Independence Day

by Amy Frazier

  She stopped suddenly as if she knew she’d stepped over the line.

  Quietly, Chessie rose from the bed, her eyes glittering. “Gabriella, you are grounded until we get some answers…and until I get an apology from you. I’m going to call the hospital to see how Keri’s doing.”

  She brushed past Nick as the first tear rolled down her cheek.

  With one final look at his unrepentant daughter, Nick followed his wife. When had family life become this difficult?

  As soon as her parents had gone downstairs, Isabel slipped into Gabriella’s room. Her sister was a mess, that was for sure.

  “Go away,” Gabby said. “I don’t need any more grief.”

  “I’m not here to give you grief. I thought you might want to talk.”

  “Sure. So you can blab to Mom and Dad.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Isabel sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s just that I know you’d normally turn to Keri.”

  “Oh, Izzy!” Gabriella threw herself on Isabel. “She’s got to be okay! She just has to be!”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. We got separated. When I finally found her in the restroom, she was so out of it. So hot. Like she had a fever.” Gabriella began to cry great gulping sobs as her story spilled out in ragged chunks. “I called 911. Now everyone’s gonna think I got the place raided. But it was Keri I was worried about.”

  “Of course. You couldn’t have done anything else.” Isabel rubbed her sister’s back. “Gabby…how did Keri get the drugs?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think it was her boyfriend. Danny. Danny Aiken. Just before I found Keri, I saw him with some pills in his pocket.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police?”

  “He was the one they busted. Caught him trying to flush the pills down a toilet. I figured they could put two and two together.” Gabriella flung herself on the bed. “I’m already dead meat for calling the cops.”

  “Get a grip!” Isabel pulled her sister upright, looked her in the eyes. “If you haven’t figured it out already, that crowd is trouble.”

  “You don’t understand what it’s like to always be on the outside.”

  “Hello. I moved as many times as you did. I was the new kid, too.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t need people. You stick to yourself and your poetry. You don’t care what people say. Besides, in a year you’ll be away at college and out of here.”

  Isabel flinched. That’s what she’d thought too. Once. Seemed like an eternity ago.

  “God, Izzy, you’re so lucky. You’re getting out just in time, and I’m stuck here.” Gabriella groaned dramatically. “Mom and Dad are going to ruin my life.”

  “Did you ever stop and think you might ruin theirs?”

  Gabriella narrowed her eyes. “If only.”

  “Don’t say what you don’t mean.” Isabel glanced over her shoulder. “Hey, I don’t know where they are right now or what they’re talking about, but I bet you put a bug in Dad’s ear about Mom. He’s not real happy with her lately, and you go and accuse her of setting a bad example.”

  “I said she embarrassed us. I only said the truth. Deny it.”

  Isabel couldn’t, but she needed to get her sister to see the bigger picture. “Well, we don’t need to draw attention to it. What do you want, Gabby? Mom and Dad to split up?”

  Gabriella’s look was hard and cold. “All I can say is my friends who come from divorces don’t have their parents breathing down their necks all the time.”

  “Seeing as how tonight turned out,” Isabel snapped, standing, “maybe you need your parents to breathe down your neck a little harder.”

  “This conversation is over.” Gabriella rolled on her side.

  “Fine.” Frustrated, Isabel stalked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  Her parents’ door was open and a bedside light was on, but no one was there. Pausing on the landing to listen, she could hear them in the kitchen. It didn’t sound as if they were fighting. She went downstairs.

  “Isabel,” Dad said when he saw her in the kitchen doorway. He and Mom were sitting at the table. They looked as if they’d been hit by a bus. “I thought you’d be in bed.”

  “I’m not sleepy. Did you find out anything on Keri?”

  Mom shook her head. “I called the hospital. They only release information to family members. No one’s home across the street, so we still don’t know anything.”

  “We’ll go to the hospital tomorrow,” Dad said. “If she’s still there, she’ll be able to have visitors.”

