When she made her way sleepily out to the kitchen the next morning, Kara found Zach dressed for school and seated on a stool at the standalone counter, eating toast and oatmeal. As usual, Craig had a bowl ready for her, as well, and she popped it into the microwave. He sat opposite Zach, reading the newspaper, having already finished his breakfast.
"Hey, good looking," Craig greeted Kara, glancing up at her.
Acknowledging him with a smile, she began warming her oatmeal, then stepped over to him, placed her arms around his neck from behind, and kissed him on the cheek. "Good morning." She looked at Zach across the counter. "Did you sleep well, kiddo?"
He looked up at her, nodded solemnly, and returned his attention to his food.
Hmm, she thought, grumpy again? She kept an eye on the two boys as her oatmeal warmed. They were too quiet. Neither seemed interested in making conversation. She caught Craig peeking nervously over the newspaper at Zach, though. Zach, for his part, kept his eyes pointedly on his food, careful not to look at his dad.
Craig refolded the newspaper and walked out of sight down the hall. As he left the room, Zach sighed audibly and let his shoulders sag a little. Kara watched him with concern, then turned and followed Craig to their bedroom.
"You need to talk to him before you leave," she said quietly as Craig pulled a T-shirt on for work. He selected an old sweatshirt to go over the T-shirt—it was cool outside again today. Here at the end of September, fall was in full swing.
"I tried before you got up," he replied matter-of-factly. "He doesn't want to talk."
"He does," she returned. "But he's upset. He misses you, Craig… And he's scared of you from last night. He needs to know everything's okay. And you can't wait for him to talk to you first. You're the dad."
"All right," Craig said, surprising Kara. She had expected more resistance. "I'll talk with him for a minute before I go."
"Thank you." She hung back in the bedroom as he returned to the kitchen. A moment later she made her way to the front bathroom, where she fiddled in a cabinet to give the appearance of doing something more than eavesdropping.
She heard Craig speak hesitantly. "Hey, Zach… I wanted to tell you that your mom, she, er…she appreciated the card you left for her last night. That was thoughtful."
Kara listened for a response from Zach, but heard none.
After a moment, Craig continued. "So, um…there's a baseball game on tonight."
"There's a baseball game on every night," Zach replied flatly. Well, at least he was speaking.
"This one's the last game before the playoffs. Why don't we watch it after dinner? I know it's a school night, but maybe your mom and I could let you stay up if the game doesn't go too long."
"You won't even be home," Zach accused.
Kara groaned to herself. He could try harder to get along with his dad.
"Well, I do need to check on a couple of places tonight," Craig admitted, "but it shouldn't take long. I might be back by the start of the game. If I'm not, then when I get home you can fill me in on what I missed."
Kara heard Zach scoot his stool back and carry his dishes to the sink. A moment later, he shuffled past the bathroom to his room.
Kara met Craig at the coat rack, where he pulled his jacket on over his sweatshirt. "That didn't go well," he said irritably.
Kara stood there and looked at her husband, trying to come up with something to say. Before anything occurred to her, he leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. "I have to go. Derek's waiting for me." He left through the door to the garage.
When his pickup drove away thirty seconds later, Zach returned from his bedroom with his jacket on and his backpack strapped over it. He looked like he was in no mood to talk, but Kara blocked his path anyway. She straightened his jacket and tousled his hair. He didn't flinch—he really was growing accustomed to physical affection, at least from her.
"I did appreciate the card," she offered.
Zach frowned at her. "He only came back and talked to me because you told him to."
"He wanted to talk with you, Zach. But he was afraid to. When you're angry like this, he's afraid of saying the wrong thing."
"Mom, I'm ten! Why should he be afraid of me?" The boy shifted the straps of the backpack on his shoulders and stepped around her to the front door. "I have to leave or I'll be late," he said.
Like father, like son, Kara thought, watching him escape out the front door. "Have a good day, kiddo!" she called behind him as he walked away from the house. Naturally, he would inherit his dad's stubbornness. That wasn't always a bad thing—she admired Craig's, and Zach's, tenacity. But this morning… She shook her head hopelessly, closed the door, and returned to the kitchen to reheat her oatmeal.
