A Sister's Promise (Promises) (10 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kate had already dialed the phone when she realized her mistake. She couldn’t talk to her about this. She was the last person who could be objective. “Joely?”

“Hi, sis. I’m so glad you called. Today was my first day back at work.”

Kate was so wrapped up in her own fictional pregnancy that she actually forgot about Joely—for once. “How was it?”

“It was amazing. I’m finishing an underwater coral reef scene that I started before I got sick. Kelly offered to send someone else, but the client insisted that he wanted me. Isn’t that flattering? I was so involved in painting that I forgot to eat.”

“I’m happy for you. But you have to remember to take care of yourself.”

“I
know
,” she said, sounding annoyed.

Kate reminded her that Foxworth High School only had a half-day of school on Friday so she could drive up early to her place. Joely said she already had plans with Abina and suggested her sister meet her at the art museum instead on Saturday. Kate readily agreed, pleased that Joely was re-connecting with her friend.

“Guess what else,” Joely exclaimed.

Kate pulled the curtains above the sink to hide the dark sky. “What?”

“I applied to be a Big Sister.”

Ignoring the plate of food on the counter, Kate sat down on the couch. “Like at the Boys & Girls Club?”

“Yes. That way I can be there for a girl the way you were there for me growing up.”

Kate couldn’t help but smile, touched that Joely appreciated her. Especially now that Kate knew how she’d dropped the ball when she’d left for college. “But don’t you think you’re biting off more than you can chew? I mean, you’re just getting back to work. . . .”

“No. This is exactly what I need. I need a purpose.”

“I understand that. But why don’t you wait a few months to see how you’re feeling?”

“I feel fine. Better than fine. Kate, I’m so excited. I can really make a difference in someone’s life.”

Kate nodded, knowing the satisfaction that came from being needed. That was what she felt every day. That was what a big sister did, a counselor did. . . a mother did.

“I never would have survived at Aunt Suzy’s if it hadn’t been for you.”

Then they rehashed their miserable childhoods, Kate reminding Joely of incidents as needed, to keep the momentum going. Afterward, she wondered why she couldn’t stop herself; it was like scratching a mosquito bite until it bled.

# # #

The next morning Mitch left for work while Kate showered, leaving so many things unsaid. While she ate breakfast, the telephone rang. She caught her breath, hoping it was Mitch. When she answered, all she heard were sobs. “Mrs. Hopper—uh—uh—it’s Michelle. I won’t be in school today.”

“What’s wrong?” Kate asked, her heart pained from the sound of the teen mother’s gasping. Students rarely called her at home unless it was serious.

“Frank. . . left me. He said he just couldn’t handle it.” Michelle cried some more.

Crew cut man took the easy way out. Kate wasn’t surprised. “Oh, Michelle. I’m so sorry. Why don’t you go to school and come directly to my office? We can talk this out.”

“No, you don’t understand. He took the car. And I can’t bring Gracie on the school bus because she has to be in a car seat. I have no way to get there. Please let my teachers know.”

Kate could hear the finality in her words. After all she had accomplished—catching up in her studies after missing the first two weeks at Foxworth High, spending her lunch break in the nurse’s office eating while simultaneously pumping breast milk, sacrificing precious time with her baby girl, once she was home, in order to study Newton’s Laws or Hemingway—she wasn’t going to make it to graduation.

Kate should have seen this coming. Being a teen mom was like navigating an obstacle course with a twenty-pound weight strapped to your back. In the beginning it looked doable, but as time went on, the weight grew heavier and heavier and the moms eventually gave up because it was just too much. But Kate thought Michelle was different. Michelle was determined. She had an academic drive that was rare even among adolescents that didn’t have the burden of a baby to care for. Kate admired her. Michelle could not quit now.

Kate took a deep breath. “Listen to me, Michelle. I will see what I can do to arrange transportation for you to get to school. Let me make some calls, OK?”

“But with Frank gone, I don’t have anyone to watch Gracie during the day.”

