The Five Stages of Falling in Love (17 page)

I wanted to forget that ever happened, but I couldn’t stop replaying the nearness of his body or the smell of his cologne. I still felt his lips against mine and my heart still raced with the thrill of his boldness.

“I should go,” I croaked.

He looked at me affectionately, as if those words were the most adorable thing he’d ever heard, and said, “I figured.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That you have a family that needs you. I figured you had to get back to them.”

I narrowed my eyes on him. I didn’t believe that was what he meant at all.

“Thank you again for the gift.” I settled it back into the box and replaced the lid. “I can’t wait to hang it up on the tree.”

“If you need to get away from your parents, you can always come back.”

The desire to take him up on his offer seared through me without my permission. I wasn’t supposed to want to come back to his house. I shouldn’t want to spend more time with him.

I shouldn’t still be thinking about his kiss.

“I probably won’t see you until after they leave.”

His smile faltered, “I forget not everyone dreads spending time with their parents.”

“You love your parents,” I reminded him.

“They’re growing on me.”

“One day I’d like to meet them.”

His eyes darkened and he spoke in a low rumble, “You should probably let me take you out on a date first.”

“Excuse me?” I practically choked on the words.

But then his eyebrow rose in that cocky way he had and I realized he had been joking. I was the one that read too much into it. “Isn’t that how it usually goes? I was just kidding.”

I cleared my throat and attempted a smile.
“Merry Christmas, Ben.”

“Merry Christmas, Liz.”

I stepped into my boots, grabbed my coat and practically bolted from his house. By the time I had shut myself back in my own house I had managed to convince myself that his kiss and his flirting didn’t mean anything. He was a friend. And he thought of me as a friend.

I looked down at the box in my hand,
then
clutched it against my pounding heart.

He was just a friend
, I decided concretely.

And because I willfully came to that conclusion, I didn’t bother to examine my actions when I tucked the ornament inside my bedside table instead of hanging it on the tree where it would be stored away with all of the other Christmas decorations in just a few short days.

Chapter Seventeen

“Ms. Conway will see you now,” the school secretary informed me.

I stood up from a chair lined against the wall and walked toward Ms. Conway’s office. This time I thought ahead and called Emma to babysit the two little kids while I had my meeting with the school counselor.

When she called last Friday to ask me to come in on Monday, she’d made it clear that this was a very serious meeting and that I should be serious about it.

I figured the call was meant to scare me into leaving my gaggle of children at home.

I walked into her office and steeled myself against the immediate chill. I hated being called in here. I hated that she had the ability to reduce me to fear and panic attacks.

Before Grady died, I had been the poster mom for volunteering and school spirit. Now I was the cautionary tale whispered about in carpools and PTA meetings.
This is what happens when you have too many kids and lose your mind. You turn into her.

These women had once relied on me. Now they couldn’t meet my eyes because they didn’t know what to say to me.

Maybe it was unfair to cast them all with the same dye, but beyond some initial casseroles after Grady’s funeral, I hadn’t heard from one of them.

“How are you, Liz?” the counselor asked me from behind her desk.

“I’m alright, thank you.”

“Please, have a seat.” I followed orders. “Do you know why I called you in here today?”

I tried not to feel like a ten year old again. “No, the kids haven’t said anything.”

She pressed her thin lips together and looked down at some papers in front of her. “But you know Abby has been having problems in nearly all of her classes? She’s been acting out, disrupting lectures and not turning in her homework?”

“We’ve been working on all of that.” I suppressed the urge to run my hands over my face with frustration. “She’s had some difficulties since Christmas.”

“What happened at Christmas?” Ms. Conway gasped as if waiting for some piece to this unsolvable puzzle that was my second born child.

“We celebrated it without her father for the first time. It’s been hard on all of the kids, but Abby is my only one that reacts disruptively with grief. She isn’t processing this well.”

Ms. Conway let out a short, irritated sigh, as if my daughter’s pain irritated her. “Well, it’s the beginning of February now, Liz. I know that Abby is going through something tough, but she is causing major problems for all of her teachers. If she doesn’t change her behavior soon, we’re going to have to take disciplinary action.”

I shook my head, trying to make her words disappear. “Ms. Conway, I know that she can be a handful, but she’s been through so much. She’s not a bad kid; she’s just a little girl that misses her daddy. We’re working through her pain, but it takes time.”

“I know you think I’m the bad guy here, but I’m just trying to help her. She has to learn that even through rough
times,
she still has to follow the rules at school and in society.”

