Chapter Five
Five
Despite shaky legs Casey forced herself to maintain a steady stride as she crossed River Road and headed home. She trained her eyes on Star, trotting just ahead, to keep from looking back to see if Kyle was still there, watching her from his stoop. If he was, she hoped she looked more in control than she felt. She led Star around to the rear of the house, picking up her pace once she was out of Kyle’s view. She took the back steps two at a time, gave Star’s paws a quick wipe down with a ratty towel that hung on the railing. Then she followed the dog inside and sagged against the door after closing it, relieved to have at least this one solid barrier between him and her.
Wyatt was in the kitchen, his wheelchair pulled up to the open fridge. “We’re out of vanilla creamer. Will you pick some up today? I can’t drink coffee without it anymore.”
She was vaguely aware her brother had asked a question, but it felt like her mind was on a delay.
He craned his neck to look at her around the refrigerator door. “Casey?”
“What? Yeah, I’ll pick some up,” she said, sliding off her boots.
“What’s wrong?”
She moved to the kitchen table and braced her arms against the back of a chair. “Kyle’s back.”
Wyatt’s jaw dropped. “No shit?” He glanced in the direction of the McCray house and pivoted his chair so he could swing the fridge door closed. “Well, I figured that might happen when he heard about Danny. Didn’t you?”
Casey pulled her hat off. “I didn’t really think about it.”
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, you look fine.”
“He startled me, that’s all. I have to grab my stuff for work.” She turned to head upstairs.
“Hold up,” Wyatt said. “I made you breakfast, and I know you have time.”
Since he was wearing his don’t-argue-with-me expression, she dropped into a chair while he pulled up across from her, resting his forearms on either side of his plate. She forced herself to take a bite of scrambled eggs.
Star made her way under the table and curled up at their feet, her usual spot when they were eating. She liked to be in the middle of whatever was going on.
“I bet Star was happy to see him,” Wyatt said, his voice ripe with betrayal.
“Actually, she wouldn’t go to him.”
He leaned over to glance under the table. “Good girl, Star.”
Casey appreciated her brother’s efforts, but it was a battle making this breakfast go down. She’d lost her appetite.
“So, how’d he look?” Wyatt asked, digging into his own eggs.
Good was the answer that flew to mind. Slightly more weathered maybe, the creases fanning out from his eyes more defined. He still liked scruff on his face and kept his sandy hair long enough to curve around the bottom of the hat. And maybe they were a different pair, but he still wore those same boots, the black leather ones that slouched around his ankles because he never laced them up all the way. She went with a simple answer: “About the same. He has a new tattoo.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a close look.” She’d tried to, when he was focused on Star. But all she could say for sure was the ink went farther down his left arm now. In the past, all of Kyle’s tattoos had been on his arms except for one. She briefly wondered if he still had that other one and then changed the subject. “What do you have planned for today?”
Wyatt flicked a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the large metal building out back that housed his workshop and the small living quarters he mostly used as a bedroom. “I gotta get those damn door harps finished and shipped off to the store. I’m getting tired of making them, who knew they would be so popular?”
“I did.” Casey glanced at the prototype he’d made for her birthday last year. It hung on the inside of the back door, a smooth, flattened, hollow box made from hardwoods in the shape of a teardrop. Three balls hung from the top, and whenever the door opened and closed they bounced against horizontal strings tuned to different tranquil notes. Sort of like indoor wind chimes. “They’re beautiful.”
“Yeah, I know.” As always he didn’t smile at his own immodesty. “But Mike’s bugging me for those cabinets, and that guitar stand. Some lady commissioned it for her husband’s birthday, so it can’t be late.”
Casey dropped her fork on her plate, giving up on breakfast. “Does Mike realize how overwhelmed you are?”
“Yeah, he wishes I could do more.” He shook his head and shrugged. “Is there any news on Danny?”
“No.”
“Did Kyle come alone?”
She felt an unpleasant internal jolt. The thought that he wasn’t alone had never occurred to Casey. “I didn’t see anyone else, but I don’t know.”
“How’d he get here?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long’s he staying?”
“God, Wyatt. I don’t know.”
His brows shot up. “What the hell do you know?”
She nudged her plate away and stood. “I know I have to get going.”
“Just wait a minute—”
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry. You have the rest.” She waved toward her unfinished breakfast and turned for the stairs.
“Casey…”
The urgency in her brother’s voice stopped her. When she about-faced he was looking at her with wide gray-green eyes, and she realized what was going on.
