© Copyright 2009
by Elizabeth Delayne

Part II

Drive: The series of plays that begins at the time an offense takes possession of the ball until the point where they either score or turn the ball over to the other team.

The year that Sam Lucas took the job, moved his family and became Pelmore County High School’s head coach, Genevieve had been in third grade. On her first day at the new school she’d sat next to Jolie Fletcher. Genevieve was wearing a kid sized Pelmore County High t-shirt, her hair in a ponytail. Jolie wore a pink jumper, curls in her hair.

She’d been the best part of the first day of school.

They’d both gone away to college, to different places, different time zones. Jolie stayed away longer, practiced law in the big city and got married. She’d only been back in town for two years now, heading home only when she was pregnant with her second child. She’d taken a break from practicing law for the most part, simply doing some pro-bono work to keep her hand in.

Genevieve was just thankful her friend had returned. She sat on her sofa, listened to the sounds of the two children playing and felt ... she wasn’t quite sure she felt anything.

“Its going to be okay,” Jolie sat back down next to her, and when Genevieve didn’t move to take it, placed the mug og hot tea on the coffee table.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. If I go through with this, I’ll have to raise two kids on my own, at least until everything works itself out. I don’t know how to raise kids.”

“Come on, Gen. You’ve worked with kids for over ten years.”

“Teenagers. Even you know there’s a difference.”

“Well, what does Peyton say?”

Genevieve let out a breath. “Whoa. We’ve only been dating a couple of weeks. And even if this was something he would take on right now, I can’t base a decision on what he wants or can or can’t do. We don’t even know each other ...”

Even though they did. She felt like she’d known Peyton for most of her life.

But she held that thought back. It was likely that the familiarity they felt was just the experience of something new.

“Don’t you think he knew what your decision was going to be when he came over last night to tell you what he knew?”

“He wouldn’t have known my mother’s reaction.”

“Maybe.”

She caught the look on Jolie’s face, heard the tone in her voice. “What?”

Beth shrugged as she got up and glanced through the double french doors to check on her kids. “Your mother’s pretty transparent, Genevieve. We both know that.”

“Well, we both know how she is with Beth. He doesn’t. Not really.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Her phone, still on silent as the youngest had been sleeping when she’d arrived, suddenly began to vibrate. Genevieve watched is dance against the table before taking a breath. She lifted it, turned it over to check the screen and silenced it.

“Speaking of the devil,” Jolie crossed her arms, stared Genevieve down. “You’re not going to take his call.”

“Not until I know what to say. I’ve got ... it’s not butterflies. It’s more like rapid dogs clawing at my stomach. I’m afraid that when social services calls me back they’ll tell me I’m out of my mind—and then I’ll have done, destroyed my relationship with my mom, for naught. And then I’m equally afraid they’ll tell me they followed up and found the reports true, and that I have custody.”

Jolie settled down at her side and drew Genevieve into her arms, much as her mother might have done. Before today.

“And I know. I know what the answer is going to be. I know Beth enough to know she doesn’t have that kind of control. And then there’s my mom. I don’t know if she’s going to look at her finances. Really look. If she can even think that Beth could ... do something like that. What if my mom’s broke? What if she’s lost all that my dad left her?”

Jolie kissed the top of her head, held her close, even as Genevieve simply felt numb. Numb to it all. “Spend sometime alone, on your knees. Get some rest. Peace isn’t going to be found in your worries.”

* * *

Genevieve sat alone in the borrowed guest room–crowded with Jolie and her husband’s files, desk, and odd equipment pushed against the wall. She longed for her mother’s garden. This was the first time in her life that she couldn’t go there, couldn’t go home.

Did she depend on the memories to find peace? Did she even depend on her faith? Did she even know how?

Her mind cycled back around to Will and Alli. To Beth. Then back to her mother.

And then ... if she was wrong? What if she was wrong? What if she had missed a few steps? She hoped, still hoped, that somehow she was wrong. That Beth wasn’t ... or didn’t ...

The knock on the door broke into her thoughts.

