“I’m sorry,” he said to his lap. “I know it’s my fault you got so upset and had to move out. I know you don’t want to come back. I don’t… I don’t want to be here anymore, either.”
“None of this is your fault, honey.” Sam wiped at her eyes. She looked to Brian for help. What did she say? Now that Cade was finally talking, what did they say to help him get past this idea that keeping quiet about Troy’s family situation meant he was to blame for what his friend did? “And I’ve been working hard every day to be able to come back. There’s nothing I want more than to be living here with you and Joshua and your dad again, I swear.”
She glanced at her husband, willing him to believe her, despite how confused and angry he must still be. Crossing his arms, he nodded, and his acceptance of the promise she’d just made their child felt even better than the hugs and the kiss they’d shared on their walk.
“Where have you been the days you’ve ditched school?” Brian asked, his voice rough with his own fight for control.
“Nowhere…” Cade said. “Nate’s mostly, just hanging behind the trees in his backyard in case he came outside to play. But he never did. It’s not like I wanted to be there, while he keeps ignoring me like we were never friends. It’s just… I couldn’t stay away…”
“Where do you want to be?” Sam asked, sighing when her son shook his head, staring down at the island without blinking, while tears pooled in his eyes. “Do you want to be back at the school that morning, with Troy,” she pressed, “so you and Nate can find some way to stop him?”
Her son looked up, surprised.
He nodded, swiping at his tears with the sleeve of his shirt.
“That’s what all the adults want, too,” Brian said. “The ones like Nate’s parents, who are yelling at the school board and the teachers about how something should have been done to stop Troy. People are blaming Roy Griffin and Ms. Hemmings and Mrs. Baxter and anyone else they can think of for what one mixed-up kid did, because they think that will fix what happened. But nothing will go back and take that gun out of Troy’s hand. Not the school board firing someone, or the Dickersons suing Troy’s parents, or you saying it was all your fault. Did you know? Did you know Troy had a gun in his backpack? Did anyone at the school know what he’d decided to do?”
Cade’s eyes were bottomless with guilt.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I swear I didn’t. But I should have. Or I should have told someone how upset he was, so someone else could have stopped him. Nate wanted me to, but I…” He looked at Sam, then at his lap again. “I didn’t want to mess up Mom’s day at the bake sale. I thought we could handle Troy, Nate and me. But when Troy started shooting, I just ducked while Nate and Mom stood up to him. I…”
“You protected Sally,” Sam reminded him. “You stayed on the floor with her, and put your body between her and Troy’s gun. I saw you, and it scared me to death, how brave you were being.” Sam gripped the edge of the counter, reliving those moments when she’d been certain her child would be gunned down in front of her. “You did what your instincts told you to do. How does that make any of this your fault?”
“You and Nate were hurt.”
“Because of Troy, not because of you.”
“But you moved across the street, and Nate wouldn’t talk to me, no matter how hard I tried to get him to. Not until his parents made him come to school today.”
“Because we’re all hurting.” Sam covered her son’s hand with her own. “You and me and Dad and Nate and his parents and everyone else in town who knows you guys, we’re all hurting and not handling it very well.” She glanced at Brian again. The love and understanding and respect she saw in his expression—for her—was everything. He’d looked at her that way at the school, too, when she and the boys had first stepped out of the closet—as if her husband were really seeing her again, for the first time in what felt like forever. “That’s the way it is a lot of times, when scary things happen. Folks don’t know what to do. They’re upset. They can’t make things better. So they go looking for someone to blame—and sometimes they blame themselves, like you are.”
“I’m sorry we’ve let you down, buddy,” Brian said. “We thought we were giving you space. Just like I’ve been giving your mom space since January. And I’ve been wrong, about both of you. I should have found a way to reach you.” He looked at Sam. “Ever since the shooting, I should have listened more to what your mother’s been trying to tell me. I think… I think maybe I was afraid, too. But we can’t let that stop us anymore. We have to do whatever it takes to get better, all of us. We have to face this together, as a family, from now on.”
Cade wiped at his eyes again.
So did Sam.
Brian, too.
No one said anything for a long time, the gentle moment a tiny flicker of healing all its own.
“Why have you been skipping school?” she finally asked her son. “You blew off three of your midterms, honey. And you couldn’t have studied for the other ones, with the scores you made on them. You had to know what that would do to your grades, and that the school would talk to your dad and me about it.”
Cade shrugged again.
“Maybe you wanted them to talk to us?” Brian asked.
Another shrug.
“Because you couldn’t?” Sam added. “You didn’t know how to talk about what you were going through, so you were hoping someone else would realize there was a problem and make you?”
Like Sam had been waiting all these years, hiding how lost she still felt, even from herself. Had she been expecting Brian to read her mind or force her to come clean or just understand and somehow magically make everything better, without her having to face the things she had to?
“Like Troy didn’t know how to tell anyone about how he was hurting?” Brian asked. “So he kept hurting until it made him do those horrible things he thought would make it stop.”
