After the last hymn, she filed out into the aisle ahead of Rhys and his sons. But she couldn’t rush ahead and ignore him, not after last night. Her instincts told her to talk with Rhys, let him explain away Dylan’s story. Her professional side urged, Wait, remember Haiti. Could she trust Rhys to reach out to authorities for help? Her stomach twisted. Trust that he hadn’t gotten himself involved in something he shouldn’t be? They’d all trusted the father in Haiti. None of her praying during the service had told her which choice to make, only that she wasn’t ready to talk with Rhys now.
He tapped her on the shoulder and stepped up beside her. “Good morning.” Rhys’s smile shot directly to her heart.
She forced a return smile. “Good morning,”
“Neal invited us to go fishing at the lake today. Want to come?”
Renee remembered the afternoon of her birthday when she and Claire had run into Rhys at the lake. His horseplay with Dylan and Robbie, watching the athletic beauty of him swimming out to the middle afterward. Yesterday she would have loved to join them.
“Sorry, I have other plans.” Right, like yard work. “In fact, I need to skip coffee hour.”
Rhys’s smile dimmed in disappointment.
“See you Thursday.”
“Right,” he said.
No, nothing was right. Renee slowed her pace so he wouldn’t think she was rushing away from him and so no one else would notice. But underneath her measured steps, she was running away again.
Once home, an hour-long walk, two hours spent working in the yard and an hour of housecleaning, interspersed with prayer, had brought her no closer to deciding what to do—talk with Rhys or make an anonymous call to Child Protection Services.
She dropped into the chair in the living room, tapped the Bible app on her phone and searched “protection,” which took her to Psalms 12:7, among other verses. “Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.”
Rhys wasn’t wicked. She knew that. The man who’d come to their house sounded as if he was. A photo from the Times of Ti, of the little girl hurt in the fire at her mother’s apartment, imprinted itself in Renee’s mind. Making the call could protect Rhys from danger, as well as the boys. She could see Rhys being wary of calling the police and believing he could handle whatever was going on himself. And she doubted she could convince him to report the incident, if he hadn’t already.
Hand shaking, she went to the Essex County website on her phone and touched the report number. Her heart pounded with each ring. The automated voice mail picked up, and she swallowed hard. She was doing the right thing. All that would happen was that CPS would contact Rhys, investigate the incident and, hopefully, his caseworker could convince him to file a police report for all of their safety.
* * *
“Hurry up. I’m going to be late for work!” Rhys yelled upstairs, louder than he needed to.
He repositioned his ball cap. It wasn’t Owen and Dylan’s fault he hadn’t slept well last night. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off with him and Renee. Then Dylan had had a meltdown when they got to “God bless Mommy in Heaven” during their nighttime prayers. It was part of their nightly routine they’d brought from their time with the Hills. It had never bothered Dylan before, but last night he’d clung to him and tore at his heart by asking him repeatedly not to go away.
Even after he’d gotten Dylan calmed down and asleep, Dylan had woken up and come downstairs while he was watching the ten o’clock news. His son had said he couldn’t find his stuffed T-Rex, but when Rhys had gone upstairs with him to look, it was right on Dylan’s bed.
Rhys closed his eyes and released a pent-up breath. All he could think was that Dylan might have gotten up Saturday night and heard him arguing with Jay Clark, the guy who’d bought his old truck. But Dylan hadn’t said anything.
Someone knocked at the front door. He’d been so lost in thought, he hadn’t heard any car pull in. It had better not be Jay again. Rhys clenched his fists, thinking of Dylan’s fears last night. As he crossed the living room, Rhys looked out the window. His Social Services’ caseworker, Ms. Bulmer, and a man stood on the porch. This was a lousy time for a surprise home visit. Normally he would have already left to drop Owen and Dylan off at the before-school program at The Kids Place. He grimaced. He’d have to call into work and let the site supervisor know he’d be late. Neal had been understanding about the time he’d taken off so far, but Rhys knew the man had to have a limit.
“Good morning,” he said, opening the door wide.
“Mr. Maddox,” Ms. Bulmer said. “May we come in?”
“Of course, I was just getting ready to take the boys to the before-school program and go to work.” Maybe that would help cut the visit short.
The caseworker stepped in, followed by the man. Another caseworker?
“Mr. Maddox. I have an order to remove Owen and Dylan from the house.”
“What?” Rhys shouted.
The man moved between him and the caseworker. What was he? Her muscle? Rhys leaned into the doorknob he still grasped for support. No, the man was there to protect Ms. Bulmer from him.
“They’re all ready for school. Couldn’t I drop them off and then we could talk? You could follow me.”
“I’m sorry. No. Suzi Hill will be here shortly to take the boys to school and pick them up afterward. We hope to have an emergency foster placement for them by then.”
“Hey, Dad, we’re ready.” The boys rushed down the stairs and stopped short.
Rhys’s whole being went numb.
The boys eyed Ms. Bulmer and the man.
“Daddy. You’re not going away,” Dylan accused. “You said last night you wouldn’t.”
