Behind White Picket Fences

Chapter One Kiersten

Chapter One

Kiersten

Kiersten Cleaver looked down at the plastic teeth arranged across the reception desk at the orthodontist’s office. The straight, beautiful teeth of disciplined people who wore their retainers every night for the rest of their lives.

Unlike her son, Matt, who’d accidentally thrown his upper retainer away in the middle school cafeteria yesterday. The orthodontist referred to the plastic-and-wire contraption as an appliance. It sounded like a washing machine for his teeth and cost about as much too.

“When would you like to make your next appointment?” the receptionist asked.

A simple question, but Kiersten could not formulate an answer.

This happened more and more often lately. Brain fog. Inability to concentrate. Trouble remembering the ten thousand trivial yet somehow vitally important things she had to keep track of each day. Was it perimenopause? Lyme disease? Or perhaps just low IQ?

The impossibly young receptionist stared up at her with clear eyes and luminous, unwrinkled skin. She looked like she was eleven, and this made Kiersten feel like she was forty-two going on eighty-three.

“Mrs. Cleaver?” The receptionist cleared her throat and frowned, obviously unsure of the protocol for interrupting parents in the middle of some kind of senior moment. “When would you like to bring Matt in for his next appointment?”

Never. Was never an option?

She dreaded coming to the orthodontist, which always included a lecture on the importance of brushing along the gumline, as well as dire warnings about the discoloration of teeth if patients failed to brush thoroughly while wearing braces.

Her thirteen-year-old son routinely failed to do this, and of course, his poor dental hygiene was her fault because she was his mother, and when you are a mother, everything is your fault.

“Wednesday, October 22 at four thirty is available,” the receptionist prompted.

Kiersten glanced down at the calendar on her phone, where all the new activities and appointments of a fresh school year loomed. Her mind ran through the logistical ramifications.

If she took Matt to the orthodontist on Wednesday, October 22 at four thirty, she’d be unable to take Luke to the Orton–Gillingham dyslexia tutor. Or drop James at hockey practice. Or pick up Johnny from LEGO Robotics Club.

They’d moved to the DC suburbs in late July. School started in August. Now she found herself drowning in mid-September, swimming against a tidal wave of games, practices, clubs, parent meetings, back-to-school nights, and appointments.

She didn’t know the other parents yet and had been unable to join the elaborate trade network of car pools mothers relied on to get children from point A to point B. Plus, she had no family nearby to help with the driving, like she had back home in Minnesota.

“I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid that won’t work,” Kiersten said.

Obviously it was her fault they were too busy to schedule an appointment at a time the orthodontist found convenient.

“Is there anything available on a Friday?” She’d come to think of Friday as Freedom Day, because it was the only day without lessons, practices, games, or meetings.

“Sorry, we aren’t open on Fridays.”

“How about Monday?”

The receptionist shook her head. “We aren’t open on Mondays either. And we reserve Tuesdays for putting on and removing braces. But you could come in on a Wednesday or a Thursday.”

The orthodontist was like a restaurant where you could have anything you wanted, as long as it was a hamburger.

Kiersten massaged her forehead. She’d have to pull Matt out of school because there was absolutely no time to squeeze in an orthodontist appointment later in the day.

And that would likely annoy Mrs. Bile, the terrifying school secretary with intimidating eyebrows who she’d met at Classroom Sneak-a-Peek before the first day of school.

She scheduled the appointment for 11:00 a.m. on a Wednesday and left with her son and his new retainer trailing behind her across the parking lot.

“You seem kind of cranky,” Matt observed when they got in the car.

“I’m not cranky,” she said, immediately aware that she sounded cranky.

He shrugged and turned to the window. “Just sayin’.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m so-rry if I sound cranky. It’s just frustrating when we can’t make a simple orthodontist appointment because we have so many after-school activities.”

“I could quit baseball,” he volunteered quickly.

She frowned. “You love baseball. And you’re really good.”

“I used to be,” he said, his voice bitter.

The ever-present knot of worry inside her stomach twisted a little tighter. “That’s not true.”

He’d said this yesterday too. She cleared her throat and assumed a neutral tone, like a sportscaster on TV. “This new travel team is just . . . well, it’s a higher level of play.”

Higher level of play. She’d learned that phrase from her husband. She still wasn’t sure what it meant. Or if it was even true.

“I’m the worst one on the team,” Matt mumbled from beneath the fringe of bangs obscuring his eyes.

She hadn’t had the energy to fight about haircuts while still submerged under the chaos of moving boxes, pediatrician appointments, school forms, and an ongoing battle with the cable company about the subpar Wi-Fi at their new address.

“But you made the team!” she pointed out. “Most of the kids who tried out didn’t.”

“And I’d rather be playing with those kids, in the rec league. All the kids on this new travel team are assholes.”

