Seasons Under Heaven Page 9

  He looked at her then, as if trying to decide whether to talk. “I can’t tell you that, Mom. It’s classified. If I tell on her, she’ll tell on me.”

  Cathy’s heart deflated. Was there a conspiracy among her children to dupe her into servitude without asking questions? Were there things going on after she went to bed at night? Did they have whole identities she knew nothing about?

  She popped the car into reverse and pulled too abruptly out of the parking space. The tires squealed as she came to a stop and switched to “drive.”

  “Way to go, Mom!” Mark said. “Burning rubber. All right!”

  She felt her face reddening and forced her foot to go easier on the pedal. “Mark, I’m going to make a suggestion to you right now, and I want you to pay close attention. It would be very wise of you if you didn’t utter another word until we got home…unless you plan to tell me what your sister has done that I don’t know about.”

  “Sorry.”

  “That was a word.”

  “Ex-cuse me.”

  “That was two words,” she said through her teeth. “Why don’t you stop by the bathrooms on the way to bed and clean the toilets? Burn off some of that energy.”

  “Mom! You’re mad at Annie and taking it out on me. No fair!”

  “No, Mark, right now I’m most definitely mad at you. But it’s a good thing, because I’ll get clean toilets out of it, and you’ll learn to respect your mother. See how these things have mutual benefits? Now, if you’d like to keep talking, there are some dishes in the sink that need washing.”

  Mark hadn’t said another word. And now she had clean toilets, and he was sound asleep in bed. Rick had even come home from work, but Annie was still nowhere to be found.

  “Mom?” She turned back from the window and saw Rick in the doorway. “I called Allen Spreway’s house. His mom said he still wasn’t home either, so she’s obviously with him. I asked her if she knew when he had to be home, and she said he didn’t have a curfew.”

  “Terrific. My daughter is out with some condom-carrying kid with no curfew.”

  He grinned. “Cool. Alliteration.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Mom, I could go out looking for her, if you want.”

  “Where would you look?” she asked, turning back to the window.

  “There are places where kids go…You know…to park and stuff.”

  She felt nauseous. “So you think that’s where your sister is?”

  “She could be. Or she could be at Pizza Hut. Lots of people go there after the game. Most of them would be gone after three hours, though.”

  She turned back to the window. “Why is she doing this to me?”

  Rick came closer and peered out over her shoulder. He’d long ago surpassed her in height, and was filling out. He wasn’t the lanky, loping kid he used to be. “Mom, don’t think of it as her doing anything to you. She probably hasn’t given you a single thought.”

  “Maybe we’re just assuming the worst,” Cathy said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “What if she’s hurt somewhere? What if they had a wreck? Or what if this guy, this Allen Spreway, is a jerk and won’t bring her home?”

  “Well, don’t get mad at me for saying this, Mom, but Annie’s not the victim type. Wherever she is, it’s exactly where she wants to be.”

  Headlights lit up the street, and she caught her breath as the car turned into the driveway. “There she is!” Cathy said.

  “I’m outa here,” Rick said, heading for the stairs. “I don’t want to hear the yelling.”

  Cathy didn’t respond, because she knew there probably would be plenty. She went into the kitchen and waited with her arms crossed as the garage door came up. She stood poised to attack the moment her daughter came in, but she didn’t right away. It took several more moments before the door finally opened.

  Annie stepped into the kitchen and looked surprised to see her. “Mom? You didn’t have to wait up.”

  Cathy’s mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me? You’re three hours late and that’s all you have to say?”

  “The game went into extra innings. I can’t help it if—”

  “Don’t you even try it,” Cathy bit out. “I went to the ballpark and the game was over hours ago. Where have you been?”

  “Just riding around.”

  Cathy glared at her, her mind desperately seeking a response. “Just riding around? Annie, how wise do you think it was to stay out three hours late when I almost didn’t let you go out on a school night in the first place? How soon do you think I’ll allow you to go out again?”

