by Kate Hewitt
“Fine, fine.” Miriam held up her hands, laughing a little although she still looked dazed. “Thank you, Simon. Your offer is very kind. I’ll accept, even though you might live to regret it.”
“Never,” Simon said gallantly, and the conversation moved on, thankfully not back to Rachel and her supposed secrets.
The next week passed by with surprising speed; while things had settled down somewhat in the classroom, now that Rachel was familiar with Nathan and his ways, the days still felt challenging and on Wednesday she asked Sarah to see Nathan’s educational records.
“As you can see,” Sarah said, once Rachel had looked through the file, “at his last school he was given a statutory assessment, but the local authority decided not to give him an EHC plan.”
“We could appeal, though,” Rachel said. “Or his guardian could.”
Sarah’s eyebrows rose. “Do you think he’s in need of a plan? You seem to be managing the class without extra help.”
“Managing, yes, but Nathan’s behaviours don’t seem as if they come from him just being difficult.”
“He has had a very challenging background—”
“I know.” Rachel took a deep breath. “But for Nathan’s sake, he needs more support.”
Sarah regarded her for a moment. “The authority could deny the appeal, or even that he be assessed again. You know how it is these days, Rachel. It’s brutal for kids who have special needs. There simply isn’t the funding or support that is really required, and it’s the children who suffer.”
“I know, but we could try.” Rachel was conscious that Nathan didn’t have parents to advocate for him. She didn’t even know where his mother was, and Sam was so busy, barely able to keep it all together as it was. Someone needed to fight for him, for the rights he should have, the help he might need.
“We could,” Sarah said after a moment. “I won’t keep you from it, certainly. But the first port of call would be communicating with his guardian.”
“Yes…”
“You know him, I believe?”
“Yes…”
“Do you think he would be receptive to having Nathan assessed?”
“Yes, I think so,” Rachel said, hesitation audible in her voice. How well did she know Sam, really? The answer was hardly at all, and yet she trusted him; she believed he was a good man. “I think Sam wants what’s best for his nephew.”
Sarah nodded slowly. “Then why don’t we ask him to come into school for a meeting?”
By Friday afternoon, heading back to The Bell with Nathan, Rachel was feeling gently optimistic about, well, everything. Miriam had started work and seemed to enjoy it; Rachel had Skyped her parents, who were full of excitement about the ministry in Jinan; and Nathan, skipping along next to her, seemed in a good mood. She’d bought a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle from a charity shop for them to tackle that evening, because during school that week Nathan had mentioned liking puzzles.
She’d just started up the stairs to the flats when Sam appeared in the corridor, looming in the doorway that led to the pub’s interior like a dark shadow.
“Rachel,” he said, his voice hard. “May I have a word?”
Startled, Rachel’s hand flew to her chest. “Oh, you surprised me. Yes, of course.” She glanced uncertainly at Nathan as she belatedly registered Sam’s not-so-friendly tone.
“Nathan, go up to the flat while I talk to Miss Holley, areet?” Sam instructed. “The door’s open.”
“I call her Rachel when we’re not in school,” Nathan said a bit resentfully, but he headed upstairs while Rachel waited, her heart starting to thump in a way she didn’t like.
“What’s going on?” she asked, because Sam was looking at her with a cool appraisal she also didn’t like.
“Are you behind the letter I received this morning, requesting a meeting with the head teacher to discuss Nathan’s special education needs?” His voice was low and somehow menacing. Rachel had to keep herself from taking an instinctive step backwards. She’d never seen him like this, the blatant aggression, the powerful stance. He didn’t scare her, precisely, but she was definitely alarmed.
“Well, er, yes, I suppose I am—”
“And you didn’t think fit to talk to me about it first?”
“As Nathan’s teacher, it was my responsibility to talk to my supervisor first.” She straightened her shoulders, meeting his gaze directly. “I know we’re friends, but I have to follow policy and procedures, Sam—”
“Friends?” Sam repeated disbelievingly, and Rachel flinched. That hurt a lot more than it probably should have.
