Montana Hero

by Debra Salonen

  “Write down your feelings, son. Paint your anger with big red magic markers. Create a song and dance it away,” she’d said in that tense, serious tone she used when she thought he was going to snap.

  Mom was weird.

  He didn’t know how she kept smiling, going to work every day, helping him with his homework, worrying about him instead of thinking about the death sentence hanging over her head.

  “Everyone dies, honey,” she’d told him when she sat him down to explain about his grandmother’s disease. “Grandma’s sickness affects her brain, specifically, her memory. Doctors don’t know how to fix it.”

  “Will I get it, too?” Brady had asked. He knew how germs were passed, which was why he washed his hands a hundred times more than other people in his class.

  “More than likely not, but I can’t say for certain.”

  “Will you get it?” Sometimes people inherited stuff from their parents, he knew. Like skin color and tongues that could curl.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Someday. The odds are I will, which means I have to make the absolute most of my time while I have all my senses. I plan to fill my days with fabulous memories and try to do something meaningful…on a smaller level. Grandiose is so not my style.”

  She’d always talked to him like that. Big words. Complete sentences. Complex theories that made him think. He’d been tested often enough to know he had a very high IQ. Smarts weren’t the problem. Everything else was. The people stuff. The be-nice-to-idiots part really got to him.

  He’d heard the other kids talking about him. “Brady is smart, but he’s not very nice.”

  Even though he didn’t care about what most of the people in his classroom thought, there was one whose opinion mattered. A girl named Chloe Zabrinski.

  *

  Kat felt every set of curious eyes burning into the navy blue windbreaker she’d grabbed by mistake on her way out the door. The letters SAR, in bright yellow, made it hard to slip into the Marietta Elementary Principal’s Office, unnoticed.

  Oh, Brady, why now?

  She’d tried homeschooling briefly in San Antonio, before she realized she wasn’t cut out for the job. As much as she’d loved working with her son’s rich, fertile mind, she’d constantly felt inadequate and worried that she was short-changing him in terms of socialization and interaction with his peers. So far, he’d appeared to be fitting in well into the Marietta School system. As well as could be expected, anyway.

  Maybe that’s why the phone call from the school telling her Brady had been in a fight hit her so hard. No pun intended. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath. “Here we go again.”

  The outer office door stood open. She knew the drill: sign in and take a seat—just like in a doctor’s office. Doctor. The word reminded her of Flynn’s text that came in right before she left.

  Taking possible broken ankle 2 ER.

  Was this his friend or had he stumbled across another accident? Why didn’t Dispatch get the call? Is my gung-ho new boss recruiting victims?

  She tried not to fidget as she waited on the hard, molded plastic chair.

  I am open and receptive and good things come to me.

  Mom taught Kat that mantra when Kat was in high school. At the time, Mom and Lloyd had signed up for a meditation and yoga class at a nearby Junior College. Kat hadn’t understood why until years later when Lloyd mentioned that Mom had read somewhere that yoga and meditation were good for the mind. Even then, Mom had glommed on to any hope to slow the progress of her disease.

  “Mrs. Robinson?”

  Kat removed her jacket before following the principal into an inner office. The woman opened another door leading to a separate cubicle and motioned for Brady to join them.

  Kat drew him into a one-arm hug and kissed the top of his head. Her boy was getting so tall. “Are you okay?” she asked, gently touching the swelling on his upper lip.

  He nodded, his gaze on the principal who waited in the doorway of her office.

  Kat noticed he stuffed his right hand into the pocket of his jacket before trudging ahead of her to face his punishment.

  The principal filled in the details. “One of Brady’s classmates shared some unfortunate news this morning. His parents are getting a divorce and he will be moving to Florida in a few weeks. When the young man’s friends tried to console him, Brady walked up to them and said something inappropriate.”

  “What did you say, honey?”

  “I said, ‘Cool’.”

  His tone conveyed frustration. She knew he truly didn’t understand how anyone could take offense to his response. “I like Florida. Remember when we drove along the highway and saw gators? I thought he might feel better if he knew it was a neat place to live.”

  Kat’s heart swelled and she fought back tears. Logical. Her son seemed to channel Mr. Spock at times. “It was nice of you to want to help, Brady. But, I take it, the other kids didn’t understand.”

  His chin dropped and he shook his head. She’d learned over the years that other people’s responses left him more perplexed than upset. To have him react physically meant something else was going on, too. “Did they tease you, honey? Say mean things?”

  “Chloe called me ‘heartless’.”

  Chloe? She’d never heard him mention the name, but she’d noticed the word doodled in the margin of one of his notebooks. She’d assumed the two were working together on an assignment.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. That must have hurt your feelings.” A thought struck. She looked at the principal. “That’s not who he fought, is it?” A girl?

  “No,” the principal said. “The boy who is moving instigated the fight. Here’s the note.”

  She leaned across the desk to pass Kat a tattered piece of lined paper. Kat tried her best not to smile when she read the neatly printed corrections in her son’s handwriting. Kat couldn’t look at Brady for fear she’d burst out laughing. Bad mother.

