“We could have to leave?” Lainie gasped, shocked.
“It’s a possibility,” Brent admitted. “At this point, I think that possibility is very small. I think we have come up with a solution that is workable, but it is a possibility. I wouldn’t worry too much about it if I were you. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I just felt like I needed to be honest and say that it is a possibility, albeit remote.”
There was a long moment of shell shocked silence before Grant recovered enough to say, “I understand. I appreciate you being honest with us, and I really appreciate you being willing to talk with Kathleen.”
“I’ll let you know something as soon as I know,” Brent said. “Try not to worry.” With that, he excused himself and left.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Lainie practically launched herself at Grant. “Oh my God, what are we going to do if they make us leave?” She blurted, clinging to him. She might have had her doubts about this move and the new direction they had taken in their marriage in the beginning, but she loved it here now. She’d made friends and was the happiest she could remember being in years, possibly ever. The idea that it could all be ripped away... Her eyes blurred and filled. She buried her face in Grant’s shoulder, crying quietly.
Grant wrapped his arms around her. “Hey now, you heard Brent. The likelihood of that happening is very small. It’s never going to come to that.”
“But it could,” Lainie insisted. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go back to like we were before.”
Grant held her tight. “You’re not going to have to,” he assured. “They’re not going to make us leave over this.” Lainie started to protest, he added, “Even if they did, we’re never going back to the way it was before. I won’t let that happen. That’s a promise.”
The logical, practical part of Lainie wanted to argue. He couldn’t possibly know what might happen in the future. Life happened. It had driven them apart once already. It could do it again. The other part of her, the newer part that she was just discovering, wanted very much to believe him. That part couldn’t even fathom going back to juggling it all herself and didn’t want to.
“Trust me,” Grant whispered into her hair, and for once in her life, Lainie took a deep breath and did just that.
CHAPTER NINE
Grant watched Kathleen through the rearview mirror as he slowly pulled away from Brent and Char’s house. Though Char was expecting her to come and help watch little Kayla Rachelle, Kathleen made no move toward the house. Instead, she glared at his receding taillights with the intensity of a laser beam. If looks could kill, someone would be calling the coroner for him right now.
Thankfully, Brent had managed to get the discipline board to agree to their suggestion of having Kathleen do community service work with other adults in the community as a way to make restitution for the embarrassment and undue scrutiny her actions had caused. They had also agreed with Grant on having her make a public apology with one notable exception. They had tabled the issue of whether or not to refer them to the housing board until after Kathleen made her apology. There was concern that if Kathleen’s attitude did not alter this would continue to be a problem. They weren’t willing to subject the community to the possibility of this happening over and over again if Kathleen continued her efforts to expose them all. As such, possible eviction was still hanging over all their heads.
He understood the decision. Frankly, he couldn’t blame them. They couldn’t risk the privacy of the entire community for the sake of one stubborn, hotheaded teenager with more opinion than sense. He just hoped that somehow, someway, someone could make her see what she was really doing. Heaven knows he had tried. Privately, Brent had also confided that he had asked several of the people Kathleen would be working alongside of to talk with her about their perspectives of DD, and why privacy was so important in a community like theirs. He could only pray that Brent’s idea would work.
What worried him was that he did not think Kathleen was going to be particularly receptive no matter how hard anyone tried. To say she had not taken her consequences well was a tremendous understatement. When he had told her, she had immediately thrown yet another raging fit. Screaming and storming around her bedroom, ranting about the unfairness of it all. How it was double jeopardy and she shouldn’t be able to be punished again for the same offense when he had already grounded her. Pointing out that one consequence that come from her parents and the other from the community had only started her in on yet another diatribe about how weird and unfair the community was, and how much she hated living here.
Personally, Grant was torn about the whole situation. On the one hand, he hated that Kathleen was unhappy. On the other hand, he was sick to death of her attitude and continually outrageous and bratty behavior. He had been tempted on more than one occasion to put a stop to it the way his own father would have, by the simple expedient of taking a paddle to her backside. He knew from personal experience that one was much more inclined to be cooperative after an encounter of that sort. Lainie had pointed out, however, that reacting in that way when Kathleen had not been raised with it like he had would likely confuse the situation even further. Not to mention it was extremely unlikely to convince her of the validity of the argument that consensual spankings between adults were not harmful. If anything, it would probably add fuel to her fire. He agreed with the logic of what Lainie had said, but that didn’t make it any less tempting in those moments when she was continually fighting him. He hadn’t done it, and he wouldn’t, but there were moments...
He idled at the entrance to the community, watching Kathleen. She had still made no effort to go inside. He wondered whether he should turn around and go back. Frankly, he wouldn’t put it past her to try running way. He’d known no few teenagers who had tried it. It never worked out well, and he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy what happened to some of them on the streets. He couldn’t let that happen to Kathleen. Just as he was about to turn around, Char came out onto the porch and coaxed Kathleen inside. Satisfied, Grant pulled onto the highway and prayed for a miracle.
