Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,35
and high school, but they were all Wileyville schools.”
“That must have been great.”
“Great?” Hannah followed Sam’s hollow-eyed line of vision to watch the sun-brightened streets of Loveland go rolling slowly past. It was such a pretty part of town, old enough to be quaint, kept-up enough to be pricey. It reminded her of Wileyville, the way it appeared in chamber of commerce brochures, not the way it really looked. “I guess it was great, in a lot of ways.”
“Payt? How about you?”
“Yeah. I went to the same school for a while. Then my dad sent me to military school.”
“Military school?” The boy blinked. “Did you learn to be a soldier?”
“A good little soldier,” Payt murmured under his breath.
Hannah touched her husband’s wrist.
“Be a good little soldier” was what Payt’s mother had told him when they loaded him on the bus that took him away from his home for the first of many times. It probably wasn’t the first time he’d gotten the message that his parents’ love was conditional, something earned, but it was the one that stuck with him.
“Yeah, they tried to teach me how to act and think and carry myself like a soldier. Couldn’t seem to get the knack of it.”
“Then, after that, you went to the same school for a long time, right?”
Payt laughed, but only out of the corner of his mouth, as though he couldn’t give his whole self over to the humor. “You know, sport, I never went to the same school for very long. Even after I stopped flunking out of school and failing at jobs I’d taken to learn a trade, I didn’t get to stay in one place too long. College, then med school, then to a hospital for my internship. After that the clinic in Wileyville, and now here.”
“Wow. You’ve started over even more than me! You must have got real good at it by now.”
“No matter how many times you do it, starting over is always hard, kiddo.” He squinted at the line of cars stopping at a red light in front of them. “But having people who believe in you makes it easier.”
Hannah gave him a look that, if Sam had seen it, he’d have called all girly and gooey.
Her husband reached over, took her hand and brought it to his lips lightly.
“Good job,” she mouthed.
He caressed her fingers before letting go and muttered back, “Thanks but it was pretty clichéd, don’t you think?”
She snuck a look over her shoulder, then whispered, “Hey, when you’re Sam’s age, you haven’t heard any of this stuff. Nothing’s clichéd. Besides, it’s true and it’s the right message to give him.”
Payt’s simplified answer had seemed to mollify the boy for the time being.
They rolled up to the light as it turned red again.
“Is that clock right?” Payt reached over to tap on the face of the digital clock built into the dashboard, as if he could jar it loose and suddenly give them more time. “We should have allowed for traffic.”
“No rush.” Hannah stretched her legs.
“You said school started at eight.”
“School starts at 8:35. I said we should try to get there around eight.”
“Why?”
“To provide for unforeseen circumstances.”
“Like roadwork.” He frowned at the brief snarl of traffic ahead.
Hannah lowered her head and peeked around the side of her seat at the young boy fidgeting with his safety belt in the back of the van.
“Like life circumstances,” she said softly.
Sam let go of the shoulder harness, and it slapped against his chest. He didn’t flinch or even seem to notice, just sat there staring out the window.
“All these cars can’t be headed to the same place we are. Why can’t we make any headway?” Payt made it through the intersection only to come to a dead stop again.
A million hopes and fears did their own version of gridlock in Hannah’s being.
“No rush,” she whispered again.
Payt gave her arm a squeeze, then raised his head to speak to Sam in the rearview mirror. “You’re going to do fantastic in this new school, pal.”
“Okay, I’ll try. I just…” The child folded his arms over his belly and bent forward.
Payt shot Hannah a laughing look.
Tessa threw a colorful cloth teething toy at Sam.
He batted it away and hunched his shoulders. “I just hope I’m well enough to make it through the day.”
“Hmm. Well, maybe we should cruise on past the school and head straight for Payt’s office to get you checked out?”
Sam stayed all scrunched over for a moment, then slowly straightened. “That’s okay. I