She took her seat again, laid her hands flat on the table. “He threw me for a loop, but it’s okay, Wyatt. He’s here to check on Danny, help him through the worst of it, then he’ll leave. He told me he’s working at a garage in Spokane, Washington.” Casey had actually known that before Kyle told her. She leaned forward and held Wyatt’s gaze. “You don’t have to worry about me. I promise.”
He studied her, nodded, but there wasn’t much confidence in it.
“Now I really need to get to school. Okay?”
“Okay. But be careful, the shady patches on the roads will still be icy after the freeze last night. And it’s supposed to rain this afternoon—did you switch out those wipers?”
Shit. She hadn’t. But she couldn’t admit it or he’d make her do it now. Maybe even drag out his leg braces and canes so he could do it himself. He always worried about her driving in bad weather, afraid of losing another person to slick roads.
“Yeah,” she said. “I switched them out.”
“All right. I got the dishes.” He put their plates on his lap and reversed away from the table.
“Thanks.” Casey went upstairs and brushed her teeth. Then she grabbed a stack of graded quizzes from the desk in her room, shoved them in her backpack.
Downstairs she lifted her puffy from its hook, put on her hat and gloves. Through the back window she could see Wyatt heading out to his workshop, Star walking beside him. The raised boardwalk that kept his chair off the ground and provided passage between the house and his shop was in good shape. Over the summer they’d replaced some of the decking, reinforced a few joists, the typical maintenance they had to perform after it took such a beating each winter. But it was well worth it. That boardwalk had opened all kinds of possibilities for her brother, allowed him to feel much less confined, have his own space, start his woodworking business, and find some independence. It changed his life.
It had been Kyle’s idea. He and Danny had built it for Wyatt sixteen years ago.
Casey ripped her eyes from the boardwalk, grabbed her backpack, rushed out to the Bronco. She needed to get to work, get busy, be around the hustle and bustle of middle school. Unfortunately, the train decided to appear as she was pulling out of the driveway, so she had to sit right in front of the McCray house while waiting for it to pass, which took a while. She’d been stuck at this crossing infinite times in her life with nothing better to do than count the number of boxcars, which clocked in anywhere from sixty-five to more than a hundred. While she waited she was careful to look straight ahead and not let her eyes drift Kyle’s way.
She was just thankful she had a very full day ahead of her. Work had always been a salve of sorts, a way to settle herself when emotions threatened to get so big they’d eat her alive.
Most days Casey ate lunch in her classroom. She often had students grab her between classes or at the end of the day to ask rushed questions, but she made herself available during lunch to spend quieter time with anyone who needed extra help with social studies work. There were plenty of days when no one showed, but lately she could count on four students to wander in and eat with her: Rosie Egan, Ben Landy, Will Taylor, and Logan Lopez.
Ostensibly they each had a reason for coming in: Rosie was all about straight As and extra credit, since she was already thinking Ivy League college; Ben was a whip-smart kid but lackluster student who was trying to raise his grades so his parents would stop nagging him; Will worked hard but needed help sometimes with reading comprehension and writing; and Logan, who was always serving lunch detention for one infraction or another, had asked if he could serve it in her room. However, Casey suspected they all had another reason for eating with her. These lunches were a refuge of sorts, a brief time out in their eighth-grade day when they could escape the angsty fray and relax. It usually served the same purpose for her.
Though, as she sat with them later that day, student chair-desk combos arranged in a loose circle, it wasn’t quite doing the trick. Underlying the calm routine of her morning classes there’d been a persistent low-grade tension in her gut that kept reminding her Kyle was back in town. She hadn’t bothered to grab her lunch from the breakroom fridge. Her appetite was still AWOL.
“I don’t get it,” Rosie was saying, using a spoon to stir soup in a short thermos. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail that wound its way over her shoulder and lay against her chest. “PE should be pass-fail, not a letter grade. If I get a B or less, it will ruin my GPA.”
Casey would have told Rosie not to worry about that, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She’d been a highly ambitious student herself, convinced good grades were the ticket to whatever future she wanted.
“Egan,” Ben said, throwing a hand up, “dial down the crazy. You’re in eighth grade. No college will care what your PE grade was in middle school.” He shook his head at Casey, as if to say Kids these days. Then he shoved the rest of his turkey sandwich into his mouth, oblivious to the crumbs spilling onto the desk and floor. Casey never told Ben this, but she always did a quick sweep-up after he ate in her room. He had a baby face but was a brawny kid with a bull-in-a-china-shop thing going on. The ends of his longish brown hair twirled up in different directions.
“Whatevs,” Rosie said. “I shouldn’t even have to take PE.”
