CHAPTER 18
When Lucy arrived at Lake Wingate High School she didn’t have to go looking for Sara; she was sitting on the front steps of the sprawling brick building waiting to be rescued. A bank of clouds was building in the west, and the wind was whipping her hair across her face. Lucy could hear crowd noises and the amplified voice of an announcer calling the plays, punctuated by the band playing a few bars of the school fight song from the football field behind the school.
“What’s the matter?” asked Lucy, as her daughter got in the car. It was obvious she had been crying and equally obvious that she didn’t want her mother to know it.
“I just don’t feel good,” said Sara, staring straight ahead.
“How don’t you feel good? Tired? Nauseous? Headache? Fever?” Lucy took her foot off the brake and proceeded down the drive at a reasonable speed.
“Yeah.”
“Which?” demanded Lucy, placing her hand on Sara’s forehead to check for a fever.
“All of them.”
“You don’t have a fever,” said Lucy, turning onto Main Street and heading for the highway.
“I guess I’m just tired. I should’ve stayed home, like you said. It’s probably PMS.”
Lucy wasn’t buying it. Sara had always been healthy as a horse and hardly noticed her periods. “Are you sure something didn’t happen on the bus? Did those players harass you again?”
Sara was quick to deny it. “No, Mom. Nothing like that happened.”
Even though she was convinced her daughter was lying she also knew it was futile to keep questioning her. The more she prodded, the more tightly Sara would clam up.
“Well, just relax. We should be home soon,” said Lucy, intending to have a talk with Renee and Sassie, and their mothers, too. This couldn’t go on and Lucy was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Lucy switched the radio on to Sara’s favorite station and soon Sara began to relax, tapping her fingers along to hits by Britney, Jessica Simpson, and Madonna. When a fast food restaurant came into view, Lucy asked if she’d like a Coke or something and Sara surprised her by asking for a whole meal. So much for being sick, thought Lucy, but she wasn’t about to press the issue.
It occurred to her that Sara took a lot for granted: a pleasant home, three nutritious meals a day, a loving and supportive family, medical and dental care, stylish and appropriate clothing, a good school system, friends. These were just the basic building blocks for healthy development, but not all kids were lucky enough to have them. And even if they did have them, they could lose them, like Preston and Tommy had. It struck Lucy that the Stanton family was repeating some terrible cycle of destruction that began with the death of Mimi’s father and mother. The sins of the father visited on the children? In this case it seemed more like the misfortunes of one generation being passed down to the next.
One thing was different, however. Because Preston and Tommy were older they wouldn’t have to go into foster care, at least Preston wouldn’t, and if he wasn’t found to be a suitable guardian for Tommy, at least he’d only be in care for a few years. Lucy had heard plenty about the deficiencies of the foster care system and could cite several recent news stories about abuse and neglect. She was sure that most foster parents were decent folk who tried their best but the need was so great that a few rotten apples always seemed to slip through. Even the best-intentioned foster parents could be undone by the demands of the job. She wondered what Mimi and her brother’s experience had been; she had a feeling it hadn’t been good.
She was thinking along those lines when she turned into her driveway and saw Tommy and Preston standing there. Her first impulse was to lock the car doors and call 9-1-1 but Sara leaped out of the car before she could put that plan into action. She was certain the boys had come to confront her about the report she’d filed against Preston at the police station that morning.
But when she extricated herself from her seat belt she found Sara was smiling flirtatiously at Preston, swinging her hips and twirling her hair around her fingers.
“What’s up?” asked Lucy, joining the group.
“I just wanted to apologize for being a jerk,” said Preston. Tommy nodded in agreement.
“If you want me to drop charges, I don’t think I can do it,” said Lucy. “It’s a rental car so it’s out of my hands.”
“He didn’t slash your tires,” said Tommy. “He was home with me all night.”
Lucy looked at Preston through narrowed eyes. “Really?”
“Really,” said Preston. “I understand why you thought it was me, because of the stuff I said at the gas station. But I didn’t really mean that.”
“He’s been upset,” said Tommy, “because of everything that’s happened.”
Preston, despite his black motorcycle leathers and long hair suddenly looked very young to Lucy, with his skinny wrists and barely-there mustache.
“You’ve been really nice, offering to help and all, and I want you to know that Tommy and I appreciate it.”
This dramatic shift in attitude seemed a little too good to be true. “What changed your mind?” she asked.
“Dad’s lawyer, Mr. Esterhaus, he got us this counselor and she’s helped us sort things out.”
“That’s good,” said Lucy, who was feeling a whole lot better about the boys’ situation.
“Well, we gotta be going,” said Preston.
“Just one other thing,” said Tommy, making eye contact with Sara. “My dad didn’t, well, he didn’t do it.”
“Yeah,” added Preston. “That’s for sure.”
“Listen, guys, I found out some interesting stuff. Why don’t you come in the house so I can tell you about it.”
“Okay,” said Preston, with a shrug.
Inside the kitchen, Libby welcomed them by attempting her usual wiggles and jumps though she was unable to give them the full routine because of her stitches. Lucy sent Sara upstairs to take a shower and sat the boys at the kitchen table, where she passed out cold cans of soda, which they promptly drained in one gulp, setting the cans carefully on the table in front of them.
“I interviewed this priest today, Father Keenan. He’s retired now but he used to work at a church in Jamaica Plain and he knew your family. Well, your mother’s family.”
The boys relaxed attitude suddenly changed. Lucy felt as if they were hanging on her every word.
“You don’t know anything about your mother’s family?” she asked.
They shook their heads. “Mom always said she didn’t have any family. She was raised by a series of foster parents and the less said about them, the better,” said Preston. Tommy nodded in agreement.