CHAPTER TWO
Lennox
The sun had officially sunk behind the horizon by the time I pulled my cobalt-blue Ford Ranger into the driveway. The sky was a wild array of purples, blues, and indigos.
I loved twilight.
It wasn’t the easiest time of day to drive in, and often the muted tones played with my eyes, but it was still a magical time. When the creatures of the day said goodnight and laid their heads to rest, and the nocturnal beings stretched and opened their eyes, ready to adventure out in the darkness.
I considered myself a night owl, since I felt most awake around eleven at night. But my life, my child, my job, and my mental health kept me from sleeping in beyond six.
I turned off the ignition and the headlights, and opened the door, inhaling deeply to pull in that fresh sea air mixed with all the sweet pollen in the floating around on the cool breeze.
The hoot of an owl in the nearby woods made me smile.
I waited for the sound of the front door to burst open.
But it didn’t.
Hmm.
“Mabes?” I called out, making my way up the round, white stepping stones through the grass to our front porch.
“Shhh,” my daughter called out from the side of the house.
I didn’t climb the porch, but headed around to the left of the old white farmhouse with green trim to find my thirteen-year-old daughter sitting on a wooden footstool, her binoculars around her neck, notebook on her lap, and phone in her palm.
Of course, the Merlin app was open and recording.
“Did you hear the owl?” I asked her.
“Shhh,” she chastised, glaring at me. “Of course I did.”
I smirked. “Well, what species is it?”
With an irritated sigh, she stopped the app from recording. “It’s the barred owl. And you know I’ve never seen one.”
A few other tweets and cheeps echoed in the forest beside the yard.
Mabel’s blue eyes widened and she quickly hit record on her Merlin bird identifier app again.
“Don’t stay out here too long, please,” I said, ruffling the blonde, shoulder-length curls on her head.
“I’ve finished all my homework. You know that. I’m three weeks ahead. And two grades ahead.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re also a thirteen-year-old child. Who is still growing in both mind and body, and you need your rest. You need to sleep.”
She sighed like a petulant teenager. “Fine. Another hour?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
Her jaw dropped. “Forty-five.”
“Thirty.”
“Fine,” she muttered.
Smirking, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Did you have enough for dinner?”
“Dad! The birds. Shhh.”
“Sorry, sorry.” I held up my hands in surrender and backed away, returning to the front of the house. I climbed the three steps to the porch and went inside.
We were renting the two-bedroom farmhouse until I could find something more permanent.
The real estate market on the island was extremely slim, and even rentals were difficult to come by.
But I lucked out taking over someone else’s lease, which had just renewed in February.
So Mabel and I, at least, wouldn’t be homeless until then.
The landlord seemed to think it wouldn’t be a problem for us to stay on longer than that though.
The lasagna I’d made earlier today sat out on the stove with one piece cut out of it.
I dished myself up a slice, heated it in the microwave, then sat down in the living room with the hockey game on.
I was a basketball guy myself, having played in college, but since the season was over, my attention was on hockey.
I didn’t have to pay attention to the clock, or go out and remind Mabel to come in. The door opened exactly thirty minutes from when I was outside, and my teenager entered, replaying some of the bird calls she’d recorded from the app.
“That’s the common nighthawk,” my kid said, sitting down on the other arm of the sectional sofa.
“What are those faint squeaks in the background?”
“Bats.” Her eyes bugged out. “There are so many bats here. It’s actually a little concerning. I’m afraid to look up at them in case they defecate.”
I smirked. My child was always a little more paranoid than most. But I’d learned early on not to indulge in her paranoia and rather just redirect it to something positive. Most of the time it worked. “That’s cool,” I said. “Maybe we should think about building some bat boxes to put out for them.”
She nodded absentmindedly. “Maybe …”
“Did you have enough dinner?”
Another barely-listening-to-me nod.
“Mabel Dawn Paul, are you listening?”
“To my app, I am.”
“Mabel. App off. Phone down.”
Her sigh was long and dramatic, but she did as she was told.
I glanced at my watch. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know because you made me put my phone down.”
I refused to bite at her teenage snark and just leveled her with my best dad-stare.