Kate’s jaw clenched.
Think
. Maybe she could sweet-talk Vicki Larson, the school’s day- care director, to accept one more baby. She wasn’t sure. There was a waiting list. “Can you think of anyone who can watch her? A relative? A friend?” As Kate recalled, Michelle’s mom was glad to see her go.

“I don’t have any family here and I don’t know anyone well enough that I would trust them with Gracie.”

Kate admired her protectiveness. “Let me see what I can do, Michelle. We’ll figure something out,” she said, even though she had her doubts. After she hung up the phone, she looked at her watch. She was going to be late for work. Again.

As soon as she arrived in her office, she picked up the phone and called transportation. Since the director was unavailable, she left a detailed message with his secretary. She printed Michelle’s schedule and plotted out when teachers had their prep hours throughout the day.

As she hiked toward Tim Fitch’s room, Kate saw another teen mom walking through the empty halls. Unlike Michelle, she didn’t give much thought to who watched her baby. She had bragged to Kate about how she didn’t even have to pay her babysitter because one night she found a key ring mixed in with her baby’s poop. She knew instantly that her baby swallowed it at the babysitter’s house because there were things left out on the floor and the woman was always watching
Days of our Lives
instead of the kids. So the teen and her boyfriend, an intimidating, tattooed and multi-pierced seventeen-year old who looked like he just robbed the 7-11, confronted the babysitter. Did they remove their offspring from her care? No. They threatened to tell all of the other kids’ parents what inadequate care they were receiving. In order to stay quiet, they would accept nothing less than free day-care from then on.

Needless to say, Kate was horrified on so many levels. Who knew what neglect or abuse a baby would endure from a woman her parents had blackmailed? Kate immediately reported it to the authorities.

Knowing stories of babysitters like that made Kate wonder if she could ever leave her child in someone else’s care. And yet she didn’t want to be like Nancy, either, losing herself in motherhood.

In the hallway Kate found Tim Fitch, a George Clooney look-alike that many of the female teachers and students lusted after. He leaned against the wall as he talked to a curly-haired girl in a tube top. As Kate approached them, she couldn’t help but wonder how long it really took to say, “That’s against the school dress code. Go to the office.” It sounded like they were comparing notes on Foxworth’s last football game when the girl saw Kate and took off. After getting Michelle’s homework assignment, Kate listened to Tim’s concerns about other students in his class.

When Kate made it back to her office, she found a line of students waiting to see her. All morning the class bells kept ringing, but Kate’s phone never did. After lunch she called transportation and left another message.

By last period, Kate had contacted all of Michelle’s teachers except Cindy Schwartz who was AWOL. One more time, Kate dialed transportation’s number. The director answered. He said they had a special bus for students who had babies at the school’s daycare. But as far as he knew, the daycare was full. Kate thanked him and hung up.

As she headed out of the office, she ran into the teacher she needed to see. Cindy reached up to push back her hair, unintentionally flashing Kate her belly-button ring. Trying not to stare, Kate updated her on Michelle’s situation. Then Cindy asked if Rhonda was in.

“Yes.”

Cindy flipped her hair over her shoulder again. “Oh good. I need some advice.”

“Having a problem with a student?”

“Oh, no. It’s personal. Boyfriend troubles.”

Kate nodded and continued on her way to the school’s daycare. Once there, she saw high school girls sling backpacks heavy with textbooks over one shoulder and hoist diaper bags and their babies over the other. Kate wondered how anyone balanced motherhood and high school at the same time.

Kate studied Allison, the chunky girl across the room wearing a pink T-shirt that clung to every ripple along her side. She was already pregnant the day Kate met with her to select classes for her freshman year. Her mom, an equally solid woman, sat next to her daughter in Kate’s office that spring day explaining that she would do whatever it took to ensure that Allison made it through high school. Unlike some parents, she never considered throwing her pregnant daughter out. Instead she went on a shopping spree at Babies R Us buying onesies, bibs and baby bottles. She eagerly agreed to baby-sit her grandchild whenever Allison wanted to go out. Now Kate watched Allison across the shiny linoleum floor as she strapped not one, but two children into a stroller. Kate sighed. In Allison’s case, her mom was so supportive that Allison had plenty of opportunities to have sex and get pregnant a second time.

