A Sweetbrook Family (You, Me & the Kids)

by DeStefano, Anna

  There was a pause, then she added, “Yeah, I won’t be able to get away until Sunday. But I’ll be in the office first thing Monday morning.”

  Heat rushed through Becky. She’d known from the start her mom couldn’t stay in Sweetbrook, that she had to get back to work so she could earn her promotion. That had to be their priority, now that they were on their own. But that didn’t stop the sucky feelings that took over each time her mom’s job yanked her away.

  When were they going to have a normal family weekend, one without cell phones and laptops ruining everything?

  There was nothing normal about Becky’s family anymore. She didn’t want her dad back, but she didn’t want her mom working all the time, either. She stared down at the pages of her math book, at the homework problems she still hadn’t finished. Long division problems. Endless columns of numbers and carrying and bringing things down.

  Division was the worst. She knew how to do it the short way in her head. She could work out most of the problems without even using her pencil. But Mrs. Cole wanted to see her work, and by the time Becky got halfway through one of the problems that took half a piece of paper to finish, she was so confused she had to go back and start over.

  With a growl, she crumpled her paper into a ball and threw it at the kitchen wall. The soft whoof it made on contact angered her even more. She gripped the edges of the math book, heard her mom still talking to her assistant in the bedroom, then sent the book hurtling across the room, too. It hit the wall with a satisfying crash.

  The bedroom door swished open.

  “Are you okay?” her mom asked, the stupid cell phone still growing out of her ear.

  Becky rolled her eyes. She’d been trying to make it clear for months now that she wasn’t okay. She didn’t know how to be okay anymore. Everything was changing. Everything was out of control, and she felt more stupid and invisible by the day. Like maybe when she wasn’t around, things were easier for everyone.

  She shoved herself out of the chair and trudged over to her book. The spine, which had been hanging on by a thread, was completely messed up now, and there was a small tear in the wallpaper. Standing with her broken book in her hands, next to the damage she’d done to her grandmother’s wall—damage she knew Grandma Gwen didn’t have the money to have fixed—she stared at her mother and dared her to close herself back in the bedroom.

  “We’ll have to finish this up later, Jacquie.” Her mom looked from Becky’s latest screw-up to the so-what frown she’d plastered on her face. “I have something important to take care of here.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “SO YOU SEE, HONEY…” Amy smoothed open the homework her daughter had crumpled into a ball. They’d been sitting at the kitchen table, with her talking and Becky listening in obstinate silence, for over fifteen minutes. “A lot of the crummy feelings you’ve been dealing with at school may be because you’re having trouble focusing on certain kinds of work.”

  Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to start this conversation when Becky was so angry. But after the SST meeting, Amy thought she understood some of the frustration underlying her daughter’s temper tantrums, and she had to show Becky that she was more important than work could ever be. So she’d changed out of her city clothes into one of the comfortable, outdated outfits hanging in her childhood closet, then she’d sat herself and her daughter down to talk.

  “You mean I’m stupid, right? There’s a news flash.” Becky hugged her arms tighter around her middle, speaking for the first time since Amy began describing ADD.

  Gwen looked up from pulling a meat loaf out of the oven.

  “No, you’re not stupid.” Amy scooted her chair closer. Becky had a right to be angry. But Amy wouldn’t allow her daughter the deception of downplaying her intelligence. She knew firsthand the damage that kind of nonsense could reap. “Both Mrs. Cole and Mr. Fletcher made a point of saying how bright you are, how high your standardized test scores are. It seems a lot of kids with ADD tend to be very intelligent. It’s not about being smart. It’s about the difficulties you’re having in the classroom—why you have trouble following directions and keeping up with the other kids. It’s about how confusing school seems to have gotten for you lately.”

  “So this lets you off the hook, is that it? I have ADD, I’m hopeless, so your job here is done? I’m surprised you’re not heading back to Atlanta tonight. Why wait until Sunday?”

  “Becky, whether you have ADD or not, it’s not hopeless.” Amy grabbed her daughter’s hand and refused to let it go when Becky tried to pull away. “Once we know a little more about what’s causing you the most trouble, there are any number of ways we can get you the help you need. We can make things better.”

  She had to be able to make something better for her daughter.

  “We can work through this,” she insisted. “School doesn’t have to keep being such a hard place for you.”

  “We?” Becky stopped trying to free her hand from Amy’s grasp. Her entire body stilled. “How are we going to do anything? You’re leaving on Sunday.”

  “We’ll figure it out, honey.” Amy watched Gwen walk over and pat her granddaughter’s shoulder. “I wanted to talk with you about it tonight. Then I’ll get back with Principal White before I leave and let him know where we want to go from here. Our first decision is whether you should stay in Sweetbrook for the testing you need, or if you should come back to Atlanta with me.”

  “You mean you want me back home?” The light flickering in Becky’s eyes pierced Amy’s heart.

