by Grace Palmer
Saying a quick goodbye to Lola, Mae turned around, keeping a hand on Dominic’s back as he gave a wide berth to the old woman who had finally found her copy of the book.
He picked his way back through the crowd, moving quickly. He didn’t slow down until they were far from the hum and excitement of the movie set.
“There’s pizza right here,” Dominic said, head still lowered. “We could get a box to go. Take it back to the house?”
The idea of making it all this way just to carry a pizza box back to the house made Mae want to throw a temper tantrum.
She wanted the excitement of the movie set. She wanted to see the cameras swiveling around, taking in the scenery of her island.
But she didn’t want to see Dominic in obvious distress. No matter how little sense his discomfort made to her.
So she nodded. “Okay. Whatever you want.”
Moving faster than he had in weeks, Dominic ordered a box of supreme pizza to go and carried it quietly back to the car.
On the drive, before they even made it back to Howard Street, the thoughts Mae had been running from began to return. As though her anxieties were prying little fingers, stretching out to poke her wherever she was.
For a minute, she’d left her worries behind. She’d been able to set aside the resurfaced pain of Christopher’s loss. Been able to stop imagining what it would be like if she had five children instead of four.
Now, however, it was all back. Dominic could run from his problems, it seemed. But Mae couldn’t run from hers.
She had to live with them.
22
Holly
Nantucket Nature Center
Pete was sitting in his car in the front office parking lot when Holly arrived.
There were open spaces in front of the Nature Center building, but he parked under the cover of a large elm at the far corner of the lot. With the dreary day and the extra coverage of the tree, Holly almost hadn’t seen him at all.
For a moment, she flashed back to meeting Pete in dark corners of the park when they were teenagers. They never did anything too scandalous—just talking and kissing until a security guard came patrolling through or another car pulled in nearby. Then, rebellious spirits quenched, Pete would squeal out of their secluded meeting location and drive Holly home.
That was exciting.
This was… less so.
True, her heart was still pounding like it did back then. But with bad nerves and nausea and a throat tight from anxiety.
When Holly pulled into the space next to him, Pete got out of his car and hopped into her passenger seat, pulling the door shut behind him.
“What’s going on?” he asked, voice almost a whisper.
Holly frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know!” He threw his hands up. “You sent me a vague text message. I didn’t want to park in front of the doors and have someone from the office come out and ask me what I was doing. Because I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Grady got in a fight.” She turned off the car. “He hit the kid who hit him last week. The same kid who has been bullying him.”
“Grady has been being bullied?”
“Oh, so he didn’t tell you either? Wonderful.” Holly rolled her eyes and climbed out of the car, too frustrated to stay seated. Pete got after her and she continued talking to him over the roof of the car. “I talked to your cousin on my way out the door, and apparently, Grady told him kids have been making fun of him.”
Pete ran a hand through his short hair, sending some of the strands sticking up at odd angles. “He just told me it was a dumb fight. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”
“Well, according to Rob, Grady has been getting bullied. And like the stunning male role model he is, Rob told Grady to stand up for himself.”
“That’s not terrible advice.”
Holly raised her brows and threw her arms out wide, gesturing to where they were standing. “We are about to walk into a meeting with the camp director and the other kid’s parents because our son hit someone. Are you telling me this was a good idea?”
“No!” Pete smoothed down the hair he’d mussed before. “No, I’m not saying that. Only that, if Grady had come to me, I would have told him to stand up for himself. Not to fight!” he added hastily before Holly could say anything. “I wouldn’t have suggested he fight anyone, but I would have suggested he let the other kids know he wasn’t going to be bothered by their bullying anymore. It sounds like that’s what Rob told Grady, and Grady took it the wrong way.”
Part of Holly—a small part, but a part nonetheless—wanted to give Rob the benefit of the doubt the same way Pete could. But she’d seen Rob and Grady together on the front porch. She’d seen Rob’s hand cocked back in a fist, demonstrating to Grady exactly what he should do.
She wanted to believe the best in Rob, but she no longer had that luxury. She knew who the bad influence in her son’s life was.
But there was no time to explain it to Pete right now. Not when Grady was sitting inside by himself.
Even if he was in trouble—even if he was the aggressor, a word that still made her retch—Holly just wanted to pull her little boy close and kiss the top of his head.
“There’s no sense arguing about this right now. We should go inside.” Without another word, Holly turned on her heel and marched inside.
Pete jogged to catch up to her, and they walked through the front doors together.
The inside of the office smelled like damp wood and dirt. It was obviously a nature center front office, but Holly didn’t understand why it had to smell like nature.
The woman behind the front desk—Miranda, according to her name plate—stood up. She had on tan pants with an olive green button-down tucked in. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. “Are you Grady’s parents?”
“We are. Usually, that’s a good thing. Today, not so much.” Pete laughed nervously, and Miranda gave him a tight smile.
Holly wanted to swat him. She knew he was only teasing, but joking was the last thing she felt like doing. If Grady overheard that, he’d be crushed.
“Everyone is waiting for you in the conference room. Follow me.”
