The Other Mothers (Chop, Chop Series Book 5)

by L. N. Cronk

  “Um-hmm,” I said. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you finally sense an opportunity to actually beat me, would it?”

  “No,” he said, defensively.

  “I used to be on the swim team,” I informed Amber. “Normally Tanner doesn’t stand a chance against me.”

  “I let him win on a consistent basis,” Tanner said slyly to her.

  “But now that I’m so weak from being in a leg cast for three months and I’m barely able to walk,” I went on, “he thinks that his chances of winning have greatly increased.”

  Amber smiled at both of us.

  “Wanna race with us?” I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?” I asked. “Come on! It’ll be fun!”

  But she just shook her head some more.

  “Okay,” I agreed, setting her up on the edge of the pool. “You can be our official judge. You decide who wins.”

  She nodded and smiled at me.

  “Down and back?” Tanner asked.

  “If that’s all you’re up to,” I agreed and he made a face at me.

  We started from the water because there were about thirty “No Diving” signs posted around the pool.

  “On your mark. Get set. GO!”

  After we swam down and back I popped up and looked around for Tanner, who was standing up at the same time.

  “Who won?” we both asked Amber simultaneously. She pointed at Tanner with a sheepish smile on her face.

  “Enjoy it while you can, big boy,” I told him. “A few more weeks and you won’t have a prayer.”

  “Ooooh,” Tanner said. “I’m so scared.”

  “Wanna go again?” I asked. “Butterfly?”

  He hesitated, but only for a moment.

  “Sure,” he said, and we took our marks again and went.

  There’s a technique to the butterfly, one that most people (including Tanner) never bother to learn. But I had bothered to learn it – the butterfly was actually my specialty. When I finally touched the wall and popped up, my leg was aching, but I didn’t need to ask Amber who’d won. Tanner hadn’t even finished yet.

  “That is such a stupid stroke,” he complained, wiping water from his face, “I don’t even know how it ever became an event.”

  “Ever heard the expression, ‘sour grapes’?” I asked Amber.

  She grinned at me.

  “Underwater now,” Tanner suggested. “We’ll see who can go the furthest with one breath.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “But let me catch my breath first.”

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Outta shape?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am!” I cried. “That’s what happens when you can’t exercise for twelve weeks.”

  “Excuses, excuses,” he muttered.

  Amber hopped back into the pool.

  “You gonna race with us this time?” Tanner asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?” I wanted to know. “I thought you wanted to go swimming so bad.”

  “I don’t know how to swim,” she whispered.

  “You what?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  Tanner and I glanced at each other.

  “You should learn!” Tanner said. “Do you want me to teach you?”

  She nodded.

  “I should be the one to teach her,” I protested. “Not you!”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because I was on the swim team all through high school and college,” I said, jabbing my thumb into my chest. “And I was a lifeguard.”

  “Big whoop,” Tanner said, waving a hand at me dismissively. “I’m a coach! I spent four years learning how to train athletes.”

  “Yeah,” I scoffed. “How many swim lessons have you given?”

  “It’s not about a particular sport,” Tanner insisted. “It’s about working with-”

  He stopped in mid-sentence and we both turned suddenly to where Amber had been. She was underwater now, sitting on the bottom of the pool and gazing up at us while bubbles streamed out of her mouth. We each reached down and grabbed her, pulling her above the surface. She stood up and grinned at us.

  “Never mind,” Tanner said. “You can teach her.”

  “No way,” I argued, shaking my head and wading away. “You’re the coach.”

  The aftershock almost doubled the number of inspections my team was contracted for and Tanner had to fly home with Amber at the end of the week so they could both go back to school on Monday. I was going to have to stay in California for at least four more days without them.

  “I’m going to miss you,” I told Amber as I squatted down next to her before she and Tanner checked through security. “You be a good girl for Tanner and call me as soon as you get home, okay?”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  We hugged each other and I gave her a kiss on the forehead.

  “I love you,” I told her.

  “I love you, too.”

  I stood up and Tanner looked at me expectantly.

  “You’re not getting a hug or a kiss,” I informed him, reaching out my hand. He shook it and then pulled me into the hug anyway. It was a manly hug though – a football player-type hug with slaps on the back.

  “Thanks for everything,” I told him as we pulled apart.

  “Glad to do it,” he answered. “Anytime.” And then he took Amber’s hand and led her away.

  ~ ~ ~

  IT WAS THE first week in May by the time I got back to Cavendish. When I arrived home, it was almost time for Jordan and Charlotte’s wedding, which they were having as soon their spring terms were over in the middle of the month.

  Almost a year earlier, Tanner and Jordan’s middle brother, Chase, had been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. It was a devastating, genetic disorder that usually didn’t show up until the victim was in their thirties or forties, but sometimes it could show up earlier – like it had with Chase.

  Chase’s diagnosis meant that Tanner and Jordan each had a fifty percent chance of having the disease themselves. When Tanner had found this out in the fall, he’d immediately decided to get tested and – thank God – had found out that he was clean. Jordan, on the other hand, had made the decision to not get tested. I guess he figured what was the point in getting tested since if he did have it, there was nothing that could be done?