  “Honey, I’ve wanted you home from the moment I left you here with Grandma Gwen.” She rubbed the smooth skin on the back of her daughter’s fingers, remembering the days when Becky had been a baby and Amy had had the luxury of holding her daughter in her arms morning, noon and night. Back when she could smooth away tears with a simple kiss. “I want you with me every day, all day long. But you have to work with me here. We need to figure out where you’ll get the help you need the quickest.”

  “You mean I get to decide?”

  “You get to be a big part of the decision,” Amy corrected.

  Her daughter needed to start believing she had some control over her life in school. Over her world in general. A need Amy understood far too well.

  “Then I want to go home.” Becky’s expressive features prepared for battle.

  “What about the support system you have here?” Amy used her business voice, counting on her daughter to engage the maturity that lurked just below the surface of her adolescent single-mindedness. “You have a principal, a teacher and a school counselor on your side, just waiting to help you. That’s what the meeting was about today. All we have to do is give them the word, and they’re ready to go. In Atlanta, we’ll be starting over, enrolling you in a new school, finding a therapist to do the testing you need, then working with a new school administration on whatever strategies are recommended.”

  “You mean it’ll be more work for you—”

  “I mean, it will take more time before we can get you help, honey.” Amy fought back her own frustration with the lousy choices facing them. “Here in Sweetbrook, you’ll have people helping you left and right, starting now. You won’t have to spend hours in after-school care because I’m working, or get used to a new teacher and new classmates. You tell me—which is going to be better for you?”

  Gwen squeezed Amy’s shoulder, then stepped back to the stove. “Why don’t we have some dinner. It’s a
fter six, and I’m meeting some friends for a seven-o’clock movie. There’s plenty of time for you two to work things out later, once everyone’s calmed down and eaten a little something.”

  Becky pushed herself away from the table and headed for the bedroom she was sharing with her mom. “I’m not hungry.”

  The soft sound of her door closing was far worse on Amy’s nerves than if her daughter had slammed it off its hinges again.

  “Tell me what to do, Mama.” Amy squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her fingers to the lids. She had notes to review from the Kramer call, which had gone extremely well. But work was the last thing she could face right now.

  Josh was right. She was in way over her head.

  “Becky’s so angry,” Amy murmured.

  “She’s so you.” Gwen waited for her to make eye contact. “You’re both scared, and neither one of you knows how to depend on the other anymore.”

  “Depend on her?” Amy did a double take. She picked at the ancient place mats Gwen always set out for dinner. “Becky’s my daughter. She’s supposed to be depending on me.”

  “Maybe.” Her mom stirred the canned corn she was heating on the stove. “But I think you’re on the right track, letting her be in on the decision for handling her problems at school. It’ll help her feel more a part of the process, once she gets over being angry about not going home with you on Sunday.”

  “I had no idea, Mama.” The shaking started somewhere in the vicinity of Amy’s shoulders, spreading down her arms to her hands as she covered her face. Tears had never been her thing, but it was getting harder to hold them back. “She’s my child, and I had no idea she was struggling so much in school. It’s no wonder she won’t talk with me about it.”

  Gwen took the seat beside Amy, her quiet strength an anchor, as it had been so many times before.

  The last year had been a marathon of survival. An all-out, gut-wrenching fight, first with Richard to achieve her divorce, then with the world in general as she found a way to succeed without his money. And even though she’d done it all for her daughter, where had that gotten them? Amy couldn’t remember when she’d last checked Becky’s homework or attended a parent-teacher conference. Where would she have found the time? This weekend was the longest stretch she’d had to focus on Becky in months.

  “How could I not have seen this?” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of what had been her favorite peasant blouse when she was in high school. “I knew Becky’s grades were suffering a little, but I just assumed it was all the changes. The upheaval from me finally breaking off with Richard.”

  “Kids are good at hiding things.” Her mother brushed at the small pile of cookie crumbs left over from Becky’s after-school snack. “You did the best you could under the circumstances.”

  “I’ve ignored my own child.” Amy shook her head. “And she hates me for it. She’s been falling further and further behind in school, and I’ve been completely oblivious.”

  “She doesn’t hate you, honey. She’s desperate for your attention.” Gwen folded her hands, facing the facts right along with her. “Two different things entirely. You both have plenty to work on, but—”

  The phone rang, cutting Gwen off.

  As her mother left to answer the call, Amy glanced at her daughter’s bedroom door. She’d been so sure she was doing the right thing for Becky. That her job at Enterprise, her promotion, was what they needed to finally be free of Richard and the past. Starting over was hard work, but Amy was willing to do whatever it took.

  But how much harder was it going to get?

  “Honey,” her mom said from the living room. “It’s Josh White on the phone. It sounds urgent.”

