Original / New Fiction Voices of the Northwest A tale of love, bravery and betrayal, this is one of twenty-five stories that appear in Elizabeth Engstrom's new collection, Suspicions, at your local bookstore March 1. Harvest Home by Elizabeth Engstrom "Ascending" by Maude Kerns, 1951 courtesy of the Maude Kerns Art Center, Eugene, Oregon By the time Roman had hauled himself out of bed, dressed, slogged down a cup of coffee while shaving, grabbed his lunch box and made it slowly, tiredly out the door for work, Cindy was agitated to the point of dizziness. The minute the door slammed behind him, she roused the children. "Get up! Get up! C'mon, we have an adventure today. Five minutes. C'mon, we have to leave here in five minutes." She pulled the covers off each of the kids and shook their shoulders. "C'mon Freddie. C'mon Kewpie. We're going for a ride." Freddie's eyes opened and he rubbed them, but Kewpie just screwed up her face and reached for her teddy bear. "Get her up, Freddie," Cindy said. "I've got to dress." She ran a brush through her hair and smeared on some eye shadow. She didn't need to be beautiful for this transaction. She just needed to be present. And on time. She pulled on a pair of slacks and a sweater, spritzed some perfume to mask the scent of sleeping next to Roman all night, brushed her teeth, and pulled the suitcase from the back of the closet, where it was packed and ready to go. Roman never even noticed that her side of the closet was empty. "Get up!" she said to Kewpie, grabbed the little girl by the ankle and pulled her to the bottom of the bed. "Don't pull her," Freddie said. "Then you get her up," Cindy countered, checking her watch. "And get dressed. We have a plane to catch." "An airplane?" Even Kewpie's eyes opened at that, and she sat up. "Yep," Cindy said, now realizing how to motivate them. "We're going on a trip." "What about Daddy?" Kewpie asked. "He'll meet us later," Cindy lied. "Where are we going?" "Florida." The children's eyes widened. "On an airplane?" Freddie asked again. "Yes, but only if you hurry. Get up, now, get your backpacks and pack two pairs of fresh underwear and a change of clothes. Don't forget socks." Freddie got their backpacks from the closet. "Freddie, you can help Kewpie. Two changes of underwear and one change of clothes. And you can each bring one toy." Cindy walked out of their bedroom and into the kitchen, but she had no taste for breakfast. She'd had no internal battle over this situation until just now, just this moment, when the children looked at her with such trust in their eyes. Too bad. Too late. The wheels -- whatever they were -- had been put into motion. The children were dressed and ready to go in record time. Cindy handed each of them a bagel, checked again to make sure she had the tickets, hustled them out of the apartment and into the frigid car. "How come Daddy never mentioned going to Florida?" Freddie asked. "Know how you can never sleep on Christmas Eve?" Cindy said. "We didn't want you to get so excited you couldn't sleep. Today is going to be a big day, you needed your rest." "Mickey Mouse lives in Florida," Freddie said to Kewpie, and Cindy's heart gave a squeeze. She parked the car and hustled the kids through the airport, and they made the gate just as the flight to Miami was boarding. The children were wide-eyed and excited, and they made sure the flight attendant knew they were going to Florida. The pretty girl smiled at Cindy with an Aaren't you a lucky mom" smile. Cindy scowled back. If she liked the children so much she could entertain them. Cindy plugged in the headphones and turned up the music. The idea of having a family was a good one at first. Roman was big, handsome and a hard worker. Cindy was heartbroken and damaged and saw no future for herself. Roman needed a mom for his kids, Cindy needed something to cling to, so they married and Cindy moved in. Within a month, she knew it had been a bad move. Freddie at seven and Kewpie at five were incredibly high maintenance projects. Cindy didn't have enough energy to care for herself, much less two little kids. Roman worked two jobs just to pay the bills, so she never saw him and had to do all the work by herself. And there wasn't even enough money left over for any of the sweet things. Like jewelry. Or trips. Or a winter coat, like a husband ought to buy his wife. Life for Cindy became a steaming pit of resentment. When Roman went to his night job, Cindy put the kids to bed, locked their bedroom door and went to hang out at the CyberCafe. A cute guy had shown her how to log on and chat with a variety of interesting people, people she felt she had more in common with than her husband. Soon, she was hooked. And that's where she met Della. On-line. Della seemed to understand everything Cindy was going through. She understood how frustrating step-children could be, she understood an inattentive husband, she understood having not enough money to buy a fresh lipstick. She became Cindy's best