“She
will
learn that,” I promised. “I’m working with her at home and she’s opening up more. I am hoping she’s processing Grady’s death more maturely now. She just turned seven a few weeks ago. That might be part of the problem and part of the solution.”

“What do you mean?”

I clasped my hands together in my lap to keep from fidgeting. “Abby’s birthday is in January, so between the holiday season and her birthday, she had to face a lot of important, special family events that her dad couldn’t be at. That was very hard on her.
On all of us.
But she is seven now. She’ll grow up some in the next few months, she’ll mature. This has been a tough year for her, but I know she’s getting better. Just give her a little bit more time.”

“Liz, we’re nearly to the end of the school year.”

“We’re also nearly to the one year anniversary of Grady’s death. That might have something to do with her behavior too.”

“When is that?”

“Middle of March.”

She let out another long sigh. “Alright, I understand. I know this is hard for your family. I get it. I do.”

“Thank you.”

Her cold eyes lifted to meet mine. “But she cannot keep disrupting class and lunch. Yesterday she had all of the kids in the lunchroom chanting, “Yum!” at the top of their lungs.”

My eyebrows shot to my hairline.
“Yum?”

Ms. Conway started pounding her fists lightly on her desk in time to illustrate, “Yum! Yum!
Yum!”

“I can see why that would cause so many problems.”

“Ms. Carlson, they were extremely loud. The teachers couldn’t get them to settle down.”

“Give her just a little more time to struggle through this. I promise I will have a talk with her and she will get it together for the rest of the school year.”

“We just have a few more months,” she offered sympathetically.

“We’ll make it, Ms. Conway. I will get her through this year and then by next fall you will see a different kid.
A healthier kid.”

“Alright, Liz.
Alright.”

The bell rang for school to be dismissed and we both stood up. I said goodbye and walked out to meet my kids.

“Abby, we are going to talk when we get home,” I told her.

I wasn’t as irrational as I had been at the beginning of the year, but I knew my daughter needed discipline. I could only blame myself for so much and Grady’s death was a reality we had to learn to live with.

She couldn’t keep getting into trouble like this and Ms. Conway was right about her school work. Although she was only in first grade, she had all but given up trying to do well on anything.

“Am I in trouble?” she squeaked nervously.

I gave her a look, my mom look. I had perfected it over the years. She shrunk back. She knew the look all too well.

The ride home was silent. I let Abby stew in her fears of what was to come, but I didn’t exactly know what I was going to say either. I needed to work that out.

I had no idea where to begin with my daughter when her entire life had been shattered. She was my wildflower, my free spirit. Abby couldn’t follow rules before Grady died. How could I expect anything less of her now?

“Hey!” Emma greeted happily. “How was school?”

“Ask Abby,” Blake mumbled and then took off to find a snack.

“What’s wrong?” Emma asked me.

“Hey, can you stick around for a little bit longer? Like another hour?”

“What’s up?” Emma stepped close while Abby hovered nearby.

“I’m going to take Abs for some ice cream,” I whispered so the other kids didn’t overhear. “I need to talk to her.”

“One hour.” She held up her finger to accentuate her point. “I can give you one hour, but no more.”

“You’re a saint, Emma.” I kissed her cheek and then shuffled my wayward child out the door.

We drove to McDonalds where I bought us both vanilla milkshakes and parked in the corner of the lot. I invited her to sit in the front seat with me before turning the radio off and getting down to business.

Once she’d crawled to the front and situated herself with ice cream in hand, I began, “Abs, you cannot keep doing what you’re doing. It is not working.”

“What do you mean?”

I gave her a look.
“At school.
In the lunchroom.
With your homework.
Baby girl, you cannot behave the way you are behaving any longer. This behavior and this attitude are just not okay. You are not acting like the Abby I know.”

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but couldn’t find the right words. Her shoulders slumped and she stared down at her cup. “It’s not fair,” she mumbled. “It’s not fair that other people have dads and I don’t.”

I knew this was coming… I knew all of the reasons for her behavior problems and issues at school. Still, nothing could have prepared me for that.

“Abby,” I cried and then pulled her across the center console and into my lap. I buried my face in her wild hair and let out a choked sob. “I don’t think it’s fair either.”

“Why did he have to leave us, Mommy? Why did he have to die?”

“I don’t know, Sweetheart. He didn’t want to die. He tried his hardest to stay with us, but his sickness was too bad.”

“Why did he have to get sick? My friends at school have dads and none of them have gotten sick and died.” Tears streamed down her pretty face and her little nose ran. She sniffled and wiped her rivers of snot with the back of her hand.

