by Brenda Novak
“Um, ran into a small wrinkle there.”
“What happened?” Her voice was much clearer now. The surprise had woken her up.
“Ace is a little upset.”
“Why?”
“Apparently, he found an old journal inside your box of pictures.”
“A journal?”
“Yep.”
She went quiet. Then she said, “Oh. My. God.”
“Yeah.”
“He read it?”
“He did.” Mack didn’t add that he’d read it aloud to him, as well.
“And? Did it get ugly between you?”
“Not too bad, but he says he wants nothing more to do with you or Lucas.”
This declaration was met with silence. After she’d had a chance to process it, she said, “He doesn’t want to wait until we find out for sure?”
“He was upset, didn’t seem concerned with proof. He may come back later and demand it, but we should have the results by then.”
“I should’ve burned that journal,” she said, so low he could barely hear her.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said. “You’ve been through a lot. You’re physically and emotionally exhausted.”
“Yeah, I am,” she admitted. “And as nice as you’ve always been to me, I wish I’d never met you.”
She disconnected and Mack let his head fall onto the steering wheel. He couldn’t believe this had to happen, especially before Natasha could get back on her feet and feel strong enough to take another blow.
He started the engine and was about to head back to Silver Springs. But he couldn’t let Ace keep Natasha’s pictures. Once they were lost, they’d be gone for good. And she already had such a meager endowment from her childhood.
Putting the truck back in Park, he released his seat belt and got out. As far as he was concerned, Natasha and Lucas would both be better off without Ace. The dude could get the hell out of their lives if he wanted to, but he wasn’t going to hang on to Natasha’s belongings just to spite her.
As Mack stalked up the walkway, he saw the curtain move in the front window. Ace had been watching him. Good. Now he could open up and hand over her stuff, or Mack would bang on the door until he did. “Listen, I know you’re pissed off,” he called through the panel. “Maybe you have a right to be. What’s happened hasn’t been good for any of us, and I’m sorry if I’m to blame. But I can promise you that Natasha has never tried to hurt anyone. She’s not that kind of person. When she married you, she must’ve loved you and believed Lucas belonged to you. So give me her things, and after I take a paternity test, I’ll let you know the results. Fair enough?”
The door shuddered beneath a violent blow. “You can go to hell!” Ace shouted.
“The two of you are divorced,” Mack reasoned. “You have no right to keep her pictures. You have no use for them.”
“I’m going to burn them,” he announced. “That’s what I’m going to do, because it’s what she deserves.”
“No, you’re not,” Mack said. “There’s no way I’ll ever let you get away with that. So just give them to me and I’ll go.”
Another male voice entered the fray, someone they’d apparently disturbed with their argument: “Shut up! What’s going on? I’m trying to sleep!”
“It’s nothing,” Ace called back. “Mind your own damn business!”
“Hey, help me out here,” Mack shouted. “Ace has his ex-wife’s baby pictures, and I’m here to get them. That’s it. Once he gives me those, I’ll be gone and you can go back to sleep without all the racket.”
“I’m about to call the police,” the man threatened.
“There’s no reason to get the police involved,” Mack responded. “Just hand me her things.”
“Get the hell off my property!” Ace shouted.
“I’m not leaving until I get those pictures,” Mack said. “Go ahead and call the cops, do whatever you’ve got to do, but you’re going to have a problem with me as long as you try to hang on to Natasha’s things.”
The door flew open and a much larger man than Ace—larger than Mack, too—loomed in the opening. “Get the hell out of here!” he growled.
Mack felt his hands curl into fists. “Sorry, I can’t do that. I’m not going, which leaves you two choices—you can try to make me, or go ahead and call the cops.”
The guy glared at him before turning to Ace. “Are you being a spiteful little bitch? Do you have some of your ex-wife’s pictures?”
An argument ensued between them, but right in the middle of it, the guy must’ve realized that what Mack wanted was by the door, because he shoved a small box into Mack’s chest. “Here, these look like what you want. Take ’em and get out of here,” he said and slammed the door.
Mack quickly dug through what he’d been given. Sure enough, it was photographs of Anya and Natasha when Natasha was young, a painting she’d done as a child, her birth certificate, a small jewelry box he and his brothers had once given her for Christmas and a few other things. The journal Ace had read wasn’t in there. He must’ve set it somewhere else, somewhere his roommate didn’t notice, but Mack supposed he was lucky to have gotten as much as he did.
Deciding to accept the compromise, he carried the items he’d recovered back to the car. I have most of your stuff, he texted to Natasha, but he didn’t get a response.
* * *
Natasha woke up before Lucas, pulled on a light dressing robe and went down to see if Mack had gotten home. She’d been so upset about Ace finding her journal and reading what she’d written that she’d never expected to be able to fall back to sleep last night, certainly not before Mack arrived. She did toss and turn and stew for a while, but she’d been so exhausted that she’d eventually drifted off in spite of that. Relocating had taken all of her energy. And she’d been through so much with Ace—over the past year, in particular—she was growing immune to the upset. This was just more of the same.
