I know you want today so badly, you’re being reckless.
I’m a disaster, Sam had responded. But she’d gone to the bake sale anyway, because she hadn’t wanted to disappoint her family or herself.
“Nate shouldn’t be going to school today,” Sam said. “Not if he’s not ready.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Kristen said. “But—”
“He shouldn’t!” Sam said even louder.
Kristen blinked.
Sam pressed her hand over her mouth.
The AP hadn’t asked her opinion, not really. Sam had no idea why Kristen was there. But it certainly wasn’t to be shrieked at. Sam had been the recipient of enough well-intentioned if misguided advice about her own life to absolutely refuse to do that to a top-notch educator like Kristen. But someone had to get through to James and Beverly Turner.
It had been building inside her, the determination to speak to someone about Nate. She’d been thinking about it for days now, each night after she’d spent time with him and watched him become more agitated. She’d almost said something about it to Brian at the park, before he’d lost it with her. Not that he’d go to bat for her with the Turners now.
But the powerful women circled around Sam would. She’d felt so alone in her worry for so long, despite living with her best friend, that she hadn’t seen the solution to Nate’s problem staring back at her from across the breakfast table each morning. Julia—or Kristen or even Mallory—could reason with the Turners, who lived just a few houses down from the cul-de-sac, and explain what a trauma like the Wilmington shooting could do to a heart and a soul and a young life like Nate’s. They could make Beverly and James understand how potentially dangerous it would be to push their son to move on from what had happened before he was ready.
“Will you come back to school today?” Mallory asked.
“What?” Sam hadn’t heard her friend correctly. Sam returning to the school? “No. One of you should—”
“The Turners aren’t speaking to anyone from Chandler,” Kristen said, “except at the school board hearings.”
“Or anyone from the community,” Julia added. “I’ve tried, but to them I’m the enemy because I’m on the school board. When Walter said he didn’t want to get involved, I got Brian to stop by their house, but Beverly shut the door in his face.”
Brian had tried to talk with the Turners?
“Then they’re not going to listen to me,” Sam reasoned.
Brian knew James Turner professionally. Her husband had done some design work for James’s law firm, for a remodel of their midtown Atlanta office space. There were a lot of old-money families living in the larger homes on Mimosa Lane, and her husband was a pro at making social contacts that might one day evolve into something lucrative for him and the partners at his firm. But Sam had never even met James. And she and Beverly had spoken only a few times over the years, always about the boys. It wasn’t as if their families knew each other beyond being friendly acquaintances because Cade and Nate had hung out all the time before the shooting.
“Nate will listen to you,” Julia insisted. “He already is, Sam. And you’ve been through something like this once yourself. He’s opening up to you. Think about him and what today’s going to be like, before you make up your mind.”
How…? Nate had asked her.
How had she survived and started over and gotten back to her life and gone on?
But didn’t he see what everyone else did? That she hadn’t gotten on with anything or moved on anywhere. Not really. She was still in the same place he was, stuck where the world that everyone else thrived in didn’t work for her. She was hiding in Julia’s guest bedroom, for heaven’s sake, and arguing with her husband in the middle of the neighborhood before the sun came up—after barely talking to him for three months.
Sam dashed at her eyes, furious with her friends for setting her up this way. But she also couldn’t bear the thought of Nate facing this morning alone because she was too afraid of going back to Chandler to help him. That would actually make her the coward Brian had called her—while she’d been accusing him of not wanting to face reality.
Kristen was watching her intently, hopefully.
The younger woman always seemed to sparkle with so much energy, it made Sam wonder whether she ever stopped moving. Kristen ran 5Ks and half marathons and coached two girls’ basketball teams at the YMCA. She’d been full of life and love for their community since she’d moved there to take the job as Chandler’s assistant principal, after teaching for six years in South Carolina.
