Czytaj książkę: «A Family For Daniel»
Josh stepped into the closet
He grinned when he found Amy still stretched out on the floor. “Comfy down there?” he asked.
“Seems I have a knack for sending Daniel running.” She struggled to her feet, struggled not to need the reassurance she got just from being close to him.
Facing the world alone was something she was getting good at. What she’d told herself she wanted. But the world was tougher to handle by the hour. And being around Josh so much was making alone feel a lot more lonely.
He offered his hand, and nothing could have kept her from taking it.
“You’re a miracle worker.” The warmth radiating from his touch held her captive. “I’ve been trying to get Daniel out of here for an hour.”
The professional principal and the friend from her youth were nowhere to be found at the moment. All Amy could see was the ruggedly handsome man before her. A concerned, caring man who’d do anything to help his nephew. The man she’d forced herself to turn away from just hours earlier.
What would it feel like to have those strong arms wrapped around her?
It would feel like a really bad idea, she warned herself.
Dear Reader,
Through programs like Stephen Ministries and Rainbows, I’ve been privileged over the years to walk alongside parents and children struggling to rebuild their lives after a family has come undone. What is lost when a marriage fails or a parent dies is not just the family that was known, but also the future that was dreamed of. And what’s left behind are single parents and children who are grieving, and who are often overwhelmed by the simple question, What do I do now?
Single parents are some of the strongest, most courageous people I’ve ever met. Their lives are filled with private battles, daily failures and victories that the outside world rarely sees. And yet they keep fighting, conquering one day at a time until they’ve made a new life for themselves and the children they cherish.
While the challenges facing my hero and heroine as they create A Family for Daniel are fictional, I pray I’ve done justice to the real single mothers and fathers out there who are fighting daily for the special kids in their lives. God bless you all!
Anna DeStefano
A Family for Daniel
Anna DeStefano
To Jan, Brenda and Julie, who’ve shown me the everyday sacrifice, courage and strength required to be a single working mother.
And to Dianna Love Snell and the power of road-trip brainstorming. I thank you, and Daniel thanks you.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
LIFE JUST SUCKED sometimes.
That’s what Daniel’s psy…psychol… That’s what the stupid doctor his uncle made him talk to said. Life could suck, for kids most of all. But when you get through the bad stuff, Dr. Steve said, there’s a world of good things waiting on the other side.
Just wait and see.
Life will get better.
Trudging down the hallway of White Elementary School, headed for the principal’s office for the second time that week, Daniel rolled his eyes. Dr. Steve didn’t have a clue.
Daniel had to get out of this place. But where? Where did he have to go? Back to his uncle’s home? There was only there or here, which left Daniel exactly where he’d been for the last four months.
Nowhere.
Forget Dr. Steve.
There was no bright side just around the corner.
Daniel’s mother was dead. His chest heaved from the sharp pain that came, even as he shoved the memory aside. His dad had split years ago, never to be heard from again. Living in Sweetbrook, South Carolina, with his uncle wasn’t working, no matter how hard Daniel tried.
Life just sucked. Period.
He turned left at the end of the hall and shuffled into the bustling school office. His sneaker caught as he stepped from the tiled floor onto carpet. Arms and legs flailing, he managed not to fall on his face. Barely. But now every person in the room was staring at him, when what he really wanted was to be invisible.
“Have a seat.” Mrs. Lyons pointed to the ugly couch the kids called death row. “Principal White’s expecting you, but he’s on the phone.”
Mrs. Lyons had worked here for over forty years, he’d heard. She’d worked here when his uncle was in elementary school. Rumor had it his uncle had done his own time on death row. Maybe she’d pointed that same bony finger at him. Maybe she’d stared him down like he was trouble, too.
Probably not. What could his perfect, by-the-book uncle have done to match the mess Daniel made out of school every day?
He dropped onto the couch and gave Mrs. Lyons his best glare. He kept right on staring, until she looked away. He knew exactly what she was thinking. What they were all thinking—the teachers and everyone. He’d heard them talking when they didn’t think he was listening. He’d seen the looks on their faces, just like the one on Mrs. Lyons’s now. And he hated them all. Hated their nosey questions, the way they pretended to understand….
