Those Children Are Ours Page 25

  She scurried to her car, then drove uptown, pulling into the parking lot at Lenox Square to call her attorney, to tell him that she had the photographs. After talking with him, she got out and walked into the mall. She needed a distraction, something to think about, other than Jack.

  She felt light-headed and trembled as she passed through the entrance. Red hearts hung on each door, and red-and-white bows were tied to the lights. Valentine’s decorations were everywhere that she looked. She was not in the mood to celebrate love.

  As she joined the crowd of shoppers who were picking through the remains of the after-Christmas sales, she had the sensation that she was all alone, in a tunnel. Although she was surrounded by people, she could not hear what they were saying. She saw them as blurry figures, flashing past her, appearing in her path as she swerved to avoid them.

  Though she tried not to, as she walked through the stores, she replayed the scene from the hotel room, over and over again, still feeling the shock of actually seeing her husband in bed with his secretary. She had known that she would catch them together, but actually seeing them had been much worse than she had expected.

  Not wanting to go home, afraid that she would encounter Jack, she decided to stay in Atlanta. Even though she was expecting to have a sleepless night, she set her alarm for five o’clock, when she would return to Charleston to meet with her attorney.

  ***

  Jack had come and gone before she’d arrived at home. Amy supposed that her appearance with her camera had taken the romance out of his trip. Poor Jack. Some of his clothes were missing from the bedroom closet, his laptop was no longer on the shelf in the office, his desk had been ransacked, and a file drawer was empty.

  Amy called a locksmith to re-key the locks, and changed the passwords on all of her accounts. Then, she sat and stared at the television, paying no attention to the programs, until her attorney called to say that Jack had been served with her petition for a divorce.

  She put her dinner dishes in the sink and walked around the house. She spied a framed photograph of her and Jack, and she took it off the wall, dropping it into a trash can. With tears running down her face, she walked to her bedroom, carried her jewelry box to the bed, and began to sort through it, selecting the items that Jack had given her over their thirty years of marriage, dropping them into a paper bag. Elaine and Cathy could look at them, keep the gifts their father had given her if they wanted.

  She opened a drawer and pulled out her wedding album. As she slowly turned the pages, tears ran down her cheeks as she recalled the day, remembering how excited and happy she had been, picturing the smile on Jack’s face as the priest had pronounced them married. Where did they go wrong? What had she done that was so bad?

  Amy started to throw the album into the garbage with Jack’s photograph, but she changed her mind. Maybe tomorrow. She would go through the house then and collect everything that reminded her of him. Do it all at once.

  She changed clothes and curled up on the bed. As the clock in the hall struck nine, she felt herself drifting off to sleep. It had been a long few days.

  It seemed as if she had only slept for a few minutes when the doorbell rang. Amy jumped, instantly awake. The clock on the bedside table read twelve fifteen. Surely, she thought, Jack would have the decency not to show up at home tonight. Surely, not at this hour.

  She tumbled out of bed, pulling an afghan around her body to ward off the cold.

  It could be Jack. He would have to ring the bell, or knock, since his key would not turn the lock. Surely, though, she thought, he was shacked up across town with Marci.

  The bell rang again as she reached the door. Amy turned on the overhead light on the porch and peered through the door’s thick stained-glass. She could make out the figures of two men. Their gray uniforms and Smokey Bear hats identified them as state troopers.

  One of them called to her through the door. “We are police officers, ma’am. We need to speak with you.”

  Cold air blew into the house as Amy opened the door. She shivered. “Is there a problem?”

  “I’m Corporal Anderson of the State Highway Patrol. Is Jack Barrett your husband, ma’am?”

  “Yes. Is something wrong?”

  “Is Mr. Barrett at home?”

  Amy’s eyes flicked from one face to the other. “No, he’s not here.”

  “Ma’am, an airplane went down this evening, north of Columbia—a six-seat Cessna that flew out of Charleston. The flight plan identified the pilot as Jack Barrett.”

  Amy stared at the trooper, unable to speak.

  “Ms. Barrett, I regret to tell you that no one survived the crash.

  About the Author

  David Burnett lives near Charleston, South Carolina, where he walks on the beach almost every day and photographs the ocean, the sea birds, and the marshes that he loves. Three of his four books are set in Charleston, and he has always enjoyed the Carolina beaches.

  David enjoys photography and has photographed subjects as varied as prehistoric ruins on the islands of Scotland, star trails, sea gulls, and a Native American powwow. He and his wife have traveled widely in the United States and the United Kingdom. During trips to Scotland, they visited Crathes Castle, the ancestral home of the Burnett family near Aberdeen, and Kismul Castle on the Isle of Barra, the home of his McNeil ancestors.

  He reports that he went to school for much longer than he wants to admit, and he has graduate degrees in psychology and education. He and his wife have two daughters and a blue-eyed cat named Bonnie.