Where the Road Ends

She let go of a very tightly held breath when Charles’s face cleared. “Just don’t come on the meat night when it’s hard to chew and gets stuck in your teeth,” he said to Kathy before returning his attention to the box people he was coloring red.

“He doesn’t like roast tenderloin,” Kathy told Amelia.

Amelia nodded. She knew that.

“Okay, well, I’ll see you soon, buddy,” Kathy said, heading toward the door.

The little boy looked up briefly and then resumed coloring. “’Kay. Bye.”

Kathy turned for one last glance at that bent head before she left.

Her eyes clouded with pain.

Trying perhaps a little too hard, Amelia filled the days immediately following Kathy’s departure with far more activity than Charles was used to.

She broke the rules she and Johnny had established together during those long hours late at night when they’d lain awake in bed, her head on his chest, his hand on her belly, and planned how it would be once their baby was born. She knowingly spoiled Charles. Despite her certainty about the rightness of what she’d done, she overcompensated in her attempt to divert his affection away from the young woman with whom he’d spent most of his waking hours.

She told herself that wasn’t why she and Cara were standing in line with Charles at Six Flags amusement park that August afternoon. The park was one of Charles’s favorite places; they had season passes and more hours to fill than Amelia and Charles had ever had before. The park had been one of Kathy’s favorite places, too.

The park was crowded, surprising, since it was only Thursday. As soon as they entered, Charles’s brows came together in a considering look that was familiar to his mother and her redheaded manager of operations and best friend, Cara Carson. “I think we should do the Looney Tooter first,” he said, the barely contained excitement in his voice making it an octave higher than normal. “’Cause it goes everywhere around and then after that, we can remember what we should do next.”

“Looney Tooter it is,” Amelia said, grinning at her friend as Charles pulled at them, eager to get on with his afternoon. He was making it a little difficult for her and Cara, one on either side of him, to keep a firm grip on his hands.

In deference to the ninety-degree weather, or maybe more to fit in with the crowd, all three of them were wearing shorts, thin cotton shirts and tennis shoes. Amelia also had on a floppy straw hat and sunglasses that she hoped would disguise her. Her face would be recognizable to anyone who read the business section of any Chicago paper.

“We’re going to be there pretty soon,” Charles informed her with an extra tug. Amelia felt a pang as she noticed how Charles was starting to show promise of having his father’s tall, muscled body. She wondered if Johnny was watching over them. If he approved of her decision to dismiss Kathy. If he thought she’d waited too long to do so. If he disapproved of her bringing Charles to the amusement park for no special reason on a weekday afternoon.

And then it was time to ride. The Looney Tooter. Waddaview Charter Service, Porky and Petunia’s Lady Bugz and Buzzy Beez…

“It’s been two weeks since Kathy left, and he doesn’t seem to have suffered any great damage,” Cara said as the two leaned on the wrought-iron fence surrounding one of the kiddie rides Charles had insisted on riding alone. He’d had his fifth birthday, he’d reminded them, and was now officially “a big boy.”

“He misses her,” Amelia murmured, eyes on Charles’s bright-green shirt going around and around. “But right now, the novelty of having Mommy home more often—and of having his own little office at Wainscoat—has been a good distraction.”

Cara was frowning, although when Charles passed them and waved, she bestowed a huge, engaging grin on him.

“Isn’t it possible that having you around now has made her expendable to him?”

“I guess.”

“How are you doing without her?” The words were spoken softly, both women looking straight ahead.

Amelia didn’t even think about prevaricating. Not with Cara. There was no point. “The evenings are hard once Charles goes to bed.” Shifting her weight from her right foot to her left, Amelia rested her elbows on the fence. “You know, after my dad died, things weren’t great between Johnny and me, but I never realized how much I still relied on his companionship at night.”

“You were out a lot.”

“Yeah.” At the business functions Cara had been attending for her since Johnny’s death. While she wouldn’t trade her time with Charles for anything, Amelia yearned for the days when everything was clear—or she was too busy to notice that it wasn’t. “I shouldn’t ask this, Cara,” she said now, “but you’ve been talking about getting out of your neighborhood, selling the condo. And with Kathy’s apartment vacant…”

“You’re asking me to move out to the estate?”

“You don’t have to. It’s just an idea.”

“A great one,” Cara said, elbowing Amelia in the ribs. “I’ve always loved your house, you know that. But I’d insist on paying rent.”

“No way.” Amelia shook her head. “Consider it a well-deserved raise.” Each time Charles passed them, he waved. God, she loved that kid.

“We always talked about living together when we were young, remember?” Cara was smiling.

Cara had been raised by her aunt—her father’s older sister—after losing both of her parents in a car accident when she was five. Amy’s mother had been killed by a drunk driver before Amy’s first birthday. It was something that had drawn her and Cara together from the very beginning, losing a parent that way, and kept them together during all the years of their growing up.

And while Amelia had adored her father and Cara her aunt, they’d both thought that somehow the void in their hearts would be filled if they could live together. A childish dream but one that still meant something.

Amelia couldn’t help smiling at her friend’s reaction. “Kathy’s apartment has its own entrance and kitchen,” she said. “You’d have as much privacy as you wanted.”

“It would sure be convenient for me to be out there on the days you don’t come into the office,” Cara said. “I could just bring stuff home and we could work at night after Charles is asleep.”

For the first time in weeks, Amelia felt a lessening of the dreadful loneliness that had been gripping her.

“You’ll tell me if you’re not happy with that arrangement?” she asked, shifting to meet her friend’s eyes.

“I will.” Cara’s gaze was as forthright as always.

“Okay.”

Amelia turned as Charles came barreling over to the Buzzy Beez exit. She grabbed the back pocket of his shorts before he could get swept up in the crowd.

“Oh, Mom, that was so cool! Did you see me go faster and faster, maybe sixty-four miles an hour, and no hands or anything?” The little boy pushed his glasses back up his nose.

“We sure did, Charles! You’re going to be as big and brave as your dad was pretty soon.” Amelia grinned.

“Yeah,” Charles said solemnly. “Next week, pro’bly.”

After an ice-cream bar, a ride on the Ferris wheel and an encounter with Elmer Fudd that included, on Charles’s insistence, a hug for each of them, the trio started on their second go-round of Charles’s favorite rides.

“I’m going to make a dash for the ladies’ room,” Cara said when Amelia rejoined her on the sidelines after buckling Charles into Lady Bugz.

Nodding, Amelia continued to watch her son and he want around and around. His grin pulled at her, reminding her of his dad. It had been a year, and the pain of his loss hadn’t diminished at all. Johnny had been a great father. The best.

And as a husband—

Amelia couldn’t see Charles.

The ride came to a stop with the little boy on the opposite side of the enclosure, the machinery between them. She moved quickly, vaulting over the rail. She braced herself, expecting him to barrel into her as she dashed around the ride.

Charles wasn’t there.

In the couple of seconds it had taken Amelia to get to the other side, he’d disappeared.

Impossible.