Pete stepped to his side.
“Screwed up is the way life likes to be sometimes,” he said. “But things don’t stay that way, not if you refuse to give up. Mallory taught me that. And for the record, she thinks it’s good that Sam’s still fighting, even if Mallory’s not sure it’s really against you at all.”
“Well, if it’s not against me”—Brian swallowed the compulsion to lose it all over again—“what is my wife fighting against?”
Pete pounded his shoulder with an open palm, which was as close to hugging it out as they’d ever gotten.
“Cancel that client meeting,” his friend insisted. “Let’s get you over to the school so you can find out.”
Sam looked even more exhausted at nine o’clock in the morning than when Kristen had seen her just before dawn at the Davises’ house. But Sam was there when Kristen hustled into the school’s clinic, right where she’d said she’d stay in case the Turner boy needed her.
Kristen eyed the deceptively fragile-looking woman sitting on Mallory’s cot, dressed in pink-and-grey sweats. Sam was breathing too shallow and too fast, as if she needed to put her head between her legs and inhale into a paper bag.
“Come with me,” Kristen said. “I’m afraid it’s an emergency.”
She didn’t wait to see whether or not she was followed as she headed to the second floor. She’d already been gone too long from the Baxter classroom. The tread of Sam’s tennis shoes, out of rhythm with the familiar squeak of Mallory’s rubber-soled work shoes, rewarded Kristen’s faith in human nature and heroes. Both of the women could be counted on in a crisis, regardless of the cost to them personally.
“Is he okay?” Sam asked.
Kristen stopped outside Mrs. Baxter’s classroom, cursing the Turner parents all over again for creating this situation. They should have taken Kristen’s advice and homeschooled Nate for what was left of the spring semester. That would have given him time to recover more fully over the summer. But Beverly and James no longer trusted Kristen. She should have known, they insisted, what had been going on between Troy and Bubba.
“No,” she said to Mallory and Sam. “Nate’s not okay.”
“His parents are on the way?” Mallory asked.
“We’ve left messages at both of their places of work. The father is out of touch until this afternoon. Mom will be here as soon as she’s free from a conference call.”
“Then…” Sam said. “Then maybe we should wait.”
“We can’t.” Kristen gestured for the other two women to precede her into the classroom.
Sam walked into the room slowly, Mallory still at her side.
Lord, please don’t let this be a mistake, Kristen prayed.
“Everyone else is at art class.” Kristen kept her voice low, leading the pair to the supply closet in the back of the room. “Mrs. Baxter didn’t realize the boys were missing at first. By the time she did, they were already holed up in here.”
“Boys?” Sam asked.
“Cade is with Nate.”
“Cade’s in there, too?” Sam asked, shock leaving its bitter aftertaste on her tongue.
Sam stepped to the darkened closet’s open doorway with Kristen and Mallory. Mrs. Baxter had joined them.
“Neither one of them will talk to me.” The poor woman sounded beside herself.
Kristen steered the boys’ teacher away gently but firmly.
“Ready?” Mallory asked, once they were gone.
Sam swallowed. “The walls aren’t closing in around us, right?”
Mallory hugged Sam to her side. “Sure they are. That’s pretty much what every day of the last three months has felt like to me.”
“And the floor?” Sam could have sworn it was shaking.
“It’s rolling beneath us, trying to knock us on our asses.”
Sam snorted. “You’re not a very good liar.”
“But I’m an excellent friend. And I’m right here. Do whatever you need to do.”
“And what would that be? What on earth am I supposed to do?”
“Start with talking to your son.”
Cade was in there. And no matter how many times she’d tried, Sam couldn’t get through to him. And she didn’t want to make the divide between them even wider by saying or doing the wrong thing now.
“He blames me,” she whispered. She turned away from the closet.
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’ve walked out on my family. Of course he blames me.” The fear that he and Joshua and Brian would never forgive her was a constant companion.
“Don’t you think it’s time you found out for sure?” Mallory turned Sam back toward the closet. “Maybe today is the day the two of you can figure out what’s really going on. Together.”