He’s always been such an angry little boy…. But he could be such a good student. Before his mother’s accident, he was starting to settle in…. It’s just so sad! And his poor uncle…can you imagine trying to deal with a troubled child he barely knows on top of everything else?
What did they know?
What did he care?
“Daniel.” The door to the principal’s office opened. As usual, the man was wearing freshly pressed dress clothes, plus the frown he didn’t even try to hide from Daniel anymore. “Ready to step inside?”
Daniel decided staring at his shoes was a better plan. Not because he was afraid. He wasn’t afraid of anything in this nowhere town. Adults found unresponsive kids annoying, Dr. Steve had told him, and being annoying suited Daniel just fine today. He reached a finger down to tug at the hole in the trashed sneakers his uncle had forbidden him to wear to school.
“Daniel? In my office. Now.”
PRINCIPAL JOSHUA WHITE shut the office door as ten-year-old Daniel threw himself into the guest chair that was practically his second home.
Shrugging off a wave of discouragement he couldn’t afford, Josh rounded his desk, giving the scared, defiant kid dressed in jeans and a dirt-smudged T-shirt his space. Josh remained standing as he reread his notes from the phone call he’d just concluded with Becky Reese’s grandmother, Gwen Loar.
Becky and Daniel had mixed it up in class again today, and according to their fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Cole, Becky had instigated their latest tussle. Then Daniel had taken things way too far, as usual. Before Mrs. Cole could intervene, the confrontation had escalated into classroom warfare, complete with the kids throwing anything they could lay their hands on at each other.
Josh and the girl’s grandmother had discussed Becky’s role in the altercation, trying to formulate a plan for better settling her into her new school. For compensating for the fact that a month ago Amy Loar had shipped the little girl off to live with Grandma, so Mom could dedicate 24/7 to her career in Atlanta.
Amy Loar.
Josh’s memory produced an image of his childhood friend. Dazzling in white, her auburn hair a soft cloud of tousled curls, she was smiling at him from across the dance floor at their senior prom. Somehow she’d blossomed from his pal since kindergarten into the most beautiful girl in the room. A girl he’d suddenly wished he hadn’t wasted so many years being just friends with.
After graduation, they’d left for their separate colleges, and their friendship should have slowly faded away.
If only it had been so simple.
Amy had always been ambitious. Growing up poor in the South had left its mark on her, and she’d been determined to do better. To be better. To ensure that she and her mother never again went without anything they needed. He’d always admired her beauty, brains and ambition. Right up until the moment she’d produced a big city fiancé who Josh had known instinctively was all wrong for her.
And how had he handled the situation? He’d done the unforgivable, made an ass out of himself, and they hadn’t spoken since.
She’d achieved her success, he’d heard. She’d carved out the dream life she’d wanted. Except her wealthy husband was out of the picture now. And as far as Josh could remember, being divorced and a single parent to boot hadn’t been part of Amy’s plans.
He refocused on his young visitor, shoving aside the unwanted trip down memory lane. It was April in South Carolina, and the kids in school were beside themselves with spring fever. All of them but this child. A study in shaggy blond hair and intelligent green eyes, Daniel sat sprawled in his chair, digging at the monstrous hole in the toe of his right sneaker. No doubt waiting for Josh to make the first move, so the kid could ignore him some more.
Well, let him wait a little longer. Nothing else had worked. Not exactly what they taught you at principal school, but it was worth a shot. Josh continued to flip through his notes, still standing.
“So?” Daniel finally sputtered, making eye contact for the first time.
Josh sat as if he was in no particular hurry to get to the point. He exchanged Becky Reese’s file for Daniel’s even weightier one. He didn’t have to read through his notes. He knew Daniel’s issues by heart: the struggles to conform and get along in the classroom; the confusion; the emotional explosions that so quickly built from simple disappointments. And the kid internalized each failure, each bit of negative feedback, making it that much more difficult for him to try the next time.
“So.” Josh braced his elbows on the desk. “You and Becky got together this morning and decided to toss your classroom?”
