“You do?” Leni looked up, letting the soap float away, and Julia couldsee that her daughter was listening with her usual calm. It charmed Julia that she could tell her anything, even something an adult would find outlandish, but Leni would receive the information without judgment. It was probably an example of how children could be naïve and trusting, but Julia thought it showed they could be wiser than adults.
“Yes, I do get those feelings, and sometimes that makes me feel scared, too. So what I want to say is if you think Wild Child tells you something you don’t understand, or if you’re scared, or if you think you know something, just tell me.”
“Okay.”
“And you should believe yourself.”
Leni blinked, eyeing her. “Can we get more pizza?”
“Of course.” Julia smiled.
“Well, is she psychic?” Gianluca asked, after Leni was asleep in the other bed. He was stretched out on their bed with his phone, back from his run in a T-shirt and gym shorts. A skinny black headband held his hair off his face, which was a European man thing that Julia found sexy.
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Right. Because she’s three.”
“We’ll just have to see how it goes.” Julia flopped onto the bed beside him, and Gianluca set down his phone, shifted toward her, and kissed her on the forehead.
“Do you wish she was?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
Gianluca hesitated, then smiled. “I think we already have enough drama for one family, don’t you?”
Julia laughed, then gave him a kiss.
65
The next morning dawned sunny, and Gianluca drove them through the countryside, pointing out cows and horses for Leni. Julia sat in the passenger seat, feeling like a wife again, back with her family, her world order theoretically restored. She’d slept terribly, and her headache persisted. Somehow she knew it wasn’t the concussion. Something was unsettling her, deep within.
They were heading to Alex’s memorial service at the Buckley firehouse, and her heart felt heavy at the memory of him. She kept seeing him running down the hall in the prison, then feeling the moment that his soul left the earth, far too young. It would take her time to process his death, and she could only imagine how hard it would be for Courtney.
They entered the Buckley city limits, and she could feel her body tense. She heard Gianluca and Leni chattering, but the sound seemed oddly far away, even remote. She didn’t bother pointing out the sights, such as they were, and Gianluca caught her eye, tacitly understanding.
They drove past the police station, and Julia wondered if the authorities had arrested Glushenko yet. She’d checked her phone but there had been no news, which added to her uneasy feeling. Maybe that would explain the headache.
She straightened in her seat as they approached the firehouse, which was a multistory brick building with three bays for firetrucks with an attached converted rowhome that served as an office. She had never seen so much activity in town before, or so many people. Families filled the sidewalks, heading to the firehouse. Traffic was congested, and parked cars and newsvans lined the street for blocks.
Gianluca braked, looking around. “I should park here. I don’t know if we’ll get any closer. This is quite a crowd.”
“It sure is,” Julia said, touched. She spotted a class of kids dressed in orange-and-white T-shirts, like at Kay’s funeral. She was seeing everyone whose lives Alex had touched. She realized something she hadn’t before, that the land was about much more than the environment. It was about the people whose lives were rooted in the soil, many for generations. Alex had built and served an entire community who cared about Buckley, and it had turned out in force to honor his memory.
Julia felt tears come to her eyes, feeling his loss. She couldn’t wait until his killers were brought to justice. She’d be first in line to testify, if need be.
It wasn’t over until it was over.
The happy ending would have to wait.
66
Julia held a dozing Leni on her lap, sitting next to Gianluca, Paul, and a weepy Courtney near the front of the firehouse. There had to be over two hundred people in folding chairs, standing room only in the long rectangular hall, which was clean and bright, its painted brick walls covered with a huge American flag, and large posters advertising Lithuania Days, an ATV Run, and a Memorial Day Pig Roast.
Julia listened, her throat thickening as speaker after speaker got up to honor Alex, beginning with a young geologist named Benjamin Morris, who’d assume the mantle of running Shenandoah Preservation. Benjamin was followed by Alex’s older brother Neil, who looked heartbreakingly like Alex, then Alex’s environmental sciences professor from Penn State, and a little girl who showed an orange-and-white flag she’d painted for Alex, signed by all the other kids.
Benjamin retook the lectern. “We have one last speaker, Ms. Courtney Horan. She isn’t mentioned in your program because she reached me only this morning and asked to speak.”
Julia looked over in surprise as Courtney left the row and strode to the front of the firehouse, then reached the lectern, where she stood tall, her eyes glistening. She had on the black suit she’d worn to Kay’s funeral, with a white camisole.
