Page 73 of Escape to the Sun

“It was a long time ago.” She shrugged, but he could see it still bothered her.

“Can I ask you, what happened?”

“Heather didn’t tell you?”

Ash shook his head.

“I’m surprised.” He waited. “I’m sure she told you I was a terrible mother.”

“She didn’t say that.”

“Now I know you’re lying.” Val chuckled but there was no mirth in it. “I’m afraid I wasn’t the mother Heather needed. But I did the best I could and I kept her safe. That was all I needed to do. Keep her safe.”

“That’s very important,” he agreed. “I’d say you did that well.”

“I couldn’t keep Harold safe.”

Ash wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “Pardon?”

“I couldn’t keep Harold safe,” she repeated. “My husband. It was my only job as a wife and mother, to keep my family safe. And I failed.”

He lifted the bottle of water to his lips, suddenly parched from the heat—or the familiar words being used in a totally different context. “I’m sure his death wasn’t your fault. Sometimes terrible things happen.” The irony of him using the exact same words that had been used on him for years wasn’t lost on him, but Ash didn’t focus on it.

“You’re not telling me anything I haven’t heard before,” she said. “Everyone means well when they try to make you feel better, but they don’t know.” Val shook her head. “But the truth is, they just don’t understand. I doubt you would either.”

“Try me,” he said. “I think you’d be surprised.”

Val took her time, drank some water and deliberately put the cap back on the bottle before she spoke again. “It was his dream to see the world,” she said. “He wanted to travel. Idaho was never big enough for him. Heather was just like him.” Her lips turned up in a small smile, but then it was gone again. “I didn’t share his wanderlust, but I loved him and I wanted him to be happy, so I agreed to a trip. Heather was only five. I thought she was too young to leave her with friends, but Harold insisted she was old enough and he wanted to celebrate our anniversary at one of those resorts in Mexico. You know the kind…drinks and food and…”

“An all-inclusive resort?”

She nodded. “Right. That.”

“But you said you’d never been to a beach like this before.”

“And it’s true. You see, I didn’t like the idea. But he talked me into it. He took care of everything. He booked the flights, took time off work, even had his mother come into town to babysit for us. But I just wasn’t okay with it. I worried about leaving Heather. I couldn’t sleep. I obsessed. I had nightmares that something terrible was going to happen and when it came time to go, I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t go?”

“You think I’m crazy, right?”

He kind of did, but he didn’t say anything. Not yet. “What happened?”

“We didn’t go. Harold was very calm about it. He didn’t yell at me, or get mad. He got his money back. We lost a bit of the deposit, and I knew he was upset about that. Heck, he was probably upset with me about the whole thing. But he never said so. Ultimately he told me that if I wasn’t comfortable with it, we’d celebrate at home and go on a trip another time. He knew how I worried about him and Heather. He loved me and wanted me to be happy.”

“That’s sweet.”

Val shook her head. “No. It’s not. Two days later, he was killed.”

Ash was not expecting that. He tried to hide the shock on his face, but obviously didn’t do a very good job. “But that can’t possibly be your fault. An accident is terrible, but not in any way your fault.”

Val nodded sadly and dug her toes into the sand. “Don’t you see? If I hadn’t have insisted we stay, he wouldn’t have been on the highway that day, going to work. There was a car with a flat tire and he stopped to help. The truck driver didn’t see them until it was too late. If we’d been in Mexico, he would have been safe.”

Ash shook his head. “No. That doesn’t make sense.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.” Val stood and walked down toward the water again.

Ash packed up the cooler and quickly caught up with her again. “But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t want Heather to travel. It was staying home that killed your husband. Not that I think that had anything to do with it,” he quickly added. “But like you said, if he’d been in Mexico with you, he wouldn’t have been involved with the accident. So why are you so against traveling? Heather said you wouldn’t let her go anywhere.”

“It is my job as a wife and mother to keep them safe. If I could keep her close, I could protect her.”

“You can’t really believe that.”

Val stopped walking and turned to Ash with such sadness on her face. He hardly knew the woman, but his heart ached for her and everything she’d lost in her life. “I don’t,” she said simply. “But I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t lose her, too.” She dropped her head and Ash knew without looking closely that the woman was crying. “But all I did was push her away.”

He couldn’t disagree. He gave her a few minutes to cry her silent tears and then he took her by the arm and gave it a squeeze. “But there’s a difference.” She looked into his face, waiting for the advice he should have already taken himself. “Heather’s not gone.”

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