A Morning Like This (25 page)

“Did you sleep last night?”

“No, I didn’t. Did you?”

“No.”

David just kept talking about nothing because it was the only thing he knew to do. “I haven’t heard anything. Not one word.”
A stutter-step of seconds, while he waited for her to echo his statement, which she didn’t do. “Why so quiet, Susan? Have
you?”

A long unbroken hesitation, which sent his hopes plummeting to his knees. Then, “Yes, David. I’ve heard something. But it’s
nothing good.”

He came out of his chair, gripping the telephone receiver against his ear as if he was trying to insert it into his head.
“What? Susan? Oh, Susan, is she all right?”

“I don’t know about that part, David. We still haven’t heard anything about that.”

“But you said—”

“It’s this, David.” Susan’s voice over the line trembled with irony and fear. “The tests. The doctor called a minute ago.
Isn’t that something? It’s a national holiday, but he knew I’d want to know.”

“The tests? Tests?” For one helpless moment, he struggled to remember what the tests might be, just as he’d struggled once
to place Susan’s name.
The tests. Braden’s test, for Samantha
.

“They came back late yesterday afternoon. He didn’t realize he had them until today. It’s over, I think. Braden doesn’t match.
He’s farther off than
you
.”

Words failed him. There was nothing that could be said, only the deep sense of loss that crashed over David like a breaking
wave.
“Oh, Susan.”

“So that’s it,” she said. “Just like that, David. There isn’t anything you can do to help her.”

Every year, the July Fourth celebration in Jackson Hole kicked off with a pancake breakfast in the square. Members of the
Jackson Hole Jaycees donned red chef’s aprons donated by the Silver Dollar Grille and stood in line behind a sizzling outdoor
griddle that must have been a good fifteen yards long. They artfully flipped flapjacks, hash browns, bacon and sausage, and
massive slabs of scrambled eggs that looked like they’d been run over by a John Deere tractor. By nine in the morning, striped
awnings had been erected on the grass, the Bar J Wranglers were tuning up their fiddles on the flatbed trailer parked in front
of The Gap, and the Teton Twirlers Square Dance Club was making their first official grand-right-and-left of the day.

It was a day for commemorating and honoring freedom in the United States of America, with what seemed like an entire nation
of tourists who had come together to see one of its greatest treasures. It was a day for hanging red-white-and-blue bunting
from the balcony of the Rancher Billiard Hall and Sirk Shirts, and waving flags from the doorways of the little shops lining
Broadway and Millward Street. It was a day for children to roam in herds, devouring homemade scones while honey butter dripped
from their chins, and snicker at the square dancers’ goofy clothes while secretly wishing they could join in.

Because of his upstanding community rank as an officer of the bank, David Treasure had been invited to sit in the reviewing
stand that day and judge the floats during the annual July Fourth parade. He fiddled with the knot of his patriotic tie just
as he heard Abby passing in the hallway behind him, as lightly and as carefully as a shadow.

“I can’t do this, Abby,” he said, his voice sounding gruff and hard, resounding with a huge echo in a house that more often
now remained futile with silence.

David felt, rather than heard, her pause behind him.

“Can’t what?” she asked. “Can’t tie your tie? Or can’t go judge a parade with everything going on in your head?”

“Can’t—” As he said it, the knot of his tie tightened pitiably somewhere below his shirt’s third button. David gave up and
stared at the dilapidated thing in the mirror. “Either of them, Abby. I can’t do any of these things anymore. It’s all so
hopeless
.”

He saw Abby’s face appear behind his left shoulder in the mirror. She stared at his tie without raising her eyes. This woman,
whom I’ve married and who trusted me. Even the things I’ve tried to do right, I’ve done wrong.

“Turn around,” she said. “Turn around and let me work on you.”

He balked at first, his mind on his daughter and all he’d been unable to do.

All You asked of me, Lord, and it came to nothing.

He turned his body toward his wife so she could fix his tie.

Abby didn’t raise her face the entire time she struggled with his neckwear. He could only see the top of her head the way
a bird would see it, the crooked part she’d combed into her hair, the double cowlick she’d gotten from her grandfather and
was always trying to style away.

His skin went prickly with the nearness of her. He ought not to swallow. Thinking about not doing it made him need to do it
so badly, he had to give in.

His Adam’s apple bobbed. He could tell by the way her hands hesitated against the hollow of his throat, even through the starched
cotton of his shirt, that she knew why.

“Abby—” he began.

“Don’t, David,” she said. “Don’t do this to me. Not now. Not with all these people who are needing us.”

“Abby.”

“You have
hurt
me. That isn’t going to go away.”

“Look at me.”

“I’ve made a choice for now, David. I’ve made the choice to grit my teeth and get by. And that’s
all
I’m going to do. I can’t do it any other way.”

“I need you right now, can’t you see that? My life is in turmoil and I don’t have a wife beside me. I can’t take it day in
and day out, you coming close to me and reminding me what I did. You even prayed for Susan, then you looked at me and accused.”

While he held himself as unyielding as a timber post, she manhandled his necktie as if she were tying an outfitters’ knot
on the rump of a horse. She lashed it through itself with fierce intention and tightened it with little nervous jerks of her
hand. In one gliding motion, she slid the knot, a perfectly formed triangle, into the notch of his collar at the base of his
throat. She took three steps back from him. David inspected the results in the mirror. His tie looked so right the way she’d
done it, they could have used it on the cover of
Gentleman’s Quarterly
magazine.