friend. Cindy poured out her heart and soul to Della, who responded with sympathy and empathy and love. Over a period of time, Della convinced Cindy that she ought to bring the kids to Miami for a visit. There were investment opportunities. There were things Cindy could do to climb out of that pit. Go stay with Della and let her take over the kids for a couple of days. Cindy had made an investment in Roman and his family, a hasty, unwise investment, and perhaps it was time for her to consider her own needs. Cut her losses, liquidate her assets and get on to the next adventure. Everybody would be better off. Everybody except perhaps Roman, but he'd survive. Some day he'd thank her for helping him shed a little baggage. Della talked softly and sweetly about it to Cindy, and before Cindy knew it, a packet of airline tickets showed up in the mailbox. A round trip for Cindy and two one-way tickets for the kids. Must be a mistake, Cindy told herself, rationalizing that she didn't know what she was getting into. She hid the tickets, and from that moment on, everything Roman or either one of the children did made her want to scream. Everything, every little thing, reinforced her decision to go spend some time with Della. The plane touched down at Miami International and Cindy felt her heart pounding in her chest. It's not too late, she told herself. I can turn right around and put the three of us on the next plane to LaGuardia and be home by the time Roman gets off work. But she knew she wouldn't. Della met her at the gate. She looked like someone's well-tended grandmother, not at all the good-times soul sister that Cindy expected. They hugged like old friends, then Della squatted and hugged each one of the children and gave them Disney toys. She carried a briefcase. "We'll walk you to your gate," Della said. Cindy looked at her ticket, then up at the wall clock and realized with a taste of panic that her return flight left in forty minutes. Della engaged the kids in spirited conversation about their flight. Della knew exactly how to talk to kids. Cindy had never acquired that enviable skill. They got to Cindy's departure gate as the plane was boarding. "I'm going to take the children to the rest room, while you board," Della said softly. "No goodbyes." And she handed Cindy the briefcase. Then she turned with the children and walked down the concourse, leaving Cindy lonelier than she had ever felt in her life. She dully handed her ticket to the agent and boarded the plane. In the tiny airplane restroom, she opened the briefcase and found it full of packets of twenty dollar bills. It was more money than she had ever seen before. It was more money than she could ever have imagined having. It didn't help. Somehow, it didn't help, and tears leaked out of her eyes, ran down her cheeks and fell onto the cash. * * * "Where's Cindy?" Freddie asked Della when he came out of the men's room. "She's gone back to fetch your daddy," Della said. "You're going to come home with me and they'll meet us later." Kewpie wrapped her arm around her bear's neck, stuck her thumb in her mouth and grabbed Della's hand with her other. It was clear to Freddie that Kewpie preferred Della to Cindy, and, in fact, so did he. They rode in a blue van and looked at palm trees and blue sky with soft clouds. They'd never seen palm trees before. Freddie had a feeling that something wasn't right, but Della kept talking to him, and the longer they talked, the more he liked her. She took them to a big house, and gave them their own bedroom. It had twin beds with matching blue bedspreads and curtains. There were games and puzzles and toys in the closet, and clothes in the drawers. "When do we get to see Mickey Mouse?" he asked Della. "Soon," she promised. "Now get into your jammies." "Why?" "Because a doctor is going to come and talk to you in a little while, and he wants to see you in your jammies." Kewpie did as she was told, and Freddie reluctantly followed her example. Something wasn't right about this. He wanted to see his dad. Somebody was crying. Somebody in the house. Some little kid. Freddie got out of bed and went to the door, but it was locked. A little while later a doctor and a nurse came in and told them that every person's fingerprint was different, and he inked up each of their forefingers and pressed it to a card to show them. Then he put a rubber band around Kewpie's arm, stuck a needle in her vein and filled up tubes with her blood. Kewpie screamed, and when it was Freddie's turn, he tried not to cry, but it hurt and he was scared. "It's called tissue matching," the doctor tried to explain, "it's just like a fingerprint," but Freddie wanted to see his dad, and he wanted to see him now. The nurse gave both of them something cherry-flavored to drink out of a tiny plastic cup. Kewpie settled down with a baby doll and a red sucker, and soon Freddie had a hard time keeping his eyes open. Kewpie slumped sideways over her new doll, a spit bubble blowing in and out