That was all he wanted.
CHAPTER TEN
BECAUSE ELLEN HAD a midterm exam the third Friday in March, Martha arranged to leave school early to fetch the younger kids from school—a job Ellen had taken over a couple of years before when Martha had gone to work full-time.
Shelley and Rebecca were finished first, which was why Martha was sitting outside the high school just before the last bell rang, dismissing the students for the weekend. Or rather, she’d attempted to park right outside the school. It hadn’t been that long since she was a regular there and because she’d been among the few parents present—most kids in Shelter Valley lived close enough to walk—she’d had a spot right outside the gym door, one she’d considered her own. Her kids even called it “the spot.” Martha had cried more than once after going to work full-time and losing those few precious moments every afternoon when her kids jumped in the car still filled with the day’s emotions—whatever they might be, from despair to euphoria depending on who’d talked to them, asked them out, praised them in gym class or given them test results. She used to learn in the first five minutes what it now took her hours to extract. And, she was fairly certain, there was much she used to get that she missed completely these days.
More than her communication with her kids had changed in a very short period of time. Cars were lined from one end of the high school to the other and down both sides of the street. Pulling in behind a white Ford Windstar—belonging, she thought, to the mother of Ellen’s friend Barbie, who still had a sister at Shelter Valley High—Martha worried that her girls would even find her. She’d had to settle for a space on the first sidestreet past the school. She turned off the engine and rolled down the windows, figuring she might be in for a longer wait than she’d originally expected, then looked around, disturbed by the numbers of parents there.
Parents worried about their daughters’ safety in a way they hadn’t been a couple of months before. In a way they’d never been. Not in Shelter Valley.
She was also afraid she might not make it to Tim’s practice at the ball field in time. She’d had a call last night from her son’s coach. Apparently, while Tim’s ball-playing skills were as remarkable as always, he was getting a little too mouthy for his coach’s taste. Nothing to worry about, Coach Andrews had said. This was typical behavior for young teenage boys just coming into their own, but it was something that, if left unattended, could become more of a problem.
Martha had no intention of leaving anything unattended where her kids were concerned. Chances were that Tim would be just fine, but she’d given up placing her bets on chance. From now on, Martha planned to be in complete control. Going for the sure thing every time…
“Hey, stranger.” Barbie’s mom, Sheila, poked her head in the window on the passenger side of the car.
“Hey, yourself. How’ve you been?”
“Good.” Sheila smiled. “Getting more gray hair with every day my kids get older.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You off work today?”
“Took off early,” Martha said, missing all over again the days when she’d visited with the other moms every afternoon. As much as she loved her job, she’d lost so much she’d never be able to recapture. Another thing Todd had to answer for. “Ellen usually makes the after-school run, but she had a two hour midterm.”
“Shakespeare?” Sheila asked, leaning her arms on the window frame.
“Yeah.” She’d helped Ellen study the night before.
“Barbie, too,” Sheila was saying. “I’d forgotten why I was so glad to be done with all of that.”
“Me, too,” Martha said. Still, as she’d been helping Ellen, she’d found herself nostalgic for her own college days. Of course, Sheila had finished her degree after Barbie was born. Martha had quit college to work full-time to put Todd through school. She’d settled for using her theater-production skills on a volunteer basis.
“So, everything okay?” Sheila asked, her face suddenly serious.
“Sure. Great. Why?” Had she been too obvious?
“Barbie’s been worried about Ellen, that’s all,” the other woman said, her eyes warm with concern rather than alight with curiosity. It was a collective Shelter Valley concern from which, more and more, Martha yearned to draw strength. But she couldn’t. Not when it meant Ellen’s exposure.
“Ellen’s fine,” she said, trying to believe that if she hoped hard enough, it would become reality. “Just bogged down with studying. She’s determined to maintain her 4.0.”
“Barbie’s studying a lot, too, but she says there’s something different about Ellen. She seems to be worried about something. Maybe it’s just the breakup with Aaron, huh? I remember those days well. First love. It’s so hard.”
Swallowing, maintaining her smile with every ounce of effort she could muster, Martha nodded agreement. And then, just as extra insurance, added, “We had a call from Todd a couple of months ago. He announced that he’s going to be a new daddy at the end of the summer. The kids are taking it kind of hard.”
Concern turning to instant empathy, Sheila said, “Oh, Martha, I’m so sorry. As hard as it is on the kids, it’s got to be rougher on you. Him off having a new family while you single-handedly raise the one he deserted.”
She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t a crier. People would start to suspect something for sure if she cried. But tears pushed against the backs of Martha’s eyes, so she just nodded again, and looked desperately around.
“There’s so many cars,” she blurted, not quite as casually as she would’ve preferred.
“It’s been this way ever since the rape,” Sheila said.
The last thing Martha wanted to discuss… She shouldn’t have mentioned the cars, damn it.
“Nobody wants their daughters out walking the streets when we don’t know who the guy is. He could be living right here among us and we’d never know.”