“It is 9:03. You know the rules. No technology after nine. You may read, or engage in stimulating conversation with your adoring and adorable father, but as far as the phone, television, tablet, or any other tech device besides your e-reader, those are off-limits until ten tomorrow.”
My daughter’s nostrils flared.
“Have you showered?”
“I did while you were out.”
“Would you like to ask me about my day and how the meet and greet at the school went?”
“No.”
“Well, in an effort to educate you on social normalcies, I suggest you fake it and ask me.”
Her jaw clenched. “How was your … thing?”
Oh the sarcasm. She might not always understand it when someone else did it, but my kid was surprisingly good at dishing it out.
Grinning at her like she’d asked me of her own volition and because she wanted to, I scratched my head and shrugged.
“I think it went well. I spoke with a few parents and, from what I could gather, everyone seems eager to have new administrative blood in the school. I know all about my predecessor. So I think as long as I don’t torture the children, or allow you to torture them, everyone will be happy. ”
“Why would you bring your blood to school? And I don’t even go to the school, so I couldn’t torture them.”
“It was a figure of speech. The old principal was old blood. And because I’m new, I’m new blood. And his grandson was a menace at the school and got away with everything. I’m just using it as an example.”
Mabel shrugged. “Well, if you want to be exact with your example, it would be my child that tortured the other students. And I don’t have a child, so that is impossible. I don’t even know if I will have children. And definitely not as young as you did. Can I go to my room now?”
With a defeated sigh, I nodded. “Yes, you may.” So much for stimulating conversation with her adoring, adorable father. My kid couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
My childhood was anything but normal, but all my reading, research, and discussions with other parents of neurodivergent teenagers, and just teenagers in general, told me that this was normal behavior.
Hopefully, one day she’d see me as more than just the provider of food, a roof, clothes, and money. Hopefully.
She left her phone on the coffee table, but took her notebook and binoculars.
“Did you see the barred owl?” I called after her as she made her way down the hall toward her bedroom.
“What do you think?” she snapped back.
I sighed again, got up from the couch, and went to grab another slice of lasagna.
There wasn’t a person alive that would say raising teenagers was a walk in the park and something they recommended—maybe to their worst enemy—but raising a twice exceptional child with not only an autistic diagnosis but a gifted one as well, was not for the faint of heart.
Mabel was, in short, a genius. She was thirteen, almost fourteen, and almost finished the eleventh grade.
Conventional school didn’t work for her, and hadn’t since she was eight.
So I homeschooled her. She belonged to an online school for neurodivergent gifted children.
And just for shits and giggles, because she wanted the challenge and stimulation, she audited a few college classes as well.
Her goal was to become a veterinarian and open a wild bird recovery center.
I wasn’t sure how she planned to make money at this recovery center, since she’s said the idea of opening it up to the public for monetization sounded about as appealing as sewing needles jammed under her fingernails, but I didn’t doubt for a second that my gifted child would figure it out.
With a sigh fit for a man twice my age, I collapsed back onto the couch with my second slice of lasagna and doomscrolled for half an hour.
Tomorrow was the first day of my new role as principal of a small elementary school. I’d been a teacher for a few years now, specializing in special needs. Then I became vice principal, and was acting interim principal at my last school for three months while my superior went on maternity leave.
But circumstances that I actively didn’t think about because they gave me hives and made me panic-sweat prompted me to look for a position and residency on the opposite side of the country.
And holy shit, if a friend of a friend didn’t throw it out into the universe that little ol‘ San Camanez on the West Coast was looking for a new principal. Thank god for Spencer Paxton, who ran the local distillery with three other single dads.
Spencer was a family friend of my foster family, and he was chatting with my foster brother, Kai, who mentioned to me that the move out West might be exactly what Mabel and I needed.
It was dark out now, and only a few unpacked boxes remained stacked on a dining room table Mabel and I would probably never eat at.
We almost always sat at a kitchen bar, or on the couch, watching a nature documentary or playing some online trivia game.
She almost always whooped my ass. And not a single cell of my body wasn’t proud as hell.
I stashed my dishes in the dishwasher, poured myself a dram of Hardwood Distillery Iron Bar Whiskey and opened up the French doors that led out onto the patio. I closed the screen to not let in the bugs—or bats—and climbed into the hammock.