of little lips still red from the liquid she drank. Freddie closed his eyes. In spite of himself, he liked the feeling of this new bed, new sheets, new pajamas, but he still hoped that when he woke up, he'd be back at home, hating Cindy all the way to hell. * * * Cindy's plane touched down in New York about the time Roman would be getting off work. Her stomach was in an uproar. She could no longer deny the fact that she had foreseen this outcome -- a briefcase full of cash and no more kids -- and she found out that she didn't have a plan to take from here. If she had been smart, she would have just taken off for Rio or somewhere, right from Miami. Why did she use her round trip ticket? It didn't make sense. Some kind of a homing device, she thought. Her suitcase full of clothes was in the trunk of the car. She got off the plane in the stream of passengers and looked around the airport full of people with purpose. She was too antsy, too agitated to get on another plane. Maybe it was good this way. She could drive. She could drive across country. She could drive to Canada. She could put the pedal to the metal and get out of town under her own power. She could drive fast and hard and sing loud along with the radio. Somewhere along the way she'd ditch the car. Maybe she'd just drive down to D.C. and leave it in the airport parking lot there. Maybe she'd fly to Paris or Zurich and make a fresh start. She squealed tires in Roman's old beater, and headed south. With hands shaking from cold and guilt, and trying not to think about the nausea that was building like a volcano, she fiddled with a recalcitrant heater and a shorted out AM radio as two lanes merged. While her attention was desperately elsewhere, a Volvo sideswiped her rattletrap car going seventy-five miles an hour. The car spun across four lanes of traffic, hitting everything and everyone in its rush hour path. Nightmare Bumper Cars. Ultra Pinball. Cindy screamed with what breath was in her as terror squeezed her throat. She was bashed, rolled, flipped and tossed. Roman's car ended up slowly spinning on its crushed top, the steering wheel embedded in Cindy's chest, packets of twenty dollar bills littered all around her. * * * The phone began to ring as Roman stared blankly, unseeing, uncomprehending, at Cindy's empty closet. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew what had happened; it had been inevitable, really. She'd been too young, too much of a free spirit for him to tie down with kids that weren't hers and who resented her. But that didn't mean that the sight of tangled, empty hangers didn't sear his soul. Oh well. Kiss marriage goodbye. This was his third-time-charm effort. He'd be disinclined to try again. Not until the children were grown and gone. He didn't want to put himself through this again, but he really couldn't put the kids through it again. They'd never learn how to trust. Hookers and day care. His life would be reduced to hookers and day care and working his ass off. What a charming thought. Speaking of day care.... Cindy must have left a note telling him where to pick up the kids. He walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where logic told him a note would be. There was no note. He picked up the ringing telephone more to quell its relentless noise than to talk to anyone, but habit made him put the receiver to his ear and say, "Hello?" "Mr. Daniloff? Mr. Roman Daniloff?" "Yes?" "New York police, Mr. Daniloff. Your wife has been in an accident. She's at Good Samaritan Hospital." Life clicked into focus and Roman could count the microseconds float by. "Is she hurt?" "You better come down right away." "The children?" "Children?" "Were the kids with her?" "No, sir." Thank god. Twenty minutes later, he was sitting beside Cindy's empty bed while she was in surgery. On his lap rested a paper sack full of money. When he first arrived at the hospital, he began going through the things the police brought in from the twisted wreck that had been his car. The suitcase, full of her cheap floozy clothes. Her purse. Her passport. Her address book. And a big paper bag full of twenty dollar bills. He went through her purse, but there was nothing extraordinary in there, either. No clues to where the kids might be. Nothing. He dumped the cash out onto the hospital room floor and picked up each blood-soaked packet of twenties, fanned through it and put it back into the paper bag. One hundred thousand dollars. Good god, what had she done? Hours later, they wheeled her bed in. Cindy was pale, cut, bruised and hooked up to a variety of machines, one of which was keeping her heart going. Her ribcage had been crushed, they'd removed one lung, and her heart was damaged beyond repair. Her only hope of survival was a new heart. The doctor told Roman she'd been bumped to the top of the priority list. She could be saved if she remained stable long enough. If a heart could be found. Roman didn't know about all that stuff. He only knew that something had