Family Interrupted (35 page)
My story,
Man of the House,
combines Mother and Father’s Days. You’ll meet two lonely adults and two recalcitrant kids who need a second chance for love and laughter. But second chances don’t come easily. Steve Duggan and Nancy Wyatt are challenged to find their way to happiness.
Although this story has never been published before, it has been seen by other eyes. I entered the shorter version into a national contest some years ago when I first wrote it. It placed among the top ten entries out of a field of almost 2000 short stories. That achievement gave me the confidence to keep writing, to keep trying for a professional career. And here I am!
To learn more about me and my work, please take a moment to visit the following links:
www.facebook.com/linda.barrett.353
Best,
Linda
Chapter One
NANCY WYATT
This can’t be good news
. The readout on Nancy Wyatt’s desk phone said Pulitzer Middle School, Hillsboro FL, and her stomach knotted as tightly as a fishing line around bait. Bobby was either sick or in trouble. Please, God, no more incidents. She took a breath and picked up the receiver.
Five minutes later she threw herself behind the wheel of her trusty old Honda, and headed toward trouble. She’d be taking Bobby back to work with her. Fighting required a two day suspension. Fighting! Bobby had always been a good kid. A sweet boy. As an only child, he’d had no one to fight with!
Nancy’s fingers tapped the wheel, her thoughts in turmoil. Did young boys morph into strangers when they hit their teen years? Why hadn’t she seen the change? They’d become so close, she and her son, a team of two who’d clung to each other after losing Jason four years ago. She sighed from deep within her soul, a long, mournful sound. Jason had been a wonderful husband, a terrific dad. She could still picture her two guys having a catch with each other in their back yard. Baseball had become Bobby’s passion by then.
Even at nine years old, he’d shown promise with a good eye and a good arm. And now he was the starting pitcher for his Little League team. Since Jason’s death, Nancy had tried to be strong for her son, cheering and supportive. She’d thought she’d succeeded. But maybe not.
She pulled into the visitors’ parking lot and made her way to the principal’s office. Good God, the principal’s office! As a kid, she’d never been sent there. She supposed she’d been a goody, goody kind of girl. Cooperative, studious—definitely not a trouble maker. And yet, this principal’s office had become too familiar since the spring semester had started. Middle School years were expected to be the roughest, but…Bobby?
Or maybe his issues weren’t about school. His grades hadn’t faltered, so maybe something else was at play. Maybe Steve? Maybe Bobby’s attitude change coincided with Steve Duggan coming into their lives. The thought resonated and hit her with the force of a fast pitch. Later. She’d think about it later.
Nancy spotted her son through the plate glass window of the general office. He slouched on a bench, staring at the door. Not blinking. Just waiting. Waiting for his mom and whatever happened next. His hair needed cutting. The hanks falling onto his forehead, however, couldn’t hide the swelling or reddish-purple hue now blooming around his eye. His hair couldn’t hide the blood oozing from scratches along his cheek. This boy was not the Bobby she knew or thought she knew so well. Where was the son she’d raised?
She rushed into the room. “Bobby! What happened?”
His mouth twisted. “Nothin’.”
“Nothing? Come on, sweetie. Have you looked in the mirror?”
“Ask him.” Bobby’s chin jutted toward the principal’s private door. “He thinks he knows everything.”
She looked over to see the principal coming toward her, followed by a boy about Bobby’s age. A boy sporting wounds similar to Bobby’s. A boy she recognized, one of the students she tutored at the learning center where she worked evenings to supplement her part-time librarian’s salary.
“Phillip?”
The boy nodded.
“They’re both suspended for two days,” said Mr. Emanuel. “Fighting will not be tolerated here, and neither of them had anything to say.”
Phillip sat down at the other end of the bench. The boys knew each other only through school. They might have seen each other at the learning center a few times when she’d had to bring her son, but they weren’t fast friends. They had no history. What could have set them off?
“That’s not true.” Bobby got to his feet and looked at the principal. “I had something to say. I said that he started it.”
The principal motioned Nancy and Bobby inside his office. “And last week, you said Nathan Brownstein started it. The month before, it was….let’s see.” He scanned the computer screen. “It was John Pappas.”
