by M. E. Carter
“Did you just threaten him with a wooden spoon?”
My lips quirk to the side. “Yeah, one time when he was eight, I spanked him with a wooden spoon, and he hated it. I have threatened hundreds of times, but I’ve never once had to follow through since then. It’s the one thing that seemed to make an impression, so I try to use it only in extreme circumstances.”
Ace belly laughs, and I don’t understand how he can find humor in all this. Normally I can see the funny side of things, but this is too much.
“If I had known it was as easy as that, I would’ve been threatening with a spoon too. Especially if I don’t have to follow through.”
I smile at him, my arms crossed, knowing there is more seriousness to be addressed.
“What happens now?” I’m not sure what I’m asking. Or maybe I’m asking about it all—Oli’s enrollment in the program or Pedro and Brittany.
Or us.
My brain is trying really hard to wrap around all of this, but it’s a lot to process at once.
Ace loses his smile and looks at me. I know I’m not going to like his answer. “I don’t know. Mrs. Johnson shuffled the kids out of here before the ambulance came, so I haven’t had a chance to talk to her. I think we’re going to need to sit down and discuss things before we know where to go from here.”
I nod and clear my throat from the lump that’s formed. I guess it stands to reason that the number one question on his mind is whether or not my son is too much of a danger to be here. I don’t know what I’ll do if Oli is kicked out of this program. It’s the first time he’s seemed to have found purpose. It’s the first time he’s been excited about going to school and doing manual labor and learning a skill.
But I don’t tell Ace all that. It wouldn’t be fair to him to try and cloud his decision-making process. Instead I blink back the tears trying to form and say, “I understand. Let me know what you guys decide. I’m assuming he’s suspended for the next couple days at least.”
“I don’t know that either. That would be Mrs. Johnson’s call. But I assume she’ll reach out to you within the next couple hours to discuss the immediate plan.”
“Mom!” Oli yells from the car. “Mom, I’m ready to go!’
I close my eyes and shake my head, frustrated that my son created all this chaos and yet he still can’t see past his own boredom.
I’m so angry. I’m so tired from being his mom. I’m so tired of feeling guilty for feeling this way. He’s not like this on purpose, but that doesn’t change how exhausted I am and how defeated I feel. What am I going to do?
“I better go.” As I start to pass Ace, he grabs my arm, stopping me.
A single tear slides down my cheek. I wipe it away, embarrassed that it’s there at all.
“Greer, none of this is a reflection of you as a mom.”
I nod, even though it’s hard to believe him in this moment. “That doesn’t change that I still have to deal with the situation this time. And next time. And every other time he defies the people in charge. This is every day of my life.”
Ace looks back and forth between my eyes, trying to find the answers to something, but I don’t know what. Finally, he nods once and lets me go.
Climbing into my car, I back out and drive away.
“I just wanted to pet the horse,” Oli says again. “I didn’t mean for anybody to get hurt.”
Those simple words from my simple child are my undoing. That’s when the dam breaks and the tears come flooding out.
I cry the entire twenty-minute drive home while Oli pats my arm trying to comfort me, still not understanding he’s the reason I’m crying in the first place.
I didn’t sleep worth a shit last night, too busy reliving the day’s events in my mind. Not just Pedro’s injury. As horrible as it was, it comes with the territory of breaking a wild horse. Granted, it wouldn’t have happened if Oli hadn’t been where he shouldn’t have been. But it could have easily been a dog that spooked her or, hell, someone’s hat blowing by.
No, the vision that keeps haunting me is the look on Greer’s face before she left. The defeat that was plain as day. Just looking in her eyes, I suddenly understood all those fears she talked about the other night. Whereas before, I could play her concerns off as an exaggeration because she hasn’t found the right man yet, but now I get it. Now I know why she has never bothered trying to bring anyone else into her fold. Because she’s right.
Single moms have to put up with shit all the time, but to have a child with a disability and a conduct disorder at that, makes it that much harder. She can’t trust that anyone would want to be a part of her life because it will always be hard. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. What her life with Oli is now, will be her life forever.
What Greer doesn’t understand, though, is I think she’s worth a shot.
Pulling up to her house, I see her car in the driveway. Good. I didn’t tell her I was coming, so I’m glad she’s home. I don’t want to wait to talk to her. I have too much to say.
Grabbing the flowers from the passenger seat, I hop out of my truck and set my plan in motion.
Her expression when she swings open the door isn’t surprising. I know she wasn’t expecting me. She’s dressed in sweats, hair up on top of her head, and not a stitch of makeup on that I can see. I like seeing her like this.
“Ace.” It’s not a question about why I’m here. More like a statement making sure she’s not seeing things.
“Hi, Greer. Can I come in?”
She hesitates momentarily before snapping out of her thoughts. “Oh! Yeah. Sure. Come in. Um, can I get you something to drink?” she offers, closing the door behind us.
“I’m good, thanks. These are for you.” Handing her the flowers, she brings them to her nose and inhales.
“How did you know I’d like purple daisies?”
“I saw you admiring the field when the wild purple flowers were blooming. They reminded me of that day. You were beautiful, staring off into the horizon, your hair blowing in the breeze.”
