The Lawman Lassoes A Family. Rachel Lee

they were friends, and that wasn’t going to change. Vicki still wasn’t sure what she had done that had made Dan originally decide not to come for dinner, but she resolved to be friendlier.

      If she could figure out how. She seemed to have become somewhat socially inept after the past year. But of course, she’d stopped meeting new people and had become enclosed by the blue wall of Hank’s friends. If she sat for hours without speaking, they didn’t worry about it. They just included her, then let her be.

      Despite the passage of time, she’d seemed to want to be left alone more rather than less. It was part of what had driven her to accept Lena’s invitation—the feeling that Hal’s friends, despite their best intentions, were holding her in some kind of stasis. That with them she would always be Hal’s widow.

      Well, if she was to have any life at all other than being his widow and Krystal’s mom, now was the time to start. And friendship was a good place to begin.

      She went to the kitchen to pour herself coffee before joining them. Once again, she found Dan and her aunt on Lena’s old couch. Vicki wondered if her recliner sofa was radioactive or something.

      “Hey there,” Lena said. “Is the tyke out for the night?”

      “Totally. She worked hard on her playroom today.” Vicki smiled. “And she loves it. Thanks, Lena. I can’t quite tell how she organized it, but everything is where she wants it.”

      “I could get rid of that bed.”

      Vicki sat on the edge of the sofa. “I don’t think you need to. It seems to have become the home for a bazillion stuffed animals.”

      “We should find some things to put on the walls,” Lena remarked. “That old wallpaper just looks old, and the room hasn’t been used in so long that if it ever had any charm, it was in another era.”

      Dan chuckled, and Vicki felt a smile lift her lips. “Krys seems happy with it.”

      “Krys put a lot of life into it,” Lena agreed. “But I’m sure I could give her something cheerier to look at above little-girl height.” She brightened. “Let’s do that. Posters, whatever. Bright colors. I bet she’d love to help pick them.”

      Vicki had no doubt of that. “Just not too much,” she said cautiously.

      Lena eyed her inquisitively. “Why?”

      Vicki hesitated, acutely aware that Dan would hear, and might take it wrong. “Well, our friends...” Yes, call them friends, not Hal’s colleagues, not cops. “Every time they came to see us, they brought something for Krystal. That’s why she has so many stuffed animals and toys. More than any child needs. Hal and I didn’t want to spoil her, but...” Vicki shrugged, not knowing how to finish the thought.

      “Well, thank goodness,” Dan said.

      Startled, she looked at him and found him almost grinning. “What?”

      “Krystal was admiring the wolf on my T-shirt yesterday. You don’t know how close I came to getting her a stuffed wolf. I guess that would have been the wrong thing to do.”

      Lena laughed. Vicki felt her cheeks warm. “It wouldn’t have been wrong,” she said swiftly. “I’m sure she would have loved it. It’s just that she’s spent most of past year living in a flood of gifts. That needs to slow down.”

      Dan winked. “Got it. I’ll get the wolf next week.”

      In spite of everything, Vicki laughed. All of a sudden her heart felt a smidgeon lighter. “That’ll work,” she said.

      Dan rose to get more coffee. Lena suggested he just bring the pot into the living room.

      “So what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” Lena asked Vicki.

      “Your house, your agenda.”

      Lena cocked an eyebrow at her. “You don’t get off so easy. It’s your house now, too. You still haven’t gone through to tell me if I’ve labeled any furniture for removal that you might want to keep. And we need to get at your unpacking.”

      Vicki was glad Dan wasn’t in the room at that moment, because what burst out of her sounded anything but adult. “Lena, this is so hard.”

      Her aunt instantly came to sit beside her and hug her. “I know, my sweet girl. I know. Don’t let me pressure you.”

      “It’s not that,” Vicki admitted. “It’s that I seem to have made all the decisions I can make. I don’t know if I can make any more. And I’m not even sure I made the right ones. What if this is all wrong for Krystal?”

      Dan froze in the foyer as he heard what Vicki said. The worn oriental rug beneath his feet had silenced his steps, and he was certain neither of the women knew he was there. Should he go back into the kitchen? But the anguish in Vicki’s voice riveted him to the spot.

      He understood the torment of losing your spouse, and he was intimately acquainted with the decisions that eventually had to be made. Few of them were easy; all of them were painful. You could either turn your life into a living gravestone, or you could chose to move ahead.

      But moving ahead meant making painful choices. The day he had realized that he needed to take his wife’s clothing to the Red Cross had sent him over an emotional cliff edge. Lena talked about living in her family’s museum. Well, he’d done that, too. He’d lived in a museum of his life with Callie. He supposed Vicki had done the same thing.

      But his choices hadn’t been as broad or sweeping as the ones Vicki had just made. She hadn’t just closed up her own museum, but she’d left the only place familiar to her, everyone she knew, and she’d taken her daughter on the journey with her.

      Hearing her fear that she might not have done right by Krystal pierced him. How she must have agonized over making the correct decisions.

      He heard Lena speak again, quietly. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m truly sorry. I keep wanting to be cheerful, and keep moving us along, and I forget how hard this must be. I’ve never had to do anything like it. It was different when your grandparents died. They were old, they were sick, it was time. And I didn’t have to do anything except stay right here and let time do its work. You’ve chosen a much harder path.”

      “What if it’s the wrong one?” Vicki asked, her voice strained.

      “I can’t guarantee it’s not. Only time will tell. But I listened to you enough to know all the thought you put into deciding to move here. And I know that never at any point did you forget about your daughter.”

      Silence. Dan closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing Vicki’s fears and pain. He didn’t know what he could do about any of it, but he was determined to try. Then he heard Lena speak again.

      “All right,” she said, “no more decisions for you unless you feel like making them. There’s really no rush, you know. I shouldn’t have pressured you. Take a break. We’ll sort out everything when you’re ready.”

      Dan suddenly realized he’d been gone too long. After stepping backward on the rug to the kitchen door, he headed for the living room again, making his footsteps heavier this time.

      When he entered the room, Lena was still sitting beside Vicki.

      “Coffee, anyone?” he asked casually.