  More sternly than necessary, she asked, “What’s his punishment?”

  “We have a zero fighting policy. Two days mandatory suspension for both combatants. I believe Brady’s teacher has prepared a packet of homework. Brady will be able to Skype with the class during writing and math, if he wishes.” She gave Brady a no-nonsense look. “Audio only. He won’t be allowed to participate. If he has questions, he can email them to his teacher.”

  Brady was ahead of his class in both subjects so Kat wasn’t worried about him missing something important. She did fear what this would mean to his relationship with the other students. “Will he be a pariah, now?”

  “I’m glad you asked that. As a matter of fact, Serena James, the school’s new auditory therapist, has some ideas on how to help students resolve issues. Ms. James is waiting for you. She’s already spoken with the other boy and his parents. I believe the entire class can learn from this.”

  Kat let out a sigh of excess tension and stood. Her phone, which she’d silenced as per the big sign in the waiting room, hummed in the zipper pocket of her uniform pants. She ignored it to shake hands with the principal. “Thank you. I appreciate your efforts to turn this into a positive. Brady hasn’t been that lucky in other schools. I really want him to make friends and be happy here.”

  “As do we,” the principal said. She looked at Brady. “Do you know where Ms. James’s room is, Brady?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Overly polite. Playing the game.

  “Good. Lead the way for your mother. And I want you to use the next two days to think about how you can avoid this kind of behavior in the future, young man.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Same exact inflection.

  Kat hurried her son out of the room before the woman figured out Brady wasn’t listening to a word she said. Once they were alone in the hallway, Kat paused to look him straight in the eyes. His gaze bounced like the silly jumping beans that grossed her out so much at the street fairs in San Antonio. Finally, he took a breath and looked at her.


  “Does your lip hurt?”

  “A little.”

  “Did you hit him back?”

  “Once.” He held up his hand. As she suspected, his knuckles looked scraped up. “He had his mouth open. His teeth got me.”

  “We’ll clean the wound and put an antibiotic ointment on the broken skin as soon as we get home.”

  “I washed my hands, Mom. I’m not stupid.”

  In an elementary school’s public bathroom. And you probably forgot the soap.

  “It’s a mom-thing. Humor me.”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and led the way down the shadowy hallway. She’d gone to school in the South mainly. Her buildings had been lighter and brighter. But she liked the vibrant posters incorporating the school colors.

  The room they arrived at was very small, more like a big storage room, but the woman behind the old metal desk more than made up for the size with her exuberant personality.

  “Ah-ha, pugilist number two,” she said, jumping to her feet.

  She marched toward them, hand extended. “I’m Serena James. So nice to meet you both—even under less than ideal conditions. Are you ready to make lemonade—figuratively speaking? I am.” She smacked her lips and ushered them into the room.

  Kat liked her immediately. Her name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it…until she spotted a framed photo on the desk. A holiday shot of Serena James in a gorgeous white dress standing in the embrace of a man whose image she’d seen many times in the newspaper: Austen Zabrinski.

  A thought Kat fought to ignore wiggled past her guard as she stared at the man’s movie-star handsome profile: He could be my half-brother.

  Chapter Five

  ‡

  At the sound of the doorbell, Kat checked her watch. Five-fifteen. She felt like her day should have been over hours ago.

  She put a lid on the pot of chili she’d thrown together after Brady’s session with Serena James. Kat liked her a great deal, but Serena’s unguarded comments about “Austen this”, “Mia that”, and “Paul and Bailey’s new baby” made Kat’s head feel ready to explode.

  She had no intention of approaching the Zabrinski family with her unproven theory. The thought made her a little ill. She could picture what would happen if she dropped the “bastard” bomb in the center of this close-knit, extremely religious family.

  “No. Not happening,” she muttered, wiping her hands on a towel as she checked on Brady on the way to the door.

  Their two-bedroom apartment included a small alcove the rental agent called a study. Since neither she nor Brady were into television, she’d turned the area into a library, with a hodgepodge of bookshelves she’d bought at yard sales and spray-painted bright, some might say “garish” colors. Brady occupied his giant beanbag, headphones in place and iPad in hand.

  He hadn’t said much since their meeting with the principal and Ms. James. She knew from experience he needed time to fit all the pieces of what happened in a composite that made sense to him. Tomorrow or the next day, he’d probably hand her a drawing or a poem or short story that summarized this experience for him.

  Then, they’d talk.

  She checked the peephole and her pulse sped up as she quickly opened the door.

  “Hi. What are you doing here?” she asked her boss.

  Flynn held up her bulky winter jacket—the one she’d meant to grab on her way out of the office and the cloth tote she often joked carried her life. “If I’m hit by a car on the way home from work, promise you’ll bury this with me. No peeking,” she’d told her co-workers from Day One.

  “Rebecca was going to deliver these on her way home, but her husband’s car broke down north of town. Since your place is on my way…”

  His smile looked a little uncomfortable.

  She understood. They were still feeling their way as boss and employee, and privacy issues were on everyone’s mind these days after Ken Morrison’s Peeping Tom habits came to light.