“Ace,” she whispers, and I know she wants me to stop. I know she doesn’t trust I’m man enough to handle anything Oli can give, which is exactly why she needs to let me show her.
So I stop divvying out compliments and decide to give her what she really needs—truth.
“Can we sit?” I gesture to the couch, and she nods.
It doesn’t go unnoticed by me that she puts distance between us in the form of an entire couch cushion’s worth of space. Placing the flowers on the table in front of her, she turns her body toward me. “Oli’s out of the program, isn’t he?”
I can’t stop myself from moving forward and taking her hand in mine. “No, Greer, he’s not.”
Her eyes snap up to mine, and I can see disbelief written all over her face. “What?”
“Oli isn’t the first kid to disobey, and he sure won’t be the last. Yes, he broke some trust, and for that, he’s going to lose some privileges, but he is exactly the kind of kid we started this program for. He has a shot at learning life skills that will help him become independent and productive. We’re not gonna throw in the towel at the first major incident.”
The tears are flowing freely down her face now. “But Pedro could’ve been killed.”
She’s right. But I wave her off anyway. “Pedro’s got nothing but a concussion and some wounded pride.”
A laugh bursts out of her through the tears, and I like that some of her anxieties are being relieved.
“There’s more.” She takes a deep breath before nodding for me to go on. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversation we had the other night at the dance hall, and in light of recent events, I think I understand.”
She looks at me quizzically but doesn’t interrupt.
“I understand why you don’t trust that anyone would want to be part of your life, because it’s hard and it always will be.”
“Ace.” She quietly turns away, but I reach over, cupping her chin and turn
ing her back to me. I want her to hear what I have to say. To really focus on what I mean.
“Greer, just let me say my piece, okay?”
She nods again, and I know I only have one chance to get this right. “My baby brother was a late-in-life baby. Almost immediately, my mama knew something wasn’t right. Even when she was first pregnant. But she didn’t care. She wasn’t planning on another baby, but there he was, and she was going to embrace the challenge. She and my daddy both.
“When he was born, he was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome. And that made not one bit of difference to her. It made not one bit of difference to my father and made not one bit of difference to me. My mama and my daddy agreed they were going to take it one day at a time. Do the best they could and trust it would all work out.
“When my daddy passed suddenly, I came back home because somebody had to run the farm. That fell to me. I couldn’t let it fall apart. I didn’t necessarily want to come back, but I knew I needed to. But it was more than that. I knew, we all knew, at some point John’s care would fall to me. And that’s when Mama and I came up with the idea to do the co-op side of All Hands Farm.
“Since that time, we’ve built up the facility to teach skills to kids like John, like Oli, so they would have a place to go. A place to belong.”
I turn to face her, our knees touching, and grab her hands.
“I know I’m not biting off more than I can chew by dating you. The lifetime care of my brother fell to me when my mama died. I know what that felt like. It put everything else on hold. I knew my life would never be my own, but what choice did I have? I could either grow to resent the situation, or I could find the joy in the hand I’d been dealt. That’s when I decided to continue building the farm. To branch out into other areas like a little bit of breeding and letting Pedro break in some horses.”
“He really does do that anyway?”
I chuckle, because of all the things I’ve just said, she’s still most concerned with Pedro’s safety over her own happiness. “Yes, baby. He does it all the time. Breaking horses is part of his job. This particular mare is proving to be a little more difficult.”
“Oh.” She sniffles and rubs her sleeve-covered hand over her eye, grimacing when some mascara ends up on her shirt. There’s some under her eyes too, but I don’t care. She’s beautiful to me.
“Greer, there is no better person in the world to date than me, because I get it. I get that raising Oli is a lifelong thing. It doesn’t scare me away. If anything, it makes me feel like fate intervened with us. Who else is going to understand his issues more than I do? Who else is going to be able to help you better than I will? I don’t know what the future holds for us. This thing between us is still new. But I would like to see you more. And I don’t want you to hold back because you’re afraid Oli is going to do something to scare me away. He’s not going to make me change my mind. I’ve already been where you are, so I know exactly what I’m getting into.”
A stray tear falls down her cheek, and I wipe it away.
“We could last forever. But if we don’t, it’s going to be because we aren’t meant to be. No other reason. But I’d really like to see if we’re meant to be. If that’s okay with you.”
She nods, and I hold myself back from hooting and hollering like my best friend would be doing right about now.
“I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t treat Oli like he’s different, ya know?” I nod because I do know. We used to get the stares and whispers. “But you treat him like he’s just a person. Like he’s important and special.”
“He is important and special. Just like Julie is. And just like you.”
When she looks up at me with her big brown eyes, I realize how close we’ve gotten since the conversation started. I glance down as she licks her lips, and I realize what perfect timing really is.
Leaning in a few more inches, I capture her sweet lips with mine. Our kiss is slow and deliberate. Nothing rushed or hormone fueled. Just two people getting to know the feel of each other, the taste of each other, the scent of each other. Breathing each other in so deep, there’s no way we’ll be able to untangle from each other again.
