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“I thought we were goin’ to Dad’s,” Harper said, cutting into her thoughts as Dylan plugged in again, out of the conversation once more.
Rachel explained, “You are, but he’ll be home late.”
“Can’t he pick us up?”
“Look, this is just easier. For me. So go with it. I’ll drop you off after the meeting. Okay?”
No response.
Rachel added, “So when you get home from school, pack whatever you want to take to his place.”
“You won’t be there?”
“Maybe not.” She didn’t elaborate.
Harper let out a sound of disgust. “Great.”
“That a problem?”
“I, um, I have plans tonight.”
“With whom?”
“Does it matter? If I have to go to Dad’s?” She pulled a face that looked as if she’d just sucked on a lemon.
“Take it up with him,” Rachel said, though it kind of killed her, giving up control of the kids. Just didn’t seem right. And Harper, at seventeen, was on the cusp of danger, just as Rachel had been at that very age. Harper was “old” for her class, just missing the cutoff because of an October birth date. At the time Rachel thought it would be a blessing and allow her daughter to be the most mature in her class. Now she wasn’t so sure. Harper seemed bored with school and interested in God only knew what.
“He never lets me do anything,” her daughter grumbled. Radiating disappointment, she leaned her head against the passenger window.
Not true, Rachel thought. At least not all the time. Despite the fact that Cade was a cop, he could be a lot less strict than she was. It all depended on the situation. He seemed to trust the kids’ instincts more, allowed them to make mistakes on their own while she’d spent most of her adult life ensuring their safety, making certain they didn’t get hurt, probably, she admitted grudgingly to herself, to the point that she did clip their wings or make them less confident.
/> One more thing to work on. Great.
“You know, Harper, it wouldn’t kill you to lighten up.”
“How would you know?”
That hit home.
“At least I try.”
“Do you?” her daughter asked and rolled her eyes before turning her gaze past the window to the sidewalks of the small town, where pedestrians, shoppers, dog walkers, and skateboarders milled in front of storefronts.
The rain had started again, and Rachel flipped on her wipers as she stopped at the one light between her home and the high school, the same brick-and-mortar two-storied building she’d attended twenty years earlier. A new gym and science wing had been added about five years ago, and there had been work to earthquake-proof it retroactively, but otherwise the building, constructed between the two world wars, hadn’t changed much.
Just like the rest of the town that had been booming after the Second World War. Logging camps, sawmills, and the fish cannery had been working around the clock, she’d heard from her grandparents. And then in the late seventies things had begun slowing down, the bustling town no longer growing, but stagnant.
As they approached the school, Dylan said, “I think I’ll pass on going to Lucas’s with you. I’ll just stay home and then you can pick me up and take me to Dad’s.”
“Not an option.” Dylan spent too much time alone as it was. It seemed he spent more time hooked into the Internet, where he connected with other gamers, rather than with real, flesh-and-blood friends. And then there were the missing antianxiety pills. If any more went missing . . .
“Ah, man,” Dylan complained. “I hate going over there.”
“You’ll survive.”
Rachel made the final turn onto the street where the high school stood. “Besides, the meeting shouldn’t last too long.”
Dylan was craning his neck to peer around the front seat where his sister was still moping as she stared through the rain-splattered windshield. “This is good,” he announced, meaning he wanted to be dropped off a block from the school rather than suffer the indignity of being driven into the drop-off area near the front doors. “Right here.”