The day passed quickly, thanks to a busy afternoon at the nursery. Grover's health was holding, and he entertained Kara and the entire staff with gripes about having so many customers sifting through the fall sales, of which he had plenty. He was a shrewd businessman, Grover; he knew how to attract customers. He also took a few minutes to show her some new tips on preparing various berries and shrubs for the winter. Between his bouts of overacted grumpiness, Grover could supply a deep well of horticultural knowledge.
Kara left work almost half an hour late, the store was so busy, and arrived home a few minutes after Zach. This being the first time he had used his key to let himself into the house, she was pleased to find him safely inside, stretched out on his bed and reading a story Mr. Herd had assigned to the class.
"Hey, kiddo," she greeted him. "How was your day?"
He shrugged. "Okay, I guess." He set his book down for a moment. "I got to use my key." He was making conversation today; this was promising.
"Good for you. And I'm pleased to see you doing your homework. Is it interesting?"
Zach grimaced. "It's about girls. I'd rather be playing soccer."
"Would you play soccer with a girl?" she suggested, seizing the opportunity. He could do with a little aggressive play today, as glum as he had been lately.
Catching her meaning, he marked his page and jumped to his feet.
"Get your ball," Kara told him. "I'll meet you outside in a minute. Oh, and feed Paws on your way—you forgot again this morning."
He grumbled something indiscernible as he fetched the ball from his closet. Kara ignored it, stepped into her room, and chose a sweatshirt to wear outside. When she trotted through the laundry room and out the back door, Zach came around the other side of the house, dribbling the ball with his feet.
"All right, Fleming," she said, "let's see what you've got today." They had played enough times these past few weeks that they had finally tied a makeshift net between two trees at the far end of the yard. She took a position in front of it, daring Zach to score against her. He began with an intensity that Kara thought betrayed frustration just beneath his calm, if flat, demeanor. Yes, this was what he needed.
They played for most of an hour before she had to stop to prepare dinner. "Mom," Zach asked, walking back to the house with her, feet guiding the ball in front of him with small taps, "can I go to Cayden's house tomorrow? He still wants to finish our game. I promise I'll come home by 4:30."
"Maybe," she answered, "if you finish your homework and clean your room tonight. It's messy again."
"Why do I always have to clean my room?" he whined.
She almost laughed. She had heard Jasmine say exactly the same thing to Lia a few years ago in exactly the same tone.
"Because it keeps getting messy," she told him, borrowing the response Lia had given her girls. "If you can figure out how that keeps happening and make it stop, then you won't have to clean it up as often." That last part she added herself.
He spent the next hour in his room while she cooked. Craig arrived home dirtier than usual and took extra time to clean himself up, then joined her and Zach at the dining table just as she served dinner—fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and cole
slaw.
The food was good; the conversation, miserable. Kara urged Zach to tell them about his day at school, but he would answer her questions only with "Yeah," "No," "I don't know," or a disinterested shrug. Craig grew visibly frustrated with the boy's reticence, but said nothing.
"How was your day?" Kara asked Craig.
"Good," he answered. "I did a lot of digging in the mud. It's still pretty wet from yesterday's rain." He took a drink of his milk. "You know, I think I can check on the next two Lerwick families and still make it home by the fourth inning of the game. What do you say we watch it together, Zach?"
"Not interested," he responded dully, without looking up.
Craig set his fork down a little too loudly. "How come you're so morose all the time now?" he challenged. "Vegetables are stupid, you won't talk at breakfast, and now you don't want to watch the Mariners? Why are you acting like this?"
"I just don't want to watch the baseball game with you," Zach replied, eyes on his plate.
"You don't want to watch the game, or you don't want to watch with me?"
"Craig—" Kara cautioned, but he spoke over her.
"Kara, I don't like his attitude right now. I don't know what's going on, but it needs to change." He turned his eyes on Zach. "We are doing everything we can think of to give you a good home, and suddenly it's not good enough for you? You liked it well enough until school started! Maybe that's it. Is there something wrong at school? Because if that's what's going on, I'll take care of it. I'll go down there tomorrow—"
"Craig!" Kara broke in, raising her voice. Zach had slid slowly lower in his chair under his dad's assault. Craig turned to her with an angry look, but she held her ground. "Let's discuss this in the bedroom."
"No," he returned, "we can discuss it right here. Do you know why he's acting like this? Something's going on, and I want to get to the bottom of it!"