“I thought we were,” she answered, lifting her chin. “Perhaps I was wrong.”
Sam shook his head, raking a hand through his hair. “Rachel, there’s stuff you don’t know. That makes things a lot more difficult than you realise.”
“Then perhaps you could tell me, considering I’m Nathan’s teacher and I take care of him two evenings a week.”
Sam dropped his hand and gave her a look so miserable, her heart ached. “I don’t want to.”
Rachel swallowed hard. “Why not?”
“Because…” He blew out a breath, his gaze distant and troubled. “Because we are friends, and I don’t want you to look at me differently.”
And suddenly Rachel’s aching heart was tumbling right over. “I wouldn’t, Sam,” she said, but he just shook his head. The moment stretched on, and then Sam let out a heavy sigh.
“I’ll come up when Nath is in bed. I’ll have someone cover downstairs if I can. And then we’ll talk.”
He turned to go back in the pub, and Rachel watched him go, her unruly heart now beating hard. We are friends, and I don’t want you to look at me differently. In that moment, Rachel knew she already was, or at least she could if she let herself, but in an entirely different way than Sam had meant.
Chapter Nineteen
RACHEL SPENT THE whole evening in a ferment of curiosity and anxious anticipation. What on earth was Sam going to tell her? What secret could he be hiding? And what if it did change things? She’d hate to look at him differently, hate to disappoint him that way.
She tried to rush Nathan into bed, which backfired hugely as he resisted and then threw a strop, which Rachel had since learned had to be simply endured, and eventually he calmed down and she got him into bed, although it took two stories with naming five things rather than three in each, to get him there. At least he liked the stories now.
In any case, Sam ended up being late, so she sat curled up on the sofa counting the minutes until he opened the door to the flat at half past eight, giving her a tired smile that twisted her heart into knots along with her stomach.
“How is it going down there? You found someone to help?”
“Yes, Lizzie. She does weekday evenings, but she agreed to come in for an hour.” He closed the door behind him with a soft click. “Sorry for all the aggro I gave you downstairs earlier. I was being…” He shook his head as he blew out a breath. “Stupid.”
“It’s okay, Sam. You have a lot going on.”
“Yeah, but…I know you’re trying to help.” Something about his tone made Rachel feel like he didn’t think she was helping.
“So tell me what’s going on,” she said quietly. “Tell me what I don’t know.”
Sam walked slowly to the other side of the sofa and sat down heavily, his forearms braced on his thighs. He was in his usual work uniform of white T-shirt, faded jeans, and work boots, his hair a bit spiky from raking his fingers through it, golden stubble glinting on his jaw. He didn’t speak, and Rachel waited, her hands going clammy as she wondered what on earth Sam was going to say.
“You know about my parents,” he said at last.
“A little…” Only what he’d told her.
“Well, after my sister and I were taken from them that first time, things got worse. After a few months we left foster care and went back to them, but then my dad skipped out and my mum went right downhill. Depressed, drink
ing, drugs too probably, although I don’t remember. The authorities decided she couldn’t care for us any longer, and so Tiffany and I ended up in foster care for good. She ran away when she was fourteen, and I stayed in until I aged out at sixteen.”
“Oh, Sam.” Rachel had to blink back tears. Nearly ten years in the system? She could barely begin to imagine how hard that would have been. “Did you stay with the same family, at least?”
“Nope.” He gave her a wry smile. “I’m afraid I was a bit like Nathan that way, and so was Tiffany. Nobody wanted us for long. We were here and there, bounced around the county. We ended up separated in our teens, and when Tiffany ran away I didn’t see her for a couple of years. When I did…” He paused, his expression snared in some memory, and as gently as she could Rachel tried to fill in the blanks.
“Was that when she started to…?”
“No, it was before.” Sam seemed to come out of a reverie, giving himself a little shake. “She’d been on stuff since she was little more than a kid. She’d been living with blokes, in and out with the drugs and drink, since she ran away.”