She recognized the names from her prior visits to this office. But now, with Phillip added to the list, she made the connection.
“I tutor all those boys after school,” she said. “So Bobby, what’s this about? You don’t take any courses at the learning center. You barely know these kids.”
Her son jumped to his feet. “I know enough. And I wish you didn’t teach there.”
#
BOBBY
My mom doesn’t understand anything. Especially about guys. She thinks that Phillip and the others really care about pulling their grades up. They don’t give a flying you-know-what about their grades. I’d use the F-bomb but that would make me as gross as those jerks. No better than guys I’ll have to keep beating up if they call my mom a MILF one more time.
I bet she doesn’t even know what that means. My mother is very pretty, real-ly pretty, and she doesn’t even know it. But they know it. That’s what guys my age do. They look at girls…and women…and maybe they look harder at a woman without a husband. Well, they’d better stop staring at her. And Steve Duggan had better stop, too. He’s been hanging around Mom for the last few months, and I think she likes him! The whole thing gives me a stomach ache. And I don’t get bad stomach aches anymore, not since after Dad died.
I guess I haven’t been afraid of anything much since I passed my thirteenth birthday last year and stopped being a kid. Personally, I think thirteen is where the line is drawn. On one side, you’re just a boy. Step over it, and you’re a man. As soon as I hit thirteen, I looked at my little family—Mom and me—and realized I was the “man” of the house. The idea felt comfortable. I felt comfortable. It seemed right.
But as soon as Mom introduced me to Steve Duggan, my comfortable world shifted. I thought the earth jumped right off its axis. When I looked into Duggan’s face on that first day, I knew I was looking at trouble. It wasn’t because he was big—heck, some of my coaches are bigger—or because he had these gray eyes that gleamed like the sun shining off metal, or because those eyes stared right at me, maybe even through me. His strong handshake didn’t scare me either. Not then. I could have handled all those things easily, except for one small hitch: my mom.
The person who scared me most on that first day was my own mother. And that’s how I knew Steve Duggan spelled trouble.
We were on the patio in the back yard, my baseball stuff on the ground next to me. Mom watched me shake hands with Steve, her glance darting from one of us to the other. My mother has big round, dark eyes, the kind that usually look soft and mushy. They don’t normally glance back and forth in nanoseconds. She also smiled at me with too many teeth. Usually when she smiles at me, I feel warm inside, but not that day. On the day I met Steve Duggan, Mom sort of wore a disguise. She looked like my mother but not like my mother all at once. The whole thing was weird, and I didn’t like it.
Anyway, I shook the guy’s hand and mumbled something. I sounded like a growling bear. Either my voice came out too high or too low. My hormones should get overtime pay. Steve didn’t seem to notice. He just looked down at my lanky five and a half feet and started to talk. Friendly words, I guess. But all I wanted to do when Steve Duggan started talking was escape as fast as I could.
I didn’t want to think about the exact reason for this, but I knew it had something to do with the vibes between him and my mom. I felt those vibes and didn’t like them one bit. Mom’s hand rested on Steve’s arm, and when she looked at him, her eyes became soft and dreamy. When she looked at me, they narrowed and became worried.
“The guys are waiting for me at the field.” I scooped up my bat and glove and ran toward my pick-up game at the neighborhood park. I could have run for miles or flown without wings. Instead, I pitched a quick five inning no hitter. It felt terrific. I smiled all the way home until I smelled the hamburgers on the grill and saw Steve standing next to it. I’d forgotten all about him, and now the afternoon fell flat again. Mom was tossing a salad while he held a spatula, and it looked like the two of them were playing house. It made me sick. I showered, gulped down a burger and disappeared into my room.
Just like I’m doing right now after spending the afternoon at the library with my mother. Two days at home lay ahead thanks to a stupid principal and those dumb ass boys.
#
NANCY
Bobby’s door slammed shut and she winced. Her son needed an attitude adjustment, but she wasn’t sure how to proceed. Until now, he’d been such a joy. Such an easy-going kid. Once more she wondered about Steve and whether her blossoming relationship with him was the root of Bobby’s problem. After four years, maybe Bobby still wasn’t ready for her to begin dating. Sons could sometimes be too protective—according to psychologists. But what did that have to do with all the fights he’d been getting into? Those boys had nothing to do with Steve.
