Page 69 of Our Lips Are Sealed
“Hiya, Evie.”
Chapter 20
August 19, 1999
“Yousee.”Simonekneeledto adjust the brakes on Abe’s wheelchair. “It’s not that hard.”
Abe kept his eyes trained on the floor, not paying attention. “I guess.”
Calling on all her strength to fight the threatening flood of tears, Simone smiled up at her beautiful son. “We’ll figure it out as we go.”
Standing, she ran a hand over Abe’s head. “Are you ready for breakfast?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, his voice empty of that boisterous joy it once held.
Simone ached for her little man. According to the doctors, his broken body would never fully recover, and she worried his spirit never would either.
Selah watched them from the kitchen table. Her oldest had been the shining light of hope through all this, helping care for the children while she grieved. “What do you want to do today, Abe?”
Abe rolled awkwardly to the table, bumping into the corner on approach and jostling the breakfast dishes. “I want to take a walk in the woods.”
“Your legs don’t work right,” CeCe said in her innocently rational way. “So, we can’t go walking today.”
Simone shushed her and continued to serve the rest of the children their food. She was beat tired, but caring for her brood helped keep her sane. If she stopped long enough to feel anything, she might just lay down and die on the spot.
“We can go outside,” Selah said, nudging Annabeth next to him. Since their return home, she hadn’t so much as stepped off the front porch. “All of us.”
Annabeth remained quiet, sitting next to Livy’s usual chair that sat heartbreakingly empty. Haven had lost itslittle mama, and the children were adrift in this new reality without her. To cope, the girls had taken to sleeping together in Livy’s bed, all four of them piling in one-by-one during the night.
“Eat your breakfast,” Simone ordered. “None of you will be doing anything on an empty stomach.”
The kitchen descended into silence, something once unimaginable at Haven House. The days of music and constant chatter were gone. At least until the pain stopped.
Or they became numb to it.
“Try to eat,” she urged Evie, who hadn’t touched her food. The girl sat at the island bar with her head lowered. Miranda claimed she’d been nearly catatonic during her stay at Parkland Grounds. “You need your strength.”
Evie didn’t respond, and continued to balance Jamison with one hand on the barstool next to her. The sisters hadn’t spent a second apart since their mother’s death.
Toby hadn’t left Evie’s side either, now doing things for her, instead of vice versa. As he did every morning, he sat next to her eating, and quietly encouraging her to do the same.
“Hello!” Miranda’s voice carried into the kitchen from the front of the house. Like clockwork, she and Josie appeared every day with Samuel. Simone loved her friends for the gesture, but at the same time, hated being around them.
They still had each other, while she had nothing.
Being without Devon left Simone breathless, like someone had strung barbed wire around her lungs the moment she lost him. During the day, she used the children as a distraction, but when the night came, and she was alone in their bed, her husband’s presence tormented her.
She would wake, or think she was awake, and hear him laughing out on the lawn, waiting for her under their oak tree. But then the sun would rise, and the vision of him would fade under its light, forcing her to face the reality that he was truly gone all over again.
Ben was likely going through the same hell, isolated in that empty mansion he’d built for Laura Jean. Miranda was the only person he permitted near, with Simone not laying eyes on him since they brought Abe home from the hospital.
Which was also the same day Ben attempted to kill his brother.
Witnessing him release his fury on Charlie was a sight Simone likely would hold on to until she left this earth. For the briefest of seconds, she worried her inaction would send her straight to hell.
But then, Ben screamed in that same awful way, like he had done when Laura Jean lay bleeding on the ballroom floor, and Simone’s concerns for her eternal damnation vanished.
No God she believed in would ever forsake them this vengeance.
