A Matter of Trust

Chapter 7





Get off the computer, Gabe,” Mia yelled up the stairs as she dug a table knife into a jar of peanut butter. Her mouth tasted sour and sharp, a food hangover from the chips she had eaten last night.

“Just one more minute.”

“Now!” He had been promising to come down to breakfast since six thirty. Her watch showed it was three minutes past seven.

Brooke sat unmoving in front of a bowl of cereal, her head propped in her hands. When Mia woke her this morning, Brooke claimed she felt fine. She seemed to remember nothing of the night before.

On any day, Brooke was not a morning person. Her bowl of Life cereal was still untouched. The squares of cereal were beginning to look like they were melting.

“Baby, you have to eat.”

Brooke didn’t look up. “I’m not hungry. And I’m not a baby.”

“Just one bite, Brooke. One.” Mia undid the twist tie and took a slice of bread from the loaf. Wait—what was that? The faintest green fuzz. Inside her head she swore, but mindful of Brooke, the only thing that came out of her mouth was a sigh. If she didn’t have bread, what could she send her kids to school with? Sandwiches made with frozen waffles?

She slipped more of the loaf free. The mold seemed to be confined to the first slice. Everything else looked fine. And hadn’t she just bought this bread a few days ago?

Mia threw away the top few slices and made a mental note to buy more bread. Which, if she wanted her kids to have lunches tomorrow, would have to be on the way home from her part-time job as an adjunct professor at the University of Washington law school. Tonight was the first seminar of the semester, and Titus Brown, the program’s director, had asked her to present a closing argument. When she had said yes, months ago, Scott had still been alive and her gig at UDub was just something she did to keep her hand in. Now it helped pay the bills. At least some of them.

Grabbing her heavy blue mug, Mia took another gulp of coffee. She hadn’t had time to sit down and have a real breakfast since she went back to work.

The inside of her head felt swollen with the remnants of her dreams, a terrible amalgam of Colleen’s bubbling breaths and Brooke’s inconsolable cries.

Mia looked over. Brooke still hadn’t lifted her spoon to her lips.

“Sweetie, you have to eat something. Studies show that kids who eat breakfast get better grades than kids who don’t.”

“You’re not in court, Mom.” Gabe walked into the kitchen wearing only a pair of jeans. He shook some cereal into the bowl she had set out for him. “Telling a four-year-old some boring statistic is not going to make her care.” His gaze swept over the kitchen counter, bare except for her coffee mug and her lunch-making supplies. “Besides, where’s your breakfast?”

“I’ll eat a cereal bar in the car.” Mia still needed to put on makeup, stockings, and shoes.

“That’s not a healthy breakfast.”

Was Gabe mouthing off or did he really have a point? Probably both. Mia decided to let it go. Maybe even label it a conversation, something they rarely had these days.

She used to pride herself on being good with her kids. But lately Gabe seemed to have zero interest in talking with her. Sometimes he would start walking out of the room while she was still speaking.

Head down, he began to shovel food into his mouth, barely pausing for breath. He hadn’t really hit his growth spurt yet, but the way he had been eating lately, he must be on the edge of one. His bangs hid his eyes. If Mia tried to push them back, he would duck under her hand, but not before she saw the angry red pimples on his forehead.

“Brooke—you have to eat!” Mia said as she reached into the fridge for apples. A flyer on the fridge door reminded her that Gabe had another football game this Friday. This one was against Independence High School. She tried to remember if that was where Darin Dane had gone.

“What happened last night, Brooke?” Gabe asked his sister. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“No.” Her tone implied that the question was ridiculous. She lifted a spoon with a single square toward her mouth.

“Because it seemed like you were having a nightmare.”

“No, I didn’t.” She nibbled delicately on the edge of the sole piece of cereal.

Gabe leaned over. “Don’t you remember screaming your head off? And you hit me. And Mom.”

“I did not.” Brooke set her spoon down.

“Gabe, leave Brooke alone. She needs to eat.”

“I was just asking.” He pushed back from the table, his bowl already empty. “Remember I’ve got football practice this afternoon.”

“Well, don’t forget to pick up Brooke at preschool before six.”

He didn’t answer her.

“Gabe?”

“All right, all right, I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”

“And remember I’m teaching tonight. I should be home by seven thirty. Eight at the latest.” She reached for her purse. “Let me give you some money so you can order a pizza from Pagliacci.” That was another reason she had to go to the store. Frozen pizzas cost less than half of what delivery would, even though Pagliacci’s were far better. Maybe there would be leftovers she could bring to lunch tomorrow. She handed him some bills along with his sack lunch.