She knocked on Bobby’s door and walked in when he answered.
Her heart tore at the sight of him. The bruises glowed purple, crimson and green while his complexion had paled. Her precious son had had a hard day, and she wanted to cradle him in her lap. Of course, his big feet would hit the floor, but still…the thought had her opening her arms and grabbing him around.
“Bobby, Bobby, what’s wrong? What’s happening? How can I help?”
He turned around and flopped on his bed. “I’m fine.”
“Getting into fights isn’t fine.”
Instead of answering her, his gaze rested on the photograph of his dad. The eight by ten framed picture maintained its place of honor on Bobby’s night table since the day of the funeral.
“Thinking about Daddy?”
Bobby nodded.
“Are you thinking how you’d talk to him about what happened today if he were still with us?”
Another nod.
Nancy sat down on the bed and took her son’s hand. “But I’m here, sweetheart. I love you. Talk to me.” She held her breath for a long moment, waiting for his response.
“I can’t, Mom. I just can’t.” As if trying to placate her, he finally said, “You’re…a girl.”
She would have laughed if the situation weren’t serious, but being suspended from school couldn’t be taken lightly. “Well, that’s true, but I’m as intelligent as your dad was. So, how about it, kiddo? Tell me everything.”
But his gaze returned to the photograph, his mouth tightening. Words remained unspoken.
She scrambled for ideas. “Well then, how about calling Grandpa? He’s a good listener, and he’s certainly not a girl.”
The horrified look on his face startled her. Bobby loved Jason’s dad, and that was a fact. “Why not?” she pushed. “Grandpa would do anything for you. He’d certainly listen.”
Bobby jumped from the bed. “I can’t call him. You don’t understand.”
“What are you afraid of? Is it about school?”
“No.”
So, if it wasn’t about school…? Nancy took a breath. It was now or never. “If you won’t talk with me because I’m a girl. And you won’t talk with Grandpa for your own private reason, then how about Steve? He’s a guy.”
If looks could really kill… “Are you kidding? Not in a million years.”
And with those two short sentences, Nancy’s hopes and dreams for a new beginning fizzled like old champagne. Her son had to come first.
“Steve’s a good guy,” her words, a quiet prayer. “Just think about it.”
Chapter Two
Nancy closed Bobby’s door behind her and made her way downstairs to the kitchen. No tutoring for her tonight, so no class for Wendy, Steve’s daughter. A stroke of luck. She needed time to figure out what to do and seeing Steve, even for a few minutes, would throw her good intentions awry. How long did a smile take? How long for his eyes to warm to that soft smoky shade of a hand-knit angora sweater? More important, how long before she’d be able to put him behind her?
She grabbed a frying pan and started simmering chop meat. Meat sauce. Enough for two days. She put pasta on the boil. With that in the works, out came lettuce, tomatoes and ingredients for a tossed salad. She went through the motions. If Steve had been coming for dinner, the preparation would have put a smile on her face and a dance in her step.
She hadn’t been looking for romance, not after sharing the best part of her life with Jason. Her grief had been soul deep, and she’d had no heart for other men. Until the evening Steve Duggan had walked into the tutoring center with his arm around his daughter. Sweet. Protective. She’d noticed, and maybe she’d stared at him. And maybe he’d recognized the feminine part of her that she’d forgotten about.
His eyes had widened in response, a smile emerged. To her surprise, way down deep inside herself, something stirred. Something she barely recognized. A seed of something new, yet familiar. She hadn’t blushed in years, but heat suffused her neck and rose to her cheeks on the day she’d met Steve Duggan.
She’d extended her hand, introduced herself and turned her full attention to Wendy.
“Dad’s worrying about SAT’s,” the girl said. “I’m only twelve. Can you tell him I’m too young to be here? He should save his money. And I have more important things to do.”
Nancy couldn’t decide whether to laugh or groan. The child was serious, but her dad could barely suppress a grin, and Nancy wasn’t getting in between father and daughter. She motioned them toward the classroom, but Wendy’s dad had something to say.
