Page 20 of Windward Hearts

If only Izzy would let her in!

She held her tongue for now, though, promising to try again later. Maybe Isabelle just needed to decompress after a day at school. Cadence could understand that; she sometimes wanted nothing more than an hour of peace and quiet after a busy day at the art gallery, especially if it was a day in which lots of patrons had been asking her questions. It could just be too much, sometimes. Everybody needed a break every now and again.

So, when Izzy asked if she could play in her room after they got home, Cadence agreed, even though a big part of her wanted to sit her daughter down and demand that she tell her what was going on right now!

She was too jittery to relax, so she decided to begin the lengthy process of making a homemade lasagna for dinner. That would butter Izzy up too. She loved lasagna, and it was a rare treat, since Cadence didn’t usually have enough time in the evening to go through the whole process of layering the noodles, adding the sauce and the cheese, sautéing vegetables to go in between the different layers, and baking it all in time for them to eat at a decent hour. Tonight, though, she let herself fall into the comforting routine of cooking, let the smells and sights of working in the kitchen soothe her frazzled edges.

It worked too, right up until she put the lasagna in the oven and moved to unpack Izzy’s backpack.

It wasn’t the lunchbox full of half-eaten food that bothered her. There was always something left over from the lunch that she’d packed, and it was never what Cadence expected. Indeed, today, Izzy had taken one bite from each of the apple slices that Cadence had packed, but hadn’t finished a single one of them.

That part actually made Cadence laugh. Kids were so delightfully strange sometimes.

The thing that made her hands still with worry was Izzy’s spelling test.

Which was marked with a D.

Anxiety and the accompanying sense that something wasn’t right flared in her. Cadence herself had been a good but not stellar student; she knew that sometimes, you had a bad day, or there was some concept that simply eluded you, and a bad grade came home as a result. She wasn’t the kind of parent who would get angry with her kid for doing poorly on a test.

But Izzy had always been pretty good at spelling. It wasn’t one of the areas where she usually had to work that hard to succeed.

It set off Cadence’s ‘mom radar,’ making it ping unpleasantly.

She was still looking at the test when her husband, Tyler, came home a little while later. Even though she was still anxious, Cadence felt something in her chest unclench a little at the sight of him, his sandy blond hair a little mussed from the long day working, even though he kept it short. He smiled when he saw her, and immediately crossed the room to kiss her, warmth and kindness beaming from his chocolate brown eyes.

Cadence was instantly reminded of how grateful she was to have him in her life, and how glad she was that they’d worked through their communication issues after suffering from fertility challenges. Life had been so much harder and so much sadder when he wasn’t by her side.

“Hey, Cady-girl, what’s wrong?” he asked, taking in her worried expression. He was wearing his work clothes, like he always did when he was out doing electrician work, and their sturdy fabric reminded her of his emotional sturdiness too. It already helped to make her feel better.

“I just saw this in Izzy’s backpack,” she explained, handing over the test. Tyler’s brow furrowed as he took in the low mark, but he shook his head.

“It’s just one test, right?” he said encouragingly. “I bet she just had an off day.”

Cadence was already shaking her head in return. “That’s what I would have said too, except earlier this week, she got a C-minus on a math test. And, I don’t know, it could just be a couple of bad days. I know that sort of thing happens. But… I’m not sure,” she hedged.

“You don’t have to be sure,” he told her, pulling her into his arms. “You can just tell me what you think and we can work it out together.”

Cadence laid her head on his shoulder, then smiled a little as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“There’s just something that isn’t sitting right with me,” she confessed, pulling back just enough to look up at him. “I feel like recently she’s been so reticent about sharing the details of her day. And that could just be a phase too, but it just doesn’t feel like Izzy. I don’t know. It’s got me worried.”

Tyler nodded, absorbing this.

“Well, you’re her mom,” he said. “Your instincts are usually good. Why don’t we try talking to her together, see if she’ll give us any clues about anything?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, heaving a sigh of relief at no longer feeling quite so alone in her troubles. “I think that’s a great idea. Can we go now? The lasagna has another twenty minutes.”

“Ooh, I love your lasagna,” he said. “But yeah, let’s go talk to her. Maybe then it’ll be celebration lasagna because we’ve sorted everything out.”

Cadence huffed a little laugh at this, although she wasn’t entirely compelled by Tyler’s optimism. It was just another hunch that was sticking with her…

Up in her room, Izzy was working on one of the crafts from a “learn-to-sew” kit that had been a gift from Diana. For a moment, Cadence just watched her daughter, her tongue sticking slightly out of her mouth in concentration as she tried to thread one of those big, plastic needles that they made for kids to learn without pricking themselves… and totally miss the eye.

Izzy was grumbling in annoyance as Tyler knocked on the doorjamb.

“Oh, hi, Daddy,” she said, smiling, looking up. “Also, Mommy, that smells so good. Are we having pasta?”

Isabelle’s cheerful demeanor soothed Cadence a little bit more, although this also didn’t completely banish her worries. Yes, something might be a little amiss, but that didn’t mean that everything was amiss, or that Izzy was suddenly miserable.