Three Days on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel)

by Anna DeStefano

  “And give up the chance to humiliate our spawn?” Brian turned Sam until the curve of her back pressed against his middle. He linked his arms around her waist, leaving her the freedom to slip away if she needed more space. When she settled in, he kissed her temple, a lucky man with his entire world gathered around him. “What would be the fun in that?”

  “Mom’s already threatening to blow our whole day.” Cade slouched in his high-backed stool. “She says she won’t be able to stop herself from smothering us when she sees us at school.”

  “Hugging?” Brian felt his wife tremble at the mention of what was ahead. He snuggled her closer.

  “Kissing,” the boys said in unison.

  “I have to announce my presence with authority.” Sam snagged a muffin from the hand-painted platter she loved and took an enthusiastic bite that made Brian wince. Her stomach didn’t tolerate stress well. “If I don’t do something to humiliate you, your friends will think I’m an impostor.”

  “Why not come dressed in a clown costume, and scar me for life?” Cade asked, playing along. But there was something in his gaze, something careful and worried, that Brian wished he could take away.

  “A megaphone would be cool.” Joshie received his own elbow jab from his brother. He returned it with enthusiasm. “You could shout that you love him across the cafeteria during his lunch period. Or over Ms. Hemmings’s morning intercom message after we say the Pledge of Allegiance. ‘Attention, students, Cade Perry Is a Dork Day has begun.’”

  Everyone laughed on cue. Sam kept eating, the boys settled in again, and the easy, hopeful moment choked the air from Brian’s lungs.

  God, please let this work.

  “Why don’t I put you guys out of your misery?” He kissed the top of his wife’s head. “I’ll call in sick and ride with your mother to school. We’ll make out in front of everyone at the bake sale. The rest of the day should be downhill from there.”

  Joshua made a hurling sound.

  Cade snickered and poured himself more juice, his smile more relaxed.

  He was destined to be a poet. Brian and Sam had known it years ago, when they’d first begun finding wondrous combinations of words and phrases randomly jotted into books and onto napkins and once even onto his chest of drawers in the corner near the head of his bed. Cade collected notebooks now, never completely filling any of them up, but always wanting another one when it was his birthday or Christmas or when they were in a store and discovered a stash of them on sale. He scribbled into something practically every day, whether it was for a composition assignment or just for fun.

  “Our kids aren’t sufficiently afraid of us.” Sam set her muffin down and stepped to the sink, where she was soaking the pan. “Where did we go wrong?”

  “They don’t know how ruthless we were in our youth.” Brian followed her, sensing a shift in her playful energy.

  “They don’t know a lot of things about who we used to be,” she said under her breath.

  It was her biggest regret, that their boys never got to see her strong and fearless and ready to take on the world.

  “They’ll know after today,” Brian said. “After they see you rocking the bake sale. It all gets better from here.”

  She nodded at the promise they’d made each other so many times. She didn’t look up from the sink. Had she heard it—the doubt in his rush to reassure her? He sensed her tears, her fear of disappointing everyone, but she’d turned her head so he wouldn’t see her face. She never wanted anyone to see her struggle, even him. Maybe especially him.

  He wanted to tell her that the dishes could wait. That he’d sit with her for as long as she needed after the boys left on the bus. And if that wasn’t enough, he really would head to school with her and blow off a day’s worth of important client meetings. Mostly, he wanted to hold her again, because it would go a long way toward reassuring him that he was doing the right thing, encouraging her to try one more time. But that wasn’t what she’d wanted this morning. For two weeks, this morning had been their focus, her victory lap, and he wasn’t going to take that away from her.

  “You didn’t come back to bed,” he said instead, caressing her shoulder, because their love for each other was something they’d always been able to talk about. It had seen them through so much. “I missed you. I woke up dreaming about you.”

  She nodded again. “I went for a walk and then—”

  “Hung out in the garden… You could have gotten me up.”

  Her hand moved back and forth, scouring the already-clean pan. “You’ve been so tired, with work kicking your butt so much lately.”

