by Lynn Galli
Briony’s grin flashed bright. She flicked her eyes to me, pride and happiness shining through. She always relaxed when she detected my ease in social situations.
“How’s my boy?” Javier asked about Caleb. He’d been his soccer coach for three years now and really cared for him. He also came in handy as an everyday male role model when Caleb’s grandfathers were in another state.
“Better,” Briony answered truthfully. “Still acting up a bit.” Or a lot, but we expected that to settle down as soon as he got into a regular summer routine.
“That camp doesn’t tire him out every day?” Javier’s dark eyebrows slanted down in a frown. He wasn’t able to fit in being the assistant coach this year and looked guilty about it.
“Not enough, apparently. I was thinking of letting him be Quinn’s ball boy at her basketball camp this summer.”
“That might do it. Or you could just give him to Jessie for a week. He’d be so tired he wouldn’t even have thoughts of angst.”
We chuckled. We’d already come up with a reason for him to spend a day with Jessie. The effect lasted a couple of days, but then he got snippy about something again and took it out on his mom. It was all a way to cover his hurt, along with some new teenage hormones.
We’d just have to be more creative and attentive. I wasn’t going to let this sadness become a permanent fixture in my family’s life. We would work at it together because that’s what families did.
M / 16
I rapped my knuckles on Willa’s office doorframe. She looked up and smiled, undisturbed by my drop-in. I almost always called, but I was still out of sorts these days.
“Hey, M. Glad you’re here. I could use the break.” She leaned back in her chair and watched as I took a seat across from her desk.
“Hi. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
She shook her head. The dark brown waves in her hair were more curly than wavy today. The length had gone from shorter to medium over the years I’d known her, but the style remained the same. I liked that about her. Consistent and reliable. “How’s the venture class going?”
Three weeks into the class and it was fun but bittersweet. Kinda like the summer Briony and I were having. “It’s good this year. Only two businesses, but the kids are getting more and more creative each year.”
“As long as none of them are starting gaming companies, I’m all for it.”
I laughed. Willa could always make me laugh.
Her eyes darted away. “Have you heard from her?”
My breath deserted me. One thing about Willa, she knew me pretty well. It scared me sometimes. “Last Sunday. She said everything was okay, but she sounded so, I don’t know…small.”
Her eyes came back to mine. “Like she wasn’t happy?”
“Like she did when we had to tell her that her aunt was going to take her from us.”
“Really sad still?”
“Yes.” I didn’t want to admit it, but I’d heard it in her voice. She was trying to be brave, and so were we, but we were all sad.
“You’re worried?”
I couldn’t really voice what I was feeling. Yes, worried, sad, angry, anxious, almost like I had the first time I walked into a foster home. I didn’t know what to expect, if it would be good or bad. I was worried for her for more reasons than I wanted to admit.
Willa pulled open a desk drawer. She brought up a file folder and handed it to me. “You’re probably going to get really upset with me for this, but I can be an asshole and everyone knows that about me.”
I couldn’t imagine what she’d have in there that would upset me. She thought she wasn’t the best person in our group. She could be grumpy and short tempered, but she was never an asshole. Definitely never to me.
Opening the file, I glanced down at the top page. The subject line was Ian Corcoran. I looked up at Willa, my mouth open and my heart pounding. She’d run a background check on Olivia’s aunt’s boyfriend. I didn’t know what to feel about this. I should be upset that she’d been so presumptuous, so overbearing as to take on a responsibility that wasn’t hers, but instead, I think I felt grateful. I’d been worried when I found out Nell was living with a man. I didn’t want to think that anything bad could happen to Olivia, but it kept me from sleeping well most nights.
The report told me that he was a thirty-nine-year-old pastor born in Silver Spring, Maryland. He’d been leading his own church for eleven years. Four former addresses showed up on the page along with his current residence, which he owned. He’d never been married and volunteered at the food kitchen attached to his church. He had no felonies, misdemeanors, or arrests. Blank spaces after words like “Day 1”were listed along with words like “Time and Location.” It was an incomplete report, which made me both glad and anxious.
I caught Willa’s nervous look. Yeah, she should be nervous. This was a complete overreach on her part. Panic slammed into me. What if she’d done this to me? As soon as the panic started, I quashed it. She wouldn’t do that to me, her friend. She just wouldn’t. “Why did you do this?”
“Everything in there comes from public records. We have a firm that runs background checks on all potential hires to avoid some of the mistakes we made at first.”
That didn’t explain why she would do this. “But what would make you run a background check on him?”
“There’s one on her, too.”
I looked back down at the file and flipped to another page. Nell looked good on paper, too. It made me feel better. A lot better, especially since I hadn’t done it. I would have felt guilty if I’d initiated a search like this. I’d felt uncomfortable even running a browser search for her name when the social worker first told us about her. Other than a typically boring Facebook page, nothing seemed concerning. I looked up at Willa again.
“She’s your kid, M. You can’t make it legal, but she’s yours. I didn’t want you to worry that anything would happen to her.”
I cleared my throat. “You did this for me?”
