The Other Mothers (Chop, Chop Series Book 5)

by L. N. Cronk

  “I know you don’t,” I said. “I know.”

  “Can she still come over and play?” he asked, turning to look at me. His face was streaked with tears.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “Will she still go to school with me?” Dorito asked, wiping at his eyes.

  I shook my head at him. “Her mom doesn’t live in Cavendish,” I said.

  He somehow looked even more distressed.

  “What if I ask God to let her stay here?” he asked after a moment, apparently struck with sudden inspiration. “Do you think He would let her stay if I pray?”

  “I don’t know, buddy,” I said.

  “God can do anything, right?” Dorito asked, sitting up excitedly and obviously latching firmly onto this idea.

  “Of course He can,” I nodded.

  “So He can make Amber stay with us if He wants to,” Dorito confirmed.

  I nodded again.

  “So if I pray, then maybe she won’t have to leave?”

  “I don’t know, Dorito,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

  “But it might work,” he said hopefully. “I’m gonna try. I’m gonna pray really, really hard. Okay?”

  “I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” I warned him again, but he nodded happily. I looked at him and tousled his hair. Then I leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the forehead before I left.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that for weeks I’d been praying fervently for God to please let Amber stay with us . . . and evidently it hadn’t been doing one bit of good.

  Stacy brought Amber back late on Sunday afternoon and after Dorito had led Amber into the house, I rounded on her.

  “Did you talk to Karen?” I asked. “Did you ask her if we can still see Amber sometimes?”

  “She said, ‘No’,” Stacy replied.

  “You told her to say that,” I accused quietly. “Didn’t you?”

  “It’s not a good idea,” she contended. “I know it’s hard, but it’s for the best. Trust me.”

  I gave her a look that I hoped conveyed just exactly how much I did not trust her.

  “I’ll pick her up at nine on Thursday morning,” Stacy said, ignoring my look. “Enjoy your time with her until then. Okay?”

  I finally nodded at her because I didn’t have much choice, and then I went into the house.

  The next three days flew by faster than seemed possible. I walked a fine line between acting happy for Amber that she was finally going to get to live with her mother where she truly belonged and letting her know how much I loved her and was going to miss her. I let her know that it was okay for her to be happy about living with her mom again – that we weren’t mad at her – but I also let her know that it was okay if she was sad about leaving us and that if she wanted to, she could cry.

  But she didn’t. Not once. And neither did I.

  Tanner would have been so proud.

  Wednesday afternoon, Laci and I helped Amber pack her two new suitcases, filled with all the things she’d accumulated since she’d come to live with us.

  “Your jacket’s in the dryer,” Laci told her. “I thought I’d wash it before you left. We’ll put it in here before you zip it up, okay?” Laci patted one of the suitcases and Amber nodded at her.

  “And I’ve got something for you,” Laci told her. “I’ll be right back.”

  She returned a moment later, holding a photo album which she handed to Amber. Amber took it from her and put it on her lap, opening it slowly.

  Inside were most of the pictures that we’d taken in the past eight months since she’d first come to live with us. Pictures of her baking cookies with Laci and Lily in the kitchen. Pictures of her posing with Dorito and Lily in front of a snowman in our back yard and sledding in our front. Helping me blow out the candles on my birthday cake. Holding a fish on Tanner’s pontoon boat. Running in the three-legged race with Dorito at a church picnic. Blowing bubbles. Helping me wash the car. Splashing with Lily and Dorito in our hot tub. Standing at the Marin Headlands with the Golden Gate Bridge behind her. Posing with Tanner in front of a cable car. Dragging Lily down the aisle at Jordan and Charlotte’s wedding. Dancing with me at their reception. Floating on her back at the pool.

  “Thank you,” she whispered softly to Laci when she’d finished looking through it.

  “You’re welcome, sweetie,” Laci said, kissing her on the forehead. “I want you to always remember all the good times we had together – okay?”

  Amber nodded.

  “Okay,” Laci said, squeezing her shoulder. “I’m going to go see if your jacket is dry.”

  After Laci had left the room I sat down next to Amber.

  “I have a present for you, too,” I said, handing her a little box.

  She took it slowly from me.

  “Open it,” I urged. She took the lid off and pulled the necklace off of the cotton liner.

  “You know what this is, right?” I asked her, pointing at the cross. She nodded. “So, I got you this because I want you to always remember everything that you’ve learned about Jesus, okay?”

  She nodded again.

  “I want you to remember that He died on the cross because He loved us all so much. I don’t ever want you to forget that.”

  She ran a finger across the necklace.

  “And,” I went on, “I want you to remember me too. I don’t ever want you to forget me and I want you to remember how much I love you.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head. I didn’t tell her how much I was going to miss her because I knew I was going to start crying if I did.

  “You want me to help you put it on?” I asked her. She nodded one more time and I put it around her neck.

  “It looks pretty,” I told her and she pressed it against her heart.