Daniel shrugged and picked some more at shoes that looked like last year’s Salvation Army rejects. “She started it,” he mumbled.
“Someone else always does.”
Josh shifted his shoulders, shrugging off the lingering weight of his own personal failures. The guilt still remained from the mistakes he’d made the last few years. The relationships he hadn’t been able to save. But he was learning to let the past go and focus on making the best of now.
At least that was the plan.
But helping a child as angry as Daniel understand that loss and crushing defeat were just part of the game was a different story. What could he say that wouldn’t sound like a bunch of psychological hooey?
Welcome to the club, kid. Life bites the big one. Get used to it.
He gave his head a mental thunk.
“We’ve talked about throwing things in the classroom,” he said. “We can’t keep you with the other kids if we have to worry about one of them getting brained with a book—” he flipped through Daniel’s file “—or your backpack. Or your shoe—”
“I didn’t hurt anyone.”
“You’re down here almost every day, and you don’t get along with any of your classmates—especially Becky Reese.”
“She’s a pain in the—”
“She’s not your problem.”
“She said—”
“She said that your mom was as big a loser as hers.” Josh sighed. “Mrs. Cole told me, and I just got off the phone with Becky’s grandmother. The girl owes you an apology, but you can’t completely lose it every time someone mentions your mother. You and your therapist have talked about that.”
“Good old Dr. Steve.”
Cynicism sounded god-awful coming out of the mouth of a ten-year-old.
“If you can’t keep it together with the other kids in class—”
“No one talks bad about my mom.”
“Having temper tantrums isn’t the answer.” Josh was as disturbed as Daniel by what the little girl had said. It made him want to throw things himself, when up until a few months ago he’d been a pro at keeping his emotions and his job separate.
Everyone at school, including the kids, knew what Daniel had been through—at least part of it. A year ago, he’d come to them an unhappy child, after his mother moved them to Sweetbrook, a place Daniel had never seen before. Then she’d died in a single-vehicle car accident on New Year’s Eve while driving under the influence. Rumors had spread in the four months since that perhaps she’d aimed for that telephone pole, after all, leaving folks in the community to pity even more the lost little boy left behind.
Sweetbrook might be small and antiquated by most standards, but tiny South Carolina communities took care of their own. People wanted to give Daniel the break he deserved. Everyone except Becky. From her first day in school, the child had seemed hell-bent on baiting Daniel with the one thing she knew would hurt him the most—trash-talking the boy’s mother right along with her own.
Damn Amy Loar for dumping her problems in Sweetbrook, while she kicked back and did whatever she was doing in Atlanta.
“I know Sweetbrook has been a bum deal for you,” Josh said with care. Sounding soothing and understanding was tough, when he understood next to nothing these days. “Moving here to be near family you don’t know. Starting over. Then losing your mom the way you did.”
Daniel’s scowl rearranged itself into something fiercer. Something near tears.
Josh’s chest burned. “But you have to keep your hands and things to yourself if you want to stay in school.”
“When did this become about what I want? I don’t want to be in trouble all the time, but that’s what keeps happening.” The kid looked up then, his green eyes glistening. “Maybe everyone would be better off if I wasn’t here.”
“That’s not an option, Daniel.”
Josh refused to let it be. He watched resignation crowd out the grief on Daniel’s face, and he knew exactly how the boy felt. The situation everyone in Sweetbrook expected Josh to handle like a pro was speeding from bad to worse with each passing day.
He’d grilled the Family Services caseworker assigned to Daniel after his mother’s death. He’d read every book available on dealing with kids with Daniel’s issues. Josh was using all the tools at his disposal to help the little boy believe he was wanted. That he belonged here. That he could succeed. But the demons that drove Daniel to strike out every time someone got too close, every time the vulnerability he tried to hide swam to the surface, were unfortunately about so much more than losing his mother.
Josh’s well-thought-out plans to help Daniel weren’t making a dent. The boy’s behavior was defying every logical step Josh took, just as his ex-wife’s had, when she’d left to build the life she’d wanted away from him and Sweetbrook.
