Sam closed the conference room door to give Beverly and a much calmer Nate a chance to speak privately, hoping the pair were in a place now where Nate could say whatever he needed to. She stopped next to her husband, wanting to collapse into him, fighting the tears that welled up at the hopeful smile spreading across his face.
He’d been outside the closet almost the whole time, Kristen had said. He’d heard what Sam said to the boys—things he’d never let her say to him without trying to talk her out of her feelings. He thought he understood her now, and maybe he did, a little more, anyway. He’d stayed. He wanted to talk. Maybe this was their breakthrough.
But Sam couldn’t do it. Not here. Not after the last two hours of being terrified for two damaged sixth graders. Not after staying where she hated being, because that was where her son and his friend were, and she wasn’t leaving them alone with their fears. Now she couldn’t stop hearing little Krista’s voice, mixed with Nate’s voice, and Cade’s voice, and the sound of countless other children needing her.
She’d called Julia on her cell about half an hour ago, and her friend had just texted that she was waiting in the parking lot for Sam to finish up.
“How do you think it went?” she asked her husband. “It was awful.”
That took care of Brian’s smile, and she wanted to kick herself for it.
When they first met, she’d loved his fearlessness. He’d been a man built to weather any storm with style and confidence and humor. Her perfect match. Then everything had changed after 9/11. At least, she’d changed, as she’d leaned more and more on his strength and his conviction that they could still conquer anything together.
He’d been entitled to his anger that morning. It was lousy of her to be asking him, after all this time, to stop being the supportive, capable, fearless cheerleader she’d adored. But stopping was what she needed—what she thought they needed—and she wasn’t up to going another round at trying to explain why.
“Ms. Hemmings sounded encouraged when she came out a few minutes ago.” He looked confused.
Sam didn’t blame him.
“That Nate’s finally asking for help,” she said, “and his mother might be finally listening? Yes. But he’s been dealing with too much on his own for months. And his parents have been so proud of him for pulling it together enough to come back to school. Now he thinks he’s let them down, on top of everything else. He’s had a good couple of hours, but that doesn’t fix the rest.”
“Beverly’s not acting like he’s letting her down, is she? She and James may be myopic about their careers and their vendetta against the administration and the school board. But they wouldn’t keep pressuring Nate to feel better when he’s not. Not after today.”
“No. But in his mind, he’s disappointing them, just like he and Cade think they let Troy and Bubba down.”
The same way she couldn’t stop feeling as if she’d failed her husband and sons, letting herself get to this place and bringing them all to the brink with her. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t get around the fact that if she’d faced her fears sooner—really faced them, instead of blinding herself to the effect they were still having on her and everyone else in her life—her family would have weathered the Chandler shooting and a lot of other things better.
She hated the way she’d made Brian feel that morning, even if she didn’t regret having stood her ground. She hated the sight of the muscle ticking along his jaw now, because she once again wasn’t making any sense to him at all. But she’d promised herself to be honest from now on about how she was feeling and what she needed.
“I should go,” she said. The last thing she wanted to do was irritate her husband to distraction for the second time that day. And Cade would be okay without her, at least for the rest of the school day. She had to get out of there. “This is really a bad time to do this.”
“Don’t,” Brian grabbed her by the shoulders before she could get past him. “We need to talk about—”
“No. You need to talk about it. And maybe we’re both finally wanting to talk about the same things, and I appreciate your being here, and I think you and Cade and I should definitely sit down when he’s ready, and try to understand some of what he’s going through, too, maybe even with his therapist. But I can’t do this anymore today. I can’t be here for another minute, even if it would make you feel better.”
Sam wanted to slap her hand over her own mouth.
It had taken her so long to admit the awful truths she’d needed to say to her husband, she couldn’t seem to stop herself now. This was why she stayed out of his way at the house in the mornings and the evenings. She didn’t want to keep hurting Brian like this. Cade and Joshua didn’t need to see them fighting, because the frustration wouldn’t stop pouring out of her, no matter how much she still loved them all.
“I want to talk about us.” His grip tightened. “I want to talk about what you said to Cade in the classroom. I wanted to say how sorry I am.” His voice cracked, his eyes closing as he bent his head to hers. “I haven’t given you a chance to say those things to me when you needed to. Maybe I didn’t want to hear them. Or I didn’t…”
“You didn’t want to feel them with me?”
The words tasted like hate when she said them. As if the betrayal was so deep, so personal, maybe she did hate her husband a little, almost as much as she hated what she’d become.
She prayed every night that they’d salvage the best parts of their marriage and return to a place where love was the strongest emotion they felt for each other. Not fear and resentment and disappointment and blame. But that wasn’t where they were today. And as much responsibility as she was willing to take for the mistakes they’d made, she hadn’t stumbled into this place alone.