  The reminder sent a shiver down her spine. She was tempted to grab her things from his hands and close the door, but the old-fashioned ringtone emanating from his pocket made her hesitate. She took her jacket to free up his hand to answer the call.

  He turned slightly and held out her bag, which she knew from lugging the stupid thing around every day wasn’t that light. Talk about a brick you-know-what, she thought. She was used to being around cops and SAR volunteers, but very few took physical training as seriously as this guy.

  Flynn was solid muscle. A very nice sort of big.

  “Flynn here. Yes. Sorry I missed your call earlier. Are we still on? Great. Ten minutes, then. I have the address.”

  He pocketed the phone. Only a few inches separated them. His fresh, outdoorsy scent mixed with that certain man smell sent her olfactory senses on high alert. It had been a long time since she’d been held in a man-woman way. Too long. But he wasn’t the right man and she definitely wasn’t the right woman.

  She stepped back and nearly tripped when the sole of her sloppy boot caught on the entry rug. “Damn. I took these from my mom’s stuff, and she was half a size bigger than me. If I break my neck, feel free to remind me that I tend to go cheap at the wrong times.”

  His smile did that light-up-the-hallway thing. She refused to credit him with lighting up the whole room. And now that she knew he had another appointment she didn’t have to worry about whether or not to invite him in.

  “Thanks for delivering these. I appreciate it. I’m sorry I had to ask for time off your first week on the job, but I plan to use the time to work on grant applications. Does that sound okay?” Since Flynn hadn’t returned to the office when Kat called to request the rest of the week off, she’d needed to ask Rebecca to convey the message or have him call her back if he had any questions.

  He nodded. “It’s a great idea. Rebecca said you needed to be home with your son. Is he ill? You don’t have to work if he needs you.”

  She weighed the balance of TMI and honesty. For some reason, the latter felt like the right choice with him. She’d never spoken of Brady in front of Ken. Never. “Brady got in a fight at school today. They have a zero tolerance policy…as they should. He was given a two-day suspension, but Friday is a teacher in-service day, so my week is pretty well shot. Sorry.”

  “Not a problem. We can video conference if anything comes up or you have questions about the application process.” He looked over her shoulder as if checking out her apartment. “Nice place. I’m meeting with a realtor who has a house she wants to show me.” He made a waffling motion with his hand. “I’m on the fence about buying. Ryker’s thinking house; I’m leaning toward a condo. A house means yard work, right?”

  She tried not to react, but she knew by the look on his face that she’d failed. “This place is good, but I miss my house so much. Even the yard work. Brady and I had a big garden in San Antonio. He learned about nature and the cycles of life and science…” She sighed. “I’d be looking for houses, too, if I knew for sure we were going to stay here.”

  Did I just say that?

  “You might move?”

  “No. I mean. I’m not planning on it, but…I rented my house when I left to move up here. I’ll have to go back to sell it before I can afford to buy another.”

  Before he could answer, his phone jingled again. He glanced at the screen. “Tucker. I left him at the Graff knocked out on pain killers.”

  “He broke his ankle?”

  “Jury’s still out on that. Possibly a bad sprain.”

  It rang again.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  “I’ll call him back from the car.” He hesitated. “Listen, if this is inappropriate, feel free to say so. But, Tucker is being a big baby about this sore foot. I told him I’d pick up pizza and beer and deliver it to his room at the Graff Hotel. I don’t suppose you and your son would consider joining us, would you? Maybe play some cards or a quick board game or something? Tucker will drive me crazy if I’m ther
e with him alone. He’s used to entertaining crowds.”

  She didn’t know what that meant but before she could say no, a small body wiggled past her and answered, “I want to go. I like pizza better than chili.”

  As if that was reason enough.

  Maybe it was.

  *

  Flynn jogged to the guest parking lot of the apartment complex ahead of his two guests to make room in the back seat of his truck for a third passenger. He hadn’t completely unloaded his belongings into the storage unit he’d rented upon arrival in Marietta because he still wasn’t sure what he needed with him at work.

  He moved his backpack to a sitting position and used the seatbelt to hold it upright. Everything else he crammed into the floor area and under the seat: extra boots, snowshoes, a water jug and his winter survival kit. Then he hurried to the driver’s side to get in and turn on the engine. Vehicles cooled off fast in this climate.

  He called Tucker to give him an ETA.

  “Hey, sorry I couldn’t take your call a minute ago. What’s up?”

  “Bring beer. Preferably a microbrew. Not the kind in the red or blue cans.”

  Flynn shook his head. Arguing about beer meant his pal was in less pain. “Are you supposed to drink alcohol with the pain killers they gave you?”

  “Codeine with aspirin is like baby aspirin on steroids. No big deal.”

  “I think you’re wrong. But since I don’t want you to break the bank by depleting the minibar, we’ll bring some.”

  “You’re a good friend, Flynn. A bossy one, but…wait. Did you say we?”

  “I was dropping off something for a member of my team when you called. Since she’s taking a couple of personal days this week and we have a few more things to discuss—including how to find the money to fund a program that lets me take at-risk kids to your adventure course and zip line—I invited her and her son to join us.”