Roger nodded, processing.
“And lose the dress shirt and tie. They’re questioning me if it’s still acceptable to wear t-shirts and jeans.”
Roger gave a self-effacing laugh. “I spent too many years in an office building. I equate the clothes with professionalism.”
“Well, maybe you work on that. Maybe you start by losing the tie and work your way up to wearing jeans, then work on maybe pairing it with a polo.”
Roger nodded. “I get it. I’m too stiff for this generation.”
“You come across as so tightly wound, it’s almost as you’re trying to keep your every action in check, for fear of losing it when you’re not paying attention.”
Roger lifted his head. “There may be some truth to that.” He’d only allowed himself to really relax around Penny and Max, when they were alone. And then just a few minutes ago, with Kelly.
“You’re a good guy, who reacted to horrific circumstances in a bad way. It doesn’t make you a bad person. And, seriously, after five years of therapy, how much more fixed are you going to get.”
The corner of Roger’s mouth lifted and let out a self-effacing chuckle.
“See? That, right there, show’s you can take a joke. Let them see that.”
Roger nodded.
“Is Mitchel onboard with our marketing plan?”
Roger didn’t even blink over the change in topics. “Yeah. He says give him two or three weeks to get it all set up.”
“Within the budget we laid out?”
“He claims he can do it.”
“Awesome. You must freak him out a little too. He always argues the budget with me.”
“So, keep my brisk professionalism for the outside contractors, huh?”
“Yeah,” Max said with a laugh. “Them, you can make nervous, no problem.”
Roger smiled.
Max stood to leave, but turned around at the last moment. “Who was the other?”
“What other?”
“The other woman who died on you?”
“My mother.”
“Shadowmoon Middle School, and Willowvine Elementary,” Penny said, after three weeks of trying to subtly talk to her sisters.
“Shadowmoon? Who names a school ‘Shadowmoon’?” Roger asked.
“Hippies.”
He laughed, knowing one of the reasons he visited her was because she simply did his heart good.
She shrugged. “That’s what Charlotte said her foster mom said.”
“And willows aren’t vines.”
“The branches kind of look like vines.”
“I guess…”
“Are you going to put the names in your phone, so you don’t forget?”
“I don’t think I have to. I mean, who could forget names like Shadowmoon and Willowvine?” Roger could feel the smile on his face as he teased her.
“Daddy,” she said, rolling her eyes at him.
“I’m serious. I’ll be ninety, with Alzheimer’s, and I’ll still remember those two names.”
It was moments like this that Penny lived for. When her father acted and felt like the daddy she’d known and loved. “Don’t get sent back to jail,” she whispered.
“Aw, honey.”
“If you get sent back to jail, you’ll never be able to be there for any of us. And I really won’t see you again until I’m an adult.”
He let out a sigh. “You know what? Nothing in my life has ever gone the way I planned. Whether it was good or bad, it never worked for what the end result became. So, here’s my new plan. I’m going to take things day by day, and strive to do my best with just that.”
“You’re not allowed to be with me.”
“You got in the car.”
“No one specifically told me to stay away from you. If I get caught, I plan on pleading ignorance.”
Roger let out rich laughter. “You are my child, aren’t you?”
“But what are you going to say?”
“There’s not really much I’m going to be able to say.”
“Tell them I reached out to you. I put the picture on your door. I tapped on your window that first time we talked.”
“And who am I, as a father, to turn you away?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re not really going to buy that. As it is, you’re the only one I can risk talking to. The others are too young, they’d definitely say something to their fosters, who’d report me. I am breaking the rules, no doubt. But I am trying to be smart about it.”
Wednesday afternoon, after meeting with his parole officer, Roger drove out to Shadowmoon Middle School. It took him forty-five minutes to get there. Luck was on his side today, and he slid right into an end spot in the faculty parking lot, with a perfect view of the bus lane.
He knew he’d never be able to get a visual on all the kids coming out of the building, but he was certainly hoping to get lucky. He had a system though, pick three buses close together, and look for her. Buses 43, 62, and 74 were the last three in the lineup, giving him the best view he’d had yet, trying to spy at this school. He checked his notes on his phone. Lucky him, they were three he hadn’t watched before.
Fifteen minutes later, the dismissal bell rang and kids started coming out. More and more kids. Not as many as Penny’s high school, but plenty enough that he had to focus, to keep his eyes from wandering. Three minutes went by, four, five, then six. The buses were filling quickly with kids eager to leave school for the day, and no Charlotte. The stream of kids exiting the building slowed to a lingering few at a time. Roger was ready to start the car, in order to leave before he had to wait for the buses to all exit onto the road, but he wanted to be thorough, and this time, he lucked out.
Annabeth’s hair on a shorter body came into view, head down, walking slowly. She looked up to spot the bus steps before stepping up, and he saw her face, plain as day. He’d have known his Charlotte anywhere.
He put 62 with a star next to it in his notes and started the car. Staff were already preparing to direct traffic, so he held his patience. He let the first few buses exit, then backed out, preparing to be first in line to leave, after the buses.