“We were so close once, Brian. Then after everything that happened in New York, we both changed so much, only with you it was in a hundred invisible ways. You stopped being with me, and started taking care of me and then the boys and everything else, deciding what we both needed to be so we could stay together. You needed to keep going strong, and I needed to get better. Only you couldn’t unless I did. So we started being so careful. And I told myself I could get better, just by following your lead. And then we stopped talking about the really important things. And no matter what we said and did with each other and the boys to make it seem like we could wait forever for me to come back, you didn’t get it any more than I did. I was never coming back from 9/11, not to the way I used to be. Neither of us wanted to accept it. You still don’t. I’ve tried my best to be what I thought I needed to be, so I could stay close to you and have at least something of the life we wanted. But I can’t do that anymore.”
In his mind, she’d failed these last few months.
And in her own mind, too.
That was the terrifying truth, in all its unvarnished glory. She hadn’t been focusing on making herself stronger all these years that she’d hidden away from the world. She hadn’t gone to the bake sale that day in January to help herself heal. She’d simply been trying not to be a burden any longer, to her family and her husband.
It’s my fault, Cade had said about what he thought he’d caused. Sam’s heart had broken for them both in that closet, because for the last three months she’d been feeling the exact same self-loathing as her son.
But Troy would have self-destructed eventually, given the pressure he was under and the lack of support he had at home. Just as this shadowy place her marriage had arrived at had likely been foretold from the moment those planes flew into the Twin Towers—just as so many other relationships had fallen apart over the years, in the community of survivors that remained. The same way the strain of the shooting was already taking its toll on so many families in Chandlerville, including Julia and Walter’s.
Not accepting that reality was an emotional sinkhole she tried daily to drag herself back from. And she kept telling herself not to blame Brian for being who and what he was. For being the strong one who’d don
e so much for her that she hadn’t been able to stay, if she ever wanted to learn how to once again do for herself.
“I don’t know how…” Brian let her go, giving her the out she’d wanted.
Her husband sounded as close to giving up as she’d ever heard him. She couldn’t run, she realized. Her legs wouldn’t move. Not because they were numb this time, but because she couldn’t stand the thought of not being there beside Brian as the next words tumbled from his mouth.
“I don’t know,” he said, “how to feel what you want me to, and not fall…”
“Fall apart like me?” she asked.
He’d supported her and been patient with her and waited for her, while she’d had the luxury of coming undone and never finding her way back together again. She owed him so much for giving her the time she’d needed to find this place of healing she was starting to understand. It must seem as if she were throwing how selfless he’d been back in his face. That was what she felt guilty about most of all.
“I know,” she said. “I took up all that space in our marriage and our family, and you never had the chance to really deal with anything else but me. But the thing is…”
His bright blue gaze was brittle. But he was listening, instead of rushing to console her, or arguing as if he thought she was attacking him.
“The thing is what?” he asked.
“If you don’t know how to break,” she said, backing away a step, heading toward the door as the panic and fear and doubt grabbed for her again. “And I can’t go back to being the way I was when we thought everything was fine… then what are we doing, Brian, except staying in the same place we were when we left New York? How are we ever going to get through the worst parts of this, and move on to whatever’s on the other side?”
Kristen watched Cade’s father while Mr. Perry watched Sam flee.
There was no other way to describe the other woman’s frantic exit through the school’s front entrance. And Brian looked poised to race after her as she rushed through the outer school office, then into the hallway, on her way to Julia Davis’s car.
Something stopped him—something deeply personal that Kristen had no right to impose herself on. Except, like she’d said that morning at the Davis house, she’d been very worried about Cade, even before the boy’s revelations while he’d talked with his mother and Nate. There were some things Kristen needed to discuss with one of his parents, and she’d already asked too much of Sam today.
This family deserved a break. And she was about to make their already difficult day even worse.
“Can I speak with you for a moment, Mr. Perry?” she asked.
He cast a fleeting glance toward his wife. Then he held out his hand to Kristen.
“Brian, please. Thank you for being so responsive this morning, and for giving Cade and Nate and my wife the time they needed to talk.”
“It’s my pleasure, Brian.” Kristen shook his hand as she smiled. “Your wife is a remarkable woman. If I didn’t know that already, I would certainly have discovered it today.”
Brian nodded. “Sam’s always had a way with people. She… feels things and picks up on things that hardly anyone else would. She finds a way to understand what people are going through. All the kinds of things that I’m no good at.”
Kristen tilted her head, thinking that Brian and Sam had always seemed like the perfect team whenever she’d seen them together.
“I hope today wasn’t too difficult for your wife,” she said. “I talked her into doing it, and I can’t imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t been here to speak with Nate and Mrs. Turner.”
Kristen cleared her throat as Brian checked his watch and glanced down the hallway to where Pete Lombard was waiting, talking quietly with Mallory. Pete and Brian had arrived outside the Baxter classroom together. Both men would need to get back to their days, the same as Kristen and her clinic nurse did. She’d stalled long enough.
“I realize your wife must be exhausted,” she said. “But I’m afraid there’s more for her to do today, for you both to do—with regard to Cade.”
Brian’s attention snapped back to Kristen.