  “Oh, Mom. Give me a break. I’m not some little kid. I’m fifteen.”

  “Well, you’re about to be treated like ‘some little kid.’ You’re not going anywhere for two weeks, and right now, you can march up to your room and unplug your telephone. Bring it to me. You won’t get it back until I think you deserve it.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Annie yelled. “I didn’t do anything wrong! And I am going out this weekend because Allen asked me out and I said yes. There’s no way I’m going to tell him that my mommy won’t let me go.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll tell him when he comes to get you,” Cathy said.

  “I can’t believe this.” Annie threw her purse down on the counter. “What is it with you? Did your date turn out to be a dud again? You always take it out on me when you don’t have fun, but I am not responsible for your love life, Mom.”

  Cathy tried to follow that thread of logic but realized her daughter was just trying to change the subject. “Go to bed, Annie. I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

  “Fine. But I am going out with Allen this weekend. I’ve been waiting for him to like me all year, and now that he does, I’m not going to let you blow it for me.”

  A thousand reactions played through Cathy’s mind—from having Annie’s mouth sewn shut to chaining her to her bedroom doorknob. The child needed discipline, she thought. She needed to be taught a lesson. She needed to learn respect. She needed…

  …a father in the home.

  Suddenly, Cathy was incredibly tired, and she looked at the clock and saw that it was after one. “Go get the telephone, Annie, and give it to me. Then go to bed. And when I try to wake you up in the morning, I’d better not have to tell you twice, because I’m going to be in a worse mood than you are, and I could be dangerous.”

  Annie jerked her purse off of the counter and huffed up to her room.

  Cathy sat in the den for several moments, waiting for the phone, but Annie never brought it down. Finally fed up, she stormed up the stairs and burst into Annie’s room. She was in her bed with the light off, talking on the telephone.

  Cathy turned the light on, and Annie cried out, “Mom!”

  She stormed to the phone jack and jerked the cord out, then grabbed the phone from Annie’s hands and flung it across the room. It hit the wall with a crash, then thudded to the floor. She turned back to Annie and saw that her daughter was finally taking her seriously. “I’m not a violent woman,” Cathy bit out, her hands shaking with rage and her eyes blazing. “But you’re pushing me too hard, young lady. If you have one shred of judgment, you know that I’ve reached my threshold of maternal tolerance. From here on out it gets ugly.”

  “Sorry,” Annie said.

  It was the closest Cathy was going to get to resolving this tonight, she thought. At least Annie wasn’t talking back anymore. It was a small victory, but hard won.

  Without another word, she picked up the pieces of Annie’s phone and stormed to her bedroom. She didn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the night.

  CHAPTER

  Twelve

  It was all Brenda could do to wait until after eight o’clock the next morning to call in for Joseph’s appointment. When she was told that the next available appointment was a week away, she took it gratefully, then hung up and wondered if she should have fought for an earlier one.

  Joseph was sitting at the breakfast table with the rest of the chil
dren, eating cornflakes. She’d felt guilty for waking him this morning when he looked so tired and pale. But today was a school day, and she didn’t like letting the children sleep late just because they didn’t have a tardy bell. He had his face propped on his hand and was picking at his cereal. He seemed slightly out of breath, but she wondered if that was just her imagination.

  David came into the kitchen and caught her watching Joseph. “Did you call?” he whispered.

  “Yes.” She busied herself cutting up wedges of cantaloupe and putting the pieces into bowls. “It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Just that they couldn’t get him in for a week.”

  David’s jaw dropped. “Did you tell them it was a referral? Did you tell them about his X-ray?”

  “I did,” Brenda said. “But I guess all of their patients are like that.”

  David turned back to Joseph and stared at him for a moment. Finally, he sat down at the table. Daniel, Rachel, and Leah were just finishing up, waiting for the fruit their mom was working on, but Joseph had hardly touched his cereal.

  “You feeling okay this morning, buddy?” David asked Joseph.

