The Healing Garden (The Healing Series Book 2)

Chapter 1

Spring 1981

“MRS. GIFFORD?”

“Yes?” Anita winced at the formal title because it could mean only one thing—the phone call was from the middle school.

“This is Debbie Nelson, calling from Monroe Middle School,” the woman said in a stern tone.

The twisting in Anita’s stomach told her it wasn’t a good-news call. She walked with the receiver, its cord stretching, to look out the large front window at the small yard and cracked sidewalk beyond.

“I’ve called with regretful news.” Debbie paused. “Your daughter Carly has misbehaved, and she’s been given a suspension by our principal, Mr. Mortenson.”

As if Anita didn’t know the principal’s name. They’d had more than one meeting...“What happened?” Her tone sounded sharp, but it was too late to change that now.

“Carly and a group of her friends decided to ditch second period and raid the kitchen.”

“Raid?”

“What someone does when they steal food that doesn’t belong to them,” Debbie Nelson said.

Anita dragged in a breath and focused on using normal words that didn’t involve any cussing. “Where is Carly now?”

“Waiting to be picked up by a parent,” Debbie said. “She said it was only her mom since there’s no Mr. Gifford in the picture?”

Anita tightened her hold on the receiver and wondered if it would be too childish to pick up one of the picture frames on the bookcase and throw it. Or maybe she should throw a book. Something. Anything.

Another steadying breath. “No, there’s no Mr. Gifford in the picture, Ms. Nelson. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Anita hung up the phone and closed her eyes for a handful of seconds, trying to keep the scream of frustration inside. How had this become her life? Living in Seattle as a single mom? A year ago, she and Carly had been best friends, bosom buddies, doing everything together. Then Carly turned fourteen, started ninth grade, and poof. It was all gone. She had been swept into a new friend group and undergone a complete personality change.

“Meow.” A furry head bumped against her ankles.

“Me too, Sassy,” Anita mumbled, opening her eyes. The gray tabby meowed again, then trotted to the front door, waiting to be let outside.

She replaced the phone receiver, then grabbed her car keys off the top of the fridge. Her hands trembled, not because she was nervous or cold, but because her anger was making her shake.

Carly had been given everything in life—well, everything Anita could provide as a single mom. She’d been able to make a career out of her creative talents so that she wasn’t an absent parent. She was at home every day after school. She was there every morning to fix school lunch and see her daughter off. Anita scrounged up fun things to do on the weekends, plus stayed flexible with what Carly wanted to do.

Mostly, they’d go on short road trips to check out a hiking trail, a park, a zoo, or a botanical garden. Sometimes they’d stay overnight, or drive late to get back home. Anita’s favorite thing to do was to not have a particular destination or agenda. Just get into the car and drive, letting adventure come naturally. Although lately, Carly had wanted to stay home on weekend nights, talking on the phone, if she wasn’t hanging out at a friend’s house.

Anita had even budged on the curfew. Eight on school nights and ten on weekends.

All these thoughts spun through her mind as she opened the front door, and Sassy zoomed outside. Anita headed toward her Volkswagen Bug that had seen better days. She’d bought it with her first few art commissions when Carly was a baby, and the car had been treating them well. Except for this week. She’d had trouble starting it.

She eyed her sky-blue Bug as she approached. Would she be a good girl today?

“Hello-oo!” a woman’s voice called. The singsong tone was unmistakable.

“Hi, Phyllis,” Anita said to her neighbor, who stood by the mailbox between their properties. She was a seventy-something widow who seemed to always be around when Anita stepped outside her door.

“Want me to grab your mail?” Phyllis pushed up her gold-framed glasses. “If you’re in a hurry, I can keep it at my house until you return.”

Anita hid a grimace. Her nosy neighbor had just outdone herself. “Oh, it’s fine. I have time to grab the mail.”

“Oh, hello there, Sassy,” Phyllis said as the cat rubbed against her calves. She bent to give the cat a scratch.

As Anita approached, her neighbor stopped petting the cat and snapped open Anita’s mailbox and plucked out the handful of letters that were probably bills.

“Thank you.” Anita held out her hand.

“You’re heading out for some errands?” Phyllis seemed to reluctantly let go of the mail pieces.

“I’m going to a meeting at the school,” Anita said, then immediately regretted giving her that much information. “A...a parent meeting.”

Phyllis folded her arms, crinkling her own collection of letters. “Is everything all right? Aren’t parent meetings usually in the morning?”

Anita had no idea what this woman was referring to. “This one isn’t. Thanks for the mail. I’ll see you later.” She hurried away from Phyllis and toward her car.

Once she slid into the driver’s seat of the Bug, she could only hope that it would start, since Phyllis was still hovering at the mailbox, watching.

“Please start,” Anita muttered as she turned the key. The engine sputtered to life—not quite the purr that would say all was well, but at least it had started. She wasn’t about to be picky, and she really didn’t have extra money for a car repair right now. Not with yesterday’s purchase of summer clothes for Carly.

She backed out of the driveway, jostled by the eroding concrete, then pulled onto the road. The school was only a mile away, but she was already sweating with the warming April weather and didn’t want to delay picking up her daughter.

Her suspended daughter.

Anita gritted her teeth as she pulled into the school’s parking lot. Were the other parents arriving now too? She hadn’t even checked her appearance before leaving—it had been the last thing on her mind. But now that she was at the school parking lot, she knew there was a good chance of running into the moms. The women who mothered Carly’s friends were all the same type of women. None of them worked outside the home, and they all seemed to have plenty of money, plus extra for hair-coloring jobs, manicured nails, and clothing that hadn’t been purchased from the Salvation Army.

