Finding Balance

by B. E. Baker

  “Thanks.” My lip wobbles, but at least I don’t cry. I’m sure Dad recorded it, and Mom can watch that later maybe.

  “Amy!” This time, I know it’s her. I turn toward the back of the auditorium and watch, wide-eyed as Mom jogs down the aisle, baby Jack in her arms. “Sorry, dear heart, he needed to eat, but I made him wait until it was over, so I had to rush out the second the curtain dropped.”

  She’s crying. My mom saw my play, and she’s crying.

  “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever watched. You have a real gift.”

  And then I’m crying too. Mom passes baby Jack to Dad and crouches down so I can hug her, my arms too tight around her neck, but I can’t seem to help it. “Thanks.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything,” she whispers.

  I believe her.

  Because she’s my real mom. And that’s what moms do.

  When everyone heads out of the theater, my arms full of flowers, I pause for just a second. And it’s almost like someone else hugs me and presses a kiss to my cheek.

  It might sound crazy, so I don’t tell anyone else, but. . .

  For the first time in my life, I wonder whether I might be the luckiest girl in the world. Because I’m pretty sure I have two moms who loved me enough to watch my play, not just one.

  Finding Peace, the last Finding Home Series book, is out now. And if you have time to review any or all of my Finding Books, on ANY platform (booksellers, GoodReads, BookBub, you name it!) ALL reviews really help me. <3

  And if you like talking with other people who have read the series, join my reader group on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/750807222376182. It’s called Bridget E. Baker’s Binge Reader Recovery Program, but I doubt it will really help you recover if you have a reading problem. . . Also, I’m working on writing some exclusive short stories for each of my series that I’ll only make available in that group. So if you’d like to grab those, head on over.

  I’m also including a sample chapter of Already Gone next, a standalone romantic suspense I wrote. I hope you’ll keep on scrolling and check it out. It’s not quite as heartwarming as the Finding Series, but I think it will touch on many of the same things—family, decisions we make, and the things that matter most.

  11

  Sample of Already Gone

  * Lacy*

  * * *

  Time’s a fickle trickster.

  If I'd been born a few weeks earlier, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have happened. If my vivacious little sister had been born a few weeks later, it might not have taken place. If Mason had shown up just one day after he did, it probably could've been avoided. If the principal had waited a few minutes that day, well, I don't know. Sometimes I think if I could’ve scraped together a handful of leftover seconds, we could’ve saved her.

  She might still be alive.

  It’s Hope’s fault that I’m here, but I can’t focus on that, not right now.

  I’m supposed to sign in when I arrive at the shrink’s office. The little white sheet with blank spaces stares at me accusingly, like it knows what I’ve done. I want to sign in with a beautiful curly script, as if somehow that will make things better. I can’t do it though, because there isn’t a pen or pencil in sight. What kind of crappy, rundown office doesn’t have a pen by the sign in sheet?

  When I lean over to pull one out of my backpack, I unzip the front pocket too far. Pens and pencils scatter all over the faux-wood, scuffed laminate floors.

  I want to swear, but I bite my tongue instead. Who knows what this secretary might tell the doctor? I really need him to write a positive evaluation for the court. Pens and pencils scattered all over the place, one shiny yellow number two pencil broke about a third of the way down. I stare at it dumbly, transfixed.

  I broke it. Like I break everything.

  The secretary walks around the counter to help me, and I notice she’s wearing the exact same orthopedic sandals as my grandma. I wish Granny could still work in an office, instead of just laying in bed in a nursing home.

  “Oh dear,” the secretary mutters. “I do this kind of thing all the time. Here, let me help.”

  My conscience kicks me when she crouches down and starts gathering my clumsily scattered pens and pencils. I don’t deserve her help. I don’t deserve anyone’s help.

  I lean over to pick them up myself. “It’s your fault this happened. Who doesn’t have a pen out for the sign in sheet?”

  She straightens up and glares at me. “Excuse me for helping.”