It sounded like a terrible, tragic life. “So what happened when you saw her again?”
“She came to visit me.” He paused, lifting his bleak gaze to meet Rachel’s as he waited, weighing his words. “In prison.”
Rachel felt a jolt of shock, along with one of recognition. Hadn’t she sensed Sam was hiding something like this? Hadn’t she figured there was something in his past, the bad boy made good? Except that made it all sound so trite, and it wasn’t. It was terrible and sad and so very broken.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
Sam didn’t answer for a long moment. He lowered his head, staring down at the floor, while Rachel waited. “I got into trouble in my teens. Started hanging out with a bunch of lads I shouldn’t have been. We ended up stealing cars for a shady bloke up near Workington. It was stupid as well as illegal—we didn’t even get much for it. The bloke kept the others in line because he supplied them with drugs; but I was never into that, or drink. Not after I saw the way my mum and dad went.”
Rachel tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. She had no words, no comfort to offer, because it all sounded so awful.
“Anyway, when I was seventeen I got arrested. That was stupid, as well—the others ran but I wasn’t fast enough. I could have got off if I’d named them but I didn’t—misplaced loyalty if there ever was, eh?”
“It all sounds so…”
“Bad, I know.” That hadn’t been what she was going to say, but Sam ploughed on, his jaw set. “I was seventeen and I was given four years at Lancaster Farms. I got out in two.”
“Okay.” Rachel nodded slowly. Now she realised why Sam had felt taking Nathan’s guardianship might not be straightforward, but she still didn’t understand what it had to do with his nephew being assessed for special needs. “You’ve obviously moved on from all that, Sam,” she said carefully. “And you’ve done so well for yourself, and for Nathan. Surely your past experience won’t affect Nathan’s assessment?”
Sam blew out a breath and straightened, giving Rachel a disconcertingly direct look. “Yes, it could, because when I was given his guardianship I didn’t disclose that I had a criminal record.”
Shock jolted through her. “You didn’t…?”
“No, because I didn’t have to,” he answered steadily, and Rachel relaxed. “I was convicted as an under-eighteen and given forty-eight months’ sentence in a juvenile prison, which means my conviction is spent and doesn’t have to be disclosed after eleven years, which was in July. Lucky, eh?” His smile was humourless, his expression bleak.
“So if it doesn’t have to be disclosed…”
“That doesn’t mean people couldn’t find out about it if they wanted to. Or if I was asked directly. I looked at the assessment, Rachel. They look at everything—home life, history… They dig deep. It will come out, and what do you think is going to happen then?”
She gulped, hating the thought that her good intentions might have put Sam—and Nathan—at risk. And yet surely the system was better than that? “Sam, they’ll see how well you’ve been providing for Nathan—”
“Then you have more faith in the system than I do. I think they’ll see a tough-looking bloke with a criminal conviction, who runs the roughest pub in the village.”
“The roughest? That’s not exactly saying much.” Rachel tried to keep her voice light even though everything in her was aching. “Besides, there are only two pubs in the village.”
“You know what I mean, Rachel.”
“Of course I do.” She gazed at him steadily, her heart filled with compassion for this man who had suffered so much and tried so hard. “And I’m sorry, so sorry, if what I’ve done has jeopardised your custody of Nathan. But I’m not convinced it has, Sam. Maybe that’s naïve, maybe it’s wrong, but…” She took a deep breath, knowing she needed to say this but afraid of Sam’s reaction. “You can’t run forever, Sam,” she said as gently as she could. “You can’t keep ducking and dodging. If not now, then something will happen later. And if they find out, they find out. Let your current record speak for itself, not what you did in the past.”
Sam stared at her, his expression hardening. “Like I said, you have a lot more faith in the system than I do.”
Rachel nodded slowly. “I suppose I do. I haven’t experienced it the way you have, certainly. My only experience with the local authority and the foster care system is as a teacher, and I know while caseworkers are overworked and burned out, they’re doing their best to put children in the safest, healthiest situations that they can. And I think, I hope, they would see that was with you.”