happened to his kids, and this faithless bitch and this bag of money were all part of it. When a nurse came in to check on Cindy, Roman asked if she could be awakened. The nurse looked at him pityingly as if he were an idiot and shook her head. Then she left the room. Roman thought he was going to lose his mind. He opened the closet to put the cash and the suitcase in there, and saw a plastic bag with Cindy's torn, cut and bloodied clothes. He emptied that out and went through it. Nothing. But her stained coat hung in the closet, and in its pocket, he found a paperback romance with two airline ticket stubs stuck in as bookmarks. LaGuardia to Miami, Miami to LaGuardia. Today. Roman looked over at her -- small, pale, every breath initiated by a hissing machine in the corner. Wake up, you evil bitch, he thought. He wanted to jump up and down on her ravaged chest and have her spit out the information with her dying breath. He talked to the police, but they were only mildly interested. They had too many things to take care of right there in New York. They didn't have the time or the resources to track down a couple of kids who may or may not be missing. And without any further information, it would be futile for Roman to fly to Miami. His only hope was for Cindy to get her new heart. Hopefully, they'd replace the hard lump of stone she had in her chest for a real flesh and blood heart. Then she would wake up and tell him what she'd done for one hundred thousand dollars. He'd go to Florida, return the money and pick up his kids. Roman set his jaw and sat down on a plastic chair, listening to Cindy's various monitors and ventilator. He was prepared to wait. * * * When Freddie woke up, Kewpie was gone. A lady brought him a tray of breakfast, but he wasn't hungry. He was homesick and worried about his baby sister. "I want my daddy," he said and started to cry. "I know you do, honey," the lady said and sat down on the bed. She had a nice face, and Freddie knew she would help him. She held him and rocked him and cooed to him until he was all out of tears and only hiccups were left. Then she gave him another drink of that cherry syrup and Freddie fell asleep. * * * "We have a heart," the doctor said. "It's young, very young, but we are optimistic that it will continue to grow, and will serve your wife well for many years. It's an unusually good tissue match, and the timing is amazingly fortuitous. But your wife's movement will be restricted for a length of time -- she'll probably be confined to a wheelchair for as much as two years, while everything adjusts. And of course, there are the anti-rejection drugs which take their toll." He leaned forward. "This is outrageous good fortune," he said. "Unheard of, actually. Five years ago, your wife would have died. But with today's technology--" "Just wake her up," Roman said. The doctor handed him the consent forms, and Roman signed. "The heart will be here tomorrow," the doctor said. "I'll notify the team." * * * When Freddie awoke, he didn't know what day it was. It seemed to be dawn, and Kewpie still wasn't in her bed. He pulled the covers up over his head and tented his knees so he could see around in his dark little bed cave and tried not to cry. He tried not to be afraid. He tried to figure out what he could do. He wanted to get dressed, and when they came in to bring his breakfast, he could just push the lady over and run out the door. He had his own clothes. He even had fresh underwear. He thought about what was in his backpack. A cell phone. The cell phone! He always kept it in his backpack in case he needed his dad. It was so small and light, and it was kind of fun. Best of all, he could beep his dad any time day or night, if he had a nightmare, or if he missed the school bus, or whatever. He never had, but he knew he could. He snuck out of bed, opened the closet, unzipped his backpack, and grabbed the phone, then zipped it up, closed the closet door and dove back under the covers. He didn't want to screw this up. He opened the phone and turned it on. Then he pressed Memory-#-1, and heard the phone dial. Just as the beeper operator came on, there was a soft knock on his door, and it opened. Heart pounding, he clicked off the phone, hoped nobody heard the beep, folded it and peeked out of the covers. "Good morning," the doctor said. "How are you?" "Where's Kewpie?" Freddie asked, sliding the phone under his legs. "She's helping someone right now," he said. "How long are we going to be here?" Freddie asked. "I want to go home." A nurse came in with a tray full of tubes and packages and sat on Freddie's bed. "We need to take some more samples," the doctor said, and Freddie began to cry. "I hate this," he said. "I know, sweetie," the nurse said. She was so nice, and so pretty that Freddie wanted to trust her, he wanted to trust her so bad, but he just couldn't. He got out of bed, leaving the cell phone under the covers, and peed into their jar. Then he got back into bed and grit his teeth while