Leaving Yesterday (15 page)

When Caroline walked through the door after school on Monday, I could tell by the droop of her shoulders that it had been a hard day. She was sensitive to a fault, and these kinds of days were not altogether uncommon. Still, I played dumb, thinking I could get more information that way. “Hi, sweetie, how was your day?”

“Fine.” She hung her backpack on its usual hook and started for the kitchen and her daily bowl of ice cream. Usually, this entire scene was played out with much more exuberance and gusto. Something was clearly wrong.

I followed her into the kitchen and watched as she put a heaping scoop of double fudge brownie in the bowl. “Everything okay?”

She ignored the question for the length of time it took to sit at the table and take a bite of ice cream, then she looked up at me. “What does custody mean?” She put another spoonful in her mouth, but her gaze never left my face.

I sat down beside her. “Was Susie upset today?” I had known that sooner or later the Whitakers’ ugly divorce would spill over onto Susie, and from there into Caroline’s group of friends at school. I thought about my words before I answered, because I wanted to answer truthfully, but in a tactful way, too. I could never be certain what might be repeated back to the group tomorrow during recess. “Well, it means to be in control of something or someone. For instance, you have custody of Boots the cat. He stays at your house, and you’re in charge of seeing that he is cared for and safe.”

Caroline nodded and looked toward the cat’s bowl, which sat empty in the corner of the kitchen. “Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought.” She continued to stare at the bowl, her eyes sad.

Then I had what I considered a flash of brilliance, and I continued. “It doesn’t mean that other people can’t spend time with Boots, and even love him. It just means that he stays with you and you take care of him. So if Susie’s mother gets custody of her, it doesn’t mean that her daddy doesn’t still love her, or that she can’t love him back. It just means she’ll be living with her mom.”

Before I could finish giving myself the big congratulatory pat on the back, Caroline dropped her spoon in her bowl and threw herself into my lap. Her sticky chocolate face smeared ice cream on my shirt, but at times like this those things just don’t matter. “So even if Daddy gets custody of me, you’ll still love me?”

This question almost knocked me out of my chair. “Caroline, what would even make you think to ask that question? Daddy and I are just spending some time away from each other. We’re not getting divorced like Susie’s parents are. We both still have custody of you.”

“Yeah, but I heard Daddy talking to someone on the phone. I heard him say that maybe the only way to keep me from getting into trouble like Kurt did was for him to get full custody of me. I thought that sounded like I might never get to see you again.”

“Of course not, sweetie.” As I kissed the top of her head, my mind reeled. Custody? Full custody?

I couldn’t believe that Rick would even think that, much less say it. His threat about things getting uglier came back to me. I realized I had only begun to see how deep it could go. At that moment I was grateful that I hadn’t yet e-mailed Dennis Mahan about not writing the book, because now I realized if he was willing to publish it, I might very well need the money.

Nineteen

“Hey, Mom, what’s shaking?”

I couldn’t believe my son was here, standing at my front door. “Kurt!” I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight, relishing the thrill of the unexpected visit. Until … the dark possibilities of what such an unexpected visit could mean. “Is something wrong?” I sniffed the air for any telltale sign of alcohol or smoke. Only the fragrance of the jasmine climbing the side of my garage met my nose. I studied his face for any hints and saw that his eyes looked clear and bright.

He reached down, picked me up, and swung me around in a circle. “I wish you wouldn’t worry so much. Everything is fine.” His laughter was as clear and bright as the sound of children playing at the beach on a warm summer’s day. “Monte gave me the day off, and I thought I’d drive down and see how you’re doing. Where’s the rest of the herd?”

Now was obviously the right time to tell him about Rick and me being separated, but I just couldn’t ruin this moment. It could wait just a little longer. “Your father and Caroline are out and about. They should be here a little after four.”

He nodded. “Tight. I’m needing a Caroline fix. Nobody latches on quite like that girl does.”

I laughed as I remembered watching her try to eat with both her arms wrapped tightly around his. “You say that now, but if you stick around long enough, you’ll either change your mind, or you both might die of starvation.”

“Speaking of which, how ’bout we partake in a little motherson snack? What do you say?” He put his arm around my shoulder and led me inside as if this were the home he’d never left.

I grinned up at him, enjoying the moment for what it was worth. “What kind of snack are you thinking about?”

“Have a seat right here, and I’ll figure it out.” He deposited me at the kitchen table, then stuck his head in the refrigerator a split second later. “There is a shocking lack of food in here, I’ve got to tell you.”

Well, the timing wasn’t going to get any better than this. It was time to come clean. “That’s because I’m only shopping for one and a half these days.”

“Huh?” He closed the refrigerator, a block of cheddar cheese in his hand, and came to sit beside me at the table. “What’s up?”

“Your father and I have been separated for a couple of months now.”

He flopped back against his chair in a way that would have earned him a lecture about good posture just a few carefree years ago. Somehow, things like posture didn’t matter so much anymore. “But … the other night at dinner. He was here, you were here. Everybody was here.”

I reached over and put my hand on his slumped shoulder. “Of course everybody was here. We all wanted to see you. Your father still has dinner here every Wednesday, when he comes to pick up Caroline. Sometimes he stays for dinner on Saturday after he drops her off, too. I’m sure since you’re here, he’ll stay tonight.”

“Are you getting divorced?”

