“No.” Her gaze lost its intensity and wandered off. “Kids can’t help themselves. They don’t do it on purpose.”
“Of course not.”
“There are all sorts of reasons for enuresis.” Her cheeks were developing round red spots. “A child could simply have a genetic predisposition. A urinary tract infection. Sleep apnea. Diabetes, even.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And some people are born with small bladders. It’s not a character flaw. It’s just the way you were made.”
I’d struck a nerve, and I didn’t quite know how to unstrike it. “Exactly,” I said.
After a pause, the conference went on. At long last she closed the folder. “Mrs. Kennedy, would you consider making an appointment for Oliver with the school psychologist? I’m sure we both agree it’s in his best interest to work through his problems.”
I bit my cheeks. “I’m sure my son will be fine.”
“You could be right,” she said doubtfully, leaving hanging the insinuation that though I could be right, I was probably wrong. “But I think it’s better to act sooner rather than later.”
“Good advice.” I gathered up my purse and the materials she’d handed over. On my way out, I counted the months until the end of school and came up with a number much bigger than the optimal zero—eight and a half more months of Lauren Atchinson.
This could be a very long year.
I picked up the kids at Marina’s house. “So how did it go?” she asked. Her gaze was bright and shifty, darting toward me, toward the laptop computer on the kitchen table, toward the family room where her son Zach was playing with Oliver and Jenna. She was making me dizzy.
“Jenna’s teacher said she’s doing fine, but Lauren Atchinson wants Oliver to start therapy.”
“For what, having to be in her classroom all year? Piffle.” She waved off the idea with bright orange fingernails. “And that wasn’t what I was asking about.” The glancing eyes made another circuit. “Did you find out anything? You know, about you-know-what?” She made a big sideways nod toward the laptop.
“You mean finding out the you-know-what of the you-know-who who did you-know-what you-know-when?”
“Stop that.” She shook her finger at me. “You know what I mean.”
And, of course, I did. “Not yet.”
“Oh.” She deflated half a size.
“You didn’t really expect me to figure it out this fast, did you?”
She pointed at her head. “Here? No. Down here is another story.” She put her hands on her heart. Though she didn’t look as rough as she had last night, there were telltale signs of Marina-stress. Hair loose on her shoulders, boxes from frozen dinners on the counter, no coffee brewing. “This morning,” she said, “the Dear Husband actually asked if anything was wrong. I said the sad plight of the African swallows was keeping me awake at night.”
I laughed. “Could you possibly have come up with a worse lie?”
“Well, I had to tell him something.” The fun left her face, and worry appeared in its place. “I’m sure the you-know-what threat isn’t real.” She twisted a strand of hair around her fingers. “This will all turn out okay, won’t it?”
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “Promise.”
But I should have known better. Making a promise like that is just asking for trouble.
I drove us home through a rain that couldn’t make up its mind what it wanted to be. For two blocks the drops came down hard enough for me to turn the windshield wipers on high. In another block the rubber scraped dry on the glass. Half a block later, it was a steady drizzle.
In the backseat, Jenna wiped her fogged-up window with her hand. “What did Mr. Richey say about me?”
I smiled into the rearview mirror. “That you’re the smartest, nicest, most talented little girl he’s ever taught.”
“No, really. What did he say?”
This was the first time Jenna had paid any attention to a parent-teacher conference. “What do you think he said?”
Her palm scrubbed harder at the window. Soon it was clear from top to bottom, and from left to right. “It was only the one time.”
Uh-oh. “Are you sure?” It didn’t take a great leap of reasoning to figure this was something to do with Bailey Scharff. Pete had given me a general warning; the rest was up to me. For the first time in months I felt a wave of longing for Richard. I couldn’t do this by myself. I wasn’t smart enough to raise two children all alone. I was too old, too out of touch, too—
Jenna whipped around and thumped her back against the back of the seat. She folded her arms. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said sullenly.
I glanced over at Oliver. He was tipping his head back and forth with the windshield wipers, counting the beats. “Fifty-five, fifty-six . . .”
“Why did you do it even once?”
“Don’t know.”
I flicked on the turn signal and turned left. Half a dozen blocks and we’d be home. The kids would jump out, rush inside, and the opportunity for car-inspired confidences would be gone. Richard had always wanted the kids to take the school bus in the morning, saying they needed to learn to interact with children of all ages. Maybe he was right, but I’d discovered more about my children’s lives on these rides than in any other situation. “Who started it?” I asked, intentionally not mentioning Bailey’s name.
“Not sure.”
I slowed down a little more. This felt like a ten-block conversation. “Are you going to do it again?”
“No,” she muttered.
All I could see was the top of her head. The part in her hair was straight as a ruler, the two ponytails drooping down. For no known reason, tears smarted in my eyes. I loved her so much. . . . I winked the wetness away. “Are you sorry you did it?”
She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything.
“Jenna? Are you sorry?”
“Do you think he hates me?” Jenna whispered.
This conversation was like the quote about writing a novel; it was like driving from coast to coast in a dark fog, seeing only a hundred feet of pavement in front of the headlights. “Do you think he does?” If we were talking about Paul Richey, the answer was no. If we were talking about a boy in her school, the answer might be different.
“I would if I were him,” she said.
To my right, Oliver was still busy counting. “Ninety-one, ninety-two . . .”
Three blocks to go. Time for Mom to come up with some miraculous way of making everything better. Unfortunately, my bag of magic was flat empty. Well, except for the one surefire trick. “Have you told him you’re sorry?”
Half a block later, the answer came like a soft breeze. “No.”
“Do you think apologizing would help?”
“Maybe.”
“If you were him and he was you”—I grimaced at the atrocious grammar, but communication was the important thing—“would you want him to apologize?”
We drove the last block; then I clicked on the turn signal for the approach up our driveway. From the backseat came a very, very quiet “Yeah.”
“Maybe you should do it tomorrow.” I pulled the garage door opener off the visor and handed it to Oliver. He pushed the button with his thumb, and the door rolled up. “Get it done, and then you don’t have to think about it anymore,” I said.
We rolled onto the garage’s dry concrete, and I turned off the windshield wipers. “A hundred and thirty-seven,” Oliver said firmly. “I counted all the way from Mrs. Neff’s house.”
“Good job, Ollster,” I said. “You’re the King of Counting.”
Jenna unbuckled her seat belt, grabbed her backpack, and rushed inside. I helped Oliver with his buckle and held the booster seat while he jumped out. “What did Jenna do?” he asked. “Is she in trouble?”