“Cade’s upset,” he said. “He’s been keeping a lot to himself since the shooting.”
“Yes. And up until recently, we’ve thought we were able to deal with Cade’s school issues here. We wanted to give you and Sam as much time as you needed, to take care of other things at home. But I’m afraid we’ve let a few things go a little too long, because of the other issues my staff and I have had to address. And it’s come to my attention that late last week we reached the point where you and your wife will need to become involved.”
“Involved with what?”
Brian’s demeanor changed from that of the competent, cool parent and businessman she’d always admired. Instead, Kristen found herself staring at a man who seemed to be clinging to a razor’s edge of control.
“Sixth-grade midterms were held the latter part of last week,” she said. “And I’m afraid that after Cade’s performance, combined with his other missing assignments this semester, your son is on a precarious path toward failing sixth grade if we don’t take some immediate action.”
“Excuse me?”
Brian’s astonishment was understandable. Cade was a straight-A student. He had been. He would be again, if Kristen had anything to say about it.
“Your son’s been struggling for a while,” she said, “which is perfectly understandable. Mrs. Baxter and the rest of his teachers tell me they’ve been in touch with you about the situation.”
“About the missing assignments, yes, and his lack of participation in class and with his friends. But no one’s said anything about failing.”
“His midterm grades were posted to our database over the weekend. The exams he took—science and history and art—he failed outright. Social studies and math and language arts were entered as zeros because he was out sick those days. Those averages should improve once we get his make-up grades in, but—”
“Out sick?” Brian braced his hands on his hips. “When?”
“Wednesday and Friday of last week.” Kristen mentally reviewed the attendance record she’d checked. “We have an excuse on file from you for each absence.”
“How?” Cade’s father asked.
“How?”
“What kind of excuse?”
“A written letter, I would imagine. We can check with Mrs. Baxter. I assume it would be the same method you’ve used every other time your son’s stayed home since January. That’s another matter I’d planned to schedule a phone conference about. There’s a maximum number of days we can allow a student to be absent from school before it begins to jeopardize his eligibility to graduate. It’s understandable that Cade would need some additional downtime, after what he’s been through. But we’ll have to formally modify Cade’s education plan if we’re going to—”
Brian held up his hand, silencing the information she’d typically have communicated in a much less rambling way.
“As far as I know,” he said, “my son’s been in school every day since the week after the shooting. My wife and I haven’t been keeping him home ourselves, and we haven’t been writing excuses for his absences. He certainly wasn’t sick last week. I don’t know where he’s been going during the day the last three months when he hasn’t been here, but Cade hasn’t been home with one of us.”
Kristen blinked at him.
“Oh, dear,” she said.
She’d already worked out extra-credit opportunities with each of Cade’s teachers, chances for a bright, dedicated student to make up work and the midterm tests he’d either missed or failed. But none of that was going to be very effective if they couldn’t keep the boy in class.
“It seems we have a much bigger problem than I’d initially thought,” she said.
“Of course we do.” Brian motioned for Pete Lombard to join them. He took his cell phone from his pocket and began menuing to a contact. “Let me make a call to my
office. Then I’d appreciate any more time you can give me this morning. My son’s not going to fail sixth grade because his mother and I have been as oblivious to what Cade’s going through as James and Beverly Turner have been with Nate.”
Chapter Nine
“Wow,” Julia said, sitting at the foot of the guest room bed Sam had collapsed onto. “You’ve had a busy morning of saving lost boys.”
“I didn’t save anyone,” Sam said through the migraine that was building from too many panic attacks today, too much adrenaline, and two dysfunctional run-ins with her husband.
“I heard from Mallory. Nate’s home with his mother, and Beverly’s taking the rest of the week off to work with him herself, instead of using the nanny or a tutor.”
Julia always, always meant well. And she’d been Sam’s closest friend since she and Brian arrived on Mimosa Lane—two Yankee wildflowers digging their raggedy roots into the rich Georgia soil that was better suited to nurture Sam’s heirloom roses. But despite Julia’s best intentions, her idea of helping sometimes felt like having a frontal lobotomy without anesthesia.
She seemed to always know exactly what Sam didn’t want to discuss, just when Sam wanted to discuss it the least. Julia’s secret weapon was her personality, the sweetest of temperaments that almost made you believe it didn’t hurt so badly that she wasn’t satisfied until she helped you, however she thought you needed helping. And right now, Julia seemed to think that what Sam needed was to talk about what had happened at Chandler that morning.
“Yes.” Sam ground her thumbs against her closed eyelids, wondering how much pressure she’d have to apply to push straight through to the back of her skull. “Nate seems to have hit whatever rock bottom he needed to, to finally deal with his parents and capture their undivided attention.”
“Mallory said something about Cade helping you when you talked with Nate…” Julia sat on the bed beside Sam. “How did that go?”
“Fine, as long as it was about Nate. As soon as it wasn’t, Cade went back to his class like nothing’s changed. Does he really think we’re going to let this drop, now that we know what’s been bothering him?”
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