I cupped her face with my hands and kissed a few of her freckles. I couldn’t give her answers to those questions, at least not any answers she would understand. “Abigail, your daddy got sick and because he got sick, he had to die. And now where is he?”

“Heaven,” she whispered.

“And did he love you when he was alive?”

She nodded, “Yes.”

“Did he love you with his whole heart?”

She nodded again and
hiccupped
a sob. “Yes.”

“And did he stop loving you when he went up to heaven?”

“Did he?” she asked in the most frightened and innocent voice I had ever heard.

“No,” I promised immediately.
“No, of course not.
He loves you just as much now as he did when he was alive. He’s just in a different place now.”

“Will I ever see him again?”

“Of course you will.
Of course
.
 
One day you will see him again, but it might not be for a very long time.”

Her chin trembled as she struggled to hold back more tears.

I took a breath and pressed on, “Abby you cannot keep getting into trouble at school. I know you miss your daddy. I know that. I miss him too. But honey, you are a good kid. It’s time you start acting like one.”

“Mr. Hoya doesn’t think I’m a good kid.”

Mr. Hoya was her first grade teacher and at his absolute wits end. “Then show him, Sweetie. You’ve given him a headache all year. Prove to him that you know how to listen and pay attention. Show him that you do know how to read and write. He’s not even sure if you know your own name!”

Abby laughed like I wanted her too. “He knows I know my own name! He’s always yelling it!”

I couldn’t help but smile at her. “I need you to try, Abby. Okay? I really need you to be the good kid I know that you are.”

She let out a long-suffering sigh, “Fine. I’ll try.”

“And if you don’t try?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders and picked up her milkshake again.

“You’re in super big trouble, that’s what. This is the last time I ask you nicely. Got it?”

She slid back to her seat. I could feel her struggling not to roll her eyes. “Okay.
Got it.”

“I love you Abs. I love you more than the whole world. I know you can do this.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

I asked her about her day yesterday and we laughed about the incident in the lunchroom. Maybe that made me a bad mom, but I still couldn’t believe it happened.

It was an hour and a half before we got back home and Emma’s car was nowhere to be seen. I shut the car off and jumped out of my seat, racing inside and checking my phone for a missed text at the same time.

I found Ben sitting at the island going over Blake’s homework with him. Lucy was at the craft table coloring and
Jace
was sitting on Ben’s knee eating a banana.

“Hey,” he greeted me easily, as if he had done this a hundred times before.

“Hey.”

“Ben!” Abby screamed and ran over to give him a hug. “Will you help me with my homework? Mommy says I have to start doing it. And you do Blake’s for him.
Can you do mine too?”

“Get it out, kiddo. But you have to write all of the answers so your teacher doesn’t know it was me.” He looked up at me and winked.

“Where’s Emma?” My mind spun with conflicted feelings. Should I be upset that Ben was here?
Alone with my kids?
Or did I trust him enough to leave him unsupervised and in charge?

“She had to go. She called and said a bunch of things really quickly. What I got out of it was that you told her you’d be gone an hour? And it was longer than that? She asked if I could hang out until you got home. I’ve only been here… maybe twenty-minutes? I put chicken fingers in the oven. The kids were getting hungry. Is that okay?”

And just like that my spinning thoughts slammed to a stop.

I trusted Ben.

I trusted him completely.

“That’s great,” I told him.

“You’re okay?” he asked next. “Abby?”

“We’re fine. We just went for a little drive and had a little talk.”

He nodded like my answer mattered to him. “If the kids eat the nuggets, I could order us Thai food.”

“That sounds good.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little jarred.” I watched him twitch as if he wanted to walk over to me, but he had too many kids around him.

I smiled at that. I smiled because it relaxed me to see that my children trusted him and that he seemed to genuinely like them too.

“I’m good, Ben. I’m really good.”

It wasn’t until after dinner, when I sent the kids to the living room to watch a little bit of TV before bed that Ben and I had another opportunity to talk.

He stayed after dinner and helped clean up the cartons of Thai and what little dishes there were to do. He filled my dishwasher while I wiped down the table and then he filled up the water on my Keurig for tomorrow.

“That will save me some aggravation in the morning,” I told him gratefully. I leaned back against the sink and smiled at him. He moved to stand next to me.

“We should do this again.” His low voice was barely louder than a whisper.

I tilted my head so that I could look up at him, “Dinner?”

“Yes, but not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“We should go out to dinner,” he clarified.

“With the kids?”

He shook his head slowly as if he couldn’t figure me out.
“Just the two of us.
You and I should go out to dinner.”

I shot up and practically jumped across the room. “Like a date?” I gasped.