they took a tube of his blood, thinking not of the needle, but of the cell phone underneath him. It would be terrible if his dad remembered the phone about now and gave him a call. "Someone's going to come and help you take a shower," the nurse told him. "I can take my own shower," Freddie said. "I'm no baby." "Of course you're not," the nurse cooed. She gave him a Tootsie Roll pop for bravery, and while Freddie was unwrapping it, the doctor stuck another needle in his arm and gave him a shot. The doctor left, and the nurse stayed, smoothing his hair and talking quietly to him, and Freddie felt woozy and sleepy. He wanted her to go, because he needed to call his dad. He didn't want to close his eyes, but she kept telling him to close his eyes, and so he thought that maybe if he did, she'd leave. He closed his eyes and began to have little dreams about his room at home. He opened them again, and she was still there, speaking softly, her fingers cool on his hot cheek. He closed his eyes, afraid, and little dreams of Kewpie played about in his head. He felt the nurse get up off the bed, and when he heard his door open and close, he reached for the phone under his covers. But his eyes weren't working quite right, and the dreams kept imposing themselves upon him with his eyes wide open. His fingers felt thick and stupid. He opened the phone and dialed the Memory number again, and this time when the beeper lady answered, he pressed 5555, or thought he did, or hoped he did, and then he hung up, just exactly the way he and his dad had practiced. That was their signal. Freddie clicked off and held the phone to his chest, his eyes closing. Please call right now, he prayed. Please call me before they come in with breakfast. Please call me before.... * * * Roman's beeper went off as he was dozing in the plastic chair in Cindy's room. First, he cursed it, then he looked at it, and then he jumped out of his chair so fast that he almost tore down the flimsy curtain that surrounded her bed. He went directly to the pay phone in the hallway and dialed Freddie's cell phone number. God, he had completely forgotten about the cell phone. After Roman's second wife abandoned them, Freddie, then five and fearful, was terrified that Roman would go to work and not come back. So Roman had got one of those cheap cell phones for $9.95, had the air time activated and they practiced a signal. Whenever Freddie was feeling lonesome or scared, he could dial Roman's beeper, and Roman would call him back. Freddie kept it in his backpack all the time, but never used it. Roman paid the minimum charge on the damned thing every month, it was a security blanket for the kid -- and for him, too, he supposed -- and he never considered canceling. Now he was grateful he hadn't. The phone rang once, then clicked on. In a whisper, he heard his son say, "Dad?" Relief flushed through Roman like a tidal wave. "Freddie, where are you?" "Um. Florida," but there was something wrong with his voice. It was slow and low, not like Freddie at all. "Hold it together, Freddie. Are you all right? Do you know where you are? Is Kewpie with you?" "They took Kewpie." He sounded as if he'd been drugged. "Okay, son, don't hang up. Just put this phone somewhere where the people won't find it and I'll get the police to trace the signal. Are you okay?" Freddie nodded, remembered that his dad couldn't hear a nod, then croaked out a "Yeah." "Don't be afraid, boy, I'm coming for you." "Yeah." "You have a place to put the phone?" "Yeah." "Good. Do that now, and I'll see you soon." "Um. Hurry." "I will. I'll come get you and The Kewp. Okay?" Freddie nodded. Roman knew he was nodding. He could see his brave little boy and the thought tore his heart out. "Put the phone away now, and I'll see you soon." He listened as rustling sounds came over the phone. "Freddie?" "Mmm?" "I love you, boy." "Me, too," Freddie said, his voice fading. Roman's throat filled up with hot emotion as he lay that receiver on the ledge and picked up the receiver from the pay phone next to it. He dialed 911 and hoped to god the NYPD or the FBI or somebody knew how to handle something like this. And handle it before the cell phone battery went dead. Within an hour, the hospital corridor was filled with police. * * * Freddie looked at the closet. He should get up and put the cell phone back in his backpack, zip it up and they'd never find it. Or in between the mattresses. But his legs wouldn't work and his fingers just twitched when he wanted them to do something. The cell phone sat on his chest, in full view of whoever might come in, and the dreams he kept having were interfering with the task he knew he was supposed to perform. Gotta do it for Kewpie, he said to himself, but it didn't help. Against his will, his eyes closed, and the dreams played about on the inside of his eyelids. When he woke up, the maid was cleaning his bathroom, he was dressed in fresh pajamas, and his sheets had been changed. "Buenos Dias," she said when she