“Lay blame where blame is due, David.”

“Just stop,” he said. “Don’t say it.”

“You should have thought about needing a wife beside you on the day you started your affair.”

For the past three days, the women residents and workers at the Community Safety Network had been baking together in the kitchen
to make goodies to sell to the parade crowds in the Jackson Hole town square. Sophie Henderson had made her famous zucchini
buttermilk bread along with several batches of ginger snaps and chocolate-chip brownies. Kate Carparelli had baked her long-standing
family-favorite rhubarb pie, as well as sticky buns and four-dozen lemon chess tarts. Thanks to several of the other shelter
residents, individually wrapped gingerbread men, apple muffins, and slabs of peanut brittle stood in enticing rows on the
table.

Sophie waved as she saw Abby weaving her way through the crowd. “Over here! We need you. We’ve made almost two hundred dollars
so far.”

“Great.” Abby waved back. Here she came, with three plastic boxes from the bakery at Albertson’s—chocolate cupcakes with industrial
icing, pastel sprinkles adorning the machine-made, swirled tops. She set them down with an elaborate sigh. “And look at these.
After everybody cooking all week, I didn’t have time to bake.”

Sophie wrapped an arm around her. “I’ll bet those go faster than anything else on the table. Kids will always pay more money
for things with sprinkles.”

Abby hugged her back. “Go ahead, Soph. Make me feel better.”

Kate had been watching them, her eyes somber, from across the booth. “Has anybody heard anything about David’s girl, Abby?
Have they found her?”

“No. Nothing new.”

Hungry customers inundated them before they could finish the conversation. Quarters and nickels began to pile high in the
cash box. Although Sophie had been a little off with her prediction about the Albertson’s cupcakes with sprinkles, several
children did select them. Kate’s rhubarb pie brought a record seventeen dollars.

Just as a lull came, a man with dark hair slicked back, runnels still left from the comb, strode toward the table. He smelled
of hair crème. A burgundy Cattle Kate scarf was knotted like an ascot beneath his clean-shaven jaw, setting off blue eyes
that were the same color as a mountain summer sky. The man clamped Sophie’s zucchini buttermilk bread in one huge paw. He
fished a huge wad of bills and a snuffbox from his back pocket. “Here you go.” He handed the bills to Kate.

Kate unfolded them and began to count. “Five… ten… fifteen…” She tried to return the rest. “You’ve given me thirty-five. This
bread’s only fifteen.”

“I see the price.” He poked his snuffbox back where it belonged. “But I say it’s worth thirty-five.”

At the sound of that voice, Sophie lifted her gaze from the tin box where she’d been counting out pennies for a little boy.
Her body went rigid, her face drawn and looking almost ill. Abby saw the box-lid slam on her fingers. Sophie didn’t even jump.

He said, “Hey, Snooks.”

At the sight of him, Sophie shrank a little. She lashed her arms across her chest and took a step backwards. “Mike? What are
you doing here?”

He touched the Saran-wrapped loaf to his belt buckle and Sophie physically flinched. Abby thought,
I wonder if he hits her with that
. “Oh, Sophie Darlin’. You know how it is,” he said sweetly while Sophie kept staring at his huge hands as if she could see
them knocking her around. “It’s time to put this behind you and come home.”

“This isn’t going to work.”

“Let’s talk.” He reached toward her and touched an arm that had been black and blue when Sophie had first arrived. “One more
time. That’s all. Just one more time.”

Abby had seen this scene so many times, she almost knew what the next words were going to be. It always played out sugar sweet;
then, when the men didn’t get what they wanted, they turned angry.
Tell him, Sophie. Tell him. Tell him. You aren’t coming home again
.

“Didn’t you like my roses?”

No
, Abby wanted to say.
She gave those away
.

“That’s not going to work. Flowers don’t make up for what you do. Mike—” Sophie floundered. The table and all those cupcakes
stood in between them and, for the moment, Abby couldn’t tell whether Sophie wanted to run toward this man, or away. A heart
and a spirit in her, at war with each other, playing out on her face. “Abby?”

Abby nodded. “I’m here.”

Sophie turned to her husband again. “This isn’t fair, you cornering me like this.”

“Why not? You’re out here for all the rest of the world to see. Why can’t I see you?”

“You could have made that bread yourself from your mother’s notecard in the recipe box. You didn’t need me to do it.”

He was standing in everybody’s way. Children elbowed in past him, and he stepped around several of them, pushing them out
of his path. It was clear Sophie’s fear hadn’t gone away. Kate and Abby exchanged quarters for peanut brittle, making an obvious
barrier between the man with the bread and this small, terrified woman in the booth.

Mike opened the wrap on his wife’s bread, tore off a hunk, and shoved it into his mouth. “Humph,” he said around the crust.
“Good. Real good.”

Abby said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“This is a public park.”

“Yes, but your wife doesn’t want to see you.”

“Wait.” He grinned suddenly. “Wait, Sophie. I got something.” He set the bread on the table. “I got something you’ll like.”
Without any further ado, he trotted away.

The air of fun and gaiety had left the booth the moment Mike Henderson arrived. Now Sophie, Abby, and Kate sold treats with
quiet care, keeping watch over a hundred heads in the crowd.

“I wish he wouldn’t come back,” Kate said, “but I know he will. I’ve seen this happen about a hundred times before.”