“If you don’t like PE,” Logan said, black high-tops crossed up on his desk while he flicked little paper balls into the trash bin, “don’t go.”
“So I can live in detention like you?” Rosie asked.
“Yeah,” Casey said. “That’s probably not a great idea.”
“I’m not here for cutting class,” Logan said, raking a hand through his black hair, which was buzzed close on the sides, and swept up into gentle spikes on top. The whole look was softened by dark eyes lined with long lashes. “I got in a fight, and if I don’t come I can’t play on the team.”
Casey couldn’t help thinking how much Logan reminded her of Kyle at that age. A nice, quiet kid with little ambition other than hockey, and an underlying angry streak, largely due to tension at home. Logan’s parents were recently divorced and more interested in pissing each other off than parenting their kid.
“Ms. McCray,” Rosie said, knuckling her tortoiseshell glasses up her nose. “Your phone’s buzzing.” She nodded toward the cell phone sitting on Casey’s desk.
“That’s okay. I’ll get it later.” She already knew it was Angie, following up on her previous two unanswered texts. “You have any thoughts on this PE thing, Will?” she asked.
He considered it for a moment, then shook his head of wispy blond hair and lifted a shoulder. “I’m in PE with you, Rosie, and I think Mrs. Davis just wants to see you try a little.” He glanced at Casey after that, and she gave him an approving nod.
She had a lot of favorite students, but Will was special. He was kind and soft-spoken, eager to please.
Rosie huffed out an exasperated sigh. “Sports are the worst.”
“Don’t you come from a hockey family?” Ben asked.
“Yes. My dad used to play, and I’ve spent my life in freezing ice rinks watching my brothers play. I’m so over it.”
“You are aware you’re talking to three hockey players, right?” Ben asked her, wagging a hand among Will, Logan, and himself.
“Didn’t you guys lose, like, all your games last year?”
Casey winced. “That’s a low blow, Rosie.”
“No kidding,” Logan said, dropping his feet to the floor and leaning toward her. “And—by the way—what do you expect when we change coaches twice midseason?”
Ben pointed at her. “Just wait, Egan, we’re gonna rock it this year.”
The boys bumped fists and Casey threw up a silent prayer that Ben was right. The team was on their fourth coach in less than two years. When the longstanding U14 coach retired, his first replacement had lasted only a few weeks before the team parents decided he wasn’t cutting it and demanded another replacement. They’d all been hopeful about the next coach, a young energetic substitute teacher who was well-liked by the boys. But then he was offered a full-time job in Watertown and left. A motley crew of fill-in coaches and dads shared the task of limping the team along through the sad end of last season, after which several players declined to return. Over the summer the program had recruited Stan Wilson, a local pharmacist who played hockey in high school, to take on the job.
“Your new coach is that good?” Rosie asked.
Casey wasn’t surprised to see the boys exchange uneasy looks. As admin manager for the junior program, she’d spent some time with Coach Wilson over the last few weeks, sorting out a practice schedule, helping him with parent communication, explaining how the season would work. Practice had just started a couple of weeks ago, so the jury was still out, but he struck her as a tense, prickly sort, with his strict adherence to lists and sweater-vests.
The boys were saved from answering when Principal Shriver knocked on the open door, dressed as always in a button-down, tie, and jeans. He was medium height and build, and though he hadn’t lost all the brown hair from the top of his head yet, it was close. That’s what happens when you never leave middle school , he liked to joke. “Sorry, kids. Do you think I could borrow Ms. McCray for a few minutes?”
While the students gathered their things and nudged their desks back in place before filing out the door, Casey wondered what could be warranting a personal visit from the principal. But when he walked into her room, he wasn’t alone. Coach Geiger, the athletic director for the district, was with him. She stayed where she was and offered the men her roomier desk chairs.
“What’s up?” she asked, assuming this had to do with hockey, since Coach was there. He’d been heading up the athletic program for the last eight years, since a bad fall on the ice had forced him to finally retire from coaching high school hockey. He’d done it for almost twenty-five years and would forever be “Coach” to everyone in town.
His wardrobe matched his title—sweats and sneakers—and he tended to wear his ball cap high and forward on his full head of white hair. He crossed his arms against his chest. “First, Casey, I just came from seeing Danny over at the hospital. He’s awake and alert, and they’re removing the feeding tube today.”
Casey breathed a sigh of relief, perhaps the biggest breath she’d taken since finding him on his kitchen floor four nights ago. “That’s great news.”