He made a face. “I don’t want to bring my lunch to school anymore. No one does that. It’s for babies. I want to buy my lunch like everyone else.”

Mia bit her lip. Couldn’t he have said that while she was making his lunch? She still had her wallet in one hand. “How much do you need?”

He shrugged. “Five dollars.”

Five dollars times five days equaled twenty-five dollars a week. But she had vowed to treat the kids the same as she would have if Scott were alive. Which meant handing out lunch money, if that’s what Gabe wanted.

Since she had gone back to work, Mia had been brown-bagging her own lunch, begging off when co-workers suggested they go out to eat. Pinching pennies while the dollars slipped through her fingers.

Gabe started to leave the room.

“Aren’t you forgetting to put away your bowl?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not done eating yet. I’m getting something I keep forgetting to give you.”

He pounded upstairs and then came back down with a piece of paper. “It’s due today.” He thrust it into Mia’s hand. “It’s the bill for my school fees. Sorry. I forgot to give it to you last week.”

Her eyes dropped to the total. $767.79. She blinked. “Why is this so much?” How much money did she have in checking? “That’s ridiculous. You’re supposedly in a public school.”

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “It’s extra money for lab fees and art supplies and field trips. Stuff like that.”

Mia looked closer. Those expenses were on there, sure, but most of it was actually for football. The helmet was $248, the shoulder pads and the uniform were around $150. Each. A year ago she would have grumbled but paid the bill.

A year ago she might have fund-raised to help parents who couldn’t afford to let their sons play football. Now she was almost one of them.

Not meeting her eyes, Gabe sat back down again and poured another bowl of cereal. His teeth, she saw, were sunk into his lower lip. He was afraid she would say no. It wasn’t that he had forgotten about the fees. Instead he had dragged his feet, not wanting to ask her. She tried not to talk about money in front of the kids, but it was always in the back of her mind and sometimes on the tip of her tongue.

Brooke and Gabriel were getting Social Security survivor’s benefits, and Mia made pretty good money at King County, but the amount that went out every month was mind-bending. Scott had always handled their finances. After all, he was the one with the undergraduate degree in accounting as well as an MBA. Mia had paid for groceries and other things she needed with a credit card that gave them airline miles, and Scott had then paid all the bills. She hadn’t balanced a checkbook in years.

Going back to work meant that her costs had increased too. Brooke was in preschool full-time, plus before- and after-care. Mia had had to buy new work clothes. Gabe was starting to eat like he had two hollow legs. And it cost over sixty dollars just to fill the Suburban’s tank, and sometimes she had to do it twice a week.

Even the funeral had been expensive. Just the catering for the gathering afterward had been over four thousand. But of course Mia had wanted trays of appetizers, and wine and beer, and servers old enough to serve the wine and beer, and a liability policy to cover anything that might go wrong because of the serving of the wine and beer.

Gabe had poured the milk on his new bowl of cereal, but he still hadn’t taken a bite. “Just let me get my checkbook,” she said, and he finally started eating.

She wrote what she was sure was a bad check. But their bank would pull money over from savings to cover it. Mia made a mental note to sit down and draw up a budget. Even though he had handled the money, it turned out Scott had not been organized at all. She was still getting a handle on where they stood.

As she handed over the check, Mia caught a glimpse of her watch. Time, like money, was slipping through her fingers. “We have to hurry.” She took Brooke’s full bowl away and set it in the sink. “Come on upstairs with me and I’ll help you put on your shoes.” She lifted Brooke from the table and set her on her feet. “I need everyone dressed and in the car in ten minutes.”

“That’s okay,” Gabe said. “You don’t need to drive me.”

Brooke was already going up the stairs, but Mia turned back. “What? You’re going to walk?”

“Nah. I’ll skateboard to school.”

Mia mentally traced the route, gauging how busy the streets were. It was at times like this that she missed Scott most acutely. It took the voices of two adults to outweigh the voice of one teenager. “I don’t know, Gabe.” His mouth opened in protest. Something inside her said she had to give him some freedom sometime. And she was asking so much of him lately. “Okay, but wear your helmet. And I want you to walk across that last intersection.”

“Walk?” he protested. “That’s just lame.”

“It may be lame, but it’s safe. It’s so busy there. People barely pay attention to other drivers. In rush hour they might not see you until it’s too late.”

“I’m not three feet tall, Mom.” His neck reddened. She knew he hated being shorter than all of his friends. His tone was scathing. “You’ve got to stop babying me.”

She touched his arm and he spun away, then pushed past her up the stairs. More slowly, Mia followed.