  “Yes, sir.”

  David raked his hand through the child’s red hair, fingercombing it into place. “You sure? You don’t look like you feel that well.”

  Joseph met his father’s eyes. “Is something the matter with my heart?”

  Brenda stopped what she was doing and turned back from the counter. The other three children looked up.

  “Why would you ask that?” Brenda asked.

  “Because…Daniel said a cardac surgeon—”

  “Card-i-ac,” Daniel corrected.

  “—is a guy who works on hearts, like Dr. Harry.”

  David looked up at her, and Brenda abandoned the cantaloupe and sat down in her own place. “Daniel’s right,” David said. “Your heart might need a little tune-up, like we did to that old truck of mine.”

  “A tune-up?” Joseph asked. “How do they do that?”

  Brenda didn’t trust David’s analogies to help the matter, so she touched her husband’s hand, silencing him. “Joseph, there may not be anything wrong at all. You probably just have some kind of virus. We just want to check to make sure.”

  He kept dipping his spoon in his cereal, scooping up cornflakes and letting them fall back into the milk. “I dreamed I died.”

  Brenda caught her breath and covered her mouth, and tears came to her eyes. “Oh, honey…”

  “That’s it,” David said, getting up. He picked up the telephone book and began flipping through.

  She touched the tears at the corners of her eyes, as if she could hold them back. “Who are you calling?”

  “I’m calling Harry. He’s a heart surgeon.”

  “But he’s not a children’s cardiac surgeon. That’s what Dr. Gunn said we needed.”

  “I know, but Harry knows what to look for. If he thinks Joseph needs to be seen right away, he’ll find a way to get us an earlier appointment. Doctors listen to doctors.”

  “But Dr. Gunn said he would call, and it didn’t help. Besides, isn’t that rude, to ask a neighbor to make a house call like that?” Brenda felt like Leah now, worried that she’d make some kind of social faux pas.

  “Hey, if he wants me to, I’ll take Joseph over to his house. He’s not like that, Brenda. He won’t mind.”

  “Well, you may not catch him. Doesn’t he do surgery early in the mornings?”

  He got the number, dialed, and waited. “Sylvia? This is David Dodd. Has Harry left yet?” He paused. “No, that’s okay. I was just hoping…Well, it’s just that…Brenda called to get Joseph’s appointment and they can’t get him in for a week. Yeah. That’s what I thought. Sylvia, we hate to take advantage of a neighbor…If you’re sure…All right. We’d really appreciate it.”

  He hung up the phone and turned back to the table. All four children were frozen in silence.

  “What did she say?” Brenda asked.

  “She said that she would call Harry right now and see if he could come check on Joseph on his lunch break.”

  “Thank goodness.” She leaned across the table and patted Joseph’s hand. “Dr. Harry will fix you up.” She looked at the other kids. “You can all have some of this cantaloupe if you want it. Rachel, will you give some to Joseph? Then all three of you clean up. Joseph, you don’t have to help. You just try to eat.”

  He nodded as his sister gave him a bowl of cantaloupe.

  Brenda took David’s hand and headed back to the bedroom. She burst into tears before she reached the room. She turned around, and David pulled her into his arms. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “It’s probably something very minor. Nothing at all.”

  “He dreamed he died.” She let the tears out all at once, as if to relieve some of the pressure on her glands, then quickly dried up. “You’re right. Harry will probably just tell us it’s okay to wait a week, that there’s nothing wrong…”

  They clung together for a long time, neither wanting to let go. Finally, David loosened his hold on her. “I’ll be out back working,” he said. “Call me when Harry comes, or if you need me.”

  Brenda let him go and went back into the kitchen. Already, the table was cleared, and Daniel and Rachel were rinsing the bowls and loading them into the dishwasher. Leah had found a book to put on her head and was prancing around with perfect posture as she wiped the table. Joseph was laughing at her as he carried his bowl to the sink.

