The Summer Kitchen (16 page)

“Okay.” Chris’s voice was a thin, frightened ribbon. “Mom?”

“I’ll call you back in a minute. I’m going to get Holly now.”
Please let Holly be somewhere near home. Please. Please.

“Mom . . . I’m sorry.”

“We’ll talk in a minute. I’m sure it was an accident.” Was it? Chris’s record was abysmal. So much of the time, his head seemed to be off in a cloud somewhere. By contrast, when Jake was sixteen, we hadn’t experienced a moment’s hesitation about letting him drive. Jake had never so much as put a scratch on the car. After Chris’s first fender bender, we’d delayed plans to get him a newer vehicle.
He doesn’t seem to be ready for it,
Rob had said, and of course he’d said it in front of Christopher.

I tried to convince myself to believe my son’s side of the story as I called Holly. She was on the way to pick up the twins from a cheerleading meeting. She headed for the steak house parking lot instead. “I’ll tell the girls to catch a ride with Stephie’s mom,” she said.

“Oh, Holl, thanks. I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this. Chris is so upset. He really needs an adult there.”

“I’m just down the road. Anyway, I don’t mind. You know I’d do anything for Christopher.”

“I know you would, Holl. Thanks.” I was filled with tenderness. There was never a time Holly failed to be there when we needed her.

“No problem. Okay, I can see the steak house. It doesn’t look like the police are here yet.”

“Holly, be careful.” It occurred to me that I didn’t know what the situation might be by now. “Chris said the guys were threatening him. Don’t get out of the car if you’re worried.”

“Hey,” Holly chirped. “I’ve been to Neighborhood Ranger School, remember?” Then she added, “Gotta go,” and hung up the phone.

I dialed Chris’s number again and waited for him to answer. As I passed by the low-rent apartment complex, my mind spun off momentarily. I looked down the narrow strip of pavement between the buildings, thinking of the three boys in the alley, the kids in the Dumpster, and Cass with the toddler on her hip. Where were they now?

Christopher’s voice broke up the thought. He still sounded weepy, so different from the tough mini-man who’d been hitting the books night and day these past six months, determined to handle everything on his own.

“Hi, honey, Holly’s almost to the steak house. I’ll be there as soon as I can get across town.”

“Okay.” Chris’s relief was obvious. “I see her car.”

“Where are the other guys now? Are they still harassing you?”

“They’re looking at their car again. They’re really mad. Mrs. Riley just got out. She’s talking to them. I better go.” Chris hung up, and when I called back, he didn’t answer.

Holly sent me a text a few minutes later:

Under control. Told them I’m your lawyer. LOL!

By the time I finally got back to Plano, Holly had brought Christopher home. She was hovering over the sofa, dabbing the cut on his forehead with antiseptic, while Chris tried to protest.

“Hold still!” she commanded. Christopher looked up as I came into the media room, and Holly took advantage of the chance to swab his forehead with the cloth. “This might need stitches.” If not for the situation, Chris and I would have laughed. Holly’s first reaction to every injury was hydrogen peroxide and then,
This might need stitches.

Chris winced as the antiseptic started to bubble, then he let his head roll back against the sofa, and closed his eyes.

“He shouldn’t go to sleep,” Holly advised. “He could have a concussion.”

“I’m fine.” Chris’s voice had lowered, had once again taken on the controlled tone of an almost-man. “I’m okay . . . I’m . . . sorry I messed up again.” A tear drifted from beneath his lashes, fell down his cheek and swirled around his ear. Dried blood had colored the tawny curls there, turning them a brownish pink.

I felt guilty and sick. I wanted to rush to him, hold him the way I had when he was little, tell him it was all right, it wasn’t his fault. At the same time, I felt the need to know what had happened and who was responsible. As much as I yearned to soothe the hurt and disappointment, a third fender bender in only eight months was no small problem.

“The main thing is that you’re all right, Chris,” I said.

Holly nodded and patted his arm, giving him a sympathetic look before standing up. “Hang in there, kiddo.” She laughed softly. “Hey, you’re not even close to Cammie’s record yet. By the time she made it through her first year of driving, every police officer in the city knew her by name.” Holly’s eldest daughter had been our first cooperative experience with teenagers. Cammie was notoriously distractible, chronically late, and way too addicted to her cell phone. She’d been famous for backing out of parking spaces and running into things, including the Riley garage door. Twice.

