Page 116 of The Holiday Gift

“I know that intellectually, but it’s still easy to blame myself.”

“Easy, maybe, but not fair to a sixteen-year-old girl with a broken heart.”

She gave him a surprised look, as if she hadn’t expected him to demonstrate any sort of understanding. Did she think him as much an asshole as Cody Spencer?

“I know. It wasn’t my fault. It just...feels that way sometimes. It happened right here, you know. In the kitchen. They disarmed the security system and broke in through the back door over there. My mom and I were in here when we heard them outside. I caught a quick glimpse of their faces through the window before my mother shoved me into the pantry and ordered me to stay put. I thought she was coming in after me so I hid under the bottom shelf to make room for her, but...she went back out again, calling for my father.”

She was silent and he didn’t know what to say, what to do, to ease the torment in her eyes. Finally, he settled for resting a hand over hers on the table. She gave him another of those surprised looks, then turned her hand over so they were palm against palm and twisted her fingers in his.

“The men ordered her to the ground and... I could hear them arguing. With her, with themselves. One wanted to leave but the other one said it was too late, she had seen them. And then my father came in. He must have had one of his hunting rifles trained on them. I couldn’t see from inside the pantry, but the next thing I knew, two shots rang out. The police said my dad and one of the men must have fired at each other at the same moment. The other guy was hit and injured. My dad...died instantly.”

“Oh, Caidy.”

“After that, it was crazy. My mom was screaming at them. She grabbed a knife out of the kitchen and went after them and the...the bastard shot her too. She...took a while to die. I could hear her breathing while the men hurried through the house taking the art they wanted. They must have made about four or five trips outside before they finally left. And I stayed inside that pantry, doing nothing. I tried to help my mother once but she made me go back inside. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Outside the kitchen he could hear laughter from the children at something on the show they were watching. Caidy’s fingers trembled slightly, her skin cool now, and he tightened his hand around hers.

“I should have helped her. Maybe I could have done something.”

“You would have been shot if they’d known you were here.”

“Maybe.”

“No ‘maybe’ about it. Do you think they would have hesitated for a moment?” He couldn’t bear thinking about the horrific possibility.

“I don’t know. I... When I finally heard them drive away, I waited several more minutes to make sure they weren’t coming back, then went out to call nine-one-one. By then, it was too late for my mother. She was barely hanging on when Taft and the rest of the paramedics arrived. Maybe if I had called earlier, she wouldn’t have lost so much blood.”

Everything made so much sense now. The close bond between the siblings masked a deep pain. He had sensed it and now he knew the root of it.

Did that explain why she was still here at the River Bow all these years later, why she hadn’t finished veterinary school? Did guilt keep her here, still figuratively hiding in the pantry?

Was this the reason she didn’t sing anymore?

He curled her fingers in his, wishing he had some other way to ease her burden. “It wasn’t your fault. What a horrible thing to happen to anyone, let alone a young girl.”

“I guess you understand now why I don’t like Christmas much. I try, for Destry’s sake. She wasn’t even born then. It doesn’t seem fair to make her miss out on all the holiday fun because of grief for people she doesn’t know.”

“I can see that.”

Much to his disappointment, she slid her hand out from underneath his and rose to take her plate to the sink. Though he sensed she was trying to create distance between them again, he cleared his own dishes and carried them to the sink after her.

She looked surprised. “Oh, thanks. You didn’t have to do that. You’re a guest.”

“A guest who owes you far more the few moments it takes to bus a few dishes,” he countered before returning to the table to clean up the mess of plates and napkins and glasses the children had left behind.

She smiled her thanks when he carried the things to the sink and he wanted to think some of the grimness had left her expression. She still hadn’t eaten much pizza but he decided it wasn’t his place to nag her about that.

He grabbed a dish towel and started to dry the few dishes in the drainer by the sink. Though she looked as if she wanted to argue, she said nothing and for a few moments they worked in companionable silence.

“My mom really loved the holidays,” she said when the last few dishes were nearly finished. “Both of my parents did, really. I think that’s what makes it harder. Mom would decorate the house even before Thanksgiving and she would spend the whole month baking. I think Dad was more excited than us kids. He used to sing Christmas songs at the top of his lungs. All through December—after we were done with chores and dinner and homework—he would gather us around the big grand piano in the other room to sing with him. Whatever musical talent I had came from him.”

“I’d like to hear you sing,” he said.

She gave him a sidelong look and shook her head. “I told you, I don’t sing anymore.”

“You think your parents would approve of that particular stance?”

She sighed and hung the dish towel on the handle of the big six-burner stove. “I know. I tell myself that every year. My dad, in particular, would be very disappointed in me. He would look at me underneath those bushy eyebrows of his and tell me music is the medicine of a broken heart. That was one of his favorite sayings. Or he would quote Nietzsche: ‘without music, life is a mistake.’ I know that intellectually, but sometimes what we know in our head doesn’t always translate very well to our heart.”

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