  Laci returned with her jacket and stuffed it into Amber’s suitcase. I already had her Bible packed in there and a letter addressed to Amber’s mom. It was a letter begging her and begging her to please let us see Amber again . . . once she’d gone away from us.

  ~ ~ ~

  TANNER CALLED LATE that afternoon.

  “I wanted to ask if it would be alright if I came over to say goodbye to Amber?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Yeah,” I finally managed to choke out. “Come on over.”

  Tanner always managed to show up at our house right around dinnertime and this night was no exception. When Laci asked him to join us, he pulled up his usual chair. It was good to have him there – somehow Tanner always managed to keep things fun even if everything was falling apart all around him.

  “Third grade next week, huh?” he asked after we’d said grace, looking at Dorito and then at Amber. They both nodded at him.

  “You know what happened to your daddy and me when we were in about the third grade?” he asked and their eyes lit up in anticipation of another one of Uncle Tanner’s infamous stories.

  “That is not an appropriate story,” Laci informed him.

  “The refrigerator one?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I wasn’t going to tell that one.”

  “Good,” Laci nodded, putting a roll on Lily’s plate.

  “What’s the refrigerator one?” Dorito asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, hastily.

  “Please?!” Dorito begged.

  “No, my friends,” Tanner said, “not tonight. Tonight I’m going to tell you a story about when Grandma and Grandpa Holland got a new hardwood floor in their living room!”

  “Oh, brother,” I muttered, and Tanner grinned at me.

  “Yes,” Tanner said in a dreamy voice. “I remember it as if it were yesterday. They’d left Jessica in charge . . .”

  “Mistake number one,” I pointed out, scooping a blob of potato casserole onto my plate.

  “And they said I could come over and play while they were gone.”

  �
��Mistake number two.”

  Dorito grinned. “What happened?”

  “Well,” Tanner said after he’d taken a swallow of milk, “all the furniture was still moved out of the room and there was this nice, new, slippery hardwood floor to play on. So we took off our shoes and started sliding around on it in our socks. You know?”

  Dorito and Amber both nodded.

  “And then David decides to-”

  “Oh!” I interrupted. “Don’t even try to blame me for this. It was totally your idea!”

  “My idea, perhaps,” Tanner agreed, “but you’re the one that went along with it.”

  “Like I had a choice.”

  “And,” he said, “you’re the one who went and got the furniture polish. I didn’t even know where your mom kept it.”

  “Furniture polish?” Dorito asked.

  “You know that stuff Mommy sprays on the tables and stuff that smells like lemons?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s furniture polish,” I told him.

  “And if you read the back of it carefully,” Tanner said, “it says: Do not spray on floors.”

  “Ohhhhh,” I moaned. “I got in so much trouble.”

  “Why?” Dorito asked.

  “Because it made the floor slippery!” I cried.

  “I thought you wanted it slippery,” Dorito said.

  “Not that slippery!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because every single person who walked into that room for the next three weeks fell down!” I said. “And the new area rug slid around on it for about a year!”

  “Who fell down?”

  “Everybody! Jessica. My mom. My dad. Everybody! My mom even cracked her elbow!”

  “She let me sign her cast,” Tanner said, cutting into his pork chop.

  “Ohhhhh,” I moaned again. “I got in so much trouble.”

  After dinner we settled into the living room. I knew that Tanner wouldn’t stay long, wanting to give us time alone during our last evening together.

  “I have something for you,” he told Amber, motioning for her to come to him. She walked over to where he was and scrambled up onto the couch next to him, snuggling down beside him. Dorito hung on the edge of my chair, watching, while Laci sat in a chair with Lily on her lap. Tanner produced a ring and handed it to her. She held it with both hands, examining it carefully. It was a gold ring set with a round, white pearl.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked her, pointing to the pearl. She nodded and whispered in his ear.

  “Right,” he agreed. “Do you know who makes pearls?”

  She whispered in his ear again.

  “Good,” he smiled, patting her on the back. “You’re a smart little girl.”

  She smiled at him.

  “Do you know why oysters make pearls?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well,” he said, “sometimes a little piece of sand or something gets inside of an oyster and it starts bothering him, but he can’t spit it out . . . you know? It gets stuck.”

  She nodded.

  “So what the oyster does, is he starts coating it with this smooth white stuff.” Tanner ran his large finger over the surface of the pearl. “He just keeps adding layers and covering up the grain of sand and making it all smooth so it doesn’t bother him anymore.”

  Amber stared at the ring more intently and Dorito wandered closer, peering at it.

  “So,” Tanner said, tapping the pearl, “down inside here is a piece of sand that used to bother the oyster, but he just kept working and working at it until he turned it into something beautiful.”

  Laci and I glanced at each other, but then I quickly looked away.

  “Everybody has stuff that bothers them,” Tanner went on. “I’m giving you this because I want you to remember what the oyster does – he just keeps on working and working until he turns his problems into something beautiful that don’t bother him anymore. Can you remember that?”

  Amber turned her face to Tanner, smiled at him and nodded.

  “Let’s see a finger,” he said and she held a hand up to him.