But all that energy and enthusiasm had… dimmed somehow. Kristen’s eyes were ringed with dark circles and haunted by the same horrible day and loss the rest of them were grappling with. And she was looking at Sam in almost the same way Nate did sometimes—as if Sam had all the answers, because she’d been to this dark place before.
“Come back to school,” Kristen said. “Help Mallory and me take care of Nate today. Help us decide what Chandler and his parents can do to help him. I’m very afraid we’re losing this young man, Sam. Our school. Our community. And we can’t let that happen.”
“You gonna sit with me on the bus today?” Joshua asked Cade for like the fifth time.
He hadn’t stopped asking since Cade woke up with his kid brother sitting on the side of his bed already talking away. Joshua asked the same thing every day now, since Cade had gone back to school the week after Troy killed Bubba.
“You gonna eat breakfast?” Cade asked back, sinking deeper into his stool. “Or just annoy me until my head explodes?”
“Your head exploding would be cool.”
“You first, egghead.” Cade looked over his shoulder from where he and his brainy little brother were sitting at the kitchen island.
Their dad would be downstairs any minute, telling them they were gonna be late for school. Maybe he’d say something about Joshie wasting time and not eating. Maybe he wouldn’t care. Without Mom there anymore—once she got Cade and Joshua settled and eating in the mornings and she went back to Mrs. Julia’s—their dad hardly seemed to care about anything in the mornings, except for asking Cade how he was doing, and worrying when Cade didn’t know what to say.
His dad worried a lot now, even though he kept saying everything was going to be better soon.
“Mom didn’t make breakfast this morning,” Joshua complained.
Like Cade hadn’t noticed.
Only he didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to talk about anything, but especially not about why Mom wasn’t there. He didn’t want to talk in the mornings. He didn’t want to talk on the bus, or when he got home from school, or any other time. And all Joshua wanted to do was talk to him, like it would make everything better. Like talking wouldn’t make everything a lot worse.
“I like cereal.” Cade scooped up some of the chocolate corn puffs he’d poured himself, after he’d filled his brother’s bowl with the same sugary crap and doused it all with milk.
“Mom doesn’t like us eating only cereal for breakfast.” Joshua copied him and took a huge mouthful.
Milk dripped down his chin. He wiped at it with the wrinkled sleeve of his favorite rugby shirt. Mom wouldn’t have liked that either. She’d have told them to use one of the napkins that matched the place mats she’d made. Only they weren’t using any of them that morning.
“Well, Mom’s not here, is she?” Cade dropped his spoon into his bowl and chewed. His stomach felt sick, the way it always did when he ate sweet stuff right after he woke up.
Joshua wasn’t asking any more questions, and he wasn’t looking at Cade anymore, which should have felt good. Except Cade was being mean, just because he didn’t want to talk about why Mom hadn’t been downstairs baking when their alarms had gone off. He was being mean to his little brother because he was scared.
Even though she wasn’t sleeping at home anymore, Mom had promised she’d be there every morning. She’d promised when she’d told them she was movi
ng across the cul-de-sac—for just a while, she’d said. It will be okay, Dad had said, because Mom will be back soon, once she’s feeling better. Meantime, she’d still be taking care of Cade and Joshua and the house and breakfast and afternoon snack and homework time.
Only that had been months ago. And Dad wasn’t acting like he really believed any of what they’d said anymore, not for the last week or so. It was almost like he was going away, too, just not like Mom had. And then that morning there’d been no amazing smell to get Cade and Joshua out of bed. No hug when they’d come downstairs. No Cade just looking at his mom, when she wasn’t looking at him, trying to make himself believe that she really would come back. And then Dad would feel better again. And Cade could stop feeling like—no matter how many times stupid people called him a hero because they thought he’d helped Nate and Mom keep Troy from killing anyone else but Bubba—it was his fault their family would never be together again.
His family was like the LEGO pieces Cade’s brother kept losing everywhere, popping on and off and being left behind when you weren’t looking, more and more things disappearing, until what you were building would never work.