Charlotte’s bus was second from the last in line. It made a left, and so did he. Roger followed at a comfortable distance, letting cars get between them as turns were made. Shoot, this kind of following was easy. Big, yellow bus in full daylight. He could follow it all day and not worry about losing it. Charlotte was being kept in suburbia, oddly shaped blocks, yet orderly. He turned a block early, at one point, to put some distance between them, then hit his next stop sign and waited briefly until he saw the school bus stop at its sign, down the street at the next block. It went straight, and Roger went in pursuit, turning onto the street, just as it stopped to let two girls off, one of them with Annabeth’s hair.
Roger immediately parked and watched.
Charlotte continued to drag her feet, head down, undoubtedly a frown on her face. And the other girl wasn’t doing much better.
Roger watched the girls go into the same house, and waited for the door to close behind them before pulling back onto the road and then slowing briefly to note the address. He drove around and found the entrance into the alley behind the houses and drove down it, to look at the yards.
Charlotte’s yard had a simple swing set in the back, and nothing else. No toys accidently left out, or bikes propped anywhere. Flower beds full of weeds and no flowers.
Roger looked at the time and shook himself out of his thoughts enough to get his bearings and head for home. As it was, he was going to be asked what had taken him so long. He was going to have to stop at a store and buy something along the way, in order to have any kind of believable excuse for Max.
Early Friday morning, while there was no one at the house to account his time to, he drove over to the house Charlotte was staying in, and watched.
Seven o’clock, on the dot, three children emerged from the house. They came out quiet, but as they walked to their bus stop,
they started talking, then smiling, then laughing with one another.
Within moments, a bus stopped, and one of the children got on. The bus left, and Charlotte and the girl he recognized from the other day started jabbering once more.
Seven minutes later, Charlotte’s bus stopped, and the two girls got on.
Roger remained at his parking spot, not knowing what to make of it. Was her sad behavior from two days ago the norm, or was she usually the more carefree child he saw this morning? Did she just have a bad day on Wednesday? Or was something particularly exciting happening today that had her so happy?
He didn’t know which was the true default setting for his little girl, he only knew he wanted to find out. And that was going to take time. Part of him wanted to hang out in the area and watch her leave school again, but if he didn’t show up at Penny’s school, Penny might come looking for him.
Shaking his head at his thoughts, and knowing how awful breaking his routine had ended for him before, he became determined to drive home.
He’d just started his car and was checking his mirrors, to pull out, when he saw a man come out of the house. Roger froze, then tried to look busy with his phone, while keeping an eye on the guy.
He was old enough to be the foster father, and probably was. He wore a polo shirt and khakis. If there were any kind of business logo on the shirt, Roger couldn’t see it.
The guy got into a car, started it up, and backed out.
Roger tilted his head down, while still watching the car.
The car headed in the same direction Roger was pointed in. Roger checked his mirrors, gave it a few seconds, and pulled out to follow.
In Roger’s defense, he’d only wanted to get close enough to get the license plate number, which he did, but then the guy rolled through a stop sign, and that just rubbed Roger the wrong way. Did the guy roll through stop signs when Charlotte was in the car?
Roger decided to follow him. Really, it only took a whooping sixteen minutes before the guy parked around the side of a cell phone business building. Roger swung into a parking spot for the fast food place next door, and had his phone at the ready for when the guy walked up to the front door, and paused to unlock it. Roger got a decent zoomed-in picture of the guy. And since the guy had keys to get in, it meant he worked there. Keys might mean he was actually a manager there.
Chapter Eighteen
One Match, One Flame
"Who's the guy?" Daddy asked, after I got in his car.
I looked back, over my shoulder. "That's my Logie-bear."
"Jesus," he muttered as I turned to him. "Logie-bear?"
I could only smile.
"Please, don't call him that around his friends."
My smile grew wider. "He likes it."
"In front of his friends, he likes it?"
"Yes."
"He can't possibly."
"Except, he does."
"Why?"
"Because it reminds his friends that he has a girlfriend and they usually don't."
"Usually don't? Why not?"
"Seems I'm the only one that's stuck around long enough to come up with a dumb name for any of them."
"And how long have you and what's his name been dating?"
"Logie-bear."
He shook his head, "I'm not calling him that. I can’t do that to a fellow guy."
I gave him a dramatic sigh along with my smile, "His name is Logan."
"Okay, Logan. How long you two been a thing?"
"A year."
He did a double-take before glancing back at the road, "A year?" Poor Daddy sounded like he was choking.
"I don't know what to tell you. We're in almost all the same classes, joined the same clubs. He’s so smart, plus he runs track in the spring and plays football in the fall."
"Tell me you don't cheerlead," he begged.
I scrunched my nose, "Sorry."
“I thought you were a geek?” Clearly, he’d liked the idea of that far better than the thought of my being a cheerleader with a football player boyfriend.