Together.
How long had it been since Sam had truly done anything with someone else? Brian, the boys, even her friends. She’d tried, the day of the bake sale, and so many times before. But for so long her world had felt almost as if it were wrapped in cotton. The numbness that had sustained her since leaving New York had kept everyone and everything at a safe, muffled distance.
That was what had made Brian’s accusations that morning sting so badly. He’d been right. She didn’t want to hurt anymore. She’d give anything to give up and be home with him, just like before, and to be able to hide from realities like lost boys and angry spouses and even Julia and Walter’s marital problems. Except Sam refused to allow herself to do that anymore, to her friends or her sons or her husband or Nate. Or herself. That wasn’t the life she wanted to live, no matter how hard and terrifying the alternative might be.
“Ready?” Mallory asked again.
Sam shook her head. “But since when has that mattered?”
She stepped to the closet. As grateful as she was to have Mallory there, her friend’s nearness also made Sam crazy. She’d already been in the school and the classroom for too long. Her nerves were shot. Flashes of memory wouldn’t leave her—of the kids the day of the shooting, and of her own students from so long ago, children scared and crying and needing Sam to make it all go away.
Will my mom be there? she could still remember Krista Watson asking, while the little girl’s hand clung to Sam’s.
Krista had been the very last child Sam had coaxed out of their school, so they could walk through the maze of dirt and mess that had once been the Twin Towers, on their way out of Manhattan. They’d had a long walk ahead of them, and each step had been a battle for Sam to keep from vomiting up everything in her system, and then running as fast as she could until she’d found Brian and they escaped forever the city that they’d loved.
I don’t know, Sam had lied. Someone will be there, though. The mayor’s told your families where to find you guys. People are making sure someone will be there.
Meanwhile, Sam had known that Krista’s single mom had been a day trader on a floor that had taken a direct hit from one of the planes.
Please? The little girl had stared up at Sam, as if Sam were the only thing that could make her world okay again. Her tiny hand had squeezed around Sam’s even harder. Will my mommy be there?
Yes, Sam had promised.
She’d told Krista the unforgivable lie they both had needed her to hear, while Sam imagined what was to come, almost as if it were playing out in her mind like a movie clip: Krista watching other kids whose mommies hadn’t worked in the towers getting the hugs and kisses she never would; Krista looking at Sam when whichever family member could be located finally arrived, still begging Sam to not make this the worst day of her life; Krista walking away or being carried away, broken and knowing that Sam had lied to her, and that her world would never again be the way it was before…
Sam didn’t flip on the light as she entered Mrs. Baxter’s closet. Instead she knelt, and in the shadows just beyond the doorway she saw Cade sitting with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out: her own son, needing something she wasn’t certain she could give him, because all sh
e wanted to do was race away from this terrifying moment, too.
“Hey, buddy,” she said, the way she’d greeted both her boys most every morning of their lives.
Hey, Mom, they’d always say back.
So simple. Moments like that were so easy to take for granted. Only now Cade was looking at her with his big, blue eyes, silent and wary and hurting, the way he’d looked at her every day since the shooting. Beyond him, all the way in the back of the narrow, cluttered closet, Nate was staring, too.
Sam glanced over her shoulder at Mallory, then back at the boys. “What are you guys doing in here?”
Cade looked down at his feet, then at his friend, who, Sam realized, was quietly crying. In all the times they’d met at the park, she’d never seen Nate cry. Relief flooded her. Finally, he was letting some of what he was feeling out. But her heart hurt, too, because the release had been triggered by his not being able to handle today.
“He’s scared,” Cade said, his gaze still on the ground.
Sam nodded, then realized her son wouldn’t see it. She cleared the freaked-out mother from her voice. “He has a lot of reasons to be.”
“He doesn’t want to be here.”
“He ain’t the only one.” Sam sat on the ground just a few feet away. They were talking. Her son was finally talking to her. She swallowed her smile of relief. She was terrified of breaking the spell. “Do you think he’d mind if I stayed for a while?”