Had she even settled her mind down at all?

Did she ever really turn those thoughts over to God, ask for his help?

Jolie cracked open the door, leaned in. For a moment their eyes met; a moment of sympathy, of acknowledgment of fear. Then Jolie stepped in, handed Genevieve her cell phone.

Genevieve closed her fingers around it, held it to her ear.

“This is Genevieve.”

“Genevieve, this is Deborah James. You spoke with my colleague this afternoon. We followed up on the information you turned into us.”

She paused, and it hit Genevieve that her father still had a name in the town. People still protected him, his legacy.

She closed her eyes and swallowed. She’d taken the hit for nothing.

“Your sister,” the social worker continued, “was in the presence of her children, found to be in possession of several narcotics and quite inebriated with what we believe are a cocktail of substances. Your niece and nephew were taken into our custody.”

“Are they ... okay?”

“They’re fine, a little ... uncertain, which is normal, but as a whole Alli seems to be fine. I think Will knows more about what’s going on. We also spoke to your mother, and understand and agree with your concerns so we are planning to move forward with placing the children with you as soon as possible. It’s ... ah, our understanding that you were asked to leave your current home?”

Genevieve closed her eyes and nearly sighed out load. She was sure her mother felt justified in using that barb. “I moved in with my mother after my father died to help out. My mother felt that the arrangement was no longer ...”

“You don’t have to explain,” Deborah said sympathetically. “Its not an easy situation for anyone. Have you found a place to live?”

“Right now I’m staying with a friend who has children and has said that we were welcome here. I think I’ll have something more permanent in a few days.”

“I’ll need to come by, look at your living situation,” she sighed. “I’m sorry, Genny. I’m trying to keep this as official as possible. You’re staying with Jolie Stevens, right?”

“Yes,” she closed her eyes, remembered Deborah from the debate team, several years her senior. They’d not only gone to school together, competed together, but knew each other from church and community activities.

Just as Genevieve knew Debroah’s parents, and Deborah knew her own.

“Then just for your information, I’m sure everything will be fine, but I’ll come back, go over through the living conditions, keep everything by the book.”

“Thank you.”

“Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Beth?” Genevieve couldn’t hang up the phone without knowing. There was a knot in her stomach.

“The substances found in her possession include meth, oxycontin and cocain. She has several external charges pending as she resisted arrest, but all of its documented. It will both help your case with the children as well as help to get her the help she needs. But, the Beth I saw ... that wasn’t Beth.”

“No.”

“We’ll be over soon.”

Genevieve put the phone down on the bed. Her hand trembled around it. She hadn’t prayed before. She didn’t know how to now. It just all seemed too much.

Please.

* * *

The word began to echo in her head as a prayer as she methodically set the table while Jolie fed her youngest. They didn’t talk, they never really had to. She didn’t know if she should set the table for her niece and nephew or not. Had they already eaten? Had they been taken to a temporary home, or were they hanging out in the office until they could come over? Were they with other kids and did she want them to be with kids who also camed from troubled homes.

She’d never thought of her home as troubled. Not before.

Were they afraid? Did they know what was going on? What was her mother thinking, doing, planning? How in the world was she going to do this without her mother?

When the doorbell rang, Genevieve waved Jolie to stay and went to answer it herself. She was restless. She needed to see them.

But it wasn’t the social worker she found at the door. It was Peyton.

Her fingers trembled as she slowly crossed her arms and leaned against the screen door to keep it open. He should have been at the field with his team, instead he was out—looking for her.

It scared her. It irritated her. She didn’t know what to do with the feelings he obviously felt for her. She didn’t know what she felt. Not exactly.

Except fear. And irritation.

She knew both feelings came from her own guilt. She was the one hiding from a man she cared for, who she knew cared for her.

“How’d you know I was here?”

He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Don’t you know everyone knows everything there is to know about your family? Isn’t that your mantra?” He didn’t bother to hide the irritation that flashed in his eyes. “I figured Jolie would know where to find you. I didn’t know you were here. Until I saw your car in the drive, that is.”