saw that his eyes were open. It took Freddie a minute or two to remember just exactly what was going on. He couldn't seem to keep track of everything. The phone! He rummaged in his bed, still feeling like his head was out of focus. "Your toy is on the nightstand," the maid said, and pointed at it with her elbow as she wrung out a cloth into a soapy bucket. Toy? The phone. "It fell out of your bed when I changed your sheets," she said. Freddie grabbed it -- it seemed as though his arm stretched out a mile. It was still on. The red light still glowed. He almost put it to his ear, but he didn't want the maid to know it was a phone. How could she not know it was a telephone? He pulled it under the covers, hugged it to his chest, rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes. The next thing he knew, someone was yelling. Somebody ran past his door, then what sounded like a whole bunch of people ran by. He heard whispering just outside his door, then more yelling downstairs. Then people walked up and down the hallway, up and down, up and down, and he heard that kid crying again. He wrapped his arms around his knees and prayed that nobody was going to bust through his door, but if somebody did, he hoped it would be his dad. * * * "Mr. Daniloff? FBI. We have your son." A sob broke out of Roman's chest. "Is he all right?" "He's fine. He's eating ice cream here in the lounge with thirteen other kids." "And my daughter?" There was a pause so deep Roman could have fallen though it. "No word on the girl yet." That took away most of the relief. "Who are these people, anyway? What were they doing with my kids?" "Let us get back to you as soon as we find out about your daughter, Mr. Daniloff." "Tell my son I'll be down to pick him up." "I'll do that, sir. He's a smart and very brave boy." With a trembling hand, Roman clicked off the cellular phone the police had given him and looked over at Cindy, whose ventilator continued to aspirate in a maddening rhythm. * * * Special Agent Monroe had a five year old daughter himself, a precious little blue-eyed blonde that was the essence of his late mother. He believed it was no accident that he was involved in this disgusting case. He made it his personal mission to find that boy's little sister and rescue her from these monsters. It had to be done soon. They certainly wasted no time processing these children -- he couldn't afford to waste any time, either. He mustered the city and county uniformed police and had them canvass every hospital, every clinic, every veterinarian. He wanted them to inspect every inch of any place where surgery could be competently performed. And he wanted it done within an hour. They caught his urgency. They caught his desperation. He told them about five-year-old Kewpie Daniloff, whose name alone was enough to strum their heartstrings. Most of those uniformed cops were in the right age bracket to have five-year-old daughters themselves. He had a ray of hope. A slim, solitary ray, but it was better than absolute darkness. * * * Roman watched a crew of scrub nurses wheel Cindy's bed out of the room. Apparently, her new heart had arrived. "Would you like to walk along with us?" one nice nurse asked. Roman shook his head, respectfully declining. The thought of it made him sick. The thought of Cindy made him sick. They wheeled her out and down the hall, and the room was uncomfortably quiet. He wanted to go get a cup of coffee, but he didn't want to move. He just wanted to sit, solid, until he heard that his baby girl was safe. His phone rang. He picked it up, clicked it on, pulled up the antenna. "Yes?" "Daddy?" It was Kewpie. Roman started to cry. "Hi, baby," he said. "You okay?" "My back hurts..." He heard her voice fade out. "Special Agent Monroe here, Mr. Daniloff. She's fine, or as well as can be expected. It appears as though she has donated a kidney, but otherwise she's just fine." Donated a kidney? "Tell her I'll be down to pick her up tonight," Roman said, then without waiting for the FBI guy's reply, he hung up. He had something to do. Surging with energy, he got up out of that damned plastic chair, ran down the hallway, pushed through doors, followed signs to the operating rooms and finally caught up with Cindy. He grabbed the metal-jacketed chart from the end of her bed, flipped it open, and ripped out the consent forms. "No consent," he said to the assembled people in green masks and gowns. "I forbid you to operate." "Mr. Daniloff," some masked doctor said. "We have her heart. We have the team. We have to operate." "No operation," Roman said, tossed the chart onto Cindy's blanketed legs and ripped the consent forms into little pieces. The speechless medical staff watched them flutter to the floor. "She'll die," someone said. "Fine," Roman replied, and walked away. He had a plane to catch. Then he and his kids had some money to spend. First stop: Disney World. Visit Elizabeth Engstrom's site and learn more about her work and books at www.ElizabethEngstrom.com