Under the Light - By Laura Whitcomb Page 0,73

everything had changed—it was a whole new world. How could it be flipping over again so soon? Billy’s mother died, he didn’t remember meeting me in the field, and I was being shipped away like a prisoner.

My mother was in the driveway, standing beside my suitcase and book bag. She was anxiously pacing in a short path and talking on her cell.

When we pulled in and parked, she hung up and ran to my door. She took me aside as my father put the suitcase in the back of the van and my book bag on the passenger seat. “Are you all right?” she whispered. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

I was about to tell her that I was okay, but she said, “I’m sorry about what happened at the Caines’. But your father doesn’t need to know about that.” She smoothed my hair and checked my clothes.

“I don’t want to go with him,” I said.

“Last night you said you’d cooperate.” Worry lines darkened her brow. “It’s not forever.”

Her cell rang and she glanced at the number, silenced the call. My father was leaning on the hood now, his own cell pressed to his ear, smiling like a man in love, cooing to someone and not remembering or caring that we were watching.

“Just for a little while,” my mother whispered.

“Okay!” My father pocketed his phone. He was happy. “Time to go.”

I faced my mother and wanted her to drag me into the house, call the police, threaten my father, maybe throw something. But she just put her arm around my shoulder.

“You can call me every day,” she said.

“Mom?” I put my arms around her neck. I hardly remembered the last time she hugged me. “I love you, Mommy.”

She locked both arms around me, shaking. Then she pressed her hand to the back of my neck and squeezed me to her. She gasped in a breath and sobbed it out as if I’d been kidnapped as an infant and this was the first time she’d held me in fifteen years. “My baby,” she whispered.

“Call her from the road,” said my father, but he was the one with the phone. I knew he wouldn’t keep that promise.

As we pulled away, my mother just stood in the driveway, holding herself and weeping. I watched her in the side mirror. But then her head came up. Someone rolled into the drive on a bike. To my amazement, my mother shot out her arm and pointed toward my father’s van.

I whipped around and looked out the back window. Billy was chasing after our car on a ten-speed.

“Please sit back,” said my father.

My stomach was fluttering. This was like a movie.

“What is that boy doing?” My father sounded disgusted.

As he pulled up to a stoplight, I tried to roll down my window, but my father pushed the dashboard control and rolled it back up. Billy skidded to a stop next to my window. He was out of breath, slapped a hand on the glass, as if knocking to get in.

His voice was muffled, but I heard him perfectly. “What did you remember?”

My father honked the car horn irritably and beat the green light by half a second. We roared down the next block. Billy pedaled after us.

“Idiot,” my father muttered.

Yes, for a minute it seemed like a movie, but then we ran a yellow light while Billy was still half a block behind. I turned to see him stop, resting his foot on the curb. He looked after us for a few moments, then turned onto a side street and disappeared.

“It’s time to grow up and forget about that boy,” said my father.

“Won’t there be boys in San Diego?” I asked.

“There will be appropriate young men at church, I’m sure.”

“Will you help me choose the right kind of boy to go out with?” I asked my father.

“Eventually.”

“And you’ll help me choose the right man to marry someday?”

“Someday.”

“And someday, when I have an affair with my husband’s best friend . . . ?”

I tensed, expecting him to shout at me or maybe even slap me, though it would be the first time. But he forced out a laugh and shook his head. “Judy said you’d be bitter, but I told her no. Jenny’s a good girl.” He sighed. “I’m starting to think you’d be better off with very limited access to your mother.”

“Don’t you think it would be better for my walk with Christ if I lived with the parent who did not break the seventh commandment?”