“I figured you’d want to know right away. He’s out of danger, but they’re still assessing long-term effects. He can’t communicate well right now.” Coach chuckled. “But even so, he’s already giving them the what for, so at least we know he’s still Danny.”
She smiled. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll get over there later today to see him.”
Coach’s eyes pinged the principal’s before he spoke again. “I guess Danny had a visitor last night. Are you aware that Kyle’s back in town?”
Both men were watching her closely, the way Wyatt had this morning. “Yes,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “I ran into him earlier today.”
They exchanged another glance, and Principal Shriver took over, like a baton had been passed. “Casey, we just want to put it out there. We know this week’s been a lot, the scare with Danny, finding him the way you did, and now Kyle coming back…” He clasped his hands on the desk in front of him. “If you need anything—time off, help with your workload—anything at all, you just need to ask.”
She took a moment before she responded, tamped down the frustration that came with being handled like she was fragile and might break. They were worried about her, and it was her own damn fault.
“I appreciate it, Bob. But I’m fine.” She looked to Coach Geiger. “Really.”
Coach nodded. “That’s good to hear, because we have some bad news. Stan Wilson resigned from the coaching position last night.”
“ What? ” Casey asked.
“Effective immediately.”
“He didn’t even give it a chance—it’s only been two weeks.”
“I know,” Coach said. “But he’s done. There was no discussion to be had.”
Bob shrugged. “I think we all knew it was a long shot from the beginning. Stan’s pretty…” His head went side to side as he searched for the right word.
“Uptight?” Casey said, voicing what he really couldn’t, or shouldn’t, as principal.
He nodded.
“This is a tough team,” Coach said. “Stan said he felt disrespected, by the parents and the kids.”
She scoffed. “You gotta earn respect.”
Coach poked a thumb over his shoulder. “Your buddy there, Ben Landy, apparently told him he needed to pull the stick out of his ass.”
“Ben’s not wrong.”
“Be that as it may,” Bob said, shaking his head at her, “we do not have a replacement right now, and it’s going to take some time to find one. We were hoping you’d draft a letter to the team parents, letting them know we’re going to have to suspend practices until further notice.”
She thought about Will and Ben and Logan, sitting there just a few minutes ago with their high hopes for the season. “You can’t do that. If they don’t practice, we’ll lose more players. You might as well cancel the whole season.”
“I don’t like it either,” Coach said. “Not one bit. But I got no one right now. I’m already filling in for the high school girls’ basketball coach while she’s on maternity leave. All our teachers are already coaching a sport, or they don’t have time. They’re also afraid of these hockey parents. They know how much work is involved in trying to build this team back up, and they’re steering clear. I can take over in January, but till then I have to start from scratch, reach out to other districts…”
“I’m going to make some phone calls too,” Bob said. “But there’s no way around it, finding someone else will take at least a few weeks.”
Casey did some quick math. The boys practiced three afternoons per week, from four to six. “What if I supervise practices?” she asked. “Just until you find someone else. I know I’m not a coach, but I could at least get them on the ice, doing some drills. It’s better than nothing.”
They exchanged a skeptical look, which wasn’t surprising. They’d come in here worried she already had too much on her plate. But this team had been through enough.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “A few hours a week.”
Bob angled his head. “Casey, you teach all day, tutor afternoons, you help Coach with his admin work. How much more can one person cram into a day?”
Right now she’d cram as much as she could. She checked on Coach, who was rubbing his chin with one hand, mulling it over. “Let me at least talk to the team,” she said. “I’ll meet with them today, tell them about Coach Wilson, and float the idea past them. If they’re not up for it, we’ll suspend practice.”
“I don’t know…” Bob said.
“Well,” Coach said, “since you’re a teacher you have all the clearances to start right away. And I know a lot of those boys like you, you’ve been the only consistent thing about the team over the last two years.” He looked to Bob. “If you give it the okay, I promise to find a replacement as quickly as possible.”
Bob held his hands up in surrender. “Okay. But you have to promise—”
“I know, I know,” Casey said. She couldn’t stand to hear any more of his concern. “If it gets to be too much, I’ll send up the flag.”
They wrapped up after that, just in time for her next class to start filing in. She heard her phone buzz again and picked it up to check the string of texts she’d received from Angie throughout that morning:
OMG Wyatt just told me K is back. How are you?
Text when you get a sec and tell me everything
Hello? Seriously Casey
Do I need to come over there to check on you???
Fearing Angie might actually do just that, Casey violated her own zero-tolerance policy when it came to phones in the classroom and sent a response that would hopefully forestall future inquiries: I’m fine. But I’d be a lot better off if everyone stopped worrying about me.