  The younger a patient is when they’re diagnosed, the more aggressive the disease tends to be. This was certainly the case with Chase, who physically was doing so poorly that he refused to be a groomsman at Jordan’s wedding.

  Neither Tanner nor Jordan wanted Tanner to be a groomsman if Chase wasn’t going to be one, and Charlotte didn’t want bridesmaids if Jordan wasn’t going to have groomsmen. Jordan and Charlotte, therefore, weren’t going to have any attendants at their wedding.

  But I was going to give Charlotte away (she had made me promise I wasn’t going to cry). And Dorito was going to get to be the ring bearer. And Amber and Lily were going to be flower girls.

  Our family was pretty special.

  “What’s Laci get to do?” Amber whispered in my ear at the rehearsal dinner.

  “What’s Laci get to do?” I asked loudly for Laci’s benefit. “Nothin’. Laci gets to do nothin’!” I grinned at Laci and she rolled her eyes at me, shaking her head.

  “Why do you get to walk Charlotte down the aisle?” Amber wanted to know.

  “Well, usually the bride’s father gives the bride away,” I said more quietly. “But Charlotte’s daddy died when she was a little girl and now she doesn’t have anyone to give her away, so I get to do it.”

  Amber nodded and didn’t ask any more questions until later that night, when I was tucking her into bed. It was then that she pulled my head close to hers.

  “Are you my daddy?” she whispered.

  Her question caught me off guard. This was risky stuff, but I answered without hesitating. “Yes.”

  “So,�
�� she whispered, “when I get married you’ll walk me down the aisle like you’re gonna walk Charlotte down the aisle?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  She looked at me for a moment and then gave me a smile.

  “You’re gonna be a beautiful bride one day,” I said. “I can’t wait to see what you look like.”

  Her smile grew bigger.

  “I love you,” I told her.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered into the air.

  I smiled back at her. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  The next day was the big day. I was worried that Amber might not have the courage to walk down the aisle in front of all those people, but it wound up being Lily who got stage fright and Amber had to take her by the hand and drag her to the front. Dorito got there way ahead of both of them, first trying to have a conversation with Jordan and then waving to Tanner, Laci and his grandparents while waiting for Amber and Lily to finally join him. Charlotte and I watched the whole thing from the vestibule by cracking the doors a bit and peeking through.

  “They forgot to throw their rose petals,” Charlotte said.

  “You wanna call ’em back and have them go again?” I asked her. She shook her head, stepped back, and looked at me.

  “You promised me you weren’t going to cry,” Charlotte said, accusingly.

  “I’m not doing anything!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in the air (and I really wasn’t, although I knew that if I tried to tell her how beautiful she looked, or how proud I was of her, or how much I loved her, I was going to be a mess).

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  I nodded and she reached toward me.

  “I love you,” she said, pulling me into a hug. Then, into my ear, she said quietly, “My dad and Greg would be really glad that you’re here for me.”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to cry.”

  She pulled back and smiled at me and the music in the sanctuary changed to announce her arrival. The doors opened and I walked Charlotte down the aisle to where Jordan stood at the front of the sanctuary, waiting for her.

  After the wedding we went into the fellowship hall for the reception. We were sitting down, eating, and Natalie was in the middle of telling us a story about her father (who was suffering from Parkinson’s), when Dorito interrupted.

  “Amber and I want some more punch,” he informed me, tugging on my tuxedo sleeve. I sighed heavily and Laci and I looked at each other.

  “I’ll go with ’em,” Tanner offered, rising from his seat.

  “No,” I said. “You don’t have to. I’ll go.”

  “Naw,” Tanner assured me, glancing at Natalie. “I’ve already heard this story.” Natalie smiled at him and he took Amber’s hand in one of his, put his other hand on Dorito’s back, and steered them both toward the punch table.

  “So, anyway,” Natalie went on, “I get downstairs and Dad has completely wedged himself behind the hot water heater somehow. I still have no idea how he got back there, there’s only about,” she held her hands about eight inches apart from each other, “this much space between the tank and the wall.”

  “What happened?” Laci asked.

  “Well, Mom and I tried for about five minutes to get him out of there, but it wasn’t gonna happen, so pretty soon she’s crying and wanting to call 911 . . .”

  “What’d you do?” Laci asked.

  “I called Tanner,” she said, nodding toward the punch table. “He came over with this big step ladder and he drags it down into the basement and he sets it up so it’s kind of straddling the pipes on the top, you know? It was just about impossible because it kept hitting the ceiling whenever he tried to lift it over the pipes, but finally he gets it over there and then he climbs up on our side and leans over so that he’s reaching behind the hot water heater and-”

  She was suddenly interrupted by a long, loud scream that pierced the fellowship hall. Lily looked at me, Laci and I looked at each other, and a hush fell across the room. Laci and I both stood up hurriedly.

