Chapter Two
HOW HAD HIS LIFE COME TO THIS?
As Ryan drove through a lightly falling snow toward the home of the father he usually did his best to avoid, he tried to figure out what the hell he was doing here.
His leg hurt like the devil from the long day of travel. He didn’t want to be here. But what else could he have done? Kim needed him.
He still reeled when he thought of her tearful phone call a week ago, the day after Thanksgiving.
He had been stretched out in his condo with his knee on ice, settling in to watch a bowl game, when Kim called, her voice panicked and tearful.
“Diane’s been hurt. There’s been an accident. She’s in the hospital. I was arrested. Dad bailed me out.”
The barrage of information hit him like the spray from a .50-caliber machine gun and he could do nothing but stare, certain he must have misheard something.
“Arrested? For what?”
She made a tiny noise, almost a whimper. “DUI,” she finally said. “I was under the influence of pain meds. I should never have been driving. I could have killed all of us. Diane. Audrey. Me. The other driver. Oh, Ry. I screwed up so bad.”
At that, the whimper became a full-on sob, followed by another and another.
“Slow down. Deep breaths, Kim.”
His own words reminded him painfully of how she tried to comfort him during those dark weeks after their mother died.
He had been thirteen, trying to tell himself to man up and not be such a mess.
Kim had been two years older, forced to step into a caregiving role long before their mother died, when Laura Caldwell had barely been able to get out of bed from the effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
Kim had been the one who comforted Ryan, who hugged him even when he insisted he didn’t need to be hugged, who sat quietly without judgment when he cried.
Their father certainly hadn’t been there for his two grieving children.
Kim had held the fractured pieces of their family together. Now she was the one who sounded fractured.
“First of all, how is Diane?” he had asked her. Ryan actually liked his father’s second wife, whom the colonel had married about ten years earlier.
“Not good.” Kim’s voice hitched. “They were worried about internal injuries but didn’t find anything.
Thank God. She has a broken arm and a broken leg.
She’s having surgery this afternoon on her arm.
She also needed about eighteen stitches in her face.
I don’t know how she’ll ever be able to forgive me. ”
“I’m sure she understands it was an accident.”
“An accident that might not have happened if I had been more aware of my surroundings. I should have seen the other driver wasn’t stopping at the red light. Instead, I was distracted by something else and turned right in front of him.”
“So you were T-boned?”
“Yes.” She hitched out another sob and fought for control.
“By a high school student who only had his license for three weeks. That’s not the point, though.
I should never have been driving. I knew I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel.
But Audrey and Diane wanted to hit some Black Friday sales and Diane asked me to drive.
I thought I would be fine. I only took one pain pill but I. .. chased it with bourbon.”
He had no idea what to say. He knew his sister had struggled with substance use when she was younger, after she ran away from the boarding school their father had sent her to.
But that had been years ago. Since she had her daughter, Kim had worked hard to turn her life around and had stepped up to raise her on her own after Audrey’s slimeball father had died in prison.
“I... I think I need to go into rehab. Dad’s found a place in Boise that can take me.
I hate to leave Audrey, especially this time of year, but if I can check in now, I might make it home for Christmas.
By New Year’s at the latest. Dad thinks if I can prove to the court I’ve sought help on my own, I might be able to avoid jail time. ”
Apparently Colonel Douglas Caldwell had his daughter’s life all figured out. Like always.
“Was anyone else injured in the accident?”
“Audrey and I have a few cuts and scrapes. The other driver only had minor injuries, thank heavens.”
“I’m so sorry this happened. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”
Kim paused for a long time. He was about to ask if she was still there when she finally spoke, her voice small. “Ry. Can you come here?”
He should have instinctively said Hell yeah . If his sister needed him, he should be willing to drop everything and go to her.
Instead, he had said nothing while he tried to figure out the logistics. Apparently his silence spoke volumes.
“Forget I said anything. It was a silly thing to ask. It’s just.
.. there’s Audrey. I would normally have her stay with Dad and Diane but they live in Haven Point, eight miles from her school, and Dad will be busy caring for Diane after she gets out of the hospital.
She doesn’t need a thirteen-year-old girl underfoot while she recovers. ”
“I could maybe move some things around and put in for emergency leave,” he said. “Let me see what I can do.”