His day turned out to be the kind of flat out busy day that meant he barely had time to inhale his lunch – some unidentifiable thing from the cafeteria that was masquerading as Salisbury steak – let alone spare a thought toward how Kathleen might be doing. Summertime was ending and the college was beginning to gear up for the new fall semester. That meant that in addition to the routine work of rescuing students locked out of cars, reviving the car batteries, and dealing with parking violations, there was the inevitable rush of students who had waited until the last minute to pay their summer parking violations in order to have the fees cleared away from their accounts so that they could register for fall, and an obligatory safety workshop with the faculty to prepare for the upcoming semester. It was a far different and saner crazy than the kind of crazy he dealt with in his years working at the county jail, but it was an insanity all its own. His own personal concerns didn’t cross his mind again until he was nearly home. When they did, he sent up a silent but fervent prayer that the day had gone well. Hell, at this point, he’d settle for it not having gotten any worse. The house was relatively quiet when he came in. He could hear the faint thrum of noise from upstairs that told him the girls were either listening to music or watching TV in the family room, but there was no yelling or obvious arguing. He counted that as a good sign, breathing a sigh of relief and letting out a breath he wasn’t even consciously aware had been holding. He found Lainie in the kitchen, surrounded by old photographs and pouring over one of her scrapbooks. She was barefoot with her feet crossed at the ankles and tucked back beneath her chair. He smiled at the sight, fondly remembering many days when he had walked in on her doing homework at the table, seated in much the same position.
He stooped to kiss her, heeling out a chair and taking a seat beside her. “How did she do today?” He didn’t specify which she. There was no need. Both of them knew that Kathleen was paramount on his m
ind, on both their minds actually.
“Okay, I guess,” Lainie replied. “She’s been surprisingly quiet this afternoon. I went up and checked on them earlier. Natalie and Michael are in the family room watching a movie, and Kathleen is in her room reading the book I brought home for her.”
Grant’s eyebrows quirked up in surprise. Lainie had told him about their discussion at book club and the idea of using a book to introduce Kathleen to the more romantic side of the lifestyle. Not being much of a reader, Grant was privately skeptical, but he didn’t dare voice it. Lainie had insisted that a great many of the others had told her that was the way they had first encountered it as a teenager. Lainie, being basically vanilla prior to their move, had never had such experiences. Grant hadn’t either in so far as books went, but he could remember with vivid clarity being entranced by certain scenes in television shows and movies that had included spanking. Of course, that was the way he and most of their neighbors were wired. They’d had absolutely no indication that Kathleen was the same. He had his doubts about how successful said idea would be but was more than willing to try it. If Kathleen was voluntarily reading the book that had to be a good sign. He crossed his fingers and held them out to Lainie.
“Amen,” she intoned with all the solemnity of prayer.
Maybe, just maybe, they might’ve found a way to get that miracle he had been praying for after all.
* * * * *
“I don’t know what you said to my child,” Lainie said to Char a few days later when she ran into her in one of the neighborhood markets, “but you have worked a miracle. Kathleen is a completely different person since she came back from your house the other day.”
“Oh, good!” Char said, deftly reaching to intercept Kayla before she could wander away. “I’m glad I could help.”
“I don’t know how you did it, but you managed to accomplish in one afternoon what Grant and I have been trying to do for months,” Lainie told her.
“I didn’t do much more than talk to her,” Char said. “It was the book as much as anything. Julie had a good idea there. Kathleen was reading it while Kayla was napping. When I saw her with it, we started talking about it. She asked a few questions, mostly trying to wrap her head around the idea of the lifestyle being something that people actually enjoyed and chose, and we talked about why we keep it a secret. She had it twisted up in her head as being something we hid because it was bad, which honestly for a fifteen-year-old who has been taught to be wary of dating violence and other domestic violence, is a pretty reasonable assumption. I could see the light start to dawn on her once we started to talk about some of the discrimination people here have experienced because of making this choice. Kids get the concept of fairness and discrimination.”
Lainie nodded. She knew that from her own experiences in the classroom. Being perceived as unfair was pretty much a death sentence on any kind of relationship with a teenager.
“Frankly, I think she was pretty upset with herself once she realized we had a legitimate reason for wanting to keep our choices quiet, and she had basically blurted out our secret,” Char went on. “From what I’m hearing around the neighborhood, she’s had similar conversations with everyone she’s worked with this week.”
“Something has certainly changed her this week,” Lainie affirmed. The transformation had been amazing. Kathleen had stayed up in her room reading most of the afternoon after she had come home from Char’s, but when the time came for her to come down for dinner, she had appeared immediately and without complaint. That was a miracle in itself. She was equally compliant when asked to clean up the kitchen afterwards. Lainie had been sure that was a one-off occurrence, and that by the next morning Kathleen would be back to her typical ornery self, but she had been pleasantly surprised. No, utterly shocked would be closer to the truth. The underlying raging anger that had been following Kathleen around for months seemed to have dissipated.