The question would have drawn an immediate “no” just a few days ago. After Caroline’s revelation of Rick talking custody, I wasn’t so sure anymore, but I wasn’t ready to admit that aloud. “We just needed some time away from each other. We’ve been having a rough go for quite a while now.”

“Yeah, like after one son died and the other became a worthless bum.” He shook his head slowly side to side. “This is all my fault. Every bit of it.”

I heard that sadness in his voice again, the exhausted frustration that tinged his words in the weeks after Nick’s death. Nothing good could come of that, and I needed to snap him out of it.

“Kurt. Look at me. Do you remember anything about your father before you left?”

He raised his eyes to mine, surprised, I supposed, by my change in tone. Then we both started laughing. Rick had always had a quick temper, long before the tragedy, but he had also had a great heart. It was only in the aftermath, with the increasing pressure of constant pain, that the eruption of his temper seemed to bury the good heart under too much debris to still see it.

“We’re going to work things out, I’m sure of it.”

“Are you going to counseling?”

I looked at him and smiled. “You really don’t remember your father, do you?”

“Yeah, he never did believe in shrinks, did he?” He flipped the block of cheese over in his hands.

There was no reason to deny the obvious. “Not so much.”

“He must have freaked out when he found out I was in rehab. You spend most of your time there in therapy. I’ll bet he yapped plenty about that.”

“Actually, I think you just may be the thing that changes his mind about a lot of things. Especially now that he can see the turn your life has made. See there, it might be you alone that gets us moving in the right direction to save our marriage.”

He nodded, his expression focused elsewhere. Was he thinking about drug dealers and baseball bats? I knew I would lose my sanity if I didn’t block this thought, and block it quickly. “How about I get us some crackers to go with that cheese?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, sounds good to me.”

I went to the pantry and pulled out the box of saltines, then reached below and got a couple of cans of cream soda. “I guess we’ll need some ice for these. If I’d known you were coming, I would have had some in the fridge.”

“Not another word. I’ll take care of it.” He swept past me and filled a couple of glasses with ice, then poured each full with fizzing cream soda. He held up his glass. “To new beginnings.”

As I brought my glass up to clink it with his, our eyes locked. I continued to hold his gaze as I said, “For all of us.”

“Kurt, what are you doing here?” Rick’s question sounded a bit more accusatory than I supposed he’d meant it. At least, I hoped he didn’t mean it the way it sounded.

Kurt laughed. “Well gee, Dad, it’s good to see you, too.”

A slight hint of color went across Rick’s cheeks. He actually leaned over then and gave Kurt a distant kind of embrace. “Didn’t mean it that way.”

“ ’Course not.” Kurt returned the brief hug and said, “I hope you’re hanging around for dinner.”

I realized that every ounce of me hoped he wouldn’t. I knew it was wrong, definitely not biblical, but having Rick around would ramp up the tension. And frankly, there’d been more than enough tension around here lately. But I looked at him and nodded. “There’s plenty.”

“Well, uh, well, I guess so.”

“Yay, Daddy!” Caroline, who had remained silently wrapped around Kurt’s leg during the exchange, actually disentangled herself long enough to jump up and down. “I knew it, I just knew it.”

“What did you know, Short Stuff?” Kurt shoved her playfully.

“Now that you’re okay, we’re all going to be one big happy family again.”

I looked at Rick, thought about his custody conversations, and realized that I had been hoping that, too. As far wrong as things had gone between us, I had always hoped and believed things would someday work out. Only, now that they should be improving, things actually seemed to be slipping farther away. And I might just have to accept that some things could be too broken to ever be fixed.

Dinner didn’t answer that question one way or another, and a few hours later, I walked Kurt out to his car.

“Are you sure you can’t spend the night? You could come to church with us tomorrow. There are tons of people there who would love to see you. Mr. Wall, your old Sunday school teacher. Mrs. Marston, the children’s choir director. They both ask about you all the time. So do a lot of people.”

“Hmmm, I don’t think I’m quite there yet. All those people have a pretty good idea of how I’ve spent the last few years. Embarrassing, you know?”

I reached up and stroked his cheek. Just a slight hint of stubble tickled my palm. “It shouldn’t be. Everyone there is saved by grace. We’ve all been forgiven by God for our sins. Maybe your sins were a little more noticeable than some others, but a sin is a sin. Right?” I needed to hear these words, probably more than Kurt needed me to say them.

“That’s what Uncle Monte says, too. And maybe in God’s eyes it’s true, but I’m not so sure all the good churchgoing folk would agree. And to tell you the truth, it’s still a little hard for me to accept that God can just forgive me for everything. You just don’t know, Mom.” He looked past the driveway in the general direction of downtown, and I wondered if he was thinking about Rudy Prince.

God could forgive anything, I knew that. God would want my son to live a productive life, the one he’d been intended to live all along. “Your sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west, never forget that.” I reached out and hugged him.

“Maybe next time I’ll stay.”

He opened the door to the old beater Datsun he’d acquired at some point in his past. I wondered what had happened to the blue sports car he once owned. He’d spent years saving up his money, and the day he turned sixteen he went to the used car lot and found the car of his dreams—well, the car of his dreams in the under-ten-thousand-dollar category, anyway. Had it been stolen? Wrecked? Had he sold it to pay off a drug debt?