  Isabel fought back tears. It could have been Gabriella in that hospital. “I love you,” she blurted out.

  “We love you, too,” Dad replied. “Now try to get some sleep.”

  Isabel went upstairs, but she doubted she could even close her eyes. Things were so, so wrong. And she didn’t think she could fix them.

  She went in to her bathroom, closed the door and locked it. After listening for any footsteps, she opened the medicine cabinet and reached for solace.

  CHESSIE STARED at Nick across the kitchen table. “Considering what teenagers face today, how could you think this couldn’t happen to us?”

  “Isabel never acted out.” All traces of the sensuous man she’d parked with at the beach were gone. “I guess I thought we’d found the formula.”

  “There’s no formula. And Isabel isn’t the person Gabriella is.” Chessie frowned. She thought Nick would know this. “Isabel’s always been a loner whereas Gabriella needs people. Needs to belong.”

  “But we’ve talked to both girls about risky behavior.”

  “She wasn’t drinking. You heard Ken say she was clean. So in her mind she wasn’t engaged in risky behavior. She just wanted to be where her friends were.”

  “She could’ve ended up where Keri is.”

  How Chessie knew it. “But she’s not in the hospital. She’s safe. We need to focus on that.”

  “How could she be so reckless?” Nick stood and began to pace.

  “I think we know now that she can be. That she might be again if Keri’s situation doesn’t serve as a wake-up call. We need to keep the lines of communication open.”

  “We need to keep a tighter rein.”

  When she looked at him now, Chessie saw not Nick the father, but the administrator. At school, however, he presided over the same four years of adolescence—different kids, but the same maturation level. At home he couldn’t stop his girls from growing up. And away. It had to hurt him more than her because control was such a part of who he was.

  “We need to be watchful, yes,” she conceded, “but you can’t keep them in a bubble. They need to learn how to face life and its challenges. That’s what you try to teach them in school.”

  “Chessie, our job as parents is to keep our kids safe.”

  “No, Nick. Our job is to help them grow into independent adults.”

  He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.

  “They need more structure.”

  “They need guidance and help in making good choices, yes, but they need opportunities to spread their wings.”

  “Spread their wings? You make it sound as if tonight was no big deal.”

  “God, no! But I’m saying how we handle it is a bigger deal. We need to help Gabriella learn from this mistake.”

  He rounded on her. “They’re teenagers. We’re the adults. Or we should be.”

  “Oh, no.” An awful realization began to dawn on her. “You’re blaming yourself for not being home tonight.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I have a job. We have commitments. We can’t babysit them 24/7.”

  “But you’re thinking we should have come right home after the pops concert.” She stood to face him. “You’re thinking we somehow behaved irresponsibly by driving around the beach and taking a little extra time for ourselves.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Nick?”

  “We have to focus on
the big picture.” He was stern now and unyielding. “We made a commitment to have a family. Until we’ve raised that family, we may have to put some of our needs on the back burner.”

  “I don’t buy that!” Frustrated, she almost didn’t recognize this stern, inflexible man. “We’re parents, yes, but we’re also individuals. Family life is a juggling act. I’m not going to give up being part of a couple to be a parent just as I’m not going to give up being me to be part of a couple.”

  “This week proves that.”

  And then it hit her. He was still upset with her for overturning the marital apple cart. She’d thought tonight at the beach she was beginning to get through to him, but that had just been physical. Any man would go along with the prospect of sex. But she didn’t want just any man. She wanted Nick.

  “Try to put yourself in my shoes,” Nick said, his voice tired. “I found out we really didn’t agree on how we wanted our marriage to unfold, and now I find out we don’t agree on how we want to raise our kids. What’s next?”

  His words hurt Chessie terribly. “We’re both tired. Stressed,” she said at last, trying to break the staring contest they seemed to be having. “I think we should go to bed before either of us says something we don’t mean. Something we’ll regret.”

  “Fine. I’ll check on the girls.”

