Welcome to Bluestone 1 - Bluestone homecoming (6 page)

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Leo was unaccountably nervous as he parked at
the supermarket at ten fifty-five for his teacher conference. He
hadn’t been to one before—Liv or his mom had taken care of
that—another mark against him in the parenting column. He didn’t
want to hear all the bad things they were going to tell him about
Max. He knew the kid was troubled. He was doing the best he could
to fix it.

He tugged at the bottom of his shirt, slammed
the driver’s door of the SUV and marched across the street to the
school, which of course had plenty of parking at this time of the
day.

The building smelled of pencil shavings and
paper and baked chicken, things that had always made him excited to
come to school. He’d loved school when he was Max’s age. He stepped
into the glassed-in office because the signs all told him to sign
in.

“I’m Leo Erickson. I’m here for a conference
with Max’s teacher, Mrs. Boller,” he told the secretary, who looked
vaguely familiar.

The woman looked at him over the tops of her
glasses. “I know who you are. I’ve known your mother for years. I
saw you at the town hall meeting the other night. Didn’t bother to
say hi then, did you?”

“I was kind of—overwhelmed,” he admitted.

“Not too overwhelmed to show off, but then
you never were.”

As Leo was puzzling out where he knew this
woman from, Trinity stepped out of an office and offered a warm
smile. “I’ll take you down to Mrs. Boller’s class. Mrs. Jensen,
will you buzz her and let her know we’re on our way?”

“What is it about being in an elementary
school that makes you feel seven years old again?” he muttered to
Trinity when he escaped the office with a visitor nametag and
joined her in the hallway.

“Were you in the office a lot as a kid?”

“Couple times. Never my fault, of
course.”

She laughed. “Of course. And I imagined you
knew how to charm your way out of it.”

“Why would you say that? Does Max do
that?”

Her smile dimmed. “No, Max takes full
responsibility for his actions, like he has the weight of the world
on his shoulders.”

“He gets that from my brother Kevin.”

“Not just genetics, I don’t think.”

She stopped in front of a bulletin board
covered with student essays, surrounded by cute little cardboard
children. Leo scanned it for Max’s name, but didn’t see it. He
peered closer at the titles. “My Hero.” Yeah, that made sense. Who
did Max have as a hero? Not him, certainly.

He heard the sound of children chattering in
the room and looked through the narrow window in the door. Children
were putting books and papers away while the teacher, a woman in
her mid-forties, was shuffling things on her table, which was piled
with papers. Max sat in the front row, solemn expression, no
children around him. Leo’s heart clutched. He’d done the wrong
thing taking the kid from Excelsior. He should have done whatever
it took to make his life as normal as it could be instead of
uprooting him and dropping him into this new environment where
everyone already knew each other.

Trinity knocked lightly and opened the door.
“Mrs. Boller, this is Max’s dad, Leo Erickson. I can take your
class to PE for you so you can start your conference.”

“Oh. Thank you.” The woman’s cheeks pinkened
as she stood to greet Leo. “You look just like Max.”

He shifted his gaze to his son, who looked
quickly away. “He has his mom’s eyes.”

Max’s gaze shot back to him, and those
chocolatey eyes widened. Leo gave in to the urge to cross the room
to ruffle the boy’s short dark hair. Max ducked away. Normal,
right? Not wanting to be pet in front of his classmates? Leo tried
not to let it bother him as Trinity called for the class to line
up.

“Dad.” Max hung back and signaled to Leo
tensely. “You forgot to give me my note for the homework. I got in
trouble.”

Leo rubbed his fingers over his forehead.
Crap. “It’s okay. I’ll explain to Mrs. Boller.”

“I don’t get recess today.”

“I’ll talk to her, Max, okay? I’m sorry. It’s
my fault. Now go line up. I’ll see you in a bit.” He was too aware
of the two women watching him, judging his interaction with his own
kid, something he’d felt ever since he’d come back to
Bluestone.