  I sigh. I should be thanking her, not yelling at her. My hands shake as I gather up the rest of my writing utensils, but I can’t force out an apology. It’s a good thing my mom’s not here. She’d be furious.

  I pick up the broken pencil and scrawl my name on the white sheet with it, scrunching my fingers to make the little nub work.

  “I am sorry I didn’t have a pen out.” The secretary holds out a blue ink pen and when I reach for it, she smiles. I notice she has lipstick on her teeth. I tap meaningfully on my tooth with the pathetic shard of my yellow pencil while she’s looking at me. She inhales quickly and rubs on her tooth. “Did I get it?”

  I shake my head.

  “I’ll just duck into the bathroom for a second.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her leaving me here unsupervised but don’t stop her. After all, I know I’m not really a lunatic.

  While she’s cleaning the lipstick off, I glance around. The larger, shattered end of my pencil lies on the floor alone. I ought to pick it up and stick it in my bag. With a little sharpening, it’ll be fine.

  I wish people could be repaired as easily as writing utensils. Resharpened when we get dull, a little pink cap slapped on our heads when our factory erasers run down. I could use a little sharpening, too. In their own way, humans are more fragile than a pencil, and when we break, you can’t just sharpen the shards and keep on writing.

  The desk plaque for the younger-than-Granny secretary reads: Melinda. There’s a stack of office supply order forms in front of her and I think about checking a box for some new pens as a joke. When I lean over it, something beneath it catches my eye. It pokes out from under the order forms, and I can barely make out the font at first. When I tilt my head, I realize it’s a rèsumè, Melinda Brackenridge’s résumé. I know why I want to escape this tiny office, since my butt was court-ordered to come in the first place, but why does she want to leave?

  I hear the bathroom door and jump, straightening guiltily.

  “How long have you worked for Dr. Brasher?” I ask to distract her from the guilty trembling of my hands.

  “Oh, years and years now. First we were at a group practice, but they made him take a lot of patients he wasn’t too happy with. He likes helping kids and teens. He started his own practice so he can do what he wants. You’ll like him. Everyone does.”

  Somehow I doubt if he left a group practice to be a do-gooder. I bet he got fired or something and tells people he left to help kids. Sounds a lot better. “So he’s what? A saintly shrink?”

  Melinda’s eyebrows draw together and her lips compress. “Dr. Brasher is the best child psychiatrist in the state.”

  “Then why do you want to leave him?”

  Her jaw drops.

  I point at the résumé.

  Her face blanches. “I don’t want to leave, I swear. Please don’t say anything. He’s such a good guy, and an amazing doctor.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “I haven’t had a pay raise in years and my son, well, I need a raise.” She gulps.

  If she meant to say that out loud, I’ll eat my broken pencil, but I kind of like her more now. “Family should always come first.”

  She nods.

  Family is complicated.

  If it weren’t for my little sister Hope, I doubt I’d be in this fusty old office, waiting on a shrink whose evaluation will determine whether I'm capable of being released into the world as an adult. And yet, the thought doesn’t
make me nearly as angry as it would have last week. I don’t think I realized how much time I wasted being angry with Hope.

  So many seconds thrown away. I wish I could gather them up and hug them close. I wish I realized then that you can’t hug people forever.

  Melinda snags the clipboard and reads my name. Or she tries to, I think. So much for making a good first impression. “Angelique Vincent?”

  I clear my throat. “Umm, I should be on the schedule. Lacy Shelton? I have a three-thirty appointment.”

  She squints at the tiny words on her paperwork. “Shelton. Yes, there you are. Let me see if he’s ready.” She ducks through the doorway that I assume leads to Dr. Brasher. When she opens the paneled wooden door again, she waves me over.

  Melinda looks frazzled and guilty when I walk past, which is one emotion I recognize easily. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to quit, and I’m guessing she can’t bring herself to ask for more money either. I wish I could help, but I don’t have time to worry about her problems. Mine are about to slap me between the eyes.