  “I’m afraid it’s kind of big,” he worried. It was woefully large, even when he slid it onto her thumb. “I just wanted to make sure you could wear it even when you were older.”

  He looked at me unhappily. “I should have got a different size.”

  “Show Tanner your necklace,” I told Amber. She pulled her necklace out from her shirt.

  “That’s beautiful,” Tanner said. “Where’d you get it?”

  Amber pointed at me.

  “Maybe you could keep your ring on there until it fits one of your fingers,” I suggested. “Would you like to do that?”

  She nodded and Tanner helped her undo the clasp and slip the ring onto the chain with the cross.

  A few minutes later, Tanner hugged Amber goodbye and headed for the door. I tried to follow him – to walk out with him and thank him for coming by – but he went way too fast. I watched after him from the front door and saw him wiping his eyes as he headed for his truck.

  You can’t get upset . . . you can’t cry.

  Isn’t that what he’d told me?

  What a hypocrite.

  ~ ~ ~

  UNLIKE DORITO (WHO had been known to lay awake for hours, talking to himself), Amber usually fell right to sleep shortly after we put her in bed. But tonight – when I checked on her twenty minutes later – she was wide awake.

  “You okay?” I asked her and she nodded.

  The next time I went back in – another twenty minutes later – she was still awake.

  “Having a hard time getting to sleep?” I asked her.

  She nodded.

  I sat down on the edge of her bed and picked up her hand.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “You and your mom are going to be really happy together.”

  She pulled my head down close to hers.

  “I’m going to miss you,” she whispered in my ear.

  “I know,” I whispered back. “I’m going to miss you too.”

  More than you’ll ever know.

  It was dark, so I figured she would never know if there were a few tears in my eyes.

  “What if I need someone to take care of me again?” she wanted to know.

  “You mean . . . you mean if your mom has to . . . go away again?”

  She nodded in the darkness.

  “If you ever need me,” I promised her, “I’ll be right here. I’ll always be here for you.”

  I could barely make out her eyes shimmering in the dark.

  “Okay?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “Try to go to sleep now,” I said, kissing her on the forehead and putting her hand back down on the mattress. “You’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow.”

  She nodded and I left.

  When I returned thirty minutes later, she was at last asleep. It was then that I finally let myself drop down on my knees next to her bed and cry over her. I begged God some more to please not take her from me, although I had long ago given up any hope that He might let her stay.

  I’d been in there for quite a while when Laci came in.

  “Come to bed,” she urged, gently laying her hand on my shoulder.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. She knelt down on the floor next to me and put an arm around me.

  “You can’t stay in here all night,” she said softly.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  She looked at me for a long time and then finally stroked my hair and kissed me tenderly on the forehead. She got up and left without saying another word. I sat on the floor with my head on Amber’s bed and I held her hand as she slept, her breathing slow and soft and steady. I fell asleep off and on throughout the night, but for the most part I was awake, praying for her and begging God to change His mind, and crying because I knew I was losing her. In the morning I left her room when the sun started peeking in through the window.

  Strangely, all of my
crying the night before must have gotten it out of my system because I didn’t cry one single tear when Stacy loaded Amber into the car for the last time and I said goodbye to her.

  I turned to Laci after we’d waved while the car disappeared from sight. There were tears glistening in her eyes and she reached her hand out to my arm in a comforting manner.

  “I didn’t sleep very good last night,” I told her. She looked surprised that these were the first words out of my mouth, but then she nodded. “I’m going to go lay down for a little bit. I’m exhausted.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  Dorito was dabbing at his eyes, but I barely paid any attention to him as I went past him and into the house. I kicked off my shoes and laid down on the bed with my clothes still on, pulling the blankets up around me to ward off the chill that seemed to be hanging in the air. Then I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  The next thing I knew, Laci was shaking me gently awake.

  “David?” she said softly.

  “What?” I asked, sitting up suddenly.

  “Lily wants to go to the pool,” she said. “It looks like it might be rainy the next few days, so it might be our last chance before school starts. I thought I’d take them.”

  “Okay,” I nodded.

  “Do you want to go?” she asked.

  “What time is it?” I asked groggily, looking my watch.

  “It’s after one,” she said.

  I had been asleep for over three hours already, but I don’t remember when I’d ever felt so fatigued.

  “I don’t think I’m up for it,” I said. She nodded understandingly and I said, “You go ahead and go, though.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Do you want me to make you some lunch before we leave?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll get myself something in a little bit.”

  “Okay. We’ll be back in time for dinner.”

  I nodded and put my head back down, too tired to even think about eating.

  I fell asleep again and didn’t wake up until I heard the garage door opening. I looked at my watch and was surprised to find that it was now after five o’clock. I was still exhausted and – even though I’d had nothing to eat all day – wasn’t the least bit hungry. I managed to make myself put on my shoes, however, and went into my office. I was sitting in front of the computer screen, staring unfocused at the image before my eyes, by the time Laci unloaded the kids.