He stood until Trinity led the group out of
the room, Max at the end, before he turned back to Mrs. Boller,
shook her hand and sat in the chair she indicated. Not a tiny
student chair, like he’d expected, but when she took her own seat
behind the desk, her position was clearly one of authority.

“Is he always last in line?”

“Sometimes he dawdles, but not always. He
doesn’t particularly care for PE.”

Leo thought of his reluctance to tossing the
ball last night. “Yeah, not really a sports fan. Sorry about the
homework last night. I’d bought him a glove and ball last night and
we were tossing it around until dark. I completely forgot he had
homework, then forgot to send the note.”

“He’s always very good about doing his
homework, so it was a surprise. My policy is to put students who
don’t complete their homework to stand on the wall at recess.
They’re not allowed to play.”

His shoulders stiffened. “No exceptions?” He
leaned forward, his arms on the desk. “I’m trying to—I don’t know,
find common ground with the kid. Surely that’s more important than
him writing his spelling words ten times each or whatever. I mean,
he’s a smart kid, right?” It suddenly occurred to him that he
didn’t know what kinds of grades Max was getting.

“He’s very bright but doesn’t apply himself.
I have to struggle to get work turned in for him, and when I do,
it’s sloppy and dashed off. He has no sense of pride in his
work.”

Leo nodded. “What about friends? Doesn’t he
have friends here? He’s been here two months.” Something else he
should know.

Mrs. Boller shook her head. “He keeps to
himself. Miss Madison has been working with him on socialization
skills, which I presume he had before, but now he prefers to shut
himself off from the rest. That more than anything is why I wanted
to have a conference with you. I wanted to get a feeling for what
he was like before his mother died.”

“He was seven, Mrs. Boller. He wasn’t really
like anything.”

A furrow creased her brow, and he got the
feeling it was directed at his assessment of his child. “Was he
different, or was he always so withdrawn? I’m wondering how much is
personality and how much is grief.”

Leo eased back in the hard chair. “He was a
kid. He liked riding bikes and watching cartoons and he laughed a
lot, you know, that silly kid laugh. He was very close to his mom.
The only reason he wasn’t in the car with her that day was because
he was at school.” Until late, because Liv was dead and Leo was
overseas and no one at the school was able to reach anyone on the
emergency card. “She was a great mom.” And he would never measure
up.

“I can’t imagine what it has been like for
either of you.” Her voice was soft with sympathy and her blue eyes
filled with tears. “I just want to help him. He’s so—distant. He
barely talks, he doesn’t interact with me. I feel like I’m losing
him and I’m running out of time.”

He appreciated her sympathy but it was his
job to reach his son, not hers. But like her, he felt like he was
running out of time.

He left the conference twenty minutes later
not sure they’d made any progress. He didn’t have anything to offer
her, and she didn’t seem to have any answers. Great. More
stumbling, though he had managed to get Max off the wall at recess
with the promise that they’d make up the homework tonight.

Two nights of homework with Max meant a game
of catch was unlikely.

He’d hoped he’d see Trinity again before he
left, but he wouldn’t go searching for her. This attraction he felt
for her wasn’t right. It wasn’t about his grief for Liv, really.
She’d been gone almost two years. But he needed to focus on Max, on
making him a priority, making him feel secure. Making him
happy.

He glanced at his phone to see what time it
was and his stomach knotted. Four missed calls from his editor. He
already knew what they were about. John Seeley wanted to know when
he’d be back on the job. To hell with the fact that Leo had
discussed—but not actually taken—taking a sabbatical. And since Leo
wasn’t certain he was ready for an extended break from the job that
had occupied so many of the thoughts he didn’t want to deal with,
he tucked his phone back in his pocket.

He thought about stopping at Quinn’s again,
but he’d had enough of being judged. Instead he drove by the old
ball field. It was in as bad of disrepair as the jogging trail. He
parked the SUV and got out to look around. Faded sponsor signs hung
askew, the diamond itself was cracked and pitted. He wondered when
the last time a game was played there. He used to play here every
weekend, had thrown more than one fastball over this plate. Even
now he could feel the ball in his hand.