Anita wasn’t embarrassed to shop at a thrift store, because she wanted to cut as many corners as she could, while spending any extra on Carly.

Just as she pulled in, a Saab convertible flew past her, then parked in the handicap spot. Oh, and the other moms had much nicer cars.

Vera Hessington climbed out of the convertible, tossed her long red hair, then practically waltzed toward the front doors of the school. Her step bounced, probably due to the fact that she wore tennis clothes, as if she’d just walked off the court. And she probably had. Anita imagined one of the busboys at the country club, where Vera spent her days, rushing over to inform her she had an important phone call.

“It’s fine,” Anita mumbled to herself. She might be thirty-five, single, and living commission check to commission check, but she was happy. Generally. When her little girl wasn’t cutting classes and getting suspended. She released a breath and headed into the school after Vera disappeared inside. Was it terrible to just want her little girl back? To want to rewind time a few years to when they’d check out videos together, then rush home and argue about which one they’d be popping into the VCR first?

Anita tugged open the front door and a gust of musty swamp-cooler air rushed out. The entrance was empty and quiet, which meant she could hear Vera’s rather shrill voice. Probably talking to the principal.

“I’ll make sure she shadows someone in the country club kitchen this week, Mr. Mortenson,” she said as Anita approached the front office. “You won’t need to worry about Samantha again. She’ll be here bright and early on Monday, ready to work hard.”

Anita stepped inside the office, but no one noticed her. A couple office ladies sat behind their desks, pretending not to be eavesdropping, and Principal Mortenson was nodding at Vera, a pleased look on his round-cheeked face. He pushed up his glasses and extended his hand to the other mother. “Thanks for your cooperation, ma’am. You have a great girl here, but we need to uphold the school rules. Be sure to send her back with a signed note.”

He flashed a smile, and Vera flashed one back. Then she turned, her hand clamped on Samantha’s elbow. Both mother and daughter wore amused expressions, as if they were in on some private joke.

Anita stepped aside to let them pass. Vera gave her a small nod, her pink-lipsticked mouth pursed—otherwise, there was no eye contact between the mothers.

“Mrs. Gifford,” the principal said, turning to her. “Carly is this way.”

As Anita followed him down the short hallway to his private office, she noted that no other kids were around, so maybe it had been just Samantha and Carly?

Anita slowed when she saw Carly—her tear-stained face, red-rimmed eyes, and her carefully curled hair hanging limply about her shoulders. Her hair had darkened over the past year. When she was a toddler, Anita used to call her a golden girl because her hair was a shade of gold. Now it was more of a medium brown.

“Hi, Mom,” she said in a near-whisper, and Anita’s heart completely melted.

Carly might have done something stupid, but she was only a kid. A kid who was trying to figure things out and navigate friendships.

“Hi,” she said in a soft voice. “Are you okay?”

Carly’s eyes welled with new tears, and she sniffled.

Principle Mortenson adjusted his glasses, then clasped his hands together. “Mrs. Gifford, you might have heard some of what we arranged with Mrs. Hessington. The girls are expected to put in eight community service hours before returning to school. I suggest getting them all done over the weekend, or Carly will be marked truant on Monday.”

Clearly, her daughter had heard all of this, because she didn’t react.

Community service hours, though? It wasn’t like Anita could send Carly to the country club with a snap of her fingers. They’d have to make phone calls. She met the principal’s gaze. “Does anything need to be done at the school? Carly could start here.”

He shook his head. “Afraid not. You might check with the library or the senior center. There’s also an assisted living home at the edge of town. Or the bowling alley.” He shrugged. “They could use help cleaning that place.”

Anita agreed, but weren’t bowling alleys supposed to be grungy? “All right, thank you.”

As they headed out of the office, the principal regaled Carly with another warning, and although Anita wanted her daughter to learn her lesson, she also felt irked. As soon as they were outside, she asked, “Was it just you and Samantha?”

“No,” Carly said. “Evie too. She got picked up first. It’s not fair, though.”

“What’s not fair? That Evie got picked up first? Or that you were caught raiding the kitchen?”

“No,” Carly said as they neared the car.

When she hesitated, Anita said, “Out with it. You’re going to be grounded anyway, so you might as well tell me everything.”

Carly ducked her head and reached for the door handle. She had to tug hard to get the car door open.

Anita slid into the driver’s side and set her hands on the wheel. “Explain please.”

What came out was a disjointed story, with Carly saying it was a dare, and it was stupid, and she regretted it. She relied on the sincerity of her daughter’s tone, which ended in a few more tears, and she decided that the girl felt guilty enough and didn’t need to be berated more.

“All right, I understand doing something stupid—but please don’t do anything like that again,” Anita said. “You’ll be grounded from those friends for two weeks, and you need to make the phone calls when we get home to figure out how to get those service hours in.”

Carly gave a nod and wiped at her face.

Anita dug out a tissue packet from her purse and handed it over. While Carly dried her tears, she released the brake, then put the car into neutral and turned the key in the ignition. The engine turned over once, then died.

“Great,” she muttered. “Of all places.” She blew out a breath, then tried to start the car again. Nothing. “We need to jump it.”

Carly groaned, but opened her door. She climbed out, then braced her hands, preparing to help push.

Anita climbed out as well. Together, they pushed clear of other cars, then jumped back in when they reached the slope that led to the main road. She popped the clutch, and the car started. “Yes!” she yelled, and both of them smacked the roof of the car.

It was for good luck—but how long would that luck last?

“I think we’re going to be buying a new battery this weekend,” Anita said. “I hope that’s all it is.”

Carly’s tears were gone, and they weren’t stuck in the school parking lot. Anita decided to be grateful for the small things.