  “When hasn’t work been kicking my ass? Still—”

  “It was so early when I came back in to start the muffins. I’d already grabbed my clothes, so I could shower down here in the guest room. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  Sam never wanted to disturb anyone.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, believing it for her. “You’re going to be amazing today.”

  The pan slipped through her fingers and clattered to the sink, making them both jump. Soapy water sloshed onto the crisply ironed oxford shirt she’d paired with tailored khakis that showed off her maddening curves.

  “Mom?” Cade asked.

  “She’s fine,” Brian answered out of habit.

  “I’d better go change this.” Sam grabbed a dish towel and mopped at the worst of the mess. “I don’t want to miss walking the boys to the bus.”

  “You’ve got time.” Brian cursed himself for pushing too hard or getting too close or crowding her or whatever else had set off this latest burst of nerves.

  She rushed up the kitchen stairs toward their bedroom. Both boys stared after her. They turned to him in unison, synchronized by a lifetime of looking to Brian, as if he’d finally be able to explain what neither he nor Sam had found a way to share in detail—the never-ending aftermath of their life in New York.

  “Big day,” Brian said, smiling and repeating the mantra the family had adopted ever since Sam agreed to help with the bake sale. “Your mom’s so excited to be there for you guys. You both mean so much to her.”

  So much more, he wanted to add, than the garden that never would have held her interest before. Or the debilitating depression and other PTSD symptoms that could swoop in so quickly and steal so much. He could try once again to help his sons understand, but Sam was so eager to finally move on. She wouldn’t want him bringing up the past on a day like today. Plus, Cade and Joshua had dealt with mornings like this all their lives. And Brian…

  He was tired.

  He was bone-tired of always being the one left to deal with the boys’ insecurities, when San upset them in unintentional ways that left scars he compensated for any way he could. Even with work consuming close to sixty hours of each week, he volunteered to coach every sports team and to chaperone every school trip and to be involved in any other activity he could get away for—while his wife hid at home. And all these years, he’d been happy too. He’d held up his part of their bargain, and now Sam had fought her way back to herself, just like they’d planned. There was no point in looking back now, right?

  Cade and Joshua each grabbed another muffin. They didn’t pepper Brian with questions. They’d learned to be careful, even if Joshua was more following his big brother’s lead than understanding yet how fragile his mother could be. Careful was what kept their family going. So despite the fresh worry in Cade’s too-wise expression, Brian shut down the nagging little voice in the back of his own mind that said he should be at the school today just in case, to minimize the damage if Sam had an episode.

  Lighten up!

  His wife was depending on him to help her make this work.

  “You’ll see,” he said to his sons. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Chapter Two

  “You’re really something, you know that?” Mallory Phillips said to Sam an hour later, as they walked in from the school parking lot.

  She’d be Mallor
y Lombard soon, Sam corrected herself.

  In five months her friend, who was today wearing cartoon frogs all over her pink nurse’s scrubs, would technically become Mallory Lombard—once she wed the widowed father of the sweet little girl who’d charmed Mallory into putting down roots amidst the quaint chaos of Mimosa Lane. But Sam would always think of Chandler Elementary’s school nurse as Mallory Phillips—the kindred spirit who’d slipped so easily into her solitary world this past Christmas, and helped coax Sam onto the precarious path that had led her to school today.

  “Yep.” Sam made her smile count, even if her confidence felt as crepey and thin as the winter sky above them. “I’m a bake sale warrior, reporting for duty.”

  She jostled the heaping platter of brownies she’d baked last night in one hand, saluted with the other, and held open the door to the school’s front entrance for Mallory to lead the way. And then they were inside. Where there was less air. Where the walls were too close. Where the voices of the administrative assistants in the school office to the right were too loud and too near, and any minute now hordes of children would be streaming in from their buses to swarm the hallways.

  The floor beneath Sam was suddenly mush, grabbing at her legs and trying to suck her to her knees. In a flash, her heartbeat rushed out of control. Heat flooded her body, making everything tingly and numb at the same time. Damn it! She was not going to lose it now.

  Mallory glanced at her.

