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“Please, Aunt Allie. I promise, I’ll tell them. The thing is, Friday night is a big home football game and I really, really want to go.”
“A football game? What does that have to do with anything?”
“When Daddy finds out about the party he’ll ground me, which means no football game, which means they’ll kick me off the cheerleading squad.”
“For missing one game?”
“He’ll ground me for the entire season!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Pause. “What about your mom? Doesn’t she have any say in your punishment?”
“That’s the thing. She’s a lot softer than he is. More reasonable, really. And after he pronounces sentence, she’ll get upset and the two of them will lock themselves in their room and when they come out they won’t be talking.” Claire squeezed out a couple more tears. “I hate to be the reason for another fight between them.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have snuck out to that party in the first place.”
“I know what I did was wrong. But didn’t you ever do anything you weren’t supposed to? Do you know how hard I worked to get on the cheerleading squad? I had to take gymnastics lessons just to learn to do a back flip, which you have to do to make the squad and the lessons were expensive. Mom had to talk Daddy into them and if I get kicked off the squad the whole thing will have been for nothing.”
“I don’t know, Claire—”
“Please, please, please, Aunt Allie.” It was like the tears faucet had been turned on full force. Claire’s eyes were puffy and mascara ran down her cheeks.
Allie shouldn’t give in to the drama. But would Zeke really punish Claire to the point that she got kicked off the cheerleading squad? It didn’t seem a fair punishment for what was undoubtedly a typical teenage indiscretion.
Instinctively, Allie knew the answer to that question was a resounding yes. Zeke was more than capable of grounding his daughter for the entire football season.
Good Grief. Her brother had turned into the Gestapo.
But more than that…Allie had to admit what Claire said was beginning to make sense. Mimi wasn’t the old Mimi. She and Zeke walked on eggshells around one another. And Zeke… Had Allie seen her brother smile once this visit? He was like a grenade, ready to explode. Oh God. Claire was right. Zeke and Mimi were on the brink of divorce.
It was against her better judgment, but nothing could be served by telling Mimi and Zeke what had gone down tonight. At least, not until Allie had a chance to think about it some more.
“What about Cameron? He witnessed the whole thing and—”
“Don’t worry about Cameron,” Claire said, her voice filled with hope. “If I tell him not to say anything, then he won’t.”
Allie hated to think what methods Claire might use to extract a promise like that from her younger brother. Bullying? Blackmail? Bribes? None of those options sounded good.
“You have to promise me you’ll never do anything like this again. And you have to stop fighting with Cameron. No bullying him into getting your way. In other words, you have to be a complete angel.”
Claire grabbed her into a hug. “I promise! I swear, no more sneaking off. And I’ll stop whining about my own car and everything. You’ll see, I’ll be perfect.” She swiped her tears, taking most of the mascara along with it. She almost looked like Claire Bear again.
Why couldn’t her niece go back to being eight years old? When life had been uncomplicated?
“This is just a reprieve,” Allie warned. “Just till after the game Friday night. Then you and I are going to sit down with your parents and tell them everything. Got it?”
Claire nodded eagerly. “Got it.”
*~*~*
“Let me get this straight,” Mimi said. “Tom just happened to be driving by when the van wouldn’t start up? And now it’s miraculously running fine again?”
“Weird, huh?” Allie faked a laugh. “He insisted on driving us back to make sure it didn’t happen again.”
“Why didn’t he just follow you in his truck?”
“Can you believe no one thought of that?”
It was obvious from the look on Mimi’s face that, no, she didn’t believe it.
