The Better Man. Amy Vastine

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      “Stop it,” Owen scolded her. “You are the best thing that kid could ever ask for. You have the patience of a saint and always have his best interest at heart. The only thing that stinks is that your husband died, which wasn’t your fault, either.”

      Kendall sank into a kitchen chair, already physically and emotionally exhausted at three in the afternoon. “My patience isn’t what it used to be. I may want the best for him, but I’m beginning to wonder if I know what that is anymore.”

      “You’ll figure it out. If anyone can figure it out, it’s you.”

      She appreciated his faith in her, but she knew herself better than he did. Kendall was losing her grip. It wouldn’t take much to push her off the edge. She thought she’d seen Trevor today. Nothing said losing your mind like seeing ghosts.

      “Thank you. And I promise to carry my weight on the job. In fact, I can make some calls and start ordering materials.”

      “Take care of Simon and worry about Sato’s tomorrow. We’ll split up the responsibilities and start filling out purchase orders then.”

      As she said goodbye, someone knocked on the front door and opened it at the same time. “Anybody home?” The sound of Kendall’s mother’s voice reminded her that she’d neglected to call about taking Simon home early and there being no need for her mother to pick him up.

      “Nana!” Simon burst into the foyer, his drawing clenched in his hand. “You won’t believe it! You’ll never believe who we saw today!”

      Kendall gave her mother an apologetic grimace, but Nana was too startled by Simon’s verbosity to notice. “Who? Who did you see?” she asked, crouching down to his level. He handed her the picture he’d drawn.

      “My dad! We saw my dad right down the street!”

      Kendall’s mother looked to her for confirmation. “We saw someone who looked like him,” Kendall explained. “I know you want to believe it was Daddy, Simon, but we know he’s in heaven, right?”

      “Mom,” Simon said, exasperated. “You saw. It was Dad. I prayed he would come back and he did. You should have seen him, Nana. He was for real and he got in a cab by the park. I can show you.” He took his grandmother’s hand and tried to pull her out of the house.

      “Hold on,” Kendall said, placing a hand on the door as he tried to pull it open. “Why don’t you go clean up your markers and let me talk to Nana a minute. Then you can take her to the park, okay?”

      “Moooom,” he whined.

      “It’ll only take you a couple of minutes.”

      “I don’t wanna.”

      The whining was much easier to fight than the silence. “Go.” She pointed back at the family room.

      Snatching his drawing back from his nana, Simon spun around and stomped all the way down the hall. He was lucky he was cute when he was mad.

      “I forgot to call you back and tell you I had to bring him home,” Kendall said when the two women were alone. “I’m so sorry.”

      “What in the world is going on? Did he see this Trevor look-alike on the way to school? Is that what set him off?”

      Kendall sighed. “They had a helper dad in the classroom today. That’s what set him off. We were walking home when we saw...Trevor.” Saying his name brought back her own version of the yucks.

      Maureen Everhart knew her daughter better than anyone. The look she gave her daughter as she pulled her back into the kitchen told Kendall she understood today had taken its toll. “It wasn’t Trevor.”

      Kendall leaned against the counter and wrapped her arms around herself, shaking her head. Her mom was right. It wasn’t. Trevor was dead. He had left and now he was dead.

      “Was it a soldier in uniform?”

      “Oh, my gosh, Mom. Trevor was a marine. Never call a marine a soldier. That’s like...blasphemy.”

      Maureen rolled her eyes. “Apologies, dear daughter. Was it a marine? A man in uniform? Is that why he thought he saw his dad?”

      Kendall shook her head again. “I know it sounds crazy, but the man we saw looked exactly like Trevor. I mean, he was across the street and we only saw him for a second or two, but...Mom, he looked exactly like Trevor.” The tears she’d gotten so good at holding back fell for a second time today.

      “Nana!” Simon called. He ran into the kitchen. “Come on, let’s go to the park. Maybe he’ll be there and we can see him again. Mom, can you come, too?”

      Kendall wiped her cheeks and pushed all the emotion away. She knelt down so she and her son would be eye to eye and gripped his arms with both hands. “I know how badly you want that man we saw today to be your dad, baby. But that wasn’t Dad. Dad is not coming back.”

      “It was,” Simon argued.

      “No, it wasn’t.”

      “It was,” he said more softly.

      She could feel the silence creeping back in. “It looked like him, but it wasn’t him.” Simon sealed his lips shut, splitting Kendall’s heart in two. “But we can still take a walk with Nana,” she tried. “Or maybe we can go to Nana and Papa’s and see Zoe.” Kendall looked to her mom for help.

      “You know how much Zoe loves it when you come over to play. What do you say? Let’s go, huh?” She held out her hand, but Simon didn’t take it. Instead, he pulled out of his mother’s grasp and ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs, slamming his bedroom door behind him.

      Kendall was grateful she was on her knees because her legs most certainly would have given out if she’d been standing. Her mother wrapped her arms around her.

      “Why does this have to be so hard? When is it going to get easier? Isn’t it supposed to get easier?” Kendall cried on her mother’s shoulder.

      “The Lord never gives us more than we can handle. You have to believe you’re strong enough to get through this.”

      “I don’t feel very strong. I feel tired, Mom. I’m so tired.”

      The two women clung to one another. Kendall’s mom stroked her daughter’s long chestnut hair. “Lean on me, honey. Lean on your father, your sisters. That’s why you moved back, so we could be here for you.”

      Kendall and Trevor had met in Chicago, but his military career took them away soon after they married. After he died, Kendall returned, needing to come home so Simon would be surrounded by family. Her parents and both of her sisters were in the city, and Trevor’s parents were less than an hour away in the northern suburbs.

      She loved her two sisters and they had been nothing but helpful, picking up Simon from school when their mother couldn’t, stocking her pantry with food when she didn’t have time to run to the grocery store, offering to listen when she needed to talk. Kendall didn’t take advantage. She had always been the quiet one and hated to burden people with her problems. She tended to bury them instead.

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