Kara gave her husband a stern stare. Men could be so oblivious, particularly in the face of something so obvious. "You want to talk about it here, Craig, in front of Zach? Fine. He's angry! He's been angry for a month! Are you just now catching on?"
"Oh, he's angry?" Craig answered sarcastically. "There's more to it than that, Kara. I expected it to come, but not with such a bad attitude."
"Expected what to come?"
"Don't you see it? He's regressing!" he said, as if that explained everything. When she gaped at him, he went on. "He's reverting back to the way he behaved before he came to us. He's staying inside more, keeping to himself, doesn't want to play outside—he's going back to the lifestyle he grew up with! This shouldn't surprise us. It's a big change, living with a family. Everything's new—he's having a hard time adjusting."
"Adjusting? What?" She glanced at Zach. Before, he had simply been morose; now he was anxious. He had never seen them argue before, she realized—at least not so intensely.
Kara turned back to Craig. "He's not adjusting, and he's not regressing. He's trying to get your attention, you bozo!"
He had the audacity to give her a dumbfounded look. "My attention? What are you talking about?"
Kara huffed. "I'm talking about how you've been gone every waking moment, out looking for Rhonda Lerwick, and now Bill, or Bert, or whatever his name is!" She was yelling, with Craig sitting just a few feet across the table from her and Zach right there watching, but she didn't care.
"Can I go to my room?" Zach asked quietly as she paused for breath.
"No!" Kara and Craig barked at him together.
"You stay right there, young man," Kara ordered.
She faced Craig again. "Four different times this month, you've told Zach you'd go out and play catch with him tomorrow, and every time he went outside with his glove and waited for you, only to have you come home too late or come home and completely ignore him!"
"I haven't ignored him!" Craig protested, standing up and beginning to pace. "We went out and played catch just—" He hesitated.
"Last Friday," Zach inserted.
"Right, Friday! We played catch on Friday!"
"For five minutes," the boy said, resentment clear in his voice.
Kara nodded and glared at Craig with one eyebrow raised. "That's the only time you two have played catch since he started back to school. A whole month, Craig—five minutes! And then off you went again, looking for someone who might possibly know 'Grandfather' and be able to tell you—"
"Hey!" Craig exploded. "Do you think I like doing this, all this searching across the city?" He jabbed a finger toward Zach, who sank another inch lower into his seat. "He's the one I'm doing it for! If I didn't care about him more than anything in the world except you, if I wasn't scared to death that somebody's going to come claiming he belongs to them—Remember Tiffy, Kara? Remember? That's why I'm doing this!"
"I know that, Craig," Kara reasoned—still loudly, and getting to her feet to face him eye to eye—"but he's a boy! All he sees is his dad, the one he always dreamed of having, leaving every night instead of spending time with him—choosing not to spend time with him, one night after another! Is this the kind of father Rhonda Lerwick told him he would have someday? Why do you think he threw his ball and glove down the hall that night last week? Huh? Because he didn't mind that you were ignoring him again, breaking your promise again?"
Craig took a step backward, eyes wide and suddenly uncertain. He looked from Kara to Zach and back to Kara again. "No, I—We were looking for—I didn't—"
Kara cut him off. "Yes, it's going to be hard for him to adjust to living in a family sometimes, especially now that we're getting used to each other! Yes, he's going to have bad days—everybody does! But this is way beyond that, Craig! How many days since school started have I come home and played soccer with Zach because he needed attention and you hadn't been around to give him any?"
"Twelve," Zach said quietly.
Craig shot him a look of surprise and betrayal.
"And every night—nearly—you've left me here to deal with him by myself. So then he started taking it out on me."
Craig looked at Zach sharply this time, but Kara stepped around the table and jerked his attention back to her with a hand flat on his chest. He had such a strong chest—it infuriated her to catch herself thinking so in the heat of the argument.
"I can deal with him," she told Craig, less loudly. "What I can't deal with is his father ignoring him, going out in search of his past and missing out on him in the present. He's not Tiffy, Craig—he's Zach, and he's here, and he needs you!"
Craig met her eyes again, and all the anger that had filled them a moment ago suddenly melted away, replaced by denial that matured into sorrow as she watched. "I know he's not Tiffy… I…I didn't mean to not—I just—," he said weakly, and gave up. His shoulders slumped.
Amazing, Kara thought, how they even slump their shoulders alike. She had seen a lot of that from Zach lately.