Ms. Bulmer raised an eyebrow.
Dylan’s words were killing him, but Owen’s reaction was worse. He stared, expressionless. Owen was old enough to remember him going away before, to prison. Rhys shook it off. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t as bad as that.
“I’m not going away.” If they were placed back in foster care, he’d still be there in Essex County and see them as often as he was allowed.
“Mrs. Hill is here,” the caseworker said.
Rhys opened the door. Had Suzi knocked? He hadn’t even heard. “Mrs. Hill is going to take you to school today and pick you up.”
Relief flowed over Owen’s face. “Do you have to work real late?”
A couple of times when he’d had to work past the closing time of the afterschool program, Suzi’s mother-in-law, Karen, had taken the boys home and cared for them until he could pick them up.
“We have a big job to do today.” That was true. He wasn’t lying.
Dylan didn’t ask why Suzi was taking them to school.
“Give your dad a hug goodbye,” Suzi said.
So that he wouldn’t frighten them, Rhys used all his strength to resist hugging them like he’d never let go. Over the boys’ heads, Rhys caught a flash of pity in Suzi’s eyes. He checked his anger. He didn’t need pity. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Come on.” Suzi looped an arm over each boy’s shoulders and whisked them out the still-open door.
Rhys closed it behind her. “What is this about?”
“May we sit down?” the caseworker asked.
“Be my guests.” Rhys waited for them to sit on the couch before sitting in his recliner.
“We received an anonymous report that an incident of violence and threat of future violence took place here Saturday night.”
The caseworker’s words sucker punched him almost as much as her order to remove Owen and Dylan had. Who’d called? Jay? The man had been so drunk, Rhys didn’t think he could have managed it, although he’d acted crazy enough to do it—for whatever reason.
“Is that true?”
/> Rhys breathed in and out. “You could construe it that way.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“The guy who bought my old truck last week showed up here about eleven Saturday night. I opened the door to him because I thought there might have been some problem with the truck. He’d said he worked nights. It was late, but he could have been on his way home from work.”
Ms. Bulmer wrote on a yellow tablet. “Then what?”
“He was drunk or high. He started saying he was going to get me good if I didn’t do some deal with him. He said I was part of some conspiracy to ruin his life, something about my boss, Neal Hazard.”
“What did you do?”
“I tried to get him to sit and calm down, have some coffee, keep him off the road so he wouldn’t hurt someone.”
“You didn’t think about him hurting Owen and Dylan?”
“I had things under control.”
More writing. “The report said it was a physical altercation.”
“Yeah, the guy took a swing at me. I blocked him, yanked his hand behind his back and got him out the door, which I locked behind him.”
“Did you call the police?”
“I called 9-1-1. But all I did was give a tip about a drunk driver on Hazard Cove Road and a description of the truck. I thought I’d handled it.”
“What’s the man’s name?”
“Jay Clark.” Rhys pulled out his wallet and broke his long-standing rule of never telling anyone in authority more than they’d asked. “Here’s the old registration for my truck if you want to run it through motor vehicles. Jay must have registered it Friday. He brought plates when he showed up that evening to pick up the truck.”
“Can I take the registration?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. The vehicle identification number is enough.” He was probably being paranoid, but he didn’t want to give away the only proof he had that he’d legally owned the vehicle.
She copied the number. “We’ll look into the situation.” Ms. Bulmer and her associate rose.
“Is there any possibility I’ll have Owen and Dylan back today? This week?” He sounded desperate—because he was.
She shook her head. “These things take time.”
“Can I call you and find out where they’re being taken?”
“I’ll be in my office until four. You can try to reach me and I’ll tell you what I’m able to.”
Rhys walked them to the door. After he’d shut it behind them, he put his head in his hands and cried for the second time in his adult life.
* * *
Dear Lord, what have I done? Renee stared at the phone on her desk in the Bridges’ offices and went over the conversation she’d just had with her former boss at the Social Services’ office. CPS had removed Owen and Dylan from Rhys’s home. She’d expected CPS to do an internal investigation and advise more supervision for a time. Those poor little boys. Poor Rhys. He had to be devastated. She raised her gaze to the cross on the wall.
Please forgive me my selfishness in letting my need to assuage my guilt about not speaking up in Haiti to color my actions concerning Rhys, and give me the strength to face him as I should have in the first place.
Renee rose and gathered her things. She poked her head in the director’s office on her way out. “I’m heading out. I need to pick up some paperwork at CPS for one of my Schroon Lake kids before the office closes.”
“Sure. Have a good evening.”
“Thanks.” As if that was possible.
As difficult as it was, Renee ignored the text and call she received as she was driving to The Kids Place. She’d been waiting all day to hear from Rhys. When she checked her phone in the parking lot, both messages were from him. The text was terse—Call Me—and the voice mail almost as terse—CPS took Owen and Dylan. Call me. From the desperation in his voice, she knew “call me” really meant “help me.”
