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“I’ll take my own car,” Helen said, pivoting to leave. “This is Drew, after all. It might be handy to have an extra car in addition to extra hands if a rush trip to the doctor for stitches or a cast is on the docket.”
Genevieve grabbed her purse and followed her sister outside. “I’m hoping he’s outgrown that.”
Helen paused as she opened her car door. “I like your positive thinking, Genevieve. However, I wouldn’t count on that. You know that bad things always come in threes.”
“Threes!” Genevieve’s purse slipped to the ground. “He hasn’t had a single accident since they moved to Colorado!”
“Well, in order to get to three, there must be a one and a two.” Helen slid into the driver’s seat.
“Aren’t you just Miss Merry Sunshine?” Genevieve grumbled as she bent and scooped up her bag.
“No, I’m Betsy Boy Scout. I believe in always being prepared.” Helen started her car. “Face it. Drew has a history of being snakebit.”
“He’s never been bitten by a snake!”
“You know what I mean, sister, and if you’re gonna be Nana-on-Call, you’d better be ready to earn your badges.” With that, Helen finger-waved good-bye, pulled the driver’s door shut, then drove away.
“Nana-on-Call,” Genevieve muttered as she climbed into her own car and started the engine. At times like these, that’s exactly who she wanted to be, and she was grateful for the opportunity. Truly. Never mind how many ones, twos, and threes.
Bad things always come in threes.
“Please, God,” she prayed aloud as she backed out of her driveway. “Keep our precious little guy safe.”
Always.
Chapter Three
AFTER SPEAKING WITH HERmother, Willow set down her telephone with a sigh. Single parenting was not for the faint of heart.
She told herself not to worry about Drew. Hadn’t she spent the past six weeks shooing him outdoors to play? Wasn’t she determined not to be a helicopter parent or a snowplow parent or whatever was the label du jour of the overprotective progenitor? Yes and yes. It was a challenge in today’s dangerous world. Not for the first time since moving into the Raindrop Lodge cabin, Willow wished she’d rented a place in the middle of town.
She’d wanted to nurture a sense of independence in Drew, to encourage him to get off his Switch, get outside, and explore. She’d believed that to be easier—and safer—to do on property owned by her family than in a neighborhood where she didn’t know another soul.
Willow was so worried about Drew. But landing the helicopter-mom chopper was easier said than done for a mother who carried around the baggage that she did.
Willow’s teeth tugged at her bottom lip as she checked the clock, glanced at the window, and looked back toward her daughter’s bedroom. Then, switching her worry from her elder child to her younger, Willow decided to sneak into Emma’s room and take her temperature.
This risked waking her. Emma was a light sleeper. If she wasn’t ill and Willow woke her prematurely, the child would be grumpy and clingy for the rest of the day.
But Willow didn’t want the responsibility of getting her mother sick. She had enough guilt where her mother was concerned. She didn’t need more. If Emma was ill, Genevieve could choose whether or not to stay with her.
Willow sent up a quick prayer that her daughter wasn’t ill.
She followed that with a prayer that Drew was all right.
She added a third prayer that she wouldn’t backslide into the kind of behavior that was destructive for her children and herself. Once the praying was done, she made a mental note to call her counselor’s office and make a virtual appointment.
Drew wasn’t the only family member who’d suffered from PTSD after the auto accident that killed his father and left Drew bleeding and traumatized. No one in the Prentice family knew that a bomb had gone off in Willow’s world a week before the wreck when she’d learned that Andrew Eldridge was a cheat and a thief. During the weeks and months after the collision, she’d been dealing not only with Andy’s betrayal and death and Drew’s injuries but also with her own self-doubt. How could she have been so wrong?
Her instinctual response was to gather her babies and hold them close. Instead, she all but squeezed the life out of them.
Willow had tended to hover over her kiddos even beforethe crash happened. Afterward, she’d been afraid to let her children out of sight.
In the months following his father’s death, Drew’s behavior swung from clingy and fearful to willful recklessness. Trips to the doctor for stitches and sprains became commonplace. Willow held her baby tighter.
It hadn’t helped the situation that he’d been upset by a fake-drowning prank the first time she let go and sent her baby off to camp.
It took the clarity of hindsight, history, and a new psychologist in Nashville to identify that Willow’s hovering only worsened matters for her traumatized young son. Drew responded to her cues. He clung because she clung. Drew had come to associate a physical injury with the sense of safety of being in his mother’s arms. They’d both be healthier, mentally, living with an independent mindset.