Craig turned to the boy. He spoke hesitantly. "Is that…what's been bothering you, Zach?"
Zach refused to look up at him. He folded his arms and said nothing.
"Hey, you haven't been behaving properly, either, Zechariah," Kara admonished him. "Your dad offered to spend some time with you tonight, and you turned him down. Don't be rude when he's trying to make amends."
She waited. Craig ran a hand through his hair.
Zach fidgeted in his chair. He didn't look up, but he did finally speak again, in a small, uneven voice. "I just wanted to play catch."
Craig's eyes took on his calculating look for a brief moment, as if he were working through one last problem. "All right," he said, "I'd like that, too. I can…go find these Lerwick people another day."
Zach looked cautiously up at Craig, eyes wary but also hopeful. Kara was glad to see the hope. There had not been much in those eyes for a while.
"Go get your glove and ball, Zach," she encouraged him.
He looked down at his plate, where
half of his food lay uneaten. "What about dinner?"
"Finish it later. Go play catch." She raised her eyebrows at Craig.
He nodded his agreement. "I'll get my glove, too."
The boys took off down the hall, careful to give each other ample space, and Kara leaned back against the kitchen counter, catching her breath. Marissa was right—boys were exasperating!
She heard them exit through the laundry room and the back door a few seconds later. Quietly, she stepped out the side door and knelt on the patio. Paws trotted over to her and offered himself for petting. Kara obliged him as she listened to the boys; from where they had stationed themselves in the yard, the corner of the house blocked her view of them and theirs of her, so she could listen in on them unobserved.
The ball thumped into one of their gloves, then into the other's glove a few seconds later. Back and forth it went. They said not a word.
Kara rubbed Paws' head. "Ever thought about having kids, Paws?" she whispered. He looked up at her affectionately. "Let me tell you—they're complicated." He thumped his tail enthusiastically on the concrete. "Yeah, I know you like him. But all you have to do is play with him. You don't have to raise him."
She listened as the two guys continued to toss the ball between them. After ten minutes, she gave up and returned to the dining room to finish her food. They still hadn't spoken to each other. But they're boys, she told herself. Maybe if they have a ball to throw, they don't need to talk. Nevertheless, she worried about them.
When her food was gone, Kara cleared the table, except for Craig's and Zach's plates, which she left at their places. She washed the dishes, glancing inconspicuously out the window behind her. They were still playing catch as she finished, but now Craig was squatted down like a catcher and Zach was throwing from a windup, like a pitcher. She took that as a good sign.
It was getting dark outside, but they did not come in. Kara looked for something to occupy her mind while she waited. Nothing interested her at the moment. Finally she decided to sit down and watch the baseball game on TV. What's gotten into me? she wondered. I never watch baseball—not without Craig, at least.
For half an hour she watched. At last, when the cloudy sky was fully dark, Zach dragged himself in through the side door, arms draped across the top of his head, still wearing his glove on his right hand. He joined Kara in the den and collapsed beside her on the couch. "I'm exhausted!" he cried happily.
He was happy? Kara hadn't seen him honestly happy in a week!
She tousled his hair. "You're all sweaty," she noted, wiping her hand off on his jeans. "You guys must have been playing hard out there."
"Dad said I might be a pitcher next year," he reported, fixing his eyes on the TV. "He said I've gotten stronger. I threw a lot of strikes, Mom!"
"Wow, good for you, kiddo." She looked up as Craig came into the room and took a seat on the other side of Zach.
"Is your arm sore, pal?" he asked.
"A little," Zach replied, rubbing his left shoulder.
"We probably threw too long for your age. If it feels tight tomorrow, we'll need to do some light tossing to loosen it up after school."
With a satisfied nod, Zach accepted the offer to play catch again tomorrow.
"Zach said he was pitching to you," Kara prompted.
Craig's eyes lit up. She hadn't seen him so excited in a while, either. "He was throwing hard because he was mad—but he was throwing accurately. It was impressive. So I squatted down and told him to hit the strike zone, and he nailed it almost every time. We might have ourselves a southpaw!" He patted Zach on the back, and Zach grinned.
Kara just shook her head. How did boys do this—going out unable to speak to each other and coming back best friends?
That night as Craig and Zach finished their dinner and watched the game, their home was peaceful again. Kara broke out some chocolate ice cream and shared it with them in her own private celebration.
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 84