Vicki shook her head watching Allison leave the room. The day care director bent over to pick a rattle off the floor and it occurred to Kate that carpet would be kinder to the knees of crawling babies.

“Tough day?” Kate asked Vicki, a thin woman with a gray pixie cut.

“Well, Allison’s one of yours, right?”

Kate nodded.

“She hasn’t paid her child care fees for a month.”

The fees for the school’s facilities were merely a token. For twenty-five dollars a week, students could leave their little ones in the capable hands of an adult who had a Master’s degree in early childhood development. Good luck finding a more qualified caretaker or inexpensive facility anywhere. When students didn’t pay, Vicki didn’t quite know what to do. She threatened to kick them out, but she never had the heart to do that to the babies.

“I’m sure her mom will pay the fees if you give her a call,” Kate said, her loyalties divided. Maybe if Allison were gone, she could get Michelle’s Graciella in here.

“You’re probably right. But I expect the students to be responsible enough to bring me the money themselves. It frustrates me to no end that Allison has not matured one bit in the two years she’s been here.”

“I hear you.” Kate paused, not wanting to rush into her request. Vicki began cleaning up the room, putting alphabet blocks in cubbyholes and a Raggedy Ann doll in a rocking chair.

Kate cleared her throat. “You should meet my student Michelle. She is the most responsible, dependable girl I know.”

“Hmm,” she said, distracted by an orange-colored puddle on the floor. Finding a washcloth on her desk, she wiped up the spill.

“She’s taking college-prep classes and has a good shot at getting some scholarships.”

“I don’t think I know her.”

“She’s new this year. Her husband had been watching her baby while she came to school, but he just walked out on her. Now I’m afraid she’s going to drop out.” Trying to prevent drop-outs was the reason Vicki ran the daycare, even though she had to defend it every year to the school board members, some of whom saw it as a waste of resources.

“I’m all full. In fact I’ve got one more baby than I should since Allison gave birth to her second.”

“But you would love Michelle.” Kate remembered that the innocent faces were Vicki’s weakness. “And little Graciella has these big brown eyes. You’ve got to meet her.”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s no room.”

“Isn’t there any way. . .? I guarantee she would pay her fees on time every week.”

“Boy, wouldn’t that be a nice change.” She threw her hands up in the air. “I just can’t take any more. I have to not only watch the babies but also supervise the child development students when they’re in here, too. It’s a safety issue.”

“OK,” Kate said, defeated. She wasn’t sure how, but she was not going to let Michelle go from being an inspirational teen mom to a high school drop-out.

Thinking about how much one tiny baby had altered Michelle’s life, Kate decided that she needed to talk to Mitch.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

If Kate didn’t confess soon, it might be too late. She needed to force herself into a corner that she couldn’t back out of like she did last time. She dialed Mitch’s number at work and when his voicemail picked up, her shoulders relaxed. “Please don’t work late tonight. I’ve got something to tell you when you get home.”

After she hung up, she saw a note on her desk from a student marked “urgent”. Her heart sped up. To a counselor, urgent meant terrible, ugly things:
 
imminent danger or suicidal thoughts. She wrote a pass requesting Serena Descartes come to her office immediately.

Moments later Serena arrived wearing heavy eyeliner and black fingernail polish reminiscent of the Goth fad. She was a freshman whom Kate was ashamed to admit she did not know very well. There was a senior with the same last name whose dad worked in a factory and mom took in foster kids. Kate felt bad, though, because she should have known more about Serena than what her parents did for a living. By this time last year Kate had met with many of her freshman individually to start building a positive counselor-student rapport. So far this year she hadn’t met with any except those who demanded attention. “I assume Philip is your brother?”

Serena’s head moved up and down in acknowledgment. It took her a while to open up to Kate, but eventually she told her how her dad wanted to move in with his girlfriend and he was thinking of sending her to live with her mom. She felt as if her dad no longer wanted her and Kate certainly saw her point.