She bit back a retort. She couldn’t deal with him right now. She was already edgy, nervous. “What do you want, Peyton?”

“Some kind of response? An update? I’m worried about you.”

“I didn’t ask you to be.”

“You’re not an island, Genevieve. You think you can just waltz in and out of my life at your convenience.”

“You’re mixing metaphors.”

“You’re the English teacher. You’re avoiding me. You know what that word means?”

“Yes. And I am. I would avoid myself if I could. I would leave this town, leave you, and go wind a rock to crawl under, like a snake. That’s what I feel like. That’s all I feel. Peyton, my very first memory is asking my mom for a baby sister. I don’t know if I remember it or if I remember my mom telling me, but I can feel it to my bones. We were too peas in a pod, each other’s world. We had the biggest and brightest imaginations when we were together. At first. Even when we began to grow up, we didn’t always fight like you hear sisters fighting. Not until ...”

“High School.”

For a moment, Genevieve didn’t respond. She had the image of her sister in her mind, there by the locker’s at Pelmore County High. “She was so bright and beautiful So dazzling. Maybe my mom’s right.”

Maybe she had been jealous of her sister then. Maybe she had turned away from her, into her books. Had she made it hard for her, as the oldest, to fit in?

It had certainly felt like the opposite.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What is your mom right about?”

“Me,” she looked away from him, to across the street. She wanted to go inside, curl up in a ball under her covers. She couldn’t. She had to be strong, prepared for her niece and nephew.

“I can’t do this right now.”

“There’s nothing for you to do, Genevieve. Just let me in.”

“You expect too much from me.”

Peyton’s jaw went tight as he stared at her. His voice came out soft, but pointed. “Anything less and it would be nothing.”

“Nothing is about all I have in me right now.”

“No ... you have a lot to give. You just won’t.”

“I have two kids—“

”And if you continue to be this ice cold, it’s going to rub off on them.”

The blow slapped her, ground into her. And there was nothing there to say.

She took a step back from him, held the screen door open with trembling fingers.

Peyton ran his hands roughly over his face. She watched him—watched him beat himself up, and simply pressed her lips together.

“Look,” he took in a deep, measured breath and slowly let it out. “I’m sorry. I just was worried. You wouldn’t answer your cell, and when I stopped by the high school this afternoon, I found out you had taken the day off. I didn’t know what to do, so I called the house. Talked to your mom.”

And her mother wouldn’t have made a scene. She would have been quiet and dignified ... and cold. She could be so cold.

Maybe Peyton was right.

She was so tired. She was just so tired. When he reached out a hand to touch her, to steady her, she shook her head, stepped back.

“What did she say?”

“That she would give you the message. But from her tone, I just ... knew. I knew,” he stepped closer, put hands on either side of her to hold her arms. “Genevieve. Look at me.”

“I can’t. Not ...”

She glanced passed him at the sound of the car pulling into the drive. It took her a moment to take a breath, to steady herself.

She stepped around him, let the screen door slowly close behind her and walked over around the car, around to the back passenger’s side door to help Allie out.

“Peyton’s here!” Allie cried out, ignoring her aunt. She clamored out of the car, only seconds behind Will, and ran for Peyton.

Genevieve stood there, her hand still holding the seatbelt.

Across the top of the car, Deborah met her gaze. “That’s not Peyton Moore—“

”It is.”

“If this situation was funny at all, I’m sure there would be a joke somewhere about you seeing the enemy and my ability to trust you.”

She let the seat belt fall onto the back seat and stepped back to close the door. “We’re not seeing each other.”

Deborah glanced back at him. He’d knelt down to their level and had an arm around both of them. At that moment Will said something, he smiled, then turned his gaze toward them. Taking Genevieve by surprise.

It wasn’t anger she saw there, more disappointment.

And more of that patience.

It infuriated her.

* * *

There was a point in her life where she felt like she lived in a fairy tale. Finishing her masters, getting a job at home, in her own school. Working on the same facualty that had helped raise her ... working on the same facualty with her dad. Two years later, she bought her own home, a little place her father had liked to call her little bungalow. It had been perfect, the perfect size, and with enough interesting details that she’d really felt like she’d found her place.