“It’s going to get better, you know,” he finally said, following Dr. Steve Rhodes’s lead, even though the words sounded ridiculously shallow. Maybe if Josh kept saying them, he could will the platitude into reality.
Daniel’s total lack of reaction announced that the kid wasn’t born yesterday.
Josh checked his copy of Mrs. Cole’s schedule. “Your class is at recess. You think you and Becky can retire to neutral corners until the end of the day?”
A mumble and a shrug were all he got in response.
“Give it your best shot.” Josh stood and walked around the desk, his stomach tightening at the realization of just how close he was to losing Daniel to whatever dark place he’d gone to after his mother’s death. “We’ll deal with the rest later.”
He reached to smooth Daniel’s bangs out of his eyes. The boy flinched, and Josh dropped his hand, fresh out of next steps.
Daniel inched to his feet, putting more space between them.
Josh let him go, like a principal should. He stared at his dress shoes, forcing his hands to stay in his pockets, when everything in him wanted to pull the lonely child close and hug it all better.
As if that had worked every other time he’d tried.
It was some kind of sick cosmic joke that he was Daniel’s best shot at a normal life now. The kid needed love so badly, and neither one of them knew how to make sure he got it.
“Hey, buddy,” he rushed to say as the ten-year-old reached the door. He hated the strained silence between them, almost as much as he hated the thought of Daniel leaving his office in worse emotional shape than when he’d come in. “Hot dogs for dinner again tonight?”
He held his breath, praying Dr. Rhodes hadn’t been blowing sunshine up his ass when he’d said to play the intense times loose and easy.
Daniel looked back, his eyes too old, too lost, and so much like his mother’s the last time Josh had seen her.
The last time he’d seen his baby sister.
“Sure.” The ten-year-old yanked open the door, his bored expression an improvement over the wariness that had been there just a moment ago. “Why not?”
Josh watched his nephew amble through the outer office and disappear down the hall.
What the hell do I do now?
He’d asked himself the same question once before, when his wife had filed for divorce two years ago.
A decade into marriage, Josh had blissfully assumed he had the world under control. Granted, they’d had trouble getting pregnant. But with his family’s money, they could have hired the best specialists in the world. They could have kept trying. But one day out of the blue, Lisa’s bags were packed and she announced she’d been accepted to law school in New York. That she wanted more than what they had together. Namely, a life of her own that didn’t include him, his agenda for getting her pregnant and his dream of raising a family in the small town he’d grown up in.
One minute he was standing in their living room listening to Lisa recite everything he’d never understood she needed, the next she was gone. And for the first time in his life, he’d had no idea what to do next.
Just like now.
Ruthlessly philanthropic, Josh gave away by the handful the White family fortune that had never bought him an ounce of peace, supporting organizations in the area that needed the money far more than he did. He was organized, compassionate and hardworking, even progressive by Sweetbrook standards. He could educate the one-hundred-and-fifty kids in his school like nobody’s business. But none of that had won him points as a husband. His wife’s unhappiness and longing for a different life had gone unnoticed and unchecked until it was too late. He’d made a mess out of loving her.
And now he was making a mess out of caring for his sister’s troubled child.
“I KNOW BECKY’S NOT HAPPY there, Mama.” Amy Loar rested her head in her hands, her elbows atop the Kramer Industries files that would take her the rest of the night to organize for tomorrow’s meeting. It was only Wednesday, but she’d already billed forty hours to her client’s account that week. She had at least another forty to go. “I’d give anything to have her here with me.”
She fingered the heart-shaped pendant dangling from the chain around her neck. Last year’s Christmas present from Becky, back before things with Richard had exploded one time too many. Amy never took the necklace off now. It reminded her why she was doing all this.
“I hate to say it, because I know it’s impossible for you to get away,” her mother replied pensively. Amy could almost picture Gwen. Her close-cropped graying hair, originally the same dark red as Amy’s, was always finger-combed into an unruly mess by this time of night. “But Becky needs you, honey.”
Gwen Loar never meddled. She never passed judgment nor laid blame. So the touch of disapproval in her voice told Amy how dicey things were getting in Sweetbrook. Becky was staying with her grandmother temporarily, while Amy moved them from their pricey Buckhead condo into a two-bedroom apartment closer to her job in midtown. While she fought to get their lives back on track.
