she’s the same age your girl was. What more could you ask for? I mean, is this a coincidence or what?”

      Tears stung Barbara’s eyes. “My heart aches for Janee,