“Of course.” She frowned at my question. “I can get our investigators to do a more extensive check if you want. I’ve had to learn the hard way that one week of twenty-four hour surveillance can save a lot of headaches.”
I stared at her, trying to figure out why she’d do something like this. Overstep like this. My head shook at her suggestion. As much as I wanted to know if this Ian guy was bad news, I couldn’t justify invading someone’s privacy for my curiosity and peace of mind. I had to have faith that Nell wouldn’t choose a pervert to marry.
“You’re shocked.”
I was. She’d always treated me differently from others in her group of friends. It was subtle, and I thought it was because I was so different from them. Everyone in the group had somehow benefited from her wealth. They were all grateful, certainly, but she’d shared her wealth from this successful software company with them like they were her dependents. She’d never offered to buy anything for me, and I’d always been grateful for that. I wouldn’t know how to turn her down without insulting her.
“Not that I did this,” she was saying. “You’re shocked that I’d do this for you.”
Jeez, she really did know me well.
“I’m going to say this once and in a way that I know only you will understand.” Her eyes locked on mine, something she rarely did.
I waited, a little panicked that she might express a sentiment that I couldn’t reciprocate.
“You’re my phone call.”
My eyes flitted away, down to my hands, and back up to meet hers. I wasn’t sure which phone call she meant.
She let out a breath of air and broke eye contact. “If I ever did something bad, like really bad, you’d be my phone call.”
I pushed out the breath I was holding. I could think of several bad things I could do. Not the kind of bad things someone in our group would think of, like getting a DUI. That would be bad, but not the kind of bad I could dream up. My kind of bad could be seen as malicious, even if I were pr
otecting myself. The kind of bad things I’d envisioned doing to some men prior to meeting Briony.
Yes, that was it. The difference that I recognized in Willa, the reason why she and I meshed as friends so well. She could do those bad things, too.
“Quinn would still love me,” she continued. “She’d try to understand why I did what I did. She’d stand by me, but she’d never think of me the same way. It would ruin her.” She shrugged and glanced back at me. “So if I needed someone to think through all of my options after doing something bad, you’d be the call.”
Talk about an eye opening conversation. “Okay.” Seemed a stupid thing to say, but that was how easy it was to accept. Because I knew she was right. Briony was a lot darker than Quinn. She could deal with anything bad I might do. If Willa ever did anything bad, I’d want to be there to help her figure out what to do about it.
“Okay,” she agreed.
I took a breath and plowed ahead with something I would never have asked her before. “Can I ask you something?”
She smiled briefly and nodded.
“Why haven’t you ever tried to make me take some of your money?” Immediately, I realized that sounded off. “Everything you did for your friends. You’ve pretty much financed their dreams.”
She flushed red and looked away, her head shaking as if to deny what I’d said. “I guess I thought you might consider it insulting.”
Not insulting, but definitely not how I’d like a real friendship to be. But there had always been one weakness for me prior to meeting Briony, and she had to know it. “Not even for a cochlear implant for Hank?”
Her eyes pinged back to mine, widening in surprise. “I’m sorry. I just assumed that he wanted to be deaf. If that’s not the case, you don’t even need to ask.”
I waved her off before she said any more. My heart filled with pride for her. “No, that’s exactly right. There’s nothing wrong with being deaf. Few hearing people understand that. I should have known you’d get it.”
“Good, okay, then. But it should go without saying, if you ever need anything that I can do, just say it.”
My eyes grew moist. I couldn’t stop it. “That’s…that’s…”
“Just so we’re clear.” She saved me from having to voice my emotions. “And I know I overstepped here, but I liked that kid so much. I want her to be safe. I want you to know she’s safe.”
“You didn’t have him followed and not tell me about it, did you?”
Her lips twitched. “No, but one phone call and it’ll be done.”
“No. Thank you, though. This makes me feel better about it.”
Her smile faded. “I’m sorry you lost her.”
I nodded crisply. I was sorry, too. But I also tried to be happy for Olivia. If Kathryn had a sister, I would have wanted to know her.
“You’re an amazing woman, M. I don’t have the courage to take in a child and raise her, provide a safe place for her. You did it so well.”
I shook off her compliment. “You could do it. Anyone could.”
“Anyone should, but not everyone can.”
I pushed the file folder back to her. She took it without question and returned it to her desk drawer. Anyone else probably would have insisted I take it with me. “I’m glad I stopped by.”
She smiled. “Me, too.”
M / 17
For the second time this week, I nearly fell on my face as soon as I walked through my front door. Damn! It! Both Caleb and Briony’s shoes were right in the path of the front door like miniature stable jumps for anyone coming inside. Problem was, no one ever looked down when they first walked in the door. And I’d told them this, many, many times.
I always knew that no one would be as neat as I was. No one as ordered. I made allowances for that when I readied myself to live with Briony and her son. I had to come to grips with the fact that I would do more cleaning because I liked things much neater than, well, any human I’d ever met. I accepted that truth. For Briony’s love, it wasn’t even a factor. Still, the reality of it, sometimes daily, could grate on my nerves. Especially after a long day at work.