He wasn’t exactly out there saving the world anyway. He couldn’t fly until he was medically cleared from the injuries he sustained in a hard landing after a malfunction.
The staph infection he had acquired had nearly taken his leg and his recovery had been far longer than he or anyone else expected.
“It might be a few days before I can get there. Do you have somewhere else for her to stay while I see what I can do?”
“Yes. If you can’t, it should be okay. My boss, Holly, has already said she can take her in. I’ve told you about her, I think. She’s great but she’s so busy. I don’t want to burden her with one more thing.”
He could understand that now, as he drove along the lake toward his father’s place. He didn’t know everything Holly Moore might have going on right now, but he had seen the smudges under her eyes, the subtle fragility.
“Plus, it’s Christmas,” Kim had said. “Audrey should be in her own bed in her own house with her own family, if at all possible.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he had said.
“That’s all I can ask. You are the best brother in the world, Ryan, in case I haven’t told you that lately.”
He was far from that. If he had been a better brother, he might have seen the signs earlier that his sister was struggling. He should have been paying more attention and identified that she was on the edge, instead of being consumed with his own injury and his uncertain future.
He looked at his niece now, who was scrolling on her phone.
“I think we’re about a mile from your grandpa’s house,” he commented to Audrey, more as a conversation starter than anything else.
What did one say to a thirteen-year-old girl, anyway? He hadn’t been great at speaking to girls her age when he’d actually been a teenager himself.
She looked out at the dark trees lining the road here on both sides as they drove around the lake. “Yeah. It’s not much further.”
“Sorry about taking you from your babysitting gig.”
She shrugged. “Holly and Lydia will be okay. Lydia’s pretty good most of the time. She’s cute, isn’t she?”
He pictured the girl with her blue eyes and wide smile. “She seems really sweet.”
“And she’s smart, too. She struggles with her words sometimes but there’s a lot going on in her head.”
“Do you babysit her every day?”
“No. Just when Holly needs me. Lydia’s grandma or her aunt sometimes pick her up after school.”
“Ah.”
She put down her phone and angled toward him.
“You didn’t have to come all the way to Idaho to stay with me.
I know Mom asked you to but I would have been fine staying with Holly and Lydia.
Holly’s super nice and I think she was happy to have my help in the evenings with Lydia, especially this time of year when she’s so busy. ”
He shouldn’t ask more but Ryan had to admit he was curious about the woman who was Kim’s boss and her friend, a woman who had somehow seemed both independent and vulnerable.
“Is Lydia’s dad in the picture?”
“They’re divorced. I’ve never met him. He lives in Oregon and his name is Troy. He’s coming home for Christmas, though. I heard Holly talking to her sister about it. They’re twins. Did you know that?”
“Yeah. Her sister was in the store when I got there. It’s kind of hard to miss.”
“Don’t you think it would be cool to be a twin?”
“I’ve never thought of it.”
“I have. I wish I had a twin sister. It would be like having a constant sleepover, right?”
“I suppose. As long as you get along.”
“Anyway, Holly was talking about Lydia’s dad coming for Christmas with Hannah. She seems super stressed about it.”
Had it been a hard divorce? He supposed there was no such thing as an easy one. Even when both parties wanted out, untangling the threads of lives that had been woven together by time and experiences must be tough.
It wasn’t any of his business. He couldn’t imagine his path would cross Holly Moore’s much in the few short weeks he planned to stay in Shelter Springs with Audrey.
“Do you have homework tonight?” he asked as they neared his father’s house, which had once been Diane’s childhood home. The two of them had purchased it, added on and made a forever home out of it after Doug retired from the air force.
“Only a math worksheet. It won’t take me long. I can even do it in home room in the morning.”
“We can work on it later. Have you been by to see Diane since the accident?”
“I spent the first night here with Grandpa after Mom was arrested. That was rough. We went to the hospital to see Diane the next day. And then Holly brought me over here to visit her a few nights ago after Diane got home from the hospital, which was super nice of her since she doesn’t even really know Diane. We took her flowers then, too.”
Ryan had been here only once before, after Kim and Audrey moved to the area to be closer to the colonel and his wife.