  Her hand came up to grip Sam’s forearm.

  “Sure,” she said, in response to absolutely nothing, covering for Sam’s disintegrating composure. “You can stop by for a few minutes.”

  The tray of brownies began slipping from Sam’s fingers. Mallory took them, her solid presence keeping Sam upright as they marched down the hall.

  “The coffee should be ready in my office,” Mallory said, for the benefit of whoever might be listening. “I program it before I leave at night so I have something bracing to get me through bus call. Why don’t you have a cup before heading to the cafeteria to set up the bake sale?”

  She kept talking and Sam kept walking, a zombie, stiff-legged and dazed beside her gorgeous, never-say-die neighbor, feeling less there, less real with each step, until she collapsed and found herself sitting on a crisply made cot in the school’s clinic.

  Mallory closed the door. She set the brownie platter on the low cabinet at her elbow, returned to Sam, and knelt in front of her.

  “Deep breaths.” She took Sam’s hands and squeezed tightly, an anchor to reality, as if Mallory understood just how close Sam was to going under. “Keep taking deep breaths until your vision clears. This one hit fast.”

  This one.

  Mallory had known Sam for less than a month, but of course the former social worker—one of the most intuitive women Sam had ever met—would understand how many panic attacks must have come before this one.

  Sam managed a nod, swiping at the perspiration misting her face. Damn it! Her entire body was soaked in fear. A traitorous rumbling low in her belly sounded a different kind of warning. Mallory must have heard it, too. She hitched a thumb over her shoulder.

  “Bathroom’s behind my desk.” She stood, and Sam rushed into the cool, darkened room just in time to skid to the floor, raise the thankfully sparkling clean toilet seat and lose her apple and ginger muffin in a way that ensured she’d never again bake with that particular spice blend.

  She should have known better than to eat.

  But having a normal morning with her family had meant so much to everyone. She’d wanted it to be perfect. And it had been. They’d all been laughing, and Brian had been holding her, and she’d felt secure enough in herself, even after her sleepless night, to share a bite or two with her boys. What was the harm, right? What could possibly go wrong? Then she’d run upstairs like a scared girl, and she’d barely made it to the bus stop to see her sons off. And she’d almost turned back twice on her drive to the school.

  The spasms didn’t stop until Sam’s stomach was beyond empty. And still she stayed where she was, hugging the bowl like a long-lost friend, waiting for her spinning world to settle.

  “Food poisoning?” Mallory asked from the other room, giving Sam an easy out.

  She could hear Mallory moving around now, setting her domain to rights before the first wave of students began to trickle through her doorway.

  “I wish.” Sam grabbed the rim of the porcelain sink beside the toilet and hauled herself to her feet.

  There was antibacterial soap for her to wash with, a caddy full of disposable, single-use toothbrushes, and a bottle of mint mouthwash. Dixie cups with SpongeBob emblazoned all over them rounded out her toiletry options. If you were going to hurl your self-esteem into the commode, this was definitely the place to do it.

  “Late night of binging?” Mallory tried again.

  Sam emerged back into the main clinic. “I wish.”

  Mallory offered a Diet Coke in one hand and a steaming mug of coffee in the other. Sam shook her head and stumbled across the room toward the cot. After two steps, she recalibrated and stopped at the desk, propping her backside against it. If she lay down, it would be too tempting to curl into a ball and wait for Brian to come to her rescue, swooping in and making excuses and explaining yet another setback.

  She wiped a damp palm down her tragically wrinkled khakis and cast a rueful smile toward her friend. Mallory’s raised eyebrow confirmed just how rough Sam must look.

  “Don’t forget,” Sam said. “I’m really something.”

  “You’ve been sweating today ever since you let yourself get cornered into doing this at that party Pete and I threw.”

  At the Mimosa Lane New Year’s gathering two weeks ago, Mallory had tried to deflect their cul-de-sac neighbor Julia Davis’s enthusiasm that Sam was ready to dive into school volunteer work. Sam had been talking to Mallory about helping a few hours a week with the kids in one of the assistance shelters Mallory donated clinic time to. Sam had mused out loud that after the first of the year, maybe she could do something small at the boys’ school, too. And Julia, their community’s volunteer queen, had been all over the idea in a flash.