Not that she had turned into the perfect child overnight. There was still the requisite grumbling and complaining that accompanied chores and other unpleasant tasks, arguing with her sister over the upstairs bathroom they shared, and occasional bouts of sass and sarcasm, but it was so reassuringly normal and the light years away from the raging and tantruming they had been dealing with all summer that Lainie was practically ecstatic over it.
“I’d better get this munchkin home,” Char said, disentangling herself from Kayla, who was presently making a concerted effort to climb up her legs. “Brent and I are coming tonight. I want to speak on Kathleen’s behalf. She’s a good kid. She’s not malicious, just confused and upset, and who among us hasn’t been there.”
“Thank you,” Lainie said. “We all appreciate the support.”
“It’s nothing,” Char replied. “You’d do the same if the situation were reversed. We take care of our own.” She hefted Kayla onto her hip and prompted the toddler to wave goodbye. Lainie smiled and waved back at her as they walked away. She had been trying not to think of the upcoming meeting that evening, but the conversation had brought it back to the forefront of her thoughts. Not that it had ever been very far away from them in the first place.
Tonight was the night that the discipline board was going to decide whether Kathleen’s actions merited further investigation by the housing board and her family’s possible expulsion from the community. Lainie was desperate for that not to happen, but there was nothing she could do to prevent it. No one could. No one except Kathleen. Tonight their family’s fate rested on her shoulders. She had to convince the discipline board that she had learned from her mistakes and was no longer a risk to the privacy and security of the community. Lainie had no idea if or how Kathleen was going to do that.
While it was true that Kathleen’s behavior had improved tremendously, she hadn’t so much as mentioned the apology she was supposed to make tonight. At least, she hadn’t mentioned it since the first night when Grant had informed her of it, and she had flatly and unequivocally refused to even consider apologizing. If she continued to refuse, they would likely be asked to leave. This time tomorrow Lainie might possibly have to be packing again. She didn’t even want to think about that. Pushing the thought resolutely out of her mind, Lainie paid for her purchases and went to pick Natalie up from her art class.
The house was quiet when Lainie and Natalie arrived home. “Kathleen, are you home?” Lainie called. Her eldest had been scheduled to work with Jonathan today. She was usually home around lunch time, but specifically what time she got home could vary depending on who she was working with and what they had her doing. Since Lainie had no idea what Jonathan had her doing today, she didn’t know when to expect her home.
“Up here,” Kathleen replied from the direction of her bedroom upstairs.
Satisfied, Lainie left her alone for the moment and busied herself putting away the things she’d bought. She heard nothing further out of Kathleen, and the teenager made no move to come down and join them. Curious, Lainie went upstairs to check on her.
Kathleen was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, surrounded by balls of crumpled paper. She had a yellow legal pad in her lap and was writing furiously. An empty plate holding crumbs and what might’ve been the remnants of the sandwich was sitting on her bedside table. Lainie didn’t normally allow the girls to bring food into the rooms, but Kathleen was working so diligently Lainie didn’t have the heart to interrupt her. Instead, she just picked up the plate and quietly slipped away.
Kathleen stayed in her room all afternoon. Whatever she was working on, she was certainly working diligently. Wanting to encourage the effort, Lainie busied herself downstairs and stayed out of the way. Kathleen still had not emerged when Grant came home from work.
“How did it go today?” he asked, pulling Lainie in for a hug and quick kiss.
“Fine,” she told him. “Kathleen’s been really quiet today. She’s been up in her room working on something all day.”
“Would it be too much to hope that she has decided
to apologize?” Grant asked.
“We can always hope,” Lainie said. “Apparently she’s been doing a lot of thinking and talking to people about living this lifestyle.” Briefly, she relayed to him the things that Char had told her earlier.
“Sounds promising,” Grant commented.
“Maybe,” Lainie said noncommittally. “I just wish there was something more we could do.” That was what was driving her crazy about this whole thing. There was absolutely nothing she could do. The fate of her family was in the hands of a teenager. “This is ridiculous,” she blurted irritably. “She’s fifteen. How can she possibly have this much responsibility? All of our future depends on the word of a girl who isn’t even sure of her own mind yet. It’s insane.”
“It’s hard,” Grant agreed, “but let’s not go assuming the worst. You heard Brent. He doesn’t think it will come to that so let’s not go borrowing trouble.” He wrapped his hands over her shoulders, the touch soothing her more than his words. “I’m going to take shower and get out of this uniform.” He held her for a moment more than turned away and disappeared in the direction of their bathroom.
Kathleen came down a little while later. She had clearly taken some care with dressing. She wore a royal blue blouse and black slacks with low black heels. She had pulled her pink-streaked blonde hair back into a low ponytail at the base of her neck. She seemed at once both more mature and uncharacteristically somber.
“You look nice,” Lainie said as she rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“Thanks,” she said quietly. “Do you think this is okay for the meeting?”
Lainie nodded. “I think that’s very appropriate.”
Learning to Live Again (Corbin's Bend, Season Two Book 9) Page 15