Gwen’s tiny house, her life in Sweetbrook, had once been a slice of heaven for Amy. But growing up poor in the rural South had left a lot to be desired. For as long as she could remember, she’d longed to get out, to do better, to snatch for herself a speck of the security everyone around her took for granted.
So she’d earned her scholarships and attended college in Atlanta, only to meet wealthy, sophisticated, ten-years-her-senior Richard Reese during her junior year. At the time, he’d seemed the answer to all her dreams—a charming, successful man offering her marriage into a world she’d never dreamed of. But all dreams come with a price.
Now she was hoping the small-town life she’d turned her back on would work its magic on her daughter. If only Becky would give it a chance.
Just hold on for a little while longer, honey. I’ll make everything up to you.
Amy checked the clock at the corner of her computer monitor and winced. It was almost nine. She’d meant to call home hours ago.
She forced herself to stop wilting into her desk chair, and smoothed a manicured hand across her wrinkled expensive silk blouse. Her career uniform. One more tool she needed to get her where she wanted to be.
“Put Becky on the phone,” she said to her mother. “Let her vent about what happened at school today. Blaming me for everything for a while will do her some good.”
“I’ve tried to get her to talk.” Gwen’s sigh sounded like it came from her toes. “I tried all afternoon. But she headed straight to her bedroom after school and locked her door until dinner. She’s finally asleep. I don’t think it’s a good idea to wake her and start things all over again. Maybe you could be here when she gets up in the morning? You could talk with her before the bus comes—”
“I can’t come home right now, Mama.”
“It’s only a four-hour drive.”
“I have the Kramer Industries sign-off meeting at three tomorrow afternoon. We’re finalizing the proposal with the senior management.”
She was a project leader for Atlanta’s high-profile Enterprise Consulting Group, a position she’d had to fight for after her divorce. The partners had finally agreed to give her this shot, and the Kramer account was going to land her the manager slot she’d declined three years running at Richard’s urging. The promotion came with an immediate bonus and a hefty increase in her annual salary. And tomorrow’s meeting was the last step before they presented the contract to the CEO in a few weeks.
“I can’t pull out now for personal reasons,” she said, trying to drown out the second thoughts that she never completely silenced. She was going to secure this promotion. She and her daughter were going to finally have some peace. “Phillip Hutchinson’s watching me like a hawk. I have to stay on top of this project.”
“Of course, you’re right.” Even though her mother sounded disappointed, her voice rang with the support and encouragement Amy had always depended on.
Simple, solid, no-nonsense living and unconditional love. Those were Gwen’s gifts. The very gifts Amy prayed could break through her daughter’s anger and confusion.
Gwen knew firsthand the sacrifices required of single mothers. Amy’s father had died when she was just a baby, and Gwen had worked three part-time jobs some years to keep them off food stamps.
But she hadn’t been able to soften the blow of having so little in a world where everyone else seemed to effortlessly have more. So Amy had busted her butt making something of herself, vowing to build a better life for them both. And that’s exactly what she’d done, even though Gwen had refused every offer Amy made to share her and Richard’s financial success.
Her house was paid for, Gwen had argued. Her needs were simple. She had some savings, and she was still a part-time teller at Sweetbrook’s one and only bank. Unlike Amy, she hadn’t wanted more, as much as she’d wanted what she already had.
“I wish I had another solution, Mama. But I need this promotion. I don’t mind giving up the condo, the car or that fancy private school Richard insisted Becky attend. But I can’t afford to live in Atlanta on my current salary.”
“Then move back home,” her mother urged, as she had for months. “You two can stay with me until you find a job here.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. And I can’t move Becky away from her friends for good and ask her to start over with nothing. Atlanta’s the only home she’s ever known. She wants to live here. I won’t rip her world apart any more than I already have.”
“There are worse things than having nothing, Amy.”
“Yes. There’s going back to Richard and asking him for money—”
“Of course you’re not going back to him!” her mother interjected.