Except for what it might mean for Lucas. She felt terrible for her son. Had she not kept that journal, and the paternity test Mack was about to take came back negative, Ace would never have had to know there was a possibility that he wasn’t the father. Now he’d try to punish her for what she’d done with Mack, try to paint it as a betrayal when it was really just a case of bad timing. Even then, it wasn’t as if she’d tried to trap him. He’d been the one who’d wanted to get married. He’d pressed her for months until, after Lucas was born, she’d finally relented.
Mack was asleep on the couch. Despite what she’d said to him last night, she was relieved to see that he was safe—and that he had returned in spite of her harsh words.
With a sigh, she raked her fingernails through her hair and went back upstairs to the bathroom. She had to shower and go over to New Horizons. Last night when she’d emailed Aiyana Buchanon to thank her for sending the dinner from Da Nonna, Aiyana had asked her to stop by the school this morning, take a quick tour and check out the nurse’s office to see if she was going to need any supplies that Aiyana could order before she started, and she’d agreed. Since she’d interviewed via Zoom, and had never actually visited New Horizons, she was looking forward to seeing the campus.
The hot water pounding down on her sore muscles felt so good it was difficult to get out. The old house had its problems, but water pressure wasn’t one of them.
She’d just finished putting on her makeup and drying her hair, which took forever because it was so thick, when Lucas stumbled into the bathroom.
“Where’re you going, Mommy?” he asked, still half-asleep as he squinted up at her.
She crouched to give him a hug. “To work.”
“What about me?”
“My boss would like to meet you, so I’m taking you with me. Go potty while I make breakfast. Then I’ll lay out your clothes.”
“Can I stay here with U
ncle Mack?”
“No. Uncle Mack was up late. We need to let him get some rest.”
“But...will he still be here when we get back?”
After what she’d said to him, Natasha wasn’t sure. As much as she understood she’d be better off, in some ways, if he left, there was a part of her that dreaded the moment he drove off.
Damn her traitorous heart.
“I think so.”
“You don’t know?”
Last night Lucas had asked, over and over again, when Mack would be back. She knew he wasn’t going to be happy when Mack went away and felt as though she needed to prepare him for that moment. “No, I don’t know, and we can’t put any pressure on Mack, okay? He won’t be staying long. You need to remember that and not get too attached.”
Leaving him in the bathroom, she went to put on her red dress, which she paired with a white belt and heeled sandals. She stared at herself in the mirror, discouraged to see how the dress hung on her. It used to fit so nicely. But she didn’t have time to worry about how skinny she was getting.
After pulling her hair back, she squirted on some perfume and went down to make pancakes. That was when she found the small box containing her pictures sitting on the counter.
Apparently, Mack had been able to reclaim her memorabilia after all. The journal wasn’t there, but as she sifted through the photographs she would’ve lost without him, she couldn’t help regretting what she’d said on the phone last night. There was no reason he’d had to take her in when she was younger, no reason for him to provide the money she’d needed to get ready for college, no reason to stay in touch to keep her from feeling too lost and homesick that first year, no reason to come to LA to help her move or reclaim her pictures.
But he’d done all of those things.
Damn it. He always did this to her—made it impossible for her to hate him.
“Can I have strawberries on my pancake?” Lucas asked.
“We don’t have any strawberries. How about peanut butter?”
“Okay.”
Mack woke up at eight thirty, just as they were getting ready to leave. “What’s going on?”
“I have to meet my boss and take a tour of the school.”
“You can leave Lucas here with me, if you want. I can watch him.”
She thought of the paternity test he’d said he’d bought last night and felt a frisson of fear. What would it mean if Lucas was his? “No, that’s okay. Aiyana told me I could bring him, that she’d like to meet him.” She grabbed her purse and started digging through it for her keys.
“My truck’s parked behind your car. Just take it.” He got up and grabbed his fob off the counter and tossed it to her.
“Okay. Thank you.” She gestured at the box filled with her pictures. “How’d you manage that?”
He scrubbed a hand over his beard growth. “I just insisted on it.”
She lowered her voice. “And you left Ace in one piece?”
He glanced at Lucas. “Of course I did.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
She grabbed Lucas’s hand to lead him out, but as soon as they’d descended the porch steps, she turned around and led her son right back inside. “Mack?”
He’d opened the refrigerator. At the sound of his name, he closed the door so they could see each other. “Yeah?”
She felt an unnerving wave of tenderness as she looked at him and tried to convince herself it was just gratitude. “I’m sorry.”
He studied her for several seconds before he responded with, “So am I.”
Seven
The wrought iron arch over the entrance to the school read New Horizons and reminded Natasha of the arches she’d seen at the entrance of various cattle ranches.
“Where are we going?” Lucas asked as she turned in.
“To my work,” she replied, even though she’d already told him that two or three times.
“You work here?”
“Now I do.”
“This is where you take care of sick babies?”