Cade shrugged. “I don’t think he cares what anyone does. He just sat on the bus this morning and ignored me. In class, too. He won’t talk to me here or at home. Not that I blame him. It’s just…”
“Hard,” Sam said, hanging on each word her son said.
She’d wondered some nights as she walked up and down Mimosa Lane whether Cade would ever trust her enough to talk with her like this again. They’d been so close before the shooting, and now he felt like too much of a stranger to be the same sweet kid who’d waited for her to come back from her walk the morning of the bake sale, because he hadn’t wanted her to be alone.
“It’s not your fault,” she insisted. “Either of you. This stuff, what Troy did… It’s impossible for the adults around here to figure out. You and Nate, you’re doing the best you can. You have to stop being so hard on yourselves. Be angry and upset, but not at yourself. And take whatever breaks you need to, like hanging in here for a while. That’s okay for now. Anything’s better than pretending that stuff’s okay when it’s not…”
“Like you did?” Cade looked at her, angry. Accusing. “All along, especially that morning, you acted like you were okay. And then after… You moved out, because you said things were so bad.”
“Yeah. I’ve really messed that up, buddy, not dealing with what I was feeling. Wishing it away for too long, instead of facing what happened to me. I’m sorry. You have to know how sorry I am for what’s happening between your dad and me. I should have been more honest with you and Joshie, and your father. Not facing my problems when I needed to… it hurt a lot more people than just me. That’s why I’m saying it’s fine for you and Nate to not deal with too much for now. It’s too soon for you guys. But eventually, you’re going to need to.”
Silence spread between them. Her son pulled his legs up. He tucked his knees under his chin, his arms crossing around them, the way he did when he had thinking to do. It gave her a little more space to slip deeper inside the closet.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked again.
“I didn’t want Nate to be alone. I know he doesn’t care, but I’m not disappearing when he needs me. I’m not leaving him alone.”
“The way I’ve left you and Joshua?”
“And Dad.” Her son spit the words at her like poison he’d swallowed for too long.
Sam reached for him. He shied away from her touch, and something inside her ripped open, grabbing at her next breath.
“I know how alone your dad’s feeling, honey. I feel the same way. I miss him and you guys every minute we’re not together. And I’d do anything to fix this for all of us, to get better and stop feeling the way I do. But…” She didn’t want to make excuses. This wasn’t about her. But what if Cade never gave her another chance to explain? “Sometimes you need to work things out on your own, for everyone’s sake. So what you’re feeling stops making it impossible for you and other people to be happy.”
Her son picked at the torn spot in his left sneaker just above his pinky toe. He glanced at his friend again. “You mean like hiding in a closet is okay, even when you’re not supposed to, because going to art class or the lunchroom or anywhere else is making you feel like you’re going to puke or something?”
“Yeah, kinda like that.”
Julia’s house had been Sam’s “closet” all this time, so Sam could get stronger. Which she had, she realized, or she never would have lasted this long back at Chandler, or been ready for this moment when her son and his friend needed her.
She wiggled just a little closer to Cade, who didn’t move away this time. In fact, he stretched his legs out again. The way they were sitting, their feet were so close they were almost touching. Almost.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“Because I might be able to help Nate, maybe more than other people can right now. And with your help maybe he’ll let me, even if he’s not talking to you the way you haven’t been talking with me or Dad. Will you help him with me?”
Your mom’s a hero, everyone kept saying to Cade.
Everyone who knew anything about her and Dad’s life before Chandlerville had always said so. Since the shooting, even more people were saying it. The same people who didn’t know anything, because they were talking about him being a hero, too.
If Mom was a hero, why was she still at Mrs. Julia’s? If she could really help Nate, why did she look so scared now? As scared as Cade had felt since Troy had gotten crazy and Bubba had gotten dead and Nate had turned into a kid Cade didn’t know anymore, just like Cade didn’t really know his mom.