  For a moment Dr. Brasher meets my eyes silently. I stare right back. He's a tall man to be wearing that particular sweater vest. Before he sits down, I notice it isn't quite long enough. His hairy belly isn’t something I particularly wanted to see, but I imagine he spends all day staring at people he’d rather not. I guess we all do junk we don’t want to.

  He looks down at a file sitting on his desk, and I follow his gaze to a photo of me and Hope, both of us smiling on a blanket on the beach. It’s torn down the middle, and taped back together. I know who taped it. And I know she’s gone now, never to return. Like a pencil in a wood chipper, irreparably damaged.

  All my fault.

  I gulp and sit down on the hard wooden chair across from Dr. Brasher’s desk. My eyes veer away from the photo and right into a pink notebook. Hope wouldn’t use a black and white speckled composition book, no. She made mom buy her a special English journal, with sparkly bling and a splashing dolphin. Sometimes she acted like she was nine years old.

  My heart stutters. Why does Dr. Brasher have Hope’s stuff? Did the judge send it here? My fingers itch to reach for it, but nothing I do seems to go right, so I force my hands into fists at my side.

  This has to go right.

  “Ah, I see you’ve caught me,” Dr. Brasher says. “I was just studying up on your case, a little last minute maybe.”

  I start to speak, but I can’t quite get words past the frog lodged in my throat. I cough to clear it and then force myself to croak a few words. “Why do you have Hope’s journal and that photo?”

  “Please,” he says. “Sit down.”

  I do, but I can’t help another pointed glance at the journal.

  “Does it bother you that I have it?”

  I stomp down on the surge of emotion. I just have to survive the next hour. “No, I’m just curious.”

  “I see in the file that you’re only eleven months older than her. Irish twins, as it were.”

  I’ve explained this so many times, the words fall out without thought. “Since I was born in early fall and she came along the very next year at summer’s end, we started kindergarten the same year.”

  “That’s awfully close in age. Did you mind having a sister when you were little? Were you ever jealous of her?”

  I don’t snort at him, or tell him to look at the photo. I don’t tell him that everyone was jealous of Hope. I don’t tell him she ruined my life. I don’t tell him I hated her sometimes. And I don’t bother telling him I loved her, too. I loved her enough to keep giving and giving when all she did was take take take.

  “Even if I was jealous, that’s normal, right?” I ask. “Textbook, even. Half the kids in America are jealous of their new baby brother or sister.”

  He holds up the photo, one side of it flopping forward along the scotch tape fault line. “She looks a little different than you do.”

  Thank you Doctor Obvious. My brown curly hair looks nothing like Hope’s long, blonde locks. Our eyes are the same shape, but different colors. My pale, lightly freckled arms and legs inspire vampire jokes galore. Her limbs are tanned and muscular from swimming. My angular face and bony body look even more gaunt when compared to her perfect curves.

  I guess it's safe to say Hope didn't steal my looks, but she's taken most everything else I've wanted over the years, sometimes without even trying. When we were babies, she snatched pacifiers I wasn’t ready to give up, my favorite stuffed animals, my snacks, and even my cutest clothing. As we grew, so too did the list in my head of stolen goods. I kept track of them all.

  Not that I plan to confess that in an interrogation ordered by a judge.

  “You’re right. Only our face shapes look the same.”

  “Can you describe your relationship?”

  I glance at the clock. “We’ve only got an hour, right?”

  He smiles. “We have as long as you need, Angelica.”

  I shudder. “Don’t call me that. My name is Lacy, okay?”

  He makes a note on his yellow pad. It doesn’t inspire confidence that he needs to write down my name, like he knows he won’t remember it otherwise. Or maybe wanting to use a nickname tells him something about my brain. What does it tell him? I want to stand up and demand that he tell me. I want to know what’s going to happen. I want to take everything back. Instead I clench my fists and try to school my face into a façade of calm.