Taking a deep breath, I nudged the shoes out of the way, lining them up against the foyer wall where they’d forgotten to place them. Where they knew I liked the shoes to be placed if they were going to take them off as soon as they got home. Living with someone, no matter how much I loved her and how wonderful her child was, turned out to be harder than anything I’d done in my adult life. It was also more wonderful than anything I’d experienced in my adult life. But on days like today when I was hot and tired and still filled with sorrow, trip hazards as soon as I entered my very own sanctuary stirred my blood to a low boil.
“Why not?” Caleb’s raised voice hit me from the living room as I kicked off my dress shoes, placed them against the wall, and stepped into the comfy sneakers I wore in the house. “Everyone else has one.”
“Because you don’t need one. We said when you got to high school. We agreed on that.”
“You agreed to that,” he snapped, very un-Caleb-like, making me halt my progress down the hallway.
I could hear Briony’s sigh from twenty feet away. “Ninth grade, Caleb. That’s it.”
“I’m the only dweeb at camp who doesn’t have one. I’ll be the only dweeb in eighth grade without one. Even Olivia got one before she left. How come it’s okay that she has one but I don’t?”
“One, we didn’t get it for her, Willa did. And two, it was the only way to ensure we could all stay in touch with her. Unlike your situation, she actually needed one.”
“I can’t even text her.” The anguish in his voice lathered me in guilt.
“You can use your very handy iPad, which you begged me to get you last summer because you were the only dweeb at camp without one of those if I recall. I’m pretty sure you can text her and any of your other non-dweeb friends at camp or school on that. No one will know you don’t have a phone.”
“Everyone will know!” he practically screeched, sounding more like a variety of bird than a teenage boy. “Come on, Mom. It’s only a year early.”
“We’ll see,” she said, which meant she’d think of some other argument for saying no tomorrow.
“That always means no,” her very astute son told her.
“You’re right,” Briony’s weary voice caused a twinge in my heart. She must have had a hard day, too. “Last day of summer next year, you can pick the phone you want.”
“That doesn’t help me now.”
“Nope.”
“This sucks!” he griped.
“I’m sure it does,” his mom agreed. She must be too tired to remind him of his tone. For the three years I’d been a part of this family, I could count on one hand the number of times Caleb acted up like this. He was pretty even keeled, almost always cheery. Sure, he’d hit his teenage years, but until this summer, those expected angry teen moments hadn’t yet surfaced.
“I want to spend the night at Hank’s.”
“Not tonight,” Briony told him.
“Why not?” This seemed to be a favorite of his now.
“Because you’ve spent the last four nights at his house. You’ve overstayed your welcome.”
“He wants me there.”
“It matters what his grandmother wants.”
“She likes me.”
“I know she does, but that doesn’t mean she wants to raise you. We’re going to give her a break for a while. You can spend the night in your very own room filled with all those other things you were convinced would make you lame if you didn’t have them.”
“Man!” He said it like he was swearing up a storm. “You don’t let me do anything. I hate it here. There’s nothing to do. No one to hang out with. You’re trying to ruin my life!”
With that declaration, I heard slapping feet on our refinished original hardwoods as he ran down the hallway, barely registering that I was standing in his path before swooping around me and pounding up the staircase. Three-two-one,
SLAM! His door frame was probably hanging in shreds with the power of that door slam.
Briony’s head was bent when I joined her in the living room. I stepped up behind her and slid my arms around her middle, resting my chin on her shoulder. “Tough day?”
She shook her head and sighed, leaning back against me. “I should just get him the phone. He’s gotten so…so…I don’t know. Just a few weeks ago, he was a sweet kid. How could it go so wrong so quickly?”
“Demon possession?”
She laughed and the tightness in my chest loosened. My hard day suddenly forgotten. Her happiness was my quest. For someone who used to spend much of her time living inside herself, having a quest like this helped.
“You’re not getting him a phone or a dog. You don’t want or like either. You said ninth grade, he understands that. He doesn’t like it, but he understands it. You start switching the rules now and he’ll smell the blood in the water. He’ll circle you with his fin up for every moment of his high school years. Stay firm, my sweet.”
Her golden eyes softened. “I love you, you know? You’re exactly what I need. What we need.”
I slid my hand down her arm to her hand, fingering her engagement ring. The one I had inscribed with the very sentiment she just voiced. It was my way of telling her I loved her when I still had trouble saying the words. “You’re all I’ll ever need.”
She turned in my arms and kissed me, taking her time to show me how much she loved me. When she pulled back we were both breathless. “How was your afternoon class?”
“Fine,” I said automatically because really, what were entitled-acting college students compared to a stepson who was hurting so much he was lashing out at his once adored mother?
“Any requests for dinner?” She brushed her fingers through my hair as her other hand stroked patterns over my chest. It still amazed me how easy this was for me now. How much having her this close made everything in my life good.
“Caleb’s favorite.”
She flashed a bright smile. “Now who’s bribing him?”
“It’s not a bribe so much as a project.” I watched her head tilt in interest as I started backing down the hall. “We’ll see if it works.”