Cade stared at his dad, shaking his head. “I’m not like Troy. I’d never—”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” Sam pulled her son into a sideways hug she expected him to resist. He didn’t, even though his shoulders were too stiff for her to cuddle him close the way she longed to. “Of course you’d never hurt anyone that way. But you’ve been hurting yourself, honey, rather than getting the help you need. And even if you don’t know what you need, you have to trust your dad and me to be here for you. Whatever you say, whatever you do, it’s okay with us.” Sam cringed as she said the word that she’d banned her husband from using. When she glanced at Brian over their son’s head, a world of understanding passed between them. “We’ll be here for you, whatever you’re going through, and we’ll help any way we can. But you have to give us a chance.”
“The way you did when you moved out?” Cade jerked away. “You’re not even here anymore. You’re not giving us a chance. So why should we give you one?”
“Your mother gave me years of chances,” Brian said in her defense. “She’s staying with Mrs. Julia because she couldn’t get better here. Because together, neither one of us wanted to admit how bad things had gotten.”
“But I’m always here for you, Cade,” Sam said, falling in love with her husband all over again, even though there was still so much for them to sort out. “And if you need some time, too, away from school, then you don’t have to go back for a while. Just like Nate doesn’t. In fact…” A flicker of an idea began to form in her mind, a crazy thought that she shoved away for the moment. “Never mind. Just know that whatever you need, we’re here for you. There’s nothing we can’t fix together, as a family, as long as you talk to us about it.”
Cade glared at his father. “So now you’re glad Mom doesn’t live with us?”
“No.” Brian stepped around the island and put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “I’d give anything to have her back with us tonight. But being at Mrs. Julia’s is good for your mother right now, until we help each other fix a few more things. Things that I have to work out as much as she does
. But we are working on it, and I’m listening to her like I wasn’t before. I’m listening to both of you from here on out. We love you, whatever else is going on. Can you understand that, Cade? Will you let us help you through this?”
Cade looked back and forth between them, still scowling.
Then he propped his elbows on the counter and rested his head in his hand, exhaustion seeming to swamp him from one heartbeat to the next.
He cut Sam a scared look, like he didn’t really want to know, as he asked, “So how much trouble am I in at school?”
Chapter Twelve
“Sam?” Kristen said, after answering Sam’s knock on her front door. There was a touch of surprise and something else in her voice.
She towered over Sam, tall and strikingly beautiful in that athletic way Sam longed for. Standing beside Chandler’s AP, Sam always felt like an elf.
“I’m sorry to bust in on you like this,” Sam said in a rush. Staying put was much harder than she’d thought it would be when she’d pulled into Kristen’s driveway. Racing back to her car and returning to Mimosa Lane sounded far more appealing. “Is this a bad time?”
“Yes,” Kristen said. “I mean, no…” She waved Sam inside. “I was on my way to tonight’s school board meeting, but I have a few minutes before I have to leave.”
The school board meeting. How could Sam have forgotten, after harassing Julia about it earlier? She followed Kristen into her modern, split-level condo, laying her purse on the table in the small foyer.
“You were on your way out.” Sam felt terrible. “I can come back.”
Of course Kristen would be at tonight’s meeting. Depending on what the board decided, once they got around to doing more than holding hearings and listening to irate citizens the way they had been for more than a month, she might be out of a job come fall. “I can come back.”
“No, really,” Kristen said. “Can I get you something cool to drink? I don’t have to be the first person at the weenie roast where they’re angling to fry my bacon. I’m thirsty. How ’bout you?”
She led Sam into a bright, friendly kitchen. The indirect lighting was natural, Sam realized—from skylights overhead and the picture window above the sink that Kristen was using as a terrarium of sorts. Tiny succulents and bonsai trees were thriving there. They looked so perky and content. Sam couldn’t think of a better botanical fit for Kristen’s typically lively personality.
“Beer?” Chandlerville’s G-rated assistant principal asked. She pulled a bottle of German ale from her stainless-steel refrigerator and popped the cap with a vintage-looking opener attached to the cabinet at her hip.
“Sure.” Sam’s stomach felt like a swamp, but why not? Something to soothe the day’s never-ending emotional roller coaster sounded like heaven.
She’d spent the afternoon trying to talk with Cade about his problems at school and accomplishing very little. He was still too upset to focus. She’d helped Joshua with his latest LEGO masterpiece. Then she’d left Brian to get dinner ready, while she’d said she was returning to Julia’s to lie down. Instead, she’d gotten in her car and headed over here, dubious about what she’d come to speak with the AP about. But she wouldn’t be able to get it off her mind if she didn’t at least try.
Kristen pulled out another beer, opened it with a flick of her wrist, handed it over, and then saluted with her own bottle.
“Here’s to a world where kids don’t try to kill each other,” she toasted.
“Amen,” Sam agreed, drinking as deeply as her host.
They stood in silence for a few minutes. The NCAA Women’s Championship clock over the hallway door said it was almost six. Birds were chirping outside. Somewhere nearby, kids were playing, screaming, and calling to one another, the same as they did on the lane. Sam could hear it all through Kristen’s open windows and the screens that kept out the South’s thriving insect population. She heard no air-conditioning running, though the temperature outside had hit the mid-eighties today. Kristen’s brand of peace and quiet was enchanting.