“Sandy and Jake wanted me to do something active, because everything else I do has me sitting in a chair. And, well, I do have all those years of dance classes I attended. It made it easy for me to get on the squad, and they throw in some gymnastics, which makes me like it all the more.”
"So, you guys travel to away games and knowledge bowl tournaments together?"
I knew where he was going with this. "Yep."
He shook his head. "Just, please, be careful," he said, in his begging voice.
"Okay," I said with a cheesy grin.
"Do you even know what I mean by that?"
"Yep."
He eyed me warily.
"Sandy gave Sadie and me the talk, complete with a banana demonstration. Then she put a box of condoms under the bathroom sink. She said she'd promise not to give us any grief, as long as we promised to use them if the need ever came around."
Daddy was making that choking sound again.
"A few months after that, Sadie started taking one out every day, just to see what would happen."
Daddy glanced at me, and I took that to mean he wanted me to continue.
"She emptied the box, and another one appeared the next day. So, she kept grabbing one out a day. The third box made an appearance a couple of days early."
"How big were these boxes?"
"Thirty-six count."
He shook his head.
"She started taking two out a day."
"How long did she keep it up for?"
"Until Jake brought the eighth box up to us and said he was going to start cutting our allowances, to offset the condom budget, if the two of us continued to get more action than he does."
Daddy laughed. "Can't blame the guy for that."
"He knew we weren't really using them."
“So did Sadie give them back?”
"We planned a weekend with Sadie's grandparents and had them come get us, and Brianne, before they got home that Friday. We used three boxes worth to trail a path from the door to their bed. Then dumped three more boxes worth on their bed. Left them a note to have at it."
I'd never heard Daddy laugh quite like he was laughing now. The man had to wipe tears from his eyes.
I waited.
Daddy was down to chuckles, when he suddenly stopped. "Wait a minute."
"There it is," I said with a smile.
"What happened to the other box of condoms?"
"Sadie kept it, just to keep them guessing."
He smiled. "Sounds like you live in a fun house."
I shrugged. "We all get along. We laugh often enough."
"It's okay to be happy. Hell, kid, I want you to be happy."
I couldn't help the frown on my face. "It feels like I'm cheating."
"You absolutely are not. You should take joy when you can get it."
I nodded.
"Does Logan know who I am, and why you disappear with me on Fridays?"
"He does, but no one else. And he's not going to say anything. He gets it. He even gets why you cracked and tried to kill a drunk driver."
"To spare another family what we went through."
I nodded. "Did you see Charlotte and Sophie?"
"Just Charlotte. I can't get away too often through the week with people working long days in my house."
"How was she?"
"Sad on Wednesday afternoon, happy this morning."
"You watched her twice?"
"I had to see if she was sad like that all the time."
"And she wasn't, so, that's good."
"Maybe. I don't like that she doesn't talk to you."
"I'll talk to her some more, see if I can get anything out of her."
He nodded, "Sounds like a plan."
* * * * * * * * * *
Wednesday, the following week, Roger found Charlotte’s bus in the lineup and parked himself in position to watch. He made notes for work while he waited for the final bell.
&n
bsp; It sounded, and pre-adolescents began to spill out through the doors. He watched them disperse, spotting Charlotte’s housemate getting on the bus, looking resigned. Others boarded, giddy, chatting, screeching. He waited, and as the dispersal of kids thinned, out came a dejected-looking Charlotte, dragging her feet to the bus.
She was the last one to board.
He waited in his parking space until all the buses had left the school, before backing out and heading off. He didn’t follow the bus this time, but opted to go straight to the house. He picked his parking spot from a number of on-street parking options, not too many people were home from work quite yet. Close enough to see her, yet far enough away that she’d have to be looking for him, to spot him.
The bus rounded the corner and came to a stop. Off came Charlotte and the other girl, straight from the bus and into the house, their progress slow but sure.
He imagined the girls going in and getting started with homework.
Another bus came along and made three stops along the length of the street, teenagers coming out. The bus stopped in front of the house and the older girl from this morning walked off, indifferent to be coming home, and went inside.
Roger moved the car forward, to just past the house, rolled his passenger side windows down a bit, turned off the car, and shimmied into the back, laying on the floor. His hope was that the open windows of the house would allow him to hear anything truly worthwhile…
Two teens across the street were talking baseball, some other kid kept riding his bike around and around the block, and then there was the girl that was learning to drive. That one wouldn’t drive faster than fifteen miles an hour, around a four-block range, from what Roger could tell. And everyone behind her unfailingly blew their horn at her. That one’s father looked to be hanging onto his patience better than Roger would have, even as Roger mourned the idea that he’d never know the aggravation of teaching his five kids to drive.
Finally, the foster father came home. He parked and went inside the quiet house.
Why weren’t any of the girls outside? Was there some sort of ‘finish all your homework before playing’ rule?
Roger was starting to space out, daydreaming about the app he’d been updating, when he heard a metallic crash come from inside the house, and then muffled male yelling. He couldn’t make out anything that was said, he just knew that no one seemed to protest.
We're All Broken Page 14