  “You stay here with Natalie,” I heard Laci instruct Lily as I rushed away from the table. Laci was right on my heels.

  When we arrived, Tanner was squatting down next to Amber who was holding an empty cup and still screaming. Dorito watched her with a frightened look on his face.

  “I didn’t mean to!” he said as soon as he saw Laci and me. Amber whirled around and looked up at me. The entire front of her white dress was completely covered in red punch.

  “He RUINED IT!” she cried. “He RUINED my dress!”

  “I didn’t mean to!” Dorito insisted again.

  Tears were pouring down Amber’s face and I knelt down next to her and opened my arms. She stepped into them, still wailing, and threw her arms around me. She buried her face into my neck and I could feel hot tears against my skin. I could also feel cold punch from her dress soaking into my rented, white shirt.

  “I looked so pretty,” she sobbed against me.

  “You’re still so pretty,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around her and standing up. “Laci can get it clean,” I promised in her ear, “and if she can’t we’ll buy you a new one.”

  She continued to cry as I stood there with her in my arms, gently rocking her back and forth. My eyes found Tanner and then Laci. They both looked at me with something near shock on their faces and I knew I was looking back at them the same way. I closed my eyes and hugged Amber tighter and then I opened them and smiled at Laci and Tanner. They started smiling back at me and before long we were all grinning at each other like idiots.

  It was the first time any of us had ever heard Amber speak.

  ~ ~ ~

  FOR THE NEXT few days after that, Amber seemed to feel that the only time she needed to actually talk out loud was when she was mad at Dorito about something. By Tuesday afternoon they’d had three major arguments – one regarding whether or not you have to sell your houses and hotels before you can mortgage your property in Monopoly (you do), one about who was taller (I couldn’t believe Dorito even bothered to argue with her about this since Amber clearly had at least six inches on him), and one about who the dog liked better (I honestly don’t know who had the upper hand in that one). Every time we heard them quarrelling, Laci and I would smile at each other.

  “How much longer do you think it’s gonna be before we stop perceiving this as a great thing?” Laci asked me during the dog dispute.

  “A good, long while,” I smiled.

  ~ ~ ~

  AMBER’S CASEWORKER, STACY Reed, was scheduled for a visit on Wednesday afternoon, the week after Jordan and Charlotte’s wedding. I couldn’t wait to tell her that Amber was finally talking, but (as it turned out) I didn’t have a chance because she walked right in on their fourth argument: which one of them was going to get to answer the door.

  “How’s everything going?” she asked with a smile after she had visited with Amber for a few minutes and then sat down with us at the kitchen table.

  “Great,” I told her and Laci nodded.

  “Good,” Stacy said, nodding back. “She seems to be doing really well. I know her counselor is very pleased with her progress.”

  I glanced at Laci and smiled.

  “Well,” she said, the smile still on her face, “we’re going to go ahead and schedule Amber’s first unsupervised visit with Karen for this Saturday.” (Karen was Amber’s biological mother.) “These unsupervised visits will be longer than her supervised visits as we start moving toward reunification. I’ll be picking her up at about nine o’clock in the morning and then returning her around four that afternoon. I’ll talk to her before I leave today and let her know what’s going to happen, and then you can-”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “What?”

  “Well, if you’d rather be the one to tell her, that’s fine, but-”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, what are you talking about? Reunification?”

/>   “Well,” Stacy explained. “Karen’s met all of the requirements for us to begin permitting unsupervised visits. We’ll start with unsupervised day visits and then work our way up to overnight and weekend-long visits. We’d like to try to get in about three full, unsupervised weekend visits before we permanently reunite them.”

  Permanently reunite them.

  “I . . . I didn’t know anything about this,” I said. “How come we weren’t told about this?”

  “You knew that Karen had been paroled,” Stacy pointed out. “I’ve taken her to visit her mother every month since she was released . . .”

  “Well, yeah,” I admitted. “But nobody ever said anything about her getting Amber back.”

  “As soon as Karen was released she filed a petition to regain full custody of Amber. The initial custody hearing was . . .” Stacy rifled through her papers looking for something, “umm, let’s see . . . January twenty-fifth. That was right after she was assigned to me and I placed her with you. Anyway. There were several stipulations put in place at that hearing, and since then, Karen has met not only all of those requirements, but has also abided with all of the conditions of her parole. Now-”

  “What kind of stipulations?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said there were stipulations put in place at the hearing. Like what?”

  “Oh. Well, like she has to submit to random drug and alcohol testing. She’s already enrolled in an outpatient treatment program and is attending weekly mental health sessions as part of that program. She’s obtained full-time employment and has been attending substance abuse classes. She’ll be required to undergo a final mental health assessment before she’s released from the program and until then our department will make regular, unannounced home visits.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Those are standard measures,” Stacy said, tipping her head at me. “We’ll do everything we can to ensure that Karen is fit and able to provide the best care possible for Amber. We’ll also maintain close contact for quite some time after Amber is returned to her mother.”