After they chatted for a while Kate determined Serena was not a suicide risk, just a very unhappy adolescent. They discussed her options and Serena agreed to write her dad a letter explaining how she felt since she didn’t think she could say it face-to-face.

Kate wondered if and when she was ever a mom if her child would find it easier to write her a letter than actually speak to her. She hoped not. What kind of a parent allowed the communication with their child to deteriorate into only written form?

“I’ll work on the letter tonight when I’m at Tim’s house,” Serena said.

“Who’s Tim?”

“Oh—I mean Mr. Fitch. He told me to call him Tim.”

Kate sat up straight. “Why are you going to Mr. Fitch’s house?”

“I baby-sit for him.” Then Serena’s cheeks reddened.

She was probably just one of several girls who had a crush on the man who could be George Clooney’s twin. But her blush made Kate wonder if something more wasn’t going on. “I didn’t know he had kids.”

“Sure. His wife left him because she didn’t want to be tied down. Can you believe that? What kind of woman leaves her own kids?”

Thinking back to the conversation Tim had with the girl in the tube top, Kate remembered how his eyes sparkled and how his gaze followed the girl as she walked away. She realized that he enjoyed the attention as much as the girl did. Kate never even considered that an attractive man could be the one taking advantage of young girls. It sure would have been easy for him. “Serena, does Mr. Fitch ever do anything to make you uncomfortable?”

“Like what?”

Kate leaned forward. “I don’t know. Touch you or anything.”

“I
wish
.”

Maybe he hadn’t done anything yet, but was building up to something. Fooling around with the teenaged babysitter was such a cliché. “Let me know if he ever does. OK? Promise me.”

She raised her shoulders dismissively.

Kate sent Serena back to class and pondered whether it could be Tim. He probably wasn’t the only male teacher who admired the adolescent girls in their tight jeans. It was kind of creepy, but not criminal. Yet Kate knew for sure
somebody
on the staff had done something criminal. Wasn’t it her duty to report her suspicions?

She walked to Mr. Mohr’s office. Closing the door behind her, she stood a few feet in front of his desk. “Could it be Tim Fitch?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The e-mail I got. Accusing a teacher of molesting a student. I’m not sure, but I think it could be Tim.”

He put down the report he was reading. “It’s not Tim.”

“Did you know one of my students goes to his house every weekend to baby-sit?”

“So?”

Kate moved closer. “I’m just saying I feel like I should tell her dad not to let her go over there any more.”

He shook his head. His eyes seemed to pierce her. “I told you to let me handle this. Now leave it alone. It’s not Tim.”

Kate walked out of the principal’s office, tension knotted in her back. The final bell rang. Adding to her stress was the realization that Michelle had missed the first of what would probably be many days of school.

Kate rushed to Trish’s empty classroom. “I think it might be Tim Fitch. You know, the one the e-mail was talking about. I tried telling Mr. Mohr but he won’t listen.”

“No, it’s definitely not him,” she said with a strange glint in her eye.

“Well, how do you know?”

She paused for effect. “Because it’s not a man. It’s a woman.”

Kate grabbed her arm. “What?”

“The teacher who fooled around with that girl was a woman.”

Kate gasped. “No way. Are you serious?”

Trish nodded her head emphatically.

“How do you know this?”

“Because she contacted my dad.”

Kate released Trish’s arm. “Wow.” The woman had probably given up on getting help from Kate and went to the school board president. “Now I’m really stumped. The only female teacher I can see fooling around with a student is Cindy Schwartz, but she didn’t work here then.”

Cindy dressed like a young Madonna. Kate was terribly embarrassed at the last parent-teacher meeting she had arranged where Cindy showed up wearing a black lace shirt over a tank top. Kate thought Cindy wore the same outfit to work that she wore later out to the bars. She
had
heard Cindy gossiping with another young teacher about how wasted she got on the weekends. “What else did Jennifer say to your dad?”