“I like Mom’s muffins better.” Joshie slouched on his stool.
“I like her breakfast, too.” Cade burped up chocolate, not wanting to talk about it. But he wanted to stop being so mean to his little brother, too. “Mom makes good muffins.”
His voice sounded like his baby brother’s when Joshie was trying not to cry, and Cade hated it. He hated how he felt like that all the time now, wondering whether Nate did, too, only his best friend wouldn’t talk to him at all. And he hated how he wanted to hug Joshua now, because of how much they were both missing their mom and how weird Dad was being.
He nudged Joshua’s shoulder. Joshie nearly fell off his stool, which made Cade smile. His kid brother shoved back. He wasn’t strong enough to push Cade very hard, but Cade grabbed the counter anyway, like he’d lost his balance. Joshie ate another bite of cereal and laughed through chewing it, happy again, because nothing ever really got to him too much.
Cade wished he could be that way. He never had been, just like Mom. He thought about things a lot more than Joshua or Dad. And he hated that most of all, because now… their parents and their family were so messed up. More than they’d been before. And that was all Cade could think about until he got to school. And then at school, the things he couldn’t stop thinking about only got worse.
He wished… everything could go back to the kind of messed-up it had been before he’d gone and made things so much worse.
He shoved his little brother again. The milk from his brother’s spoon spilled all over the countertop. Joshua jumped on Cade, tackling him and nearly knocking both their stools over. Their bowls of milk and soggy chocolate puffs slid across the counter, Joshie’s crashing to the floor.
“Enough horsing around, you two,” their dad said as he came down the stairs and picked up the bowl.
He grabbed a kitchen towel and mopped up the cereal off the hardwood and then the mess they’d made on the counter. Cade and Joshua straightened and stared at him, waiting for him to explode.
He didn’t. And he’d come into the kitchen so quietly, they hadn’t heard him. He tossed the towel into the sink, and that was when he saw it. Cade looked at Joshua, and then they both looked at Dad to see what he’d do.
Mom used to always leave Dad notes. And Dad had kept every one. Cade found them once, in a shoe box in the big bottom drawer of his dad’s office in the basement. Pieces of paper, all different colors, covered with Mom’s swirly handwriting saying the kinds of things his parents used to say to each other all the time, and Cade and Joshua used to act like they were going to barf when they heard them.
Miss you already, a note would say. Or, Think of me today and smile… Call me and I’ll tell you a dirty joke… Love you bunches…
Only there hadn’t been a note in three months, not since the last morning they were all together in the kitchen. Not until today. And when Cade had seen it, he’d hoped it meant something good, even if Mom hadn’t made breakfast.
Instead, his dad’s head dropped as he read this one, like he was trying not to let it upset him in front of Cade and Joshua. Cade knew what it said. He’d read it while he’d made the cereal.
I’m so sorry.
Dad pulled the Post-it from the counter. Instead of putting it in his suit pocket to save for later—for the box of memories he kept of Mom—he wadded it up and threw it into the sink along with the cereal.
“Is your homework done?” he asked, not that he sounded like he cared.
Cade shrugged. That way he wouldn’t be lying. He wanted to have his work done. He used to like doing schoolwork. Especially things like the essay project that he should have finished last week. But he just… couldn’t. Not last night’s assignments. Not any of his homework since Troy went nuts and ruined everything because Cade hadn’t stopped him.
His dad was staring at him. Cade could feel it even though he was looking at the glob of chocolate cereal and milk still on the counter. Did Dad know? Were they really going to talk now? Would it finally be over, and someone would make Cade say what he was so afraid he’d say if he wrote his essay, or finally got Nate to talk to him, or really told his parents what was going on?
That he’d let them all down, not telling Mom or Ms. Hemmings what Troy had said that morning in the bathroom. And that he couldn’t stop letting them down even now.
“Grab your things,” his dad said instead, heading for the garage through the door from the kitchen. He’d wait for Cade and Joshua to make it to the bus stop before he drove into Atlanta for his job. “You’ll be late.”
