Page 77 of Change of Plans

“What’s wrong? Where are the girls?” Bryce peered around but saw no kids.

Adele threw herself against Bryce, who staggered back, stunned, as the older woman began to cry.

“The girls have b-barricaded themselves in the guest suite and haven’t been out to eat since Wednesday morning.” Adele sobbed against Bryce’s chest. “They won’t talk to us. W-we don’t even know if they’re alive or dead in there!”

“Adele, let’s not get dramatic,” Harvey said. “We hear all three voices when they fight.”

“They’ve…locked themselves in a room since Wednesday morning?” Bryce asked as Adele pulled away, taking the handkerchief Harvey handed to her. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve talked to you twice a day and you didn’t say anything was wrong. I’d have come home last night if I’d have known.”

“We were going to call you if they didn’t come out by dinner. This week…this week has been more challenging than we could have ever imagined.” Harvey’s normally clean-shaven face was heavy with fatigue and silvered with whiskers.

Unsure what to say, Bryce ventured a question. “Why did the girls lock themselves in the guest suite?”

“It’s all a jumble, but we think it was Cecily’s doing, at first,” Harvey explained, following Bryce as she walked toward the guest room. “She spilled chocolate pudding on her camo pants, and when we said we’d go over to the apartment and get her another pair, she…she melted down. They took all our cardboard boxes—the ones we used for storage in the basement—and they dumped everything out. Then Addison came out, crying that her leg itched and she needed us to fashion a coat hanger to scratch inside the cast—”

Adele took over the story. “But that was just a ruse. While we were in the bathroom, June raided our cupboards and refrigerator. They’ve been holed up in there—the only room with an attached bathroom—ever since.”

“Mmm.” Bryce nodded to show she was listening, but really she was wondering whether to panic or to laugh. Her nieces had basically commandeered the Payne household, waging some sort of mutiny. If it wasn’t so concerning and terrifying, it might be funny.

“And I…I don’t want to scare you,” Adele began, “but one of the girls raided Harvey’s toolbox, and he’s missing his duct tape, plus his—”

“Box cutter,” Bryce said at the same time as Adele, then smiled in reassurance. “Don’t worry. June knows how to use it. I think…they might be making a pirate ship.”

Bryce knocked on the guest room’s door.

“It’s Aunt Beamer. Can I come in and talk to you for a second?”

Addison was the first to answer. “Nope. We gotta talk to you through the door. June says if we open it, the gig is up. An’ we want to keep gigging until Cici feels better. Also, did you know Nana and Pop-Pop won’t let us watch anything but news and the Weather Channel?”

Harvey made as if to retort, but Bryce gave an “it’s okay” gesture to forestall him.

“Sounds like you got really bored. What’s going on with Cecily? Is it her tummy?”

This time June answered, her voice ripe with sarcasm, but holding a note of…was it sadness? Worry? Whatever it was, Bryce strained to hear what was between the teen’s words as she replied. “There’s beena lotgoing on with Cecily. I thought building her a pirate ship might fix it—like when she played with Ryker’s. She’s eating just fine, but she keeps looking at Mom and Dad’s photo albums and crying…”

“Yeah,” Addison piped up, filling the silence. Bryce heard athump-thumpsound that must’ve been her crutches moving closer to the door. “Only I think she might be getting curvy because we haven’t had any fruit since you left.”

“Scurvy,” June corrected. “Not curvy. And that’s not what’s wrong with Cici. She…she keeps saying it’s her fault that Mom and Dad are…are gone.”

Adele, listening behind Bryce, clucked her tongue, her voice kind as she called out. “Honey, a stranger ran a stop sign and caused the accident. It’s not your fault—”

“It is my fault!” Cecily’s shout, all broken and jagged, sliced through the air. “I spilled yogurt all over my shirt when I was eating the rest of my breakfast in the car. I was crying because I wanted a clean shirt and when Mom and Dad dropped me off at school they promised to go right home and get me a clean one. That’s why they were in the accident—because I wanted a clean shirt.”

Everything clicked into place in Bryce’s head: Cecily’s refusal to bathe, to have her clothes washed, her panic whenever she’d forgotten something at home. This poor child had been living with such crushing guilt—it broke Bryce’s heart.

“Aw, Cici.” Bryce shook her head. “You can’t blame yourself, because it’s simply not true. You weren’t there. You weren’t driving the other car. Nothing you did caused the crash.”

“They wouldn’t have been at that road when the man hit them with the car if it weren’t for me.”

The three adults looked at each other, helpless. Bryce thought about trying to call the girls’ therapist, but it was almost seven o’clock and the office was closed. To her surprise, it was June who spoke up.

“Was it Aunt Beamer’s fault you got stuck under the shelves at the grocery store that time?”

“No,” Cecily said with a huff. “I was getting my lucky rock that rolled under.”

“But what if the shelf had fallen and you’d gotten really hurt? Would it have been her fault then?” June persisted.

“No. But it didn’t fall. It’s not the same.”

---