It had only been four months, but to Julia, it seemed like four years.
She still had trouble wrapping her head around the fact that the man she had fallen in love with half her life ago was really and truly gone.
That she actually buried him.
"It's not fair!" she had cried to her mother at the wake. "It's not fair that a good man is dead while evil men still lived!"
Jordan's heart broke for her daughter. All she could do is be there for Julia and the kids. It's not like she or David could make sense of it themselves. Seemingly healthy thirty-five year old men just don't drop dead. But that is what happened to Ryan Summers. A previously undiagnosed problem took Ryan away from his family.
And Julia had to be strong, but even she found it so incredibly hard to do. She knew she wasn't fooling anyone. She was just going through the motions.
Miri, who was twelve, knew her mother was in pain. She tried to take on as many of her mother's duties as she could, taking care of her younger siblings; nine year old Jaime; seven year old Zachary and five year old Rachel.
"You guys have to take it easy on Mom, okay?" Miri asked her sisters and brother. "We're all hurting because Dad is gone, but Mom is having a harder time. It may not look like it, because Mom is a strong woman, but she is."
"What can we do to help Mom?" asked Rachel.
"We all have to do what we're told and not put up a fuss," Miri said. "And you have to listen to Aunt Kimber, too, when she comes here to go to school later in the summer."
"But Aunt Kimber isn't that much older than you are, Miri," Zach said. "Why do we have to do what she says?"
"Because she's going to help Mom, too," Jaime said. "Right, Miri?"
"Yes," Miri said; "that's right. She's going to go back to Austin and get her stuff, then she's going to move in with us until she gets housing near the school. While she's here, she's going to help Mom."
Miri saw that her siblings understood what was expected of them. "It's what Dad would have wanted," she said.
"I miss Daddy," Rachel said, sadly.
Miri put her arm around her youngest sister and said, "I know, Rach. I miss Daddy, too."
II
"I don't know why you have to come up here, Kimber," Niki said. "You can just as good of an education in Austin. Why did you have to accept at Northwestern?"
"Because, Niki, Northwestern has the journalism program I wanted. Like Jeremiah had. And I like to write. You don't think I spent all that time writing for the school paper, and doing two summers at the Austin American-Statesman for nothing, do you?" Kimber said in response to her twin. "I'm tired of living in Niki Draiman's perfect shadow!"
"I'm not perfect," Niki said. "I'm far from it."
"Oh, so that's why you were the cheerleader, why you were the homecoming queen, why you were student body president," Kimber said. "I felt like I wasn't good enough to do anything significant on my own. Always being accused of trying to be like you, when I just wanted to be me and not 'Niki's shadow'!"
"Who called you that?" Niki demanded.
"Only everyone at school is all," Kimber said. "Everyone outside our house. All I heard was 'Niki this, Niki that'. You know how much that pisses me off? You know how many times Dad wanted to go down to the school and knock some heads around and I begged him not to? More times than I can count."
"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" Niki said softly. "Why didn't you tell me you were so miserable?"
"Oh, right," Kimber said. "So people could have another thing to throw at me? Please, Niki, give me a little credit for some brains! You were too busy being Miss Popularity to pay me any mind at school. The paper is the only place I could be myself. The only time I got any praise was when I wrote stories for the paper. It was something that you didn't do first."
"We're going to have different majors, Kimber," Niki said; "we probably won't even see each other on campus much. I wish you'd change your mind and come to UT Austin with me."
"I've made my choice," Kimber said. "I'm not changing my mind."
Niki only sighed. The truth was, she was scared to go to college without her sister. But Kimber's mind was made up. It would be the first time in their lives that they weren't together.
"Niki, Kimber?" their father called out; "We're going to miss our flight if you two don't hurry up and get your stuff packed and ready to go."
"Yes, Dad," they both said. Niki looked at Kimber as she closed her suitcase.
Kimber would come back here alone in a couple of months and live with Julia and her kids. It reminded Niki of a talk she had with her mother a few months before Ryan died. That one day, Kimber would want to be independent and do things that she felt were right for her. If that meant going to a different college and living a different life from hers, then Niki would just have to accept it.
"After all, Nicole," Jordan has said; "you and Kimber aren't joined at the hip. She can do her thing, and you can do yours."
And maybe Kimber was right, Niki thought as she dragged her suitcase down the stairs; maybe she had been in my shadow all this time and I didn't realize it.
Niki felt very ashamed at that moment that her true best friend, her twin sister, felt slighted and alone because she was the social butterfly. Was it all worth it? she asked herself while she lifted her suitcase in the back of the car her parents had rented; was it worth it if Kimber was hurting and I was too busy to notice?
Niki also wondered if Sam and John felt the same way about each other.
"Niki, you look like you're on the moon," John said to her.
"Nah, John," she said; "just got a lot on my mind."
III
He had his hands full with four children, but Jeremiah Donovan wouldn't trade it for anything.
Certainly not to go back to being an assassin again. He loved his reporting career and the exposure it gave him professionally. Newspapers were entirely online and when one of his stories was published, it gave a lot of information about the author: his email, his name, a picture of him, and a link to the awards and accolades he had won. He was, simply, good at what he did, and was quite humble about it. Something that competitors noticed.