Heart pounding, she called back and got a generic voice mail response to leave a message. “Rhys, it’s Renee. I know. Meet me and Pastor Connor at his office when you get out of work.” Her throat clogged. “I’m...we’re here for you.”
Owen and Dylan were ready and waiting when she walked into the church hall holding the CPS letter authorizing her to pick up the boys. They were the last kids left at the after-school program.
“Hi, Miss Renee.”
“Hi, guys. Karen, I’m sorry I’m late.”
“No problem. Suzi called me,” the older woman said. “Owen and Dylan helped me clean up and get ready for tomorrow.”
“Is Daddy with you?” Dylan asked, looking behind her.
“No,” Owen answered. “Don’t you remember? He’s working late.” His eyes were wide with hope.
Hope that he’d given the right answer? That what he feared wasn’t happening? Her chest burned with empathy and remorse.
“He’s going to meet us and Pastor Connor here when he gets out of work. My sister Natalie, Pastor Connor’s wife, is going to take you guys to the soft-serve stand to get a burger for supper and give us grown-ups time to talk.”
“I know Miss Natalie,” Dylan said. “She’s our song lady.”
“Yes.” Renee remembered that last school year when the boys were with Suzi and Jack, they’d sung in the children’s choir.
Pastor Connor stuck his head into the room. “Hi, we saw your car go by and walked over.” He and Natalie joined them.
“Are you guys all ready?” Natalie asked.
Dylan edged closer to his older brother.
“Yes,” Owen answered.
Natalie offered Dylan her hand and he took it.
Owen held back. “Miss Renee, you and Pastor Connor are going to fix this, right?”
“We’re going to try as hard as we can.”
He left with Natalie, and Renee and Connor went to his office to wait for Rhys. Renee filled him in on the details she hadn’t given earlier when she’d called to set up the meeting.
A few minutes later Rhys thundered into the office. “What’s going on? My caseworker told me to call before she left at four. I called three times, left three messages and got no call back.”
“Hello to you, too,” Pastor Connor said.
Rhys grimaced and shoved his hand through his hair. “Hello. Hi, Renee. Now, what’s going on? You said on the phone that you knew.”
“I do,” she said.
“Why don’t you go to the lounge and talk? I have work to do here,” Pastor Connor said.
Renee’s throat constricted. She’d thought the three of them were going to talk. “Sure,” she choked out.
Rhys left the office first. She followed him across the hall to the lounge and took a seat by the low center table.
He closed the door. “What do you know?”
“Can you sit?”
“No.” He started pacing between her chair and the windowed wall on the far side of the room.
“After Sunday school class, Dylan told me about the man who came to your house Saturday night.”
Rhys stopped next to her. “Dylan saw us? I was afraid of that.”
She nodded.
“That’s why you torpedoed out of church.” Rhys loomed over her. She understood he was upset, but she wouldn’t let him intimidate her.
“Dylan was frightened. I was concerned for all of you. I prayed all day, and I did what I felt was right. I made an anonymous call to CPS’s report line.”
“Instead of talking with me.” His voice reverberated off the windows.
“I truly thought all CPS would do was contact you, find out what happened, maybe schedule more home visits.”
“Well, we both know that’s not what happened.” He dropped into the seat next to her. “You couldn’t have asked me? It was the guy who bo
ught my old truck. I didn’t know he was drunk and crazy when I answered the door. I would never let anyone hurt my kids. He took a swing at me. I stopped him and threw him out. Then I called 9-1-1 and reported him as a drunk driver. My boys weren’t in danger. End of story.”
Renee tugged on a lock of her hair. “When I was in Haiti, I had a situation in which I made a wrong decision. A child was hurt. You have to understand. I decided to err on the side of caution this time.”
He leaped from the chair. “I don’t understand. Me, Owen, Dylan—all we are to you is a situation? I thought I knew you!”
“You do. I had to think of Dylan first. You would have.”
“That’s what I did. I threw the guy out. I took care of it.”
“No, you didn’t. You don’t know what he’s capable of doing in the future. Dylan heard him threaten to burn your house down. You should have called the sheriff’s department.”
A muscle bunched in his jaw. “So what now? Ms. Bulmer didn’t call me back. I don’t even know where Owen and Dylan are. This morning she said they’d be with Suzi, but only today, until CPS could find another foster family.”
“They’re with Natalie, having burgers at the soft-serve stand.”
He sat back down in the chair, elbows on his knees, leaning toward her. “Explain.”
“Your caseworker called me.”
He interrupted. “She called you, not me.”
“You violated one of the conditions of your provisional custody.”
She could see his mind working.
“What did I do?” Confusion spread across his face.
“I don’t know.”
“Wait, how do you know the rest of it?”
“Because violating the condition means Owen and Dylan will be placed in temporary foster care until you have another hearing and...”
“Wait.” The storm clouds that had filled his eyes since he’d entered Pastor Connor’s office lifted. “Owen and Dylan are being placed with Natalie and Pastor Connor?”
Reuniting His Family Page 17