Freefall

After a moment, Zoe abandoned her and climbed into her uncle’s lap. He drew her close and settled deeper into the sofa while Sophie tried not to let it bother her.

The children naturally felt closer to Tom—he lived in the area and saw them far more frequently than she did. They shared a bond she would have to earn. Still, it smarted, she had to admit.

With effort, she put away her hurt and tried to focus on the movie. After a few moments she reached for a handful of popcorn in the bowl next to her on the couch. By some quirk of fate, Tom reached for a handful of his own at exactly the same time.

Their fingers brushed inside the bowl and a quick spark sizzled between them. Her gaze flew to his and she found him watching her, raw hunger in his eyes.

She had a sudden, almost painful awareness of her blood pulsing through her veins, of her lungs slowly working to draw air, of her body stirring to life.

She wasn’t sure how long her gaze stayed locked with his, the movie and the popcorn and the children forgotten. Suddenly she was twenty again, young and foolish, swallowed up by that wild, terrible flush of first love.

Some loud noise in the movie jerked her back to the present and her surroundings and she quickly looked back at the screen with a fierce attempt at concentration that she was sure fooled no one.

“Aunt Sophie, look! I went all the way to the end of the driveway and didn’t fall down once!”

She smiled at the pride in Zach’s voice. “You’re doing great! I knew you could do it.”

“And me too,” Zoe chimed in, still tightly clutching Sophie’s hand as if she’d be sucked away by the lightest of breezes if she dared let go. “I can skate, too.”

Sophie wobbled a little on the pair of inline skates she had found jumbled together in a box tucked into a closet of the children’s big playroom. “You’re both fantastic. I would have fallen on my behind a dozen times if you weren’t holding me up.”

Zoe squeezed her hand even more tightly, nearly cutting off her circulation. “I won’t let go, I promise.”

“Good.” Sophie tried not to wince at her aching fingers and headed back down the driveway.

Though the weather was still cool, the four of them were enjoying a temporary break in the clouds to play on the curved asphalt driveway at Seal Point. It was the perfect surface for learning to skate, as silky smooth as sea-polished stone.

All day she had tried to keep them busy with one activity after another. She was learning distraction was important to the children in these first painful days of trying to cope with the loss of their parents.

Even though their grief was always present—like the low murmur of the sea below them through the trees—the children were beginning to smile a little more often. It would be a long, painful process, she knew, but they were headed on the right path.

She watched Zach and Ali skate ahead of them, their arms waving wildly to help them keep their balance. She would have liked to photograph all of them right here, with their faces rosy and the afternoon sun slanting through the coastal pines to brush their hair gold.