He curled his fingers through the chain-link
fence. He needed to find something to do with his time while Max
was in school. Maybe he should do what Trinity said, head over to
the newspaper and see if there were any entries on the town slogan
contest. He wondered how welcome his offer of help would be.

Nonetheless, he walked from the diamond to
Bluestone Avenue, where the newspaper office was located. He
stepped into the cool, dark building and his eyes took a moment to
adjust to the dim light. When they did, he saw a young woman
sitting at a massive desk behind a pile of papers.

“Hey. I’m Leo Erickson.” He stretched a hand
out to her. “I’m looking for a job.”

Trinity hated the weekends. She loved her
job, loved the community of Bluestone, but sometimes wondered at
her decision to come back here after—-after. Her mother, who used
to be so energetic and in the middle of things, had suffered the
double-whammy of Trinity’s mistake and her husband’s sudden
illness. She hadn’t been the same since. Trinity’s father’s illness
had consumed their lives. When he was hospitalized, he’d run up
some serious bills, since Methodist ministers didn’t get the best
health insurance and that added to her mother’s stress. Trinity
missed the weekends they used to have—a little bit of cleaning, a
lot of socializing, in the house and out. Her mother had been
vivacious. Now she just seemed beaten down.

Trinity sometimes wondered if it would be
better for her family if she just resigned, move back to the city,
and went back into the classroom. Maybe meet someone and start a
family. Maybe distance would help them forget their disappointment
in her.

But she was determined to help her family pay
off her father’s medical bills, with that whopping public school
salary.

The desire to move forward had been in the
back of her mind for a few years, but opportunities to find true
love in Bluestone were few, especially for the reverend’s sister.
She had been just fine with that, until Leo Erickson had come into
town.

Something about the lonely, clueless father
struck a chord in her, a need to heal, to fix. Ironic since she was
hardly fixed herself.

She wished Bluestone had a place to go on the
weekends besides Quinn’s. She remembered as a teenager there would
be events in the park once the weather warmed up, when the days
grew longer, but recently, no one took the initiative to organize
that kind of thing. Maybe she should. Events like that would build
community. Something like that would keep people’s spirits up
through the hard times.

And it would get her out of the house on
weekends.

She could talk to Lily about it. Lily had to
remember what kinds of events they’d had, would maybe even have
some contacts. And maybe she could recruit Leo’s help. He seemed at
a loss.

No, this wasn’t just an excuse to spend time
with him.

But the idea cheered her as she drove home to
a cheerless house.

Her mother had started dinner. She liked to
eat at six on the dot, so Trinity made a point of staying at work
until the last minute. When she’d first moved home, she’d tried to
help in the kitchen, but the constant criticism was too much. So
she made the deal that she’d clean up if her mother cooked.

Some day she’d have enough saved to buy her
own house, would be decisive enough to know if she wanted to live
here, or go back to the city. She just wanted this place to be the
same as she remembered, the place that had been peaceful when she
was a child, before she’d disappointed her family.

“Dinner is almost ready,” her mother chided
when she walked in. “Where have you been?”

“Sorry. A lot of paperwork for the testing
next month.” She set her purse on the counter, and moved it as soon
as her mother gave it a look. “Remember when we used to have those
movies down on the lakefront on Saturday nights? Everyone would
bring a picnic dinner? Why did that ever stop?”

Her mother shrugged. “People got DVD players.
We had a video rental store. Everyone could stay home and watch
movies in comfort.”

“But that wasn’t the point. The point was to
be with our neighbors and socialize. I think the economy isn’t the
only thing hurting this town. I think it needs more events like
that, don’t you? And the softball team, remember that? They would
play on Saturday afternoons.”

Her mother set down the frying pan and looked
at her. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking things need to change. And I’m
wondering where to start.” And maybe if things changed, her mother
would change, too. “Who used to organize it?”

“Don’t you think you have enough on your
plate? Your job jeeps you plenty busy.”

“Sure, but those are some of my favorite
memories. I thought my students would love it, too.” Wow, she’d
pulled that reason out of the air.