Miranda’s hiking boots looked new, like she’d never walked through dirt a day in her life. She either took very good care of them or her job didn’t extend much beyond the front office.
They turned left down a hallway that looked more like a wood-paneled cave and then opened a door on the right. There were windows set into the wall, but only a faint bit of light peeked out between the wooden blinds. The mood was somber, downtrodden. Which felt appropriate, really.
“Here you are.”
The first thing Holly saw was Grady sitting at a long conference table.
He had his hands folded in his lap, his head hanging low. The office chair he sat in seemed to swallow him up. He was barely tall enough to see over the table.
“Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin, hello.”
A wide, squat man with thick gray scruff on his face and very little hair on his head stood up. He had the same tan pants and green shirt as Miranda, but his was covered in patches and badges.
“I’m Dennis Baker, the camp director. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
The man held out his hand for a shake, which Pete stepped forward to take. Holly, instead, hurried around the table to sit next to Grady.
She laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Only then did Grady look up and meet her eyes. His were shiny with unshed tears. Cheeks red with shame.
There were no new cuts or bruises, Holly noticed. And no blood. Was that better or worse? Holly wasn’t sure which just yet.
“You okay?” Holly whispered.
Grady’s lip quivered and he nodded, casting his gaze right back to his lap.
“Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin, meet Mr. and Mrs. Monroe. And their son, Elijah,” Mr. Baker said, dropping back down into his chair. It squealed under his sudden weight.
For the first time, Holly registered the people sitting on the other side of the table. She’d been so worried about Grady, she’d blown right past them.
Even sitting down, Holly could tell the man was tall. He had a full head of dark hair with gray at his temples. He wore a navy-blue pocket tee shirt and an expensive gold watch on his wrist. As she looked up, he lifted the hand wearing the watch into a curt wave.
His wife didn’t budge. She studied Holly and Pete like they were specimens on display. And she didn’t seem to like what she saw.
She had on a bright blue wrap dress with a thin string of pearls around her neck and a matching set in her ears. Unlike Holly’s rat’s nest of a ponytail, the other mom’s hair was brushed and shaped into a perfect wave, complete with a gold bar clip above her right ear.
Her makeup, too, was perfect. Holly could tell she had a lot of it on, but everything from her coral pink lips to the gold shimmer on her eyes was red-carpet flawless. Whatever event she’d come from must have been important.
Mrs. Monroe nudged her husband’s elbow, and he looked over at her and then understood all at once what she meant.
He turned to the camp director. “Could we move this along? I’m afraid we have to get back to set. We’ve waited long enough.”
Holly wanted to point out that they must have gotten the phone call first. When Miranda had called Holly, she’d told her the other boy’s parents were already there. Busy though they may be, the Monroes certainly couldn’t blame their wait on her and Pete.
“Set?” Pete asked. “Are you two working with the movie?”
“You could say that,” Mrs. Monroe said, pursing her lips in a cheerless smile.
“My wife is the co-star of the film, and I’m the casting director,” Mr. Monroe explained.
It wasn’t quite nepotism. But something about that struck Holly as distasteful.
Mrs. Monroe draped a delicate arm around her son’s shoulders. Holly took in Elijah for the first time. He had an ice pack pressed to his cheek, but when he pulled it away for a second, Holly didn’t see anything.
No scratches, no broken skin, no bruising. Definitely not a split lip and blood running down his nose.
Why did this require a parent meeting, but Grady’s actual injuries hadn’t?
“Of course,” Mr. Baker said, folding his hands in front of his face. “As you both know, there was an incident last week between Grady and Elijah. A disagreement that got out of hand. We handled it internally and both boys assured us the problem would be resolved. However, today, we can all see the problem was not resolved. There was a fight. Both boys have admitted that Grady hit Elijah—haven’t you, boys?”
Elijah nodded quickly. A second later, Grady nodded, too.
“What about the fight last week?” Holly asked, leaning forward. “The one where Grady came home with a bloody nose and a split lip?”
“Holly...” Pete said her name softly under his breath. A warning.
Holly ignored him. “I don’t remember getting a phone call about that disagreement.” She just barely resisted the urge to use air quotes.
The camp director leaned back in his chair like he was taken aback by Holly’s outburst. The man dealt with children all day—big fish in a baby pond. He wasn’t used to anyone biting back.
“As I said, we believed we could handle the matter internally. It isn’t uncommon for children to argue, so we have methods to deescalate and resolve conflicts. We had every reason to believe the issue had been dealt with,” Mr. Baker said.
“Of course,” Pete agreed. “We understand. Kids will be kids, right?” He smiled across the table at the Monroes.
But if Pete hoped to find allies over there, he was mistaken. They met him with matching icy stares.
“They are kids,” Holly agreed. “Which is why I should have gotten a call to warn me Grady was attacked.”
“Attacked?” Mrs. Monroe seethed under her breath. When Holly looked over, the actress rolled her eyes.
Holly felt her own eyes narrow to slits. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like this—buzzing with adrenaline and frustration. “Mama Bear Mode,” Pete always joked.