Sam rose from the sofa, shaking his head. “Save the speech. I’m not going to change my mind.”
His tough tone caught her on the raw. “But—”
He folded his arms. “I don’t want Nathan assessed.”
Rachel stared at him, stunned even though everything Sam had said and done had been leading to this statement. Still, she couldn’t believe a man like Sam wouldn’t want the best for the child in his care, his own flesh and blood. To deny Nathan even the chance of an assessment…
“Sam, I understand why you’re reluctant, honestly I do, but I think you need to think about this more carefully, for Nathan’s sake—”
“Don’t patronise me, Rachel.”
“I’m not,” she exclaimed. She rose to her feet, frustration surging through her along with the hurt. “Look, the letter you received outlined some of the school’s—and my—concerns. Nathan is exhibiting behaviours that suggestion a condition, Sam, and not just a boy being difficult—”
“Now you’re the expert?”
“No, I’m not, which is why I’d like him to be assessed. If Nathan does have a disability, or some special needs, then I want them to be taken care of as best as they can. And I’m not the person who can do that, as much as I wish I could. I have twenty-five children in my class—”
“So now it’s about you.”
Rachel closed her eyes, praying for patience. She knew Sam was feeling vulnerable, driven to the defensive, and she was trying to keep her temper because snapping at him wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Nathan. “It’s about Nathan,” she said as steadily as she could. “And what he needs. But it’s also about you. Nathan needs help, Sam, and if you refuse it, it could look worse for you—”
“Ah, and now you’re threatening me?”
“No, I’m trying to help you,” she cried. “The school can’t do anything without your consent—we can’t put Nathan forward for assessment, we can’t discuss him with any specialists. And that will hurt him, Sam, and it will hurt you when your case comes up for review and the social worker sees that you refused consent, because that will go on the record. It has to.”
His jaw tightened. “So you’d bollocks everything up just for this assessment?”
“I’m not trying to,” Rachel protested, a pang of g
uilt assailing her at how she must seem to Sam—heartless, indifferent to what this could cost him. What did she really know about the system, anyway? Not nearly as much as he did. “He might not even be granted an assessment, if they don’t think he’s in need of another one—”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“We need to give Nathan the best chance we can.”
“And if he’s taken away and bunged into foster care?” Sam demanded. “Is that the best chance?”
“It’s a chance I believe you have to take,” Rachel answered levelly, although in truth she felt torn. How could she honestly say what was best for Nathan? Sam knew him better than she did, and he knew the system better than she did. Still, it felt wrong not to try. “Not every foster care situation is like yours was, Sam—”
He swung away from her, muttering under his breath, his shoulders hunched. “Go back to the vicarage, Rachel,” he said, his back to her. “Go back to your charmed life, your big, empty house where you were going to raise all your kids. The dog, the Rover, the sub-zero fridge. All of it.”
Now that hurt. The fridge…? “I’d hardly want to go back there,” she said quietly. “Even if I could. I can’t pretend to understand what you’re going through, Sam, or what you’ve gone through in the past, but I really am trying to help. I know it doesn’t feel like it—”
“You have no idea.” His voice thrummed out low as he turned back to face her, his expression stonier than she’d ever seen it. “No. Idea.”
And gazing at his bleak eyes and hard-set mouth, Rachel knew she didn’t. Sam’s life was a million miles from her cosy, cossetted existence—growing up in the vicarage, three fun years at university, and living her adult life as a beloved member of a small, close-knit community. Sam was right, but so was she. Nathan needed help. He deserved a chance.
“Please, Sam,” she said quietly. “I know it’s hard, and I can’t even imagine what’s at stake, but at least think about it. For both your sakes. After observing Nathan for the last few weeks, I think an assessment could really help him, if it means he can get extra learning support, a better start in life. And as for you…wouldn’t it be better to have your conviction out in the open? If you were granted permanent custody of Nathan, so you’d never have to worry about this again?”