“Will you help me talk with your friend?” she asked again.
She was acting like Cade couldn’t tell how bad off she was. And now she wanted to talk, when he really, really didn’t. Not ever, not about Troy and Bubba, and especially not like this, with Nate listening. Only she was talking about their family, too, and that felt really good.
Talking with her again felt really, really good.
And really messed up.
As messed up as him following Nate into the closet, when Cade knew it would make both him and Nate feel worse. They hadn’t said a word, but Cade hadn’t left, not even when Mrs. Baxter kept calling them. He’d just sat in the dark with his friend, like he’d sat at his desk all morning, staring down at the ground and not answering Mrs. Baxter’s questions when she called on him, because he knew he’d sound scared if he tried. Like his mom sounded now. He’d been afraid he might start to cry, like he almost had that morning with Joshua.
Because Nate wouldn’t talk to him. Not on the bus. Not in class. Not in the closet. His friend was never going to talk to him again.
“It’s my fault,” Cade blurted out.
There, he’d said it.
Was that what his mom wanted to hear to make it all better?
“What’s your fault?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t be here, and Nate wouldn’t be here, if I’d told.”
And he wouldn’t be pretending like he cared about anything anymore while he waited for someone to find out the truth.
It was all his fault.
Cade looked at his friend. They’d promised after the shooting, before Cade had been moved with the other kids who hadn’t been hurt and Nate had been taken to the ambulance, not to tell what they’d known before lunch. That Bubba was pushing Troy around too much. And Troy was acting weird and sounding scary. That Mr. Perry was hitting him with his belt and making Troy stand up to Bubba or else. And Cade and Nate had had a chance to tell Cade’s mom and Ms. Hemmings or Mrs. Baxter
that morning—only they’d kept their traps shut instead, because Cade had said to.
No one had asked Cade anything about Troy, not really, not any more than they’d asked the other kids. Not the police or the school or even his parents, who were supposed to know when he wasn’t telling the truth. Every day, Cade had been waiting for Troy to finally tell someone about that morning in the bathroom. Then someone would want to know why Cade and Nate hadn’t stopped Troy before lunch. Or maybe Nate’s parents would ask why he and Cade never talked anymore, and Nate would tell them. And then everyone would finally stop calling Cade a hero and start hating him the same way they did Troy.
“How is it your fault?” His mom glanced at Nate, sounding even more afraid now.
“We knew,” Nate said from the dark.
It was the first thing Cade had heard him say since that day at the school. Nate hadn’t spoken when Cade and his parents visited his hospital room. Or any of the times when Cade had sneaked over to his friend’s house, even though Mr. and Mrs. Turner were mad at his parents and he wasn’t supposed to go. Ten times, he’d tried to get Nate to open his window by tapping on it the way they used to do when they sneaked out at night sometimes. Ten freaking times. After that, Cade had hidden in Nate’s backyard some days, hoping his friend would come outside, only Nate never had.
But Cade would never stop trying, even if it took forever. Even if it took admitting what he’d done. He wanted his friend back.
“You knew what?” His mom looked out the door to the classroom, at whoever was out there listening.
“What Troy’s dad was doing.” Cade wiped at the stuff running out of his nose, not caring who heard. He hated this. All of it. Everything had gotten so bad. He’d lost Nate and Mom and Dad and even Joshua, really. Everyone felt so far away, he hadn’t been able to say anything to them. Everyone thought he’d done something good that day, because they didn’t know.
“How… What did you know?” his mom asked.
“Troy told us his dad was whaling on him.” Nate stared up at the ceiling. His head thumped against the shelf behind him that was full of the math books they didn’t use in class, because Mrs. Baxter made her own handouts and things that were easier to practice with and learn from. “And that Mr. Wilmington told Troy to stop Bubba or else. Bubba was being a jerk, and Mr. Wilmington was being a jerk, and everyone was pushing Troy around and laughing at him and… he was going to make it stop, he said. He said he was going to make it all stop. And we…”
Three Days on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 11