  * * *

  JOSH HURRIED TO ANSWER his front door. It swung open to reveal Amy Loar.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  A day ago, she was the last person he’d expected to find on his doorstep. Tonight, she was the friend he’d called when he had nowhere else to turn.

  He’d promised himself he’d help her family. Now he was hoping she could somehow manufacture a miracle for him.

  “I’m sorry to pull you over here,” he said. “I know you had a lot to deal with tonight—”

  Amy silenced him with a small shake of her head. She reached an arm behind her and steered her daughter to her side.

  “Gwen had movie plans,” she explained. “So Becky came with me.”

  “You should have told me it wasn’t a good time.” He realized they were still standing on the stoop, and moved back so they could enter.

  The beam of the porch light caught the fiery highlights in Amy’s hair, adding an ethereal touch to her beauty and weakening his knees, which were already shaking from his disastrous talk with Daniel.

  One look at Becky’s closed expression halted Josh’s wayward thoughts.

  “Really, I’ve got no business dragging the two of you over here on a Friday night. It’s just that—”

  “You said it was an emergency.” Amy blinked, her expression rearranging into the funny look she’d always gotten when they were kids, when he’d tried to explain some bit of homework she hadn’t understood. “Is it Daniel?”

  Josh smiled down at Becky. “My housekeeper left some chocolate cake in the kitchen for tonight’s dessert. Why don’t you help yourself to a piece? The kitchen’s down the hall.” He pointed the way. “Once you pass the stairs, turn right. You can’t miss it.”

  A nod from Amy sent the somber-faced little girl on her way. Becky dragged her feet, the slump in her shoulders telling Josh all he needed to know about how Amy’s own evening had been going.

  “Is it Daniel?” Amy repeated, her concern endearing her to him.

  His blind panic for his nephew returned, and with it the urge to hunt down the boy’s father and—

  “Josh?” Her hand reached to smooth the rumpled sleeve of the oxford shirt he still wore from work, but she didn’t quite complete the caress. Her soft, familiar scent reached out to him, though, offsetting the violent emotions he’d never had to fight so hard to control. “Did you tell Daniel that his father’s in town? That he wants to take Daniel home with him?”

  Josh nodded, stepping away so she wouldn’t know how badly he needed her touch. Amy had made her boundaries clear, and he wouldn’t push for more because of some selfish need for comfort.

  “Is Daniel angry?” she asked, compassion filling those midnight-blue eyes.

  “No. He’s terrified. I’ve never seen him like this before.”

  “Where is he?” She glanced down the hall.

  “In his room. Hiding in his closet, and I can’t get him to come out. I called his therapist and his social worker, then I called you. You’re the only one who was home.”

  Amy stepped back, startled. “Why me, if you’ve got professionals you can talk to?”

  “Barbara’s not answering her cell. I’m sure she’ll call as soon as she gets my messages. And I left my number with the therapist’s answering service. But I couldn’t keep waiting and doing nothing. I mean…” He eased into the chair beside the hall table. “I’m trying, but I’ve totally messed everything up, Amy. From the beginning, I didn’t listen to Melanie when I had the chance. And now that I have to get through to Daniel or lose him, nothing I say makes a dent. He’s curled in a ball in his room, and I can’t get him to come out. And I’m supposed to be convincing him to trust me, so he’ll tell the judge what he remembers about his father. So I can keep Curtis Jenkins out of Danie
l’s life.”

  Josh started when he realized she was kneeling beside him. He searched her features, counting the minutes until she bailed and left him to finish screwing things up on his own.

  “He ran from me yesterday, Josh,” she said carefully, as if he were the wary child she’d come to soothe. At least she was still here. “He’s going to panic when I show up in his bedroom.”

  “No, I don’t think he will. Somehow, he knows you understand what he’s going through. That’s why he ran yesterday. He does that when people get too close. When the feelings build up. You weren’t with him five minutes, and he hit the road. He knows…” Josh hated himself for what he was about to say, but he was a desperate man. “He knows you’ve been where he is now.”

  Amy stood and backed away.

  He’d been too distracted when she arrived to notice the dark circles under her eyes, the fatigue her makeup had successfully hidden earlier in the day. Strain had etched the softness from her beautiful features, and fear was doing its own kind of restructuring. This wasn’t fair to her. But he’d lost the luxury of being fair.

  “You’ve been hurt, just like Daniel has,” he made himself say. He swallowed as her eyes filled with tears. “And you’re trying to piece your family back together, so the monster who did this to you can’t ever hurt you again. Well, Daniel’s monster is back, and my nephew’s not going to talk with me about it. You may be the one person he’ll listen to tonight.”

  He watched as she hesitated. As the strong professional woman he’d opened his door to yesterday warred with the frightened one who’d been damaged in ways he couldn’t possibly imagine.

  “Where’s his room?” she asked, squaring her shoulders, her eyes still haunted, but her mind made up.

  Josh had never seen anything so magnificent in his life.