“Matthew!” She gasped. Her boys never swore, at least not around her. “Language.”

He gave a sulky shrug. “It’s true.”

“It’s only been a few weeks. Give it some time.”

He slumped lower in his seat and stared out the window. She glanced at him, worry spreading through her body like a virus.

Had it been a mistake to sign him up for this extravagantly expensive travel team? But her husband was convinced that Matt would go from talented to extremely talented if he played with other extremely talented kids.

And if Matt became extremely talented, he could get a baseball scholarship and play in college.

Then she and Garrett could stop lying awake at night wondering how they were going to afford college tuition for four boys on her husband’s new government salary.

Plus the money she earned working part-time from home as an on-call advice nurse for a giant HMO, where every call seemed to end with her telling people to go to urgent care, just in case, for liability reasons.

She stopped at a red light and glanced at her son. “Let’s see how things go at the tournament in Pennsylvania this weekend, okay?”

“Is Dad coming?” he asked.

She stifled an irritated sigh. It had been Garrett’s idea to sign Matt up for travel baseball, yet he was never home to help with the travel part.

“No.” She tried to keep her voice free from spousal judgment.

“He’s flying home on Saturday. But obviously I’ll be there, and so will your brothers.

We’ll leave after school, then drive back right after your game on Sunday morning because Luke has a soccer game in Ashburn at two, and Johnny has hockey practice at the rec center at four thirty. ”

Matt sighed. “I feel like we live in this crappy car.”

She bit back a snappy retort. He’s a child, she reminded herself, and none of this is his fault. Or his choice.

She felt like she and Garrett had committed a form of child abuse by pulling their quiet oldest son away from grandparents, cousins, and a close-knit group of friends just a few weeks before he turned thirteen.

She couldn’t imagine anything harder than moving halfway across the country for seventh grade, away from a school filled with blue-and-gold Future Farmers of America jackets, to a school where most kids would be hard pressed to identify which farm animal produced the bacon in their refrigerator.

Yet she and her husband had done this to their sons.

“I miss the farm,” he said in a small voice, still looking out the window, facing away from her. “I hate that our neighbors are so close we can see into their backyards. I miss Grandpa and Grandma.”

She fought to keep her voice steady. “I miss them too.”

In Minnesota, they’d lived on a farm ten minutes from the dairy operation Garrett managed, with both sets of grandparents just down the road. Healthy, involved grandparents who drove the kids to activities, cheered them on at games and school events, and helped with homework and projects.

Now the boys only saw their grandparents during random FaceTime calls while Garrett traveled constantly for his new job as an undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture.

This week he was in Kansas . . . or maybe Nebraska? And she was stuck here, a stranger in a strange land, a married single mom trying, and failing, to raise four boys by herself.

“Luke got in a fight the other day,” Matt said in a small voice, still facing the window. “At recess.”

Her stomach curdled in shock. “What?”

He shrugged. “He’s in the lowest reading group, and some kid called him a dumb hick. So he slugged him.”

“Why didn’t I hear—”

“The bell rang, and recess ended, and everybody went inside,” he said. “The teachers didn’t see.”

She gripped the steering wheel in stunned silence, forcing her mind to focus on the rudiments of driving, yielding to a bicyclist crossing the street before making a left-hand turn.

“Don’t tell him I told you, okay?” Matt said.

“Okay.” She paused. “Is Luke okay?”

Matt shrugged again. “He hates this new school, just like I do. And I think he’s already flunking math. And maybe English. And science too. But otherwise he’s fine.”

How could Luke be failing when the teachers hadn’t even had time to give out tests?

She eased her minivan into the school parking lot and took a deep breath, trying to slow her racing mind. Matt shouldered his enormous backpack and groaned softly.

She shot him a sharp look. “Is your shoulder—”

He raised his palm, cutting off all further questions. “I gotta go, Mom. I have a science test.”

Kiersten swallowed her next question and followed him into the school. She flashed a warm smile at Mrs. Bile, the school secretary, which was not returned. Then she signed her son in and reached for a goodbye hug. His young face contorted with pain when she touched him.

“Do you need some Tylenol?”

“I already took two this morning.” He shrugged. “It’s just sore from pitching yesterday.”

The knot inside her stomach expanded again, like a malignant anxiety tumor. He’d been diagnosed with something called Little League shoulder a few weeks ago. He was supposed to rest his arm, but he’d pitched four innings yesterday.

“I’ll make another appointment with the orthopedist.”

He rolled his eyes. “Great. Another appointment.”

“I love you,” she whispered, forcing herself not to reach in for another hug. “Today will be better, I promise.”

“Yeah, right,” he muttered softly as he turned away. “Bye, Mom.”

He disappeared down the hallway, thin shoulders slumped in defeat as her heart flooded with pain.