Late for school.
Late for another day like all the other days Cade had hated since January. Only this day would be worse. He wished he could ditch class today. He really did. He’d skipped, like, six or seven times already, twice last week, and never gotten caught. But he knew he wouldn’t today. He couldn’t.
Cade looked at his little brother, hoping for a sloppy grin to cheer him up. But Joshie was looking at the counter, too, like Cade had been, pushing around a loose corn puff with his finger. Cade got off his stool and walked to the sink. He pulled out Mom’s note, uncrumpled it, and wiped it on his jeans to get off the milk that had soaked into it a little. He shoved it into his pocket, then walked back to his brother, who was watching him now.
“We’d better get to the bus stop early,” he said, “if we’re going to sit together.”
Joshua grinned at him. And even if it wasn’t one of Mom’s half hugs or Dad’s thumbs-ups, it made Cade smile. He could always count on his bratty little brother to cheer him up, no matter how much they fought. At least one thing about their screwed-up family was still the same.
So he’d sit with his brother. It wasn’t like Cade talked to any of his friends anymore, anyway. The only person he wanted to say anything to was Nate, who was supposed to be coming back today. So today Cade would stay at school, too, even when he knew just how to slip away as soon as everyone got off the bus, and no one would miss him. Even when he knew Nate still wasn’t going to talk to him.
He grabbed his backpack and handed over Joshua’s.
“LEGOs for brains,” Cade said, wrapping his little brother in a headlock and dragging him toward the door to the garage.
“Dork,” Joshie squeaked into Cade’s armpit, trying to wrench free as they walked out of the house.
Cade let him go and shut the kitchen door behind them. Their dad already had the automatic garage door open and the car engine on. He’d pull to the end of the driveway to wait while Cade and Joshua walked to the corner. They’d all look at the Davis house and wonder whether Mom was watching from inside, but no one would say a word about it, not to one another or the neighbors.
“Let’s go,” Cade said, leading the way, grateful to have his brother walking beside him while everyone at the bus stop turned to watch them.
“Thank
s,” Joshua said as they headed for the crowd at the corner.
“For what?”
“Sitting with me. I hate the way people stare like they know something’s wrong and they can’t not look away, like our family’s a train wreck or something.”
“Yeah,” Cade said. He hated it, too. All of it. “Just ignore them.”
He caught sight of Nate standing at the curb with his mom. Cade stumbled, fighting not to run to his friend, or away from him, or do anything but walk closer, slowly, as if it were just a normal, stupid school day like all the rest. It was the first time Cade had actually seen his friend since talking to him just after the shooting, and Nate didn’t even look up. Cade felt his eyes getting wet and his nose start to run, because he’d been right. Nate wasn’t going to say a word to him, not the whole ride in to school. Not when they got to class, either, which made Cade’s wanting to be there for his friend’s first day back kinda stupid. But Cade would stay.
“Who needs them anyway,” he said, refusing to cry.
Joshie nodded and shrugged. He looked at Nate, too, and then at Cade again. But for once, the kid kept his questions to himself.
“Yeah,” Joshua said. “Who needs these buttheads anyway.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Sam said to Julia, while Sam and her friend stood at Julia’s front windows, watching Cade and Joshua catch their bus. “You invited Kristen and Mallory over here to ambush me?”
Brian was in his car at the end of their drive, the same as he’d been every morning. He waved at the bus driver when she honked and headed down Mimosa Lane with the kids. Like every other day, Brian then stared across the cul-de-sac at Julia’s house, as if he could see them standing behind her sheers, watching back. He’d be leaving soon, regardless of the fight they’d just had or the note she’d left him or how any of this was affecting him.
That was just the way her husband was. He was responsible. Stable. He was always where he was supposed to be, doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. While Sam was the wild card, throwing everything out of sync. Never more so than now.
Three Days on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 9