  I can’t survive much more of this mock serenity. My head will explode. “For today we only have an hour, right?”

  He nods. “I have another patient scheduled after you, but you can come back tomorrow and the next day, for as long as we need. We may be seeing each other a lot for the next few weeks.”

  My heart rate spikes. Weeks? I don’t have that much time. Why would this take that long? I always finish tests in the first fifteen minutes. I write five page papers in half an hour. Why would it take that long to be evaluated?

  Then it dawns on me. “Shrinks are all paid by the hour, right? So the more time it takes for you, the more money you make. Got to pay for that Porsche for the wife somehow, am I right?”

  He shakes his head. “My wife drives a Subaru, and she paid for that herself. Would it interest you to know that psychiatrists are actually the worst paid doctors in America?”

  I shrug. I don’t really care much one way or another, but that might explain Melinda’s dilemma.

  “Speaking of,” I say, and then stop. She asked me not to say anything, but maybe Dr. Brasher could do something about it. He might want to do something. It’s not like I promised her I’d keep quiet. Things that can be fixed should be fixed. Before it’s too late.

  “Did you have something to tell me, Lacy?”

  I look down at my feet and then back up to meet his eyes. “Do you like your secretary, Melinda?”

  He raises just one eyebrow. “How is that related to psychiatrists being poorly paid?”

  “I’ll explain, but I need to know. Are you happy with her work?”

  “Of course I am. I’ve been working with her for years. She’s my secretary and also my office manager. She keeps things running.”

  “I get that you’re not well paid, but she needs more money. She’s got a son who’s, well, I don’t know exactly what his deal is, but if you don’t give her that raise you can’t afford, you might be looking for a new office manager.”

  Melinda’s face had bleached white when we spoke earlier, but Dr. Brasher’s doesn’t grow pale. His cheeks flush crimson.

  “Look, if it helps, you can write down that we spent as many hours as you want. I won’t say a word.” Happy shrink, better eval, right?

  Dr. Brasher splutters. “I would never falsify my hours. And how could you know that Melinda needs money?”

  I shrug. “I notice things.” At least, now I do. “You only get one shot to get things right sometimes.” Familiar tears well up in the back of my throat, my eyes misting. I take a big, ragged breath to head them off. �
��But whatever. You’re the one with the fancy degrees, so I’m sure you know better than I do.”

  He steeples his hands in front of him and studies me. “Now you’ve gone all teenager on me, but you don’t need to. I have an MD, yes, but I still appreciate insightful advice from any quadrant. Your file says you’re in line to be Valedictorian, and I can see why. I feel as though I should set the record straight. For court-ordered evaluations, I’m paid on a flat fee basis.”

  Great, and my suggestion that he pad his bill makes me look like an idiotic teenager at best, a chronic liar at worst. Another spastic misstep. Heat floods my chest and spreads up to my cheeks. “That sucks for you, but it means you want to wrap this up as fast as you can, right? I’m on board with that.”

  “It takes as long as it takes,” he practically growls. This could definitely be going better. He breathes in and out a few times before saying, “How did you feel about your little sister when you were growing up?”

  “I loved her, of course. Everyone loves Hope. I’m pretty sure it’s involuntary, like pupil dilation, or breathing.”

  Dr. Brasher scoffs. “Pupil dilation?”

  I shrug. “I got tired of being the smart one sometimes, okay? It sucks, being the plain one, the boring one, but it's not like I could do much about it. If I bleached my hair and tried to swim or something, I’d have looked like a pathetic wannabe, a disappointing, washed-out clone. So I focused on my strengths and just tried to love her for hers.”

  “Did you ever like the same guys?”

  My hands start to sweat. I didn’t expect him to have her journal. I have no idea what it says in there. I don’t like unknowns in mathematics, and I despise them in real life.

  “Hope was on homecoming court, okay? She’s swim team captain, so she meets a lot of jocks. The kind of guy who likes her is usually good looking, funny, smart, athletic, or popular.”