  It was time for Sam to stop hiding from the things that scared her, Julia had said. It was time for her to see that she didn’t have to be so careful and worried and alone, just to get through her day. She’d see, Julia had promised. She would be fine.

  Julia was a good friend, Sam’s best friend in Chandlerville, and she always meant well. But her neighbor was always insisting on something. She was always certain she was right about what others needed. And she always believed in better things and places and people than reality could sometimes deliver. It was almost as if focusing on everyone else’s lives and needs distracted Julia from her own increasingly quiet home, now that her boys were nearly grown and gone.

  “It’s just a bake sale.” Sam felt ridiculous.

  “If it’s just a bake sale,” Mallory asked, “why am I wishing I had the credentials to prescribe you some Xanax?”

  “You know I don’t take sedatives.” Not anymore. Years of pharmaceutical intervention had convinced Sam that she’d rather be rattled or in pain than numb.

  “I know you want today so badly, you’re being reckless.”

  “Reckless?” Sam grabbed her purse from beside the desk. As she bent and straightened, she ignored how the room dipped and didn’t quite right itself. “I’m helping out with a PTA fund-raiser.”

  “You’re spending the day in a cafeteria that will look and smell and sound like the school where you heard planes rip apart two Manhattan skyscrapers, not to mention the safe world we all thought we were living in back then.”

  Her new friend’s logic, though kind, was as blunt as always. Sam should be choking on the memories rushing through her. If anyone else had dared to bring up that horrible September day twelve years ago, she’d be curling into a fetal position or sprinting for the bathroom again. Instead, she took her first full breath in hours. Or h
ad it been weeks? Mallory’s unapologetic honesty and unconditional acceptance soothed her nerves better than any of the anxiety meds she’d tried.

  Sam stared down at the new Keds she’d bought especially for today. She was terrified of embarrassing her boys in front of their friends, once everything was in full swing. But she also didn’t want to disappoint Brian or Julia or her sons… or herself.

  How was she going to pull this off?

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” Mallory said.

  Sam nodded, grateful and aware that Mallory knew just how isolating fear could become. She had grown up homeless. Before moving to Mimosa Lane, she’d let her own past hold her hostage. She’d only recently, after meeting and falling head over heels in love with Pete and Polly Lombard, found a way to conquer her personal demons. And then in the shortest of conversations, at Sam and Brian’s Christmas party, Mallory had become one of the few people with whom Sam had ever shared anything about her life in New York.

  She had recognized a kindred spirit on the spot.

  They were both survivors—Sam and this former grief counselor whose nursing and psychology degrees made her overqualified to run a school clinic, but Mallory loved helping kids and families and was clearly thriving at Chandler. She and Sam were fighting to overcome pasts most of their friends couldn’t fathom, and to hold on to what so many in a town like Chandlerville took for granted. Peace, with no aftertaste of panic or loss. Happiness that was blind to how quickly it could be lost. Closeness that felt safe and secure, rather than threatening. Real community and connection and belonging that would never fade.

  “I think maybe I do need to talk, if you have a few minutes,” Sam admitted. Mallory had called the house several times since New Year’s, but Sam had avoided her for fear that talking more about today might be the same thing as talking herself out of it. “I’m a disaster.”

  “You’re doing the best you can.” Mallory checked the wall clock. “You’re fighting your way through. And you’re trying to do it on your own, because you want everyone to believe that you’re already past all this. That’s no way to live.” She sat on the cot Sam had abandoned. “You’ve got to let the people in your life know what you’re really going through, even if you don’t want to still be going through it. Trust me. Otherwise, days like today will never get any better, no matter how much you love your family, or how confident people like Julia are that good wishes really can make dreams come true. Pretending, gritting through something you’re not ready for… Sometimes that’s the most dangerous thing you can do. So, start with me. We’ve got a few minutes. Spill. I’m listening.”