  Brenda found herself studying his little chest, wondering what was going on inside it. Silently, she prayed that they had caught it in time, whatever it was, or that it was all a mistake and they’d find out today that the anxiety and worry had all been for nothing. She could live with that—even without anger toward those who’d made the mistaken diagnosis. She tried to believe it—that nothing was wrong with Joseph, that he would bounce back within days and be racing around the house with his sisters and brother, playing David and Goliath. But she could not shake the fear that it wasn’t going to turn out that way.

  Brenda saw the concern on Harry Bryan’s face as he finished his examination of Joseph. Harry’s face had many lines—lines of joy that webbed out from his eyes and his mouth, lines of concern that pleated his forehead. But the lines she saw now looked like fear. Would she, too, have those kinds of lines before this was over? She glanced up at David, and saw Harry’s fear reflected there.

  “I’m going to call Dr. Robinson,” he said softly, “and I’ll make sure he sees Joseph today.”

  Brenda didn’t know whether to be relieved or startled. “What’s wrong with him, Harry?”

  “I can’t say, Brenda. All I know is his heartbeat is slow and weak, and in my opinion, he needs to see a specialist pretty quick.”

  Joseph looked up at her, his big eyes searching her face for her response, so he would know how he should feel. She wouldn’t let herself show the fear she felt. She smiled. “Well, then, we can get this over with today, can’t we, Joseph?”

  He nodded solemnly.

  “I’m going home to call,” he said. “I’ll call you before I go back to the office and let you know what time your appointment is.”

  He didn’t want them to hear the conversation, she realized. What would he tell Dr. Robinson that he didn’t want them to hear? “Thank you, Harry,” she said, and gave him a hug.

  When he’d gone, Brenda looked up at David. He looked even more shaken now, and she wanted to take him into the other room and ask him to try to smile so that he wouldn’t worry Joseph.

  “Good grief, Joseph,” she said brightly. “You’ll do anything to get out of schoolwork.”

  He smiled. “I think I’d rather do math than go to another doctor.”

  “That’s what you think,” she said. “We were about to work on fractions today.”

  He wasn’t amused.

  Brenda finished feeding lunch to her kids, then assigned them to separate stations around the house where they worke
d on different levels of schoolwork. Her heart wasn’t in it today. There were ways to stimulate her kids, to challenge them to go farther than they had to go to pass the state tests. Normally, she would find life lessons in everything she taught them. They would go places and experience things. The tests were just a formality. Her kids had always scored very high.

  Today, however, she was tempted to tell them that school was letting out early, that they could play and watch videos and find something to occupy themselves so she could worry. She might have to do that anyway, if the appointment came early enough.

  True to his word, Harry called back within twenty minutes and told her that Dr. Robinson would see Joseph at one-thirty. She would just barely have time to get him to St. Francis Medical Center. She gave the kids their assignments and put Daniel in charge. Then, acting as if they were heading out on a field trip, she plastered a joyful smile on her face, nudged David into doing the same, and they loaded Joseph into the car.

  CHAPTER

  Thirteen

  Cathy had decided not to wear her usual jeans and tennis shoes today, or the blue lab coat that she wore over her clothes at the clinic. Instead, she had dressed in a blazer and khakis that made her look like any other middle-class mom showing up at the high school to talk about her kids.

  She waited nervously outside the principal’s office, pacing back and forth, back and forth, her speech playing over and over in her mind, as if one misplaced word would send her whole case tumbling down.

  A side door opened and the principal stuck his head out. “Mrs. Flaherty?”

  “Ms. Flaherty,” she corrected. “I’m divorced.” She didn’t know why that bit of information was relevant, except as part of her argument that, as a single mom raising her kids on her own, she needed the school to be her ally, not her enemy.

  “Come into my office, Ms. Flaherty,” he said. She followed him in and took the seat across from his desk.

  “Aren’t you the vet?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “My wife brings our dog to you. Gussy. Big German shepherd?”