“Not babies but bigger kids.”
“Like me?”
“A little older than you. The students here range in age from middle school to high school.”
“Oh.” They watched a boy’s PE class play basketball as they drove by. The turnoff for the administration building, marked with a black-and-tan sign, came halfway around the loop that circled the entire campus.
“Will I go here when I get bigger?” Lucas asked.
Because she knew it was a school for troubled teens, Natasha said, “I hope not.”
It wasn’t difficult to find a parking space. Although the school was open year-round, half their students went home for the summer. Aiyana had said that now would be a great time to start because the school wasn’t running at full capacity, which would give Natasha a chance to ease into her job before things got busy in the fall.
After she helped Lucas out of his car seat, Natasha hitched her purse up higher on her shoulder and led him inside, where they found a short, stout woman seated at a desk behind the front counter. “I’m here to see Aiyana Buchanon,” Natasha explained when the woman looked up.
“Oh, you must be Dr. Gray.”
“Yes, and this is my son, Lucas.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.” The placard on the desk gave her name, but she volunteered it anyway. “I’m Betty May. I’ve been here at the school almost since it opened.”
“Looks like a great place to work.”
“It is—because of Aiyana and the way she runs it.” She winked. “Let me tell her you’re here.”
Expecting to wait a few minutes, Natasha was about to take a seat in the reception area when Betty returned. “She’s ready for you. Right this way,” she said and gestured toward the corner office.
Aiyana didn’t look much different than she had on the screen of Natasha’s laptop—except that Natasha could now ascertain her height. Barely five-one or five-two, she was diminutive, with skin the color of café au lait and long black hair she wore in a braid down her back. With her kind eyes and warm smile, she was easy to like. “I’m glad you’re here,” she exclaimed as she came around the desk. The bangle bracelets on her wrist clanged together as she reached out to take Natasha’s hand, which she clasped in both her own. “Welcome.”
“That dinner you sent over last night was something special,” Natasha told her. “Thank you again for that. It was such a nice surprise.”
“No one makes Italian food quite like Da Nonna’s,” she said, and her long skirt puddled on the carpet as she squatted down to address Lucas. “And who is this handsome young man?”
Lucas could be shy with strangers, especially when directly addressed by an adult, but he showed no signs of that with Aiyana. “I’m Lucas.”
“Lucas!” Aiyana repeated. “What a nice name. How old are you, Lucas?”
“Six.”
“Will you be starting first grade or second grade in the fall?”
“First.”
“He has a late birthday,” Natasha explained. “He missed the cutoff and had to wait until he was six to start kindergarten.”
“It’s probably better for him to be on the older side than the younger side anyway,” she remarked and returned to her desk to get a ring of keys out of her top drawer. “Let me show you your office. Then I’ll take you around campus.”
“I’ve been looking forward to seeing it all.”
Aiyana made Natasha feel right at home. As difficult as everything else had been recently, being around someone like her felt almost like falling into a mother’s embrace—the kind of mother Natasha had always wished she had. Aiyana had such a way with people that Natasha couldn’t help being grateful she’d answered Aiyana’s ad for a medical professional, even
if she was overqualified. At least she’d found a soft place to land. Maybe here she’d be able to pull her life back together.
Her office wasn’t large, but it was sufficient—about what she’d expected—and Natasha was surprised to find it well stocked. “Looks like I’ll have everything I need.”
“If not, all you have to do is ask,” Aiyana said.
“Thank you.” As she closed the cabinets and drawers, a poster that hung on one wall—the picture of a louse, magnified to such a degree it looked like a monster from a science fiction film—caught Natasha’s eye. She’d had head lice in second grade. She’d scratched her head so hard and so often her teacher had finally sent her to the school nurse. Without Nurse Seamus shampooing her hair with the expensive medicated shampoo and painstakingly picking out all the nits even a fine-tooth comb couldn’t strip off her hair shafts, she might’ve become even more of a pariah. She’d already been largely ignored, as if she didn’t matter or have anything to offer, because she couldn’t come to school on time, in clean clothes or even with a lunch.
Following her gaze, Aiyana said, “If you don’t like that, feel free to take it down. This is your office. You can personalize it any way you’d like.”
“Thank you. I think I will take it down.” She could put up rules about sharing hairbrushes and touching another student’s hair without scaring those who found themselves in the same situation she’d been in at seven. Had she seen that magnified louse back then, it would’ve given her nightmares to think she had such vicious-looking creatures crawling around in her hair.
The rest of the buildings and landscaping were clean and well maintained. She knew from what Aiyana had told her during their interview that, although New Horizons was a private school, it did receive some public funding. Aiyana worked closely with both the foster care system and the court system to try to provide a safe environment for teenagers who hadn’t received the proper love and care at home and were acting out because of it. She’d started the school with just the boys’ side before expanding to include a separate girls’ side a few years ago, and she’d adopted eight of her students—mostly grown men now. Her youngest would be leaving for college this fall.