  As he left the room, she wanted to call out that he was overreacting, but he sincerely believed she’d overreacted in her quest to fine-tune their relationship.

  It seemed they’d reached a stalemate.

  She stayed up until just before dawn, scrubbing the kitchen, replaying over and over again Nick’s last question. What’s next?

  A week ago she’d thought she knew. Had seen a rollicking progression straight toward renewed marital bliss. Now, she didn’t have an answer.

  NICK GOT Isabel and Gabriella up at nine the next morning so they could have breakfast together before all four went to the hospital to check on Keri. The girls weren’t happy about the reveille. Chessie hadn’t come to bed at all. But she was in the very clean kitchen with the table set, cooking pancakes and sausage.

  “I called across the street,” she said, looking up from the stove. “Still nobody home. I don’t like what that might mean.”

  “Don’t go there, Chess. We’ll find out the whole story soon enough. And find out what we can do to help.”

  She looked so worried, he wanted to comfort her. But sometime last night, they’d lost the intimacy necessary for comfort. He hadn’t figured out how to get it back.

  “Why did you get us up so early?” Rubbing her head, Gabriella entered the kitchen behind him. “I have a headache.”

  “Late nights will do that to you,” Chessie replied briskly, serving up breakfast. “Where’s Isabel?”

  “Hey, I’m not her keeper,” Gabriella groused, reaching for a sausage.

  Nick wrapped his hand around his daughter’s wrist. “Now that’s where you’re wrong. We’re a family. We look out for one another.”

  “I’m here,” Isabel said from the doorway. It was a warm and humid morning, but she was dressed in cargo pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt.

  Chessie eyed the outfit. “It’s supposed to get in the high eighties today,” she remarked as she placed orange juice at Isabel’s place.

  “It’ll be air-conditioned at the hospital.” Ducking her head, Isabel sipped at her juice.

  They ate in awkward silence, which persisted on the ride to the hospital. Visiting hours had begun when they arrived, and the volunteer behind the desk told them there were no restrictions for visiting Keri.

  “A good sign,” Chessie said as they headed for the elevator.

  When the doors slid open, Gabriella balked. “I’m feeling kinda sick. Maybe I should see her another time.”

  Chessie drew Gabriella to one side. “I can wait down here with you. Dad and Isabel can give us an update. Then—”

  “No,” Nick cut in. Gabriella needed to see the consequences of last night. Chessie shouldn’t baby her. “We’re all going up.”

  Chessie looked as if she disagreed with his decision, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she urged Gabriella into the waiting elevator. The stiff set of his wife’s shoulders told him loud and clear the issue was up for discussion later when they were alone. So what else was new? Lately, he said black, she said white.

  On the fourth floor, they found Keri’s room. Her door was open, but they hesitated in the hall before entering. Her back to the door, Martha sat by her daughter’s bed. Keri looked so frail, hooked up to an IV and lying stiffly under a white sheet. Her eyes were open, but she didn’t look at her mother.

  Good God, that could have been his daughter.

  “Martha,” he said quietly, entering the room first. “How are you? Both of you.”

  Turning to look at them, Martha began to tremble. “Get out,” she said, her voice unusually harsh.

  “We just wanted to know how Keri was doing. What we could do.”

  “Keri’s going to be fine, no thanks to you. You’ve done enough.” As Martha spoke, Keri turned her head toward the window, closed her eyes.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Why am I not surprised Gabriella didn’t tell you?”

  “Ken Nadick filled us in. He brought Gabriella home.”

  “Keri would be home now, too, if it wasn’t for your daughter’s bright idea.” She looked hard at Gabriella who hung back in the doorway.

  “From what I understand,” Nick said cautiously, “this was a group idea. A very bad idea. Gabriella’s grounded for her part in it.”

  “Her part in it? She was the ringleader. Keri told us everything. How Gabriella thought up the idea. How she convinced Baylee and Margot to go along. How Keri didn’t want to do it, but Gabriella threatened not to be her friend anymore.” Martha cast a withering glance at Nick. “You of all people should know how dangerous peer pressure can be.”