Then, her father died. She’d simply toyed with the idea of moving back home, with her mom and sister. She put it on the market and it had sold out from under her. Within days.

She hadn’t been ready to let it go.

The apartment she’d found for Will and Alli, did not compare. Where her house had been built by a craftsman, with details carved into the wood, the apartment was standard issue. Her one spurge in buying the house was redoing the bathroom with a garden tub and soft lighting. The bathrooms in the apartment were simply clean.

She’d had so little time to find a place and she was a little more than worried about her budget. It was too crowded at Jolie’s, and her mother still wasn’t talking to her. She would have loved some input, or one of her mother’s connections. She’d settled with picking up boxes and beds for Will and Allie at a point her mother wasn’t there.

It wasn’t that Anne Lucas still thought she was wrong. She’d packed Will and Alli’s things, their clothes and their toys. But as Jolie pointed out, Anne Lucas was angry at herself. She was a very private person, even as she’d been her husband’s public face for years. In the same way she orchestrated life around the dinner table, she had to have order in her life.

It had to be hard for her to support both daughters through this time, not when her world she’d believed in was spinning out of control. Maybe some mothers could have done it, but as far as Genevieve knew, her mother had not reached out to Beth either. Not that she could, at this point. Her sister was still in detox, and her mother was still ... grieving.

Genevieve simply handled the details on her own. She’d changed the paperwork at the day care and taken both children to the pediatrician just to introduce herself to their doctor to let him know the situation.

She found an apartment with a playground area for the kids and three small bedrooms. During her lunch, she’d gone online and researched safety for children in the home to make sure she knew everything. She’d gone in and changed out the doorknobs on the kids bedrooms and bath, removing the ability to lock them. She’d put child safety hooks on the cabinets and plugs in all the unused outlets.

All the while, she’d kept Peyton at a distance. When he called they talked a little, but she shrugged off his help.

He didn’t fight her, but she heard the frustration in his voice.

And she had to wonder if he was giving her space, or if he was giving up on her.

Her world in her little bungalow, had seemed so sweet and perfect.

And had been without Peyton.



Her hair pulled back in an informal twist, pen behind her ear, she was dressed in yoga pants and a long sleeve t-shirt for a typical night at home. She was cleaning up before bed, in the silence of the night. But it wasn’t—didn’t feel typical.

With a sigh she set aside the dishtowel. The kitchen was clean. The dishwasher still didn’t work, even though the apartment manager had promised to deal with it the day they moved in. She glanced at the table, where she’d set out essays to grade, and turned away from them. She didn’t have the mental energy to deal with them tonight. She walked out, reached to turn off the light switch and stared into the livingroom at the boxes that had been stacked and pushed against the wall.

Left unopened.

Her boxes, she’d packed away and put in storage when she’d sold her home. She couldn’t get herself to open them.

She flipped off the light switch, watched shadows fall over the boxes. She walked over, ran her hands over the top of one box. She should open them for the kids, take out the do tads and decor, make this place into a home.

But it wouldn’t be her home.

She wasn’t even sure she’d had a home since her father died.

The rage boiled up suddenly. Quickly. Her body tensed and she lashed out. The box toppled over, fell to the floor. She stared as the contents spilled out. Stared at the journal that fell out first.

A box, she realized, that she’d meant to take to her mom’s.

Her hands were trembling as she sat down on the floor and leaned back against the boxes. She reached out, picked up the journal, and sat it in her lap. There were other things in the pile. Her photo album of the last vacation they’d taken with her dad. Two books she’d been reading. A box of paper clips.

She looked back at the journal. Ran her fingers over the recycled cardboard cover. The printed floral image. She turned it over, opened it from the back, flipped through to the last page where she’d left an entry.

The seconds ticked away almost audibly in her mind as she stared at that single line, the last words.

Emptiness filled the remainder of the book.

She ran a finger over the words.

My dad died today. I can think of nothing else.



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