Chris groaned, his lips spreading into a weary smile over teeth that had only recently been freed of braces. “Now she’s comparing my driving to Cammie’s. Go ahead and just pour some more of that stuff on my head, okay? Let me die.”

“Christopher!” I said, and both Holly and I chuckled. Chris’s response to dire situations had always been to go for a laugh. It was comforting to see him acting more like himself. I hadn’t heard him crack a joke or seen him really smile in months. He had a wonderful smile. Rob’s smile. The first time I saw Rob, I was working part-time at the hospital reception desk, and that smile caught my eye from across the room. He’d had the presence of a doctor, even though he was just a med student.

“Look on the bright side. You haven’t taken out the garage door yet,” Holly quipped. “Cammie’s still way ahead of you.”

Chris’s smile faded to something more forced. “Thanks for coming today, Mrs. Riley.”

“Oh, hey, anytime, kiddo.”

“You sure gave those guys heck.”

“I think they really believed me.” Holly giggled. “It was some entrance, huh?”

The question won another grin from Chris. “Yeah. I thought that one dude’s eyes were going to pop right out of his head when you tripped and acted like you were about to fall on him.”

“For a guy whose back was supposedly injured, he got out of the way pretty quickly, didn’t he?” Holly’s face narrowed. “Jerks. They saw a kid in a car by himself, and they figured they could get something out of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hit you on purpose.” She slanted a glance at me, her expression serious. “I got their names and license number, and the name of the police officer who did the report. If anything comes of this, y’all should research and see if those guys have been involved in scams before.”

If anything comes of this. . . .
“What did the police say? Did they give Chris a ticket?”

Holly squeezed one eye shut, grimaced, and shrugged toward the kitchen. “You get a Band-Aid on that cut, Christopher,” she instructed, her voice an airy contrast to the dark look on her face. “That’d be a terrible place to catch staph.”

“Thanks for coming, Mrs. Riley,” Chris said again, then sagged against the sofa, his mouth somber.

“Take care, sweetie.”

“I will.”

Holly waited until we were in the kitchen before giving me the details of the accident. “I just got a weird feeling about the whole thing,” she finished. “These guys seemed really . . . professional—like they knew exactly what to say and do. Chris told me that, at first, they acted like the wreck was no big deal. They offered to push his car off the road, and then after they got in the parking lot, they were all over him about the wreck being his fault, and they were kind of, well, prepping him for the police statement almost, trying to bully him into it while he was upset and confused. It’s a good thing he called you.”

“I’m so glad you were here.” Smoothing my hair out of my face, I felt a tiny crust of dried paint. Holly seemed to notice it at the same time, then she quirked a brow and looked me over from head to toe, spattered sweat suit and all. “Holly, thank you so much.”

“I don’t mind.” She continued surveying me narrowly. “Where did you say you were again?”

The sense of having been caught at something caused me to look away. “Across town. So, what happened when the police officer got there? Did he say who was at fault?”

Holly’s shoulders rose and fell. “To tell you the truth, he didn’t seem very . . . interested. Both cars had been moved by the time he arrived, and if there were any witnesses, they didn’t hang around. He didn’t give either one of them a ticket because by then you couldn’t tell
what
had happened. But those guys were pretty determined. They were being careful about what they said. I don’t know what statement they gave to the officer in private, but I’m afraid you’ll hear from them again.”

“Ohhh, what next.” I let my head fall into my hand, feeling the weight of yet one more major issue atop the others. When was our family, our life, ever going to return to normal? When would things be good again? Right now, I didn’t think we could hold up under one more straw. “Rob’s going to have a fit. He’s already been frustrated with Christopher about his driving. He probably would have taken the car away by now if it weren’t for the fact that Jake’s . . .” I couldn’t force out the word “gone,” so I just let the sentence rest without it. “Anyway, Holl, thanks so much for helping. It was a lot to ask.”

She gave me a perplexed look. “You know I’d do anything for you, or for Christopher.” She laid her hand on my arm, over a spot where spatters of paint had dried when I flipped the bristles off the edge of a shelf and accidentally sent up a shower. “Girlfriends, right?” Leaning over, she tried to find my gaze. “That’s what girlfriends do. Just like you did for me last year.”