We pull apart, foreheads still touching and smile at each other.
“I hate that Pedro was right.” She crinkles her brow in confusion. “He said I needed to stop being gentlemanly and kiss you already.”
She laughs out loud. “Pedro was right.” Her giggles are cut short when I take her lips back in mine.
We kiss for what feels like hours, never doing anything more than that. There’s no need. There’s no rush.
I already know this is the beginning of something amazing.
One by one, I gently place my feet on the basement stairs, cringing every time one creaks. Despite my pounding heart and the fear that I’m feeling, whatever, or whoever is down here, will be facing the aluminum end of the bat clutched tightly in my fist when I find him.
As soon as I make it to the bottom of the stairs the door flings open and…
“Ah!” I jump out of my office chair and scream when my phone rings. Grabbing it, I don’t recognize the number which just freaks me out more. “WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” I yell into the receiver.
The female voice on the other end remains calm. “Uh, it’s Joie and what I want is my ear drum back now that you blew it out of my head screaming.”
Clutching my chest to try and calm my racing heart, I collapse back into my hair. “Ohmygod. I’m so sorry, Joie. You scared me.”
“Really. I hadn’t noticed.” Unsurprisingly, I sense sarcasm in her tone. “What are you doing that caused you to react like that to a phone call?”
Dropping my head on the desk, I continue trying to get my breathing under control. I recognize the ridiculousness of the situation. I’m never going to hear the end of it once she tells Jack about it. “I’m working.”
“Uh huh. I’m guessing there’s more to it than that.”
Scrunching my nose, I fess up to my less than stellar idea. “I picked up a new client who writes thrillers. And, well, I don’t do scary.”
“What do you mean you don’t do scary? How scary is scary?”
I begin ticking it all off on my fingers. “All the lights are on, all the blinds are open, it’s the middle of the day, I’m currently listening to Jingle Bell Rock and I still screamed when my phone rang.”
“Oh my. That is bad,” she says, not even trying to hide how hard she’s laughing. “Why did you agree to do this if you knew you were going to be scared?”
Because I’m an idiot, I think to myself. “Because I had to turn down a few jobs when we moved so I wanted to get back on track.”
“Greer.” Joie’s tone turns motherly. “If you’re struggling to make ends meet, you need to let us know. Jack and I can help out while you get settled.”
I smile, even though she can’t see me. “I appreciate the offer, but I promise we’re doing okay financially. I just meant I need to keep my name out there and making sure the community knows I’m active with my business. The second these Indie authors think you’re no longer working, they find someone else to do the job instead.”
“That’s good to know. But the offer still stands any time.”
“And I appreciate it.” Swiveling in my chair, I relax into the seat and lean back to look at the ceiling, resting my shoulders. “Anyway, what’s going on with you guys? I assume this is a pleasure call?”
She giggles and I can only imagine where her brain has gone—the same place mine did the second she started laughing. It’s an industry hazard when you edit romance books. You end up with the humor of a twelve-year-old boy. Oli was one just a few years ago and his giggles used to come at the same types of conversations.
Joie finally clears her throat and suppresses her laughter. “That depends on what you choose to do with my offer.”
I crinkly my brow. “Your offer? You have my full attention.”
“The Vikings have a home game this we
ekend. I would love to take Oli and Julie to the game on Saturday and then they could spend the night with Jack and me. Maybe go to a movie Sunday afternoon before bringing them home that evening.”
Sitting up in my chair, the idea of having a little bit of freedom for a whole twenty-four hours makes me really excited. It’s been, gosh, I don’t even know how long since I’ve had that much time away from the kids. Not that I don’t love them and love being around them, but I could use some time to not be in supervisor mode. I could take a nap. Or see a movie. Or work.
Scratch that. I’m not working during a momcation. The possibilities feel endless.
Still, years of feeling like I’m being judged for my parenting abilities make it hard to let go. “Are you sure you want to? You know how Oli can get and I…well, I can never guarantee he’ll be on his best behavior.”
“I know. We both know. But I’ve been reading up on de-escalation techniques and Jack will be there.”
“But during the game—”
“—Jack will be just a couple rows away if it comes down to it. But I don’t think it will.”
I bite my lip and try to tamp down my own personal insecurities. I’m here in Flinton for a reason… to be closer to my brother and have a small support system. I need to take advantage of the opportunity for Oli’s sake, but also for my own.
“They would love that,” I quickly respond before I change my mind. “But make sure you lock up all your electronics that night. Oli’s, uh… well, he’s struggling with sticky fingers again.”
“Again?” she asks and I know she’s not being judgmental, just a concerned almost-aunt.
“Yeah. He’s struggled with it before. Dumb things like picking up a cell phone if he sees it and hiding away to download games. We usually have it pretty under control but I think maybe he has some anxiety from me dating, or left over from moving or something. I never really know what triggers his setbacks, just try to push through them.”
I hold my breath, waiting for her to change her mind about having the kids visit, but I shouldn’t underestimate her. “Well, that’ll be easy. I have a small fire proof safe in my closet for important papers. I’ll just store everything in there for the night.”