  “We’re sorry,” Chessie said, her arms around Gabriella and Isabel.

  “Well, sorry doesn’t cut it.” Martha turned her back on them. “Now leave.”

  “Come on, girls.” As Chessie urged them toward the hall, Nick could see the devastation in all three faces. After all, this was a friendship disintegrating.

  Leaving the room behind his family, he saw George, still in uniform, coming down the hallway. “I’ll meet you in the car,” he said to Chessie, then waited for his neighbor.

  George stopped reluctantly. “This isn’t a good idea,” he said.

  “We’re leaving,” Nick replied. “But I need to know the score. What happened to Keri?”

  “Someone put something in her soft drink.”

  “What?”

  “We won’t know till the blood work comes back. Maybe not then. They’re keeping her for observation. I insisted.”

  “I’m sorry.” Nick hesitated. “Martha seems to blame Gabriella.”

  “Keri told us everything. Considering how it played out for her, I don’t see why she’d lie now.”

  Nick had seen more than one kid lie to the bitter end and more than one parent in denial. “I’ll get to the bottom of it,” he offered.

  “You need to. With your daughter, I mean. In our lines of work, we both know how easy it is for a kid to get into trouble. And slide into more trouble if they’re not straightened out.”

  “I thought the six of us could sit down and work it out. When Keri gets home, of course.”

  “Sorry. Martha and I have worked it out already. Keri’s going to private school this fall. She won’t be hanging around with Gabriella.”

  Stunned, Nick watched the man he’d counted a friend walk into his daughter’s hospital room and shut the door.

  WHEN DAD PULLED the car in to their driveway, Gabriella opened the door before he’d come to a complete stop.

  “Don’t go off the property,” he warned. “Remember you’re grounded.”

  As if she could forget.

  She ran around the barn to where th
e back gardens met the marsh. There was an enormous cranberry bush that had grown so large it completely sheltered a granite boulder. Gabriella pushed through the tangle of branches to reach the rock. Once hidden inside, she let herself cry.

  Keri hadn’t even looked at her. And she’d lied. Big time.

  Dad had said she was grounded until she told him the names of the guys who’d gotten the fake ID and where Keri could have gotten the drugs. She couldn’t tell her father what she knew. He had too much power. As principal of her school, he could make life miserable for anybody. Not that she wanted to be friends with Danny or Kurt. They were jerks. But if kids thought she was a snitch to her father, she’d be cut so fast it would make her head spin.

  As it was, Dad said Keri was going to private school next fall. Keri. The only real friend Gabriella had made since moving to Pritchard’s Neck. And what kind of a friend had she turned out to be if she could stab her in the back to protect her own rep with her parents?

  Now Gabriella was headed to high school with no friends, her father for principal, a mother who wouldn’t act her age, and a dorky senior sister who was leaving for college in a year anyway.

  So where did she fit in? Either in school or in her family?

  For the first time in her life, Gabriella felt absolutely alone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  CELL PHONE IN HAND and pottery class roster in front of her, Chessie sat at the kitchen table late Monday morning and felt a deep empathy for George Washington at Valley Forge. Her revolution had hit the skids, too.

  Nick had barely spoken a dozen words to her in the past twenty-four hours. Gabriella was supposed to be helping Isabel pick up, vacuum and dust the downstairs, but she’d done far more complaining than cleaning. And the fully enrolled pottery class Chessie was supposed to have taught this morning? Only half those enrolled had shown up, all of them summer residents. As Chessie had gone down the list, phoning those who hadn’t shown, she’d been treated to a lot of chilly excuses. When she came to the bottom and Martha Weiss’s name, it dawned on her. Martha had originally spearheaded a movement to pack the class with her considerable circle of friends and acquaintances. Now that Martha was no longer speaking to them, it appeared her friends weren’t either.