For years, Amy had kept the details about her marriage secret from Gwen. But her mother knew every ugly bit of it now.
“I have to prove to my daughter that a woman really can support her family on her own,” Amy continued. “That Richard was dead wrong when he said we’d never make it without him.”
She’d never seen her husband as angry as the morning she’d worked up the nerve to leave him. He’d controlled her every move for years. What she thought, and wore, and did, and with whom. Even how much she was allowed to focus on her career, insisting she curtail her responsibilities at work after Becky was born.
She’d tried to make the best of things when her marriage began crumbling less than a year after their wedding. She’d done everything she could to pacify Richard and save her dream of a perfect life with her perfect husband, downplaying the escalating verbal and emotional abuse. It took the bastard striking her in front of their daughter before Amy had finally had enough.
Richard could have fought her for Becky. Considering his connections as a high-priced corporate attorney, he would have won. But his sights had been on a priority far more important to him than his daughter. If Amy would agree to his demands of no alimony and the minimum child support the law allowed, he’d let Becky go. The money would be paid lump-sum into a trust account for Becky’s college tuition, not to be touched until she was eighteen. In return, he’d concede full custody, and Amy and Becky would be on their own—then maybe they’d wise up and understand just how much they needed him.
“You’ll come back to me,” he’d said in front of Becky the last time they’d seen him. “Once you’re on your own and realize how tough the world is, maybe then you’ll have some appreciation for all I’ve given you.”
He’d set Amy up to fail, just for the satisfaction of watching her crawl back to him. And as usual, he hadn’t concerned himself with their daughter, except for how he could use Becky to control Amy.
“I’m going to make things work for Becky here in Atlanta,” Amy vowed to herself and her mother. “She needs to see me standing up to her father. She needs to understand that a woman doesn’t have to put up with the way he treated me to be financially secure. She was there all those years, Mama, when her father belittled me, and I just took it. She watched me be a doormat for the sake of holding on to a man who didn’t respect me. I can’t even imagine what that did to her.”
“But you’re working around the clock now,” Gwen reasoned. “What happens when the promotion comes through, and Becky moves back in with you? Will you have any more time to spend with her after you make manager?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.” Whatever it took, Amy was going to be the strong woman her daughter needed her to be. Becky wasn’t growing up afraid.
“But if you moved back here—”
“There’s no work for me in Sweetbrook, Mama.”
Amy’s other phone line chirped at the same time that her computer dinged. She juggled the receiver between her shoulder and ear, checked the phone display and clicked the e-mail prompt with her mouse.
It was Phillip Hutchinson on both counts, Enterprise Consulting’s senior partner, and her personal slave driver.
She didn’t bother to read the body of the e-mail or pick up the call. Not a man to worry about the constructive use of anyone else’s time, Phillip Hutchinson didn’t stoop to discussing details until those he’d summoned had quick-stepped their way to his corner office. His two-pronged bid for Amy’s attention didn’t bode well.
“I’ve got to go.” She typed and sent a quick I’ll be right there response to the e-mail. “I’ll clear a few hours Saturday to come down for a day trip.”
“Joshua White wants to set up a meeting with you and Becky’s teacher on Friday—”
“Josh White no doubt thinks the entire world moves at the snail’s pace he runs his elementary school.” Amy winced at the bitchiness in her voice, rubbing her temples, where a headache was building.
No one listening would have guessed she was talking about the best friend she’d ever had. The friend she’d told to go to hell when he’d dared to judge her decision to marry Richard and leave Sweetbrook behind for good. The friend whose angry kiss had almost tempted her to change her mind.
“Honey, I really think you should talk with the man. He’s taken such a personal interest in Becky since she came here.”
“I know he has.”
Gwen had gone on and on about the time Josh was spending trying to make sure Becky settled into his school. He sounded like a bang-up principal. And before their friendship had imploded, he’d always been there for Amy. But why did he have to pick tonight of all nights to work her mother into a tizzy about Becky’s harmless antics at school? Wasn’t there something more important for the wealthiest man in town to be doing besides shoving Amy over the edge of sanity?
“I’m sorry to saddle you with all this, Mama. If there was any other way…”
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