“I know.” Was it only a year ago that I’d held Holly’s hand during her lumpectomy, driven her to chemo, brought her soda crackers and Sprite, and shuttled her girls around to activities? Just last year? It seemed a lifetime ago. Jake was doing well in college, Christopher was busy with his music, all was right with the world. “How did everything else go with the doctor visit the other day, by the way? I forgot to ask.”

Holly continued watching me intently. “All right, except that he told me I’m too fat. What does he expect? I’ve got six and a half kids constantly bringing junk food into the house, and the rest of the time I’m working on catering. None of that’s on Jenny Craig, I’ll tell you.”

“We need to get out and walk more.”

“Yes, we do. How about tomorrow?”

Poppy’s house, the mess on the counter, and the issue of sandwiches flashed through my mind. If the real estate agent brought anyone over, they’d find painting supplies and masking tape everywhere. “I don’t know about tomorrow. I may be tied up with Christopher and his car. Where is the car, anyway?”

Holly chewed her lip, then answered. “Richard and the girls went over there to push it to the side of the parking lot. The restaurant manager said it would be all right there until you can get it towed.”

“Tell Richard thanks, okay?”

“I will.”

Holly started toward the door, then stopped and looked back at me. “Is everything all right . . . with you, I mean? Everything else?”

“Yeah, sure . . . why?”

“You just . . . normally wouldn’t go out running errands looking like that.” She motioned to the splattered sweat suit. “In all these years, I can’t remember you ever leaving the house without looking perfect.”

The statement made me seem shallow and self-focused, but Holly was right. In my mother’s home, appearances were everything, which was ironic, considering what went on when nobody was looking. “You know what, Holl? With all that’s happened these last few months, it just doesn’t seem . . . so important.”

“You’re right.” Holly was pleased. For years, she’d been subtly trying to convince me that worrying about how things looked and what everyone thought was an unhealthy response to the subliminal presence of my mother. “You go, girl.” Holly waved over her shoulder as she went out the door.

I poured a couple sodas and carried them to the media room. Chris was still sitting on the sofa with his head back and his eyes closed. “Here, sweetheart. I brought you something to drink.”

Chris shook his head, and his eyes closed more tightly, tears squeezing from beneath his lashes.

“I really screwed up.” His lips barely moved with the words.

“Sssshhhhh.” Leaving the drinks on the table, I sat down beside him, then slipped my arm around the little boy inside the nearly grown body.

“Dad’s going to get the phone message.” His voice trembled with apprehension. “As soon as he’s out of surgery, he’ll get it.”

“Ssshhhh,” I said again. “Let’s just sit here a minute.” I pulled Christopher closer, and slowly his muscles surrendered the resistance, gave in to the pull. He collapsed against me, leaning his head on my shoulder. A sob escaped his throat, a low sound filled with pain and grief that seemed to come from someplace deeper than just today.

“If Jake was driving, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said, his sadness, his disappointment, his yearning for his brother evident in the words.

“We don’t know that, Christopher. We don’t know anything yet. Let’s just take one step at a time. Whatever happened, your dad loves you and I love you.”

Chris sagged against my shoulder. “I wish Jake and Poppy were here.” His voice was little more than a sigh.

“I know you do,” I whispered. “Me, too.” It was the first time in six months that Chris and I had let ourselves openly admit how much the empty space in our family hurt.

“I wish Dad hadn’t said what he did . . . to Jake,” he whispered. “He shouldn’t have blamed Jake . . . for Poppy . . .”

Outside, the garage door rumbled upward. Christopher stiffened, all the softness replaced by tension.

I left Chris on the sofa and met Rob in the kitchen. He was angry and red-faced, his jaw hard with frustration. “Where is he?”

My stomach wrenched into a familiar knot that had little to do with Rob’s outburst. A part of me rushed back in time, as always, and remembered being little SandraKaye, standing like a statue in the corner of the room, trying not to be noticed while my mother flew into a tirade.

“I can’t
believe
he wrecked the car
again
!” Rob’s teeth were clenched, his hands hard knots hanging on stiff coils. “That’s it! That’s it for the car. Until he learns to be responsible, he can walk.”