“What a beautiful home,” Sam said. “You have a lovely place here.”
“Thank you.” Kristen took a long drink. “I’ve fallen in love with this town. I don’t think there’s anywhere in Chandlerville that I don’t feel connected to, even though I’ve only lived here for three years.”
And if the Turners and others had their way—if their witch hunt wasn’t stopped—Kristen might have to leave when her contract ran out at the end of the school year.
“You’re a phenomenal educator,” Sam said. “It will be the school’s loss if you lose your job over all of this.”
Even this morning, knowing the stress that was looming at the end of her day, Kristen had been so plugged into what was happening with her students, she’d made certain Sam was there to help care for Nate. She’d made time to speak with Brian about Cade.
“They’re right, you know.” The resignation in Kristen’s voice made Sam sick. “I should have known more about the bullying, that it had gone too far. I saw the boys that morning. I thought there might be a fight brewing, but it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. There had to have been signs that Troy was so unstable. And I missed them.”
“You’re telling me it’s an assistant principal’s job to follow each student home, to see how much pressure he’s under from his peers and parents? You’re supposed to be there every minute of every day in school, breaking up every fight, weighing every altercation, and labeling bullying at every turn—in case some other child has the unfortunate body chemistry and home situation to turn a grudge into a homicidal temper tantrum?”
All teachers in New York City, public or private, were trained to look for latent violence in students. High-risk candidates were discussed at weekly meetings and followed up on rigorously. The police were involved when needed, as well as social and family protective services if abuse or neglect was suspected. And regardless, some kids still slipped through the cracks. Even with metal detectors in most New York junior high and high schools, weapons turning up in the schools, knives and guns, was a ridiculously common occurrence.
But that kind of world had seemed so far removed from a charming, seductively safe place like Chandlerville, where no one could have anticipated what had happened between Troy and Bubba.
“I’ve never heard,” Sam said, “of an administrator more diligent about training her staff or staying state-of-the-art in crisis preparedness.”
“That’s true.” Kristen tipped her bottle toward Sam again. “Most of my staff calls me ‘the Terminator’ when they think I’m not listening. Maybe it’s the competitive athlete in me, but I wanted us to have the best, and to give the best to our students, even if we live in the suburbs. Especially when we do. I want people from all over Atlanta wanting to move to Chandlerville because we have the best damn elementary school in the state.”
“As far as I’m concerned, we do. I’ve seen private schools that couldn’t compete with the services and caliber of educators you’ve pulled together for our children—or your security measures.”
It had all been covered by the media, every detail. During school hours, outside doors were locked so no one could enter, except through the front, where you had to be buzzed through and cleared at the school office. Video feeds at all entrances revealed who was coming and going. And Kristen and her teachers practiced countless emergency protocols—which had been carried out to the letter the day of the shooting. The entire school had been immediately locked down, the danger had been isolated to the cafeteria, and Kristen and the rest of her staff had evacuated everyone they could outside and out of harm’s way as quickly as humanly possible.
“Our kids couldn’t be in better hands,” Sam said.
“I help run a suburban elementary school that’s been nationally labeled a hotbed of juvenile-against-juvenile violence.” Kristen drained her beer, opened one of the drawers beneath the sink to reveal a recycle basket, and chucked the bottle inside. She slammed
the drawer shut. “The local news vans have staked out prime broadcasting spots at city hall this afternoon. I heard just an hour ago that they’ll be feeding nationally. Even if we run late again, we’ll make the evening news on the West Coast. Eleven o’clock up and down our coast. Sounds like they think a particularly juicy story is about to break. Who knows? We might even make tomorrow’s morning shows.”
Sam finished her beer and rounded the counter to stand next to a woman who shouldn’t feel so alone in all of this. No one should. Not Cade or Nate, or her and Brian, or Julia and Walter, or Kristen. She opened the recycle drawer and tossed her own bottle in, hearing glass rattle but not shatter. No one had to shatter under the weight of what had happened. Not if they all found a way to help one another, instead of tearing one another apart.
She shoved the drawer closed as firmly as Kristen had. “Then I guess we’d better make sure we give those media vultures the right kind of juicy to report about.”
“We?” Kristen’s right eyebrow rose until it was hiding behind her perky bangs.
“We.”
“Do I have to remind you how many people will be at tonight’s meeting?” Kristen was nice enough not to point out that Sam had been a no-show at the other board meetings, no matter who, including Julia, had thought she and Brian should be there. “You’re going to be surrounded by angry people who gave up debating their issues civilly over a month ago.”
“Kind of like the bloodbath that a college basketball game can turn into?”
Kristen’s other eyebrow rose. “Kind of.”
Sam remembered thinking she wouldn’t make it through that morning’s conversation with Kristen and Mallory and Julia, or her return to Chandler and helping Nate, or even that afternoon with her family. But with the help of her friends and family, she had made it through each moment. Surely she could be there for Kristen tonight, when it sounded as if there might be no one else in the other woman’s corner at the meeting.
Three Days on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 17