“What would you call it, Mrs. Monroe?” Holly pressed. “I’d call a bloody nose and split lip more than a ‘disagreement.’”
“I’d call this more than a disagreement, too,” the woman said, pointing to her son. The boy had lowered the ice pack, but he quickly lifted it back to his cheek when attention turned to him.
“Okay, fine,” Holly conceded, biting her tongue about Elijah’s lack of any visible injuries. “But why does my son get sent home bloodied with no explanation, but your son gets an all-hands meeting?”
Pete laid a hand on her shoulder. “It has been a tough week for us,” he explained, trying to soften the blow of Holly’s anger. “What my wife is trying to say is that we want to get to the bottom of this as much as anyone here.”
“We’re at the bottom of it,” Mr. Monroe rumbled. “Your son hit our son. What more is there to discuss?”
Grady sunk down in his chair. There was no telling what was said before Holly and Pete arrived. What these people may have said to him or in front of him while he was alone and defenseless.
Holly should have been called immediately. She should have been in this room before anyone sat down.
This was all so wrong.
“After your son hit ours!” Holly barked back.
Pete held up his hands. “All we are saying is that, if we’d been notified last week, we could have worked to prevent what happened today.”
“Well, you’re being notified now,” Mr. Monroe snarled.
Mrs. Monroe nodded along with her husband. “Yes. We’re only going to be here for a couple weeks, and we want our son to be safe while we’re here. If your son can’t handle this environment, maybe you should keep him home.”
Holly couldn’t stand the way Elijah kept glancing over at Grady. He looked just like his parents. Maybe the smugness was genetic.
“And who told you Grady was being a bully?” she asked. “Was it your son? Because something tells me he might not be telling you the whole story.”
“Are you calling Elijah a liar?” Mrs. Monroe asked, rising up in her chair.
“Parents, parents,” Mr. Baker said, standing up and waving his arms. “This is getting out of hand. We called this meeting today so everyone could be informed of the problem and solutions could be made. There is no need to cast blame.”
“Feels like plenty of blame has been cast already!” Holly slammed her hand on the table, her palm stinging.
Immediately, Pete grabbed her hand and squeezed. Outwardly, it looked like a comforting gesture, but Holly felt like she’d been put in cuffs.
“I think now that we all know what is going on, we can be sure this doesn’t happen again in the future,” Pete said, his mouth stretching into an unnatural smile as he looked around the table. “Tensions are high, but it’s only because we all love our children. I see that as a good thing. It means we all want to resolve this issue.”
In the entire span of their marriage, Holly had never been so fed up with Pete’s sunshiny demeanor. She wanted to grab him by the shirt collar, shake him, and scream at the top of her lungs.
These people are selfish! They don’t want solutions; they want retaliation! There is no silver lining, the glass is not half-full, and the only thing I want to do with lemons is throw them at this arrogant woman’s face.
It took all her willpower to swallow all that down.
“Agreed, Mr. Goodwin,” the camp director said, drumming his fist on the table like he was calling a court into recess. “I expect you will all speak to your boys about their behavior and we won’t have this issue moving forward. If we do, harsher punishments will be doled out.”
“The brochure mentioned a zero-tolerance policy for violence,” Mr. Monroe added with a half-shrug.
The director lifted a finger in Mr. Monroe’s direction like he’d made a fa
ir point. “In the past, immediate expulsion from camp has occurred in serious enough situations. It all depends on the situation.”
“Like if the child being hurt has movie star parents or not,” Holly mumbled.
Pete hurried to cover Holly’s remark, thanking everyone for coming and then scooting Grady out of his chair and usher him towards the door. He didn’t so much as glance up at her. Like she was a landmine and she’d explode if even he looked at her wrong.
Outside, the sun had started to peek through the clouds. The sound of children yelling and laughing filtered through the trees, and Grady turned his head towards the noise. Like maybe he’d see his real friends if he looked hard enough.
It broke Holly’s heart.
“It’s all right, buddy,” she said, smoothing a hand down the back of his neck and tucking the tag of his shirt into his collar. “We’ll talk about this later, but I know this wasn’t all your fault.”
It was Elijah’s fault.
It was Rob’s fault.
And while she was assigning fault, Mr. and Mrs. Monroe could take some, too. Heck, she might heap a spoonful on Dominic’s plate, just for getting the ball rolling on everything that led to this.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, pulling ahead and kicking at a pebble with his shoe.
There was a snort behind her. Holly looked back to see the actress herself standing in the lot, arms crossed, staring at her.
“Excuse me?” Holly asked. “You have something to say?”
Mrs. Monroe smiled, though there was nothing nice about the expression. Her husband’s face looked equally grim. “No. I only find it interesting that you’re so quick to let your son off the hook.”
“Come on, bud. Let’s get in the car.” Pete rushed Grady away and got him into the car. Holly heard the engine start behind her, and then Pete reappeared at her shoulder.
“I told him it wasn’t all his fault,” Holly clarified. “It takes two to tango.”
Mrs. Monroe snorted again. “Grady doesn’t have a scratch on him.”
Pete stiffened. “Maybe we should all go. Cool off. Talk about this later.”
