Her Secret Life

“Mom and Dad are taking Levi to T-ball practice Saturday morning. It’s Dad’s gig. I’m just a tagalong and won’t be missed. My time with him is Saturday afternoon. I promised to take him to the beach to play in the sand.” It was far too cold to swim, but Levi didn’t seem to mind jeans and a sweatshirt as long as he could get sand in his hair.

“Feel like breakfast?”

She felt like making it for him. “You want to come here?”

“No. Will you have time to make it to Little’s?”

Kind of a waste for the two of them to drive two separate cars from Santa Raquel halfway back to LA, but she had the time. And needed to give him what he needed.

“Of course.”

“At nine?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Kacey held on to her phone long after the call was disconnected. Thinking about Michael. And smiling.

He was setting her in stone.

* * *

IT TOOK MICHAEL most of Friday to get his brother’s life back on track. Or a semblance thereof. His meeting with the superintendent produced a meeting with the high school head principal and Sara Havens, the counselor at the Lemonade Stand who’d been seeing Willie privately over the years in addition to the family counseling they’d all been going to in town.

Sara ran sessions for abusers, and while Willie wasn’t an abuser, he suffered some of the same self-hatred as those who’d intentionally hurt loved ones. Her success rate in abuser rehabilitation wasn’t anywhere near what the Stand’s was for helping their victims establish healthier, happier lives, but there were a few notable cases where abusers had been successfully integrated back into their families with no further occurrences.

As with similar challenges, the solution was ongoing and probably would be for life.

He forced Willie to come with him to the meetings or at least sit right outside the door. The kid had a definite edge bordering on surly, but he nodded when asked if he’d cooperate with any plan they managed to come up with. He said yes out loud when asked if he wanted to graduate.

In the end, Willie even thanked Michael when it was decided that he would attend the first three classes of the day at the high school, where he would have access to labs and other school facilities, but, outside the classroom he would be in the company of the school’s guidance counselor. No free roaming the halls in between classes, or hanging out with friends. For the next two months Michael would be picking him up for lunch and then taking him to the Stand, where he’d receive tutoring alongside children who were victims of abuse.

Maybe Willie would become a mentor to them. Or maybe he’d be surly and standoffish and keep to himself. Either way, he agreed to be cooperative. Every afternoon he would have a session with Sara Havens.

Michael was grateful to Kacey for opening his eyes to the fact that he and his family had grown desensitized to all the counseling and to Willie’s continually acting up. Their father had all but given up on Willie. Maybe his sisters had, too.

In the past, counseling hadn’t stopped the behavior, and it might not this time, either. But Michael made it very clear to his brother that he was going to be an adult in a few short months, and as such, the choices would be his. He could be a decent, contributing human being, or the loser he was trying to make himself.

“I have no idea if I got through to him,” he told Kacey late Friday night. He’d texted to see if she was still awake and ask if it was okay that he called. He’d texted earlier, too, to let her know that he wouldn’t be able to see her at the Stand that day.

“Willie’s cooperating.” She was repeating his words back to him, but coming from her they carried more weight.

“I told him that I won’t be able to bail him out again. That this is his chance to prove to himself that he’s worth all the effort I’ve spent on him. I told him that the fact that I’ve put forth the effort should show him that I know his value. Sara pointed out that since I’m his victim, he owes it to me to do this much.”

“Wow, that sounds kind of harsh.” Kacey knew Sara, too.

“That’s what I thought.”

“But she’s the one who deals with people who inflict harm on loved ones,” Kacey continued. “She’d be the one to better understand what motivates or sabotages them.”

He sat on the half wall separating his yard from the golf course beyond, staring out into the night, and felt the tension that had been building inside him all day slowly dissipate.

“She said he had to earn his redemption,” Mike told her.

“Kind of like a twelve-step program.” Kacey’s words continued to flow over him, easing his guilt. “It’s not about what he owes you as much as him being willing to repay the debt.”

“I’m not going to be able to make it to breakfast in the morning.” The real reason for his call. A text just seemed...unfriendly. “Willie’s going to be moving in with me for the next couple of months,” he told her. “I’m going with him to my folks’ house tomorrow to move all of his stuff. It’s important that Dad helps us, to show his support of all this, and he’s only free in the morning.”