His wife, Jasmine, was the Director of Nursing at the hospital on the Chicagoland campus, one of the few buildings that remained from the Disturbed Ones compound after the Occupation was over. She, too, loved her job, and for a while, seriously considered going to medical school to become a doctor. She left that option open, but realized that if she was going to take advantage of it, to do it soon. The children were older and Jeremiah did the majority of his work from home.
They had three daughters and a son, and they instilled in them the same values Jeremiah learned from his guardians, and Jasmine learned from her parents.
Adriana, their oldest daughter, was fourteen and was excelling in her schoolwork. The Donovans homeschooled their children, but would allow them to attend the Chicagoland Academy for the Gifted when they were fifteen. Adriana would turn fifteen the following February.
Their only son, Adam, was eleven. He liked cars, computers, and rock music. He also liked to write, like his father, but was more interested in writing fiction than reporting.
Arielle was nine, and wanted to be a nurse like her mother when she grew up. This week, at least. Next week was anyone's guess.
Aalyiah was five, just a few weeks older than Julia's daughter Rachel. They were each other's best friend.
The Donovans were a close family, even with Joe and Tracy still living in Maine with their two daughters, Danica and Kendria; and sister Amber and her family in Connecticut.
And of course, with the families of Julia and Nik as well.
IV
My son can drive? Nik San Marco thought to himself as he drove sixteen year old Matt to the DMV to get his permanent licence.
"Now, Dad," Matt was saying; "you can't come in the car with me while I take my test."
"Matt, I think I know that," Nik said. "And you're a good driver, so I'm sure you'll pass the road test."
"Thanks, Dad," Matt said. "That means a lot to me."
Nik said nothing. Confidence was one of the things that he was trying to instill in his oldest son; that sense of accomplishment and that he and KateLynn were proud of him. Matt would be going off to college in the fall, and Nik wanted him to be independent.
Actually, Nik wanted all his children to be confident, accomplished and independent. For the most part, they were, but Nik found it was actually letting Matt go and be his own man to be the hardest; at least until he had to do the same for Sandrina the following year. Letting his little girl go would be harder.
All of the kids were tall, like their parents. Matt was already six-foot-four and still growing. He excelled at basketball, but didn't want to be known as a "dumb jock". A pro career wasn't what he was after. He wanted to study chemistry and biology in college for a hoped for career as a medical researcher.
Sandrina, at fifteen, was six-foot-one like her mother. She hated basketball and loved ballet, but an injury to her ankle ended her ballerina dreams. So she indulged in her other passion instead, which was art. She had won many city and state awards for her work, often being the youngest to do so.
Peter was twelve and liked to do anything his siblings hadn't already done. His latest discovery was building stuff. Or, more like re-building stuff. He could fix nearly everything he put his hands on; from the computer hard drives in the family's many computers, to the broken garage door opener, to the busted air conditioning line on the old car that his brother was taking his driver's test in.
Daniel, the youngest San Marco child, was named after his Native American great grandfather. He was eleven. He liked cars and everything to do with cars. He knew more about cars than his older brother Peter did. Peter could fix them, but Daniel knew about everything else. He seemed to sense what cars would be popular, when prototypes would be released, and devoured online magazines about cars.
Even KateLynn went back to school and finally finished the nursing program she had to abandon when she and Nik started their family. She worked at the Chicagoland Hospital with her sister in law, Jasmine. KateLynn worked with those who had been wounded in the two decade war during the Occupation. She loved her work with the veterans, and a lot of them knew of the work that Nik had done during the Occupation. "You must be so proud of him, Miss Kate," one veteran said. "He helped end the war."
KateLynn always said that the veterans all helped with ending the war, and than no one man or woman could take that credit.
The Occupation ended twelve years before, KateLynn often thought, but some of these people still live with its effects. She was glad that her children didn't remember it first hand.
V
He acted, at age sixty-eight, like someone forgot to tell him that he was supposed to get old.
John Christofferson still worked his ranch in Wyoming, and had become quite successful with it. His cattle always sold well at auction; and his bulls, especially, were sought after for breeding purposes.
He always thought there was something missing in his life, but could never quite put his finger on it. Whatever it was, he figured he'd lived without it this long, that he really didn't need it that much.
Every once in a while, he'd have the same dream. He'd see a little girl at a cemetery and longed to tell her who he really was.
"She'd be about twelve now," he'd think during his waking hours.
Then he saw the online obituary for Ryan L. Summers, and his heart broke.
"Oh, my poor, sweet Julia," he said aloud. "How I wish I could take your pain away, like you did for me once long ago."
He wanted to send flowers, a card, something to let her know that he still thought about her. Instead, he made a donation to the American Heart Association in Ryan's memory, even though he had never met him.
One day, he thought; one day, I'm going to find a way to tell her I'm still alive, that I still think about her, that I still care.
He didn't know that she'd find him first, completely by chance; but it would take her two more years to gather up the courage to confront him.
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