Page 81 of Second Start: Family
They all went right to their beds, but it was a restless night.
Lizzie cried out after a couple hours and — testament to their uneasiness — all the others woke.
Bobby was up two more times. And that woke the others.
*
Hall was awake before his internal alarm clock.
The kids came down listless and cranky. Ordinary chores taxed their willingness and his patience.
He said to Dan, low enough to not draw the other kids’ attention from taking bowls of cereal to the table, “Need you to look after the others while I’m at the schoolhouse.”
“Her again.”
“Yes. And you know why. What happened to her.”
Which Dan knew long before he did.
And there it was.
The suspicion he hadn’t let himself consider before.
“Dan, you said you found that information. Did you deliberately search for something bad about Kenzie to help your aunt?”
His son assumed an expression of disgust, but guilt showed through. “No. But it wasn’t hard to find something bad. It’s all stupid anyway. You think after her life back east that she’ll put up with living on this damned ranch like Mom did?”
“Living on thisdamned ranchwas your mother’s dream, not mine.”
“That’s a lie! She hated it. She told me. I know what it was like for her to be married to somebody like you. You’re lying to make yourself look better. She—”
“Don’t you tell me I’m lying. You think you know your mother so well? You think you know what it was like inside our marriage?”
He headed for the desk, grabbing Dan’s arm as he went by. The boy yanked free and Hall gripped him again. At the desk, he dug out keys one-handed and opened the locked cabinet.
“Read these,” he shoved Dan into the chair as he pulled journals and letters out, piling them in front of him. “Quit making your mother a saint. She was human.”
He strode to the door.
“Where you goin’, Daddy?” Bobby called out.
“The schoolhouse for a meeting.”
“With Miss Kenzie?” Molly asked.
“We’ll come, too,” Lizzie said.
“Me, too, come,” Bobby proclaimed.
“No, you stay here, all of you.”
*
Vicky set them up in the older kids’ room in the schoolhouse, pulling chairs into a circle, so it looked rather like a twelve-step meeting, including coffee and cookies.
Kenzie jumped when the door opened.
But it was Eric, looking like he hadn’t slept any more than she had.