“Nothing. She wants to tell the whole story only once, I guess. She’s coming in December to meet with the superintendent.”

“But you would think she would be in a hurry to tell who it was so they can be fired.”

“Obviously she’s not in too big of a hurry. This happened years ago.”

“That’s true. What are a few more weeks? But to me, that’s a few more weeks that our students are in jeopardy. It’s eating away at me. I want to do something.” Kate’s thoughts spun like clothes in a dryer. How could she work in the same building with a child molester and not know it? “I can’t believe no one else has ever come forward.”

“Maybe she was the only one.”

Kate shook her head. “All of the research shows that people like that can’t stop themselves.”

# # #

When Kate arrived home from work, she climbed the stairs, sat on her bed and looked out the window at her neighbor raking leaves. When he noticed her and waved, she was so distracted she almost forgot to wave back.

Hearing the heavy garage door open an hour later, Kate brought her knees up to her chest. Closing her eyes, she became very aware of the blood pulsing in her neck. There was no going back now. She heard Mitch drop his briefcase on the floor with a thud then climb the stairs two at a time. She opened her eyes.

His lips turned downward. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Your message sounded serious.” He came so close Kate could have reached out and touched his arm, but she didn’t. “Are you OK?”

“Yes.”

“Is it Joely?”

Kate shook her head again and looked away. “No, she’s the same.”

“Then what is it?”

Taking a deep breath, Kate decided to finally say it. “I have to get something off my chest.” In order to buy more time, she asked him to sit down.

He leaned against the edge of the mattress then waited for her to speak.

“I don’t want you to get a vasectomy.”

His forehead wrinkled. “Why not?”

She traced the damask pattern on their comforter with her finger. “Right before Joely went in for her first treatment, she asked me something. Something she didn’t have the right to, but I went ahead and said yes even though I knew it was a mistake.” Her focus switched to Mitch’s face. He looked quizzically at her.

She took a breath. “She asked me to have a baby. I told her we weren’t going to have one. . .that we were happy just the two of us. . .but she made me promise.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You told Joely we would have a child?”

“Yes.”

He scratched his five o’clock shadow. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe you would agree to something like that—especially without talking to me first.”

Her pulse intensified. “I know. She put me on the spot. I had to say something.”

“You could have said ‘no’.”

Oh, if only she could.

He shook his head. “Your sister has no boundaries. And apparently neither do you.”

Kate thought back to that critical moment, wondering how she could explain it. “Joely wouldn’t have done the treatment, if I hadn’t promised.”

Mitch cracked his knuckles. “So when did you promise we would have this baby?”

“I don’t know. Right away, I guess.”

“I thought you understood how demanding my job is. I’m not going to have a kid and neglect it like my dad did to me.” He took a deep breath. “What happened to your stance on a happy, child-free marriage anyway? The one we agreed to before we got married?”

She remembered the priest conducting their pre-marital counseling wasn’t too pleased about their anti-baby stance. He said they should view children as a gift from God. She had assured him that they did indeed like kids and agreed that they would welcome any that God saw fit to give them, while silently praying that God would see things their way. “I meant it. I didn’t want kids. But then the other day I thought I was pregnant. . .and part of me thought ‘how convenient’ because then the decision would be made for us.”

“Not really. The last thing we need right now is a baby. I’m going to be putting in more hours, trying to make a good impression at work.”

She squeezed her hands shut. “You already work so late we don’t eat dinner until eight or nine o’clock.”

“I’ve told you many times, you don’t have to wait for me. Eat without me.”

“If I wanted to eat dinner alone in front of the TV, I wouldn’t have gotten married.”

He stood up. “I’m under a lot of pressure at work and I need your support right now.” The corner of his eye twitched. “Let’s talk about this later. When you’re thinking more rationally.” He walked toward the door.

“Come back here. We need to resolve this.”

He left.

Kate was so mad she could spit. She hated it when he walked out in the middle of a fight. His non-confrontational personality, which first appeared to her as an asset, struck her now as one of his biggest flaws.

Rather than unburdening her heart, confessing only made things worse.