Reborn

1

Carol closed the front door of the mansion behind her and stood in the cool dimness. She didn't want to be here. Even now she didn't know how she had brought herself to drive past the iron spikes on the front gate. But she had no place else to go. Her own home was a blackened shell, and she couldn't stay with Jonah and Emma any longer. She couldn't stand Emma's constant hovering, her mad swings between rage and grief, and she couldn't bear another evening with Jonah sitting there staring at her. She had thanked them and had left first thing this morning.

She had tried to call Aunt Grace last night to find out if what Emma had said was true. Had she been outside the mansion with those nuts? But Grace wasn't answering her phone.

" She had been almost tempted to call Bill and ask if she could stay with his parents but then realized that what she wanted more than anything else was to be alone.

The empty mansion echoed hollowly around her.

This is it, Jim, she thought. You're gone, our house and our bed are gone, all the old photos, all your unsold novels—gone. There's nothing left of you but this old house, and that's not much, 'cause you hardly had any time here at all.

Her eyes filled. She still couldn't believe he was gone, that he wouldn't come bounding down the stairs over there with another of those damn journals in his hand. But he was gone—her one and only Jim was gone!

Her throat tightened. Why'd you have to die, Jim? She almost hated him for being so stupid . .'t> climbing up that gatepost! Why?

How was she going to do it without him? Jim had pulled her through her parents' deaths when she had thought the world was caving in on her, and he had been her rock, her safe place ever since. But who was going to pull her through his death?

She could almost hear his voice:

You're on your own now, Carol. Don't let me down. Don't go to pieces on me. You can do it!

She felt the sobs begin to quake in her chest. She had thought herself all cried out.

She was wrong.