Chapter 1 #2
“Finish your tea and stop worrying about it.” Mom sat back, and Conrad knew she was right and that he was overreacting to this whole thing. He nodded and sipped his tea as Lizzie raced into the room, clutching a piece of paper.
“What’s this?” Conrad asked. Lizzie shrugged and pressed it into his hand.
He flattened the crinkles out and read the note.
“Apparently the class needs two people to help with the Halloween and Valentine’s Day classroom parties.
” Conrad rolled his eyes and was about to toss it away, but mom grabbed it before he could and read it over.
“You should do this,” she told him.
“Excuse me?” Conrad protested, nearly spilling what was left of his tea. “Are you crazy?”
“No. You need to be involved in Lizzie’s school, and this is two days out of the year.
You can arrange for the time off and spend some time with Lizzie in the classroom.
Most parents help out in one way or another.
This is a great way for you to do it. I know you don’t have a lot of time, but when it comes to the actual parties, I can help you if you need it. ”
Conrad got up and put his cup in the sink. “I know you’re trying to help and that you probably think pushing me to work with Mr. Scoville is going to get me over these old issues I have with Rodney, but….”
“Please. You can do whatever you want, but being a room parent is a good thing. You plan parties and meetings at work all the time as part of projects and things. This is no different.” She handed him the piece of paper.
“You need to sign up for something, so you might as well do this and get it over with.” She glared at him, and Conrad wanted to run from the room, but he read over the paper again and reluctantly sent an email to the address provided saying he would do it if they hadn’t found someone else.
BEFORE STARTING work on Monday, Conrad took Lizzie to school and was about to continue on to the office where he worked as an accountant.
The kindergarten rooms each had a door that exited outside, so he watched from his car as Lizzie waved to him and then raced across the school yard to the classroom door, where Mr. Scoville loomed over the kids.
Okay, that might have been an exaggeration, but it was what it looked like to him.
The kids seemed happy, and the huge man smiled at each kid, and they all seemed pleased to see him.
The kids’ reactions were so in conflict with his own that he was forced to take a clean look at his own motivations.
“Mr. Langdon. Good morning,” Mr. Scoville said with a wave. Conrad had intended to pull away, but it would be rude to now, so he turned off the engine and walked toward the door without going inside. “Thank you for the note. We’d love to have you as a room parent.” He smiled broadly.
“Okay.” He pasted on a smile even as his heart raced and instinct told him to run the other direction.
But he refused to give in to it. This man was no Rodney, and Conrad was an adult and he needed to get past this.
“I’m not really sure what I need to do, and I need the dates of the parties so I can request them off.
” His mom was right, though; it was something he could do for Lizzie.
“I have your email address. I’ll send them to you along with the contact information of the other room parent.
That way you can coordinate and plan what you’d like to do.
” He greeted more kids as they arrived. “Thank you again for doing this.” He smiled, and for the first time, Conrad saw a difference between his former stepfather and Lizzie’s teacher.
Rodney never, ever smiled like that. His was always menacing, while Mr. Scoville’s was warm and inviting.
“You’re welcome. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.
” He turned and walked back to the car, doing his best not to run or look like he wanted to get away.
Once inside, he sat behind the wheel and breathed deeply.
Just because the man was big didn’t mean he acted like Rodney.
He needed to get that drilled deep into his head, because he could not have a near panic attack every time he saw him.
Otherwise he was going to be a mess, and Conrad was many things, including organized, methodical, and detail-oriented.
So he could plan just about anything for anyone.
He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and then started his Escape and pulled away from the curb, heading to the office.
“HOW WAS school?” Conrad asked when he got home. His mom had picked Lizzie up and brought her home. His daughter hurried over to greet him with a hug and show him her papers. “That’s very nice, honey.”
His mother packed up what she’d been working on while watching Lizzie, and he turned to her for a moment.
“Thanks, Mom,” he told her. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”
She shook her head, already heading for the door. “Nope. I have a date tonight, and he’s picking me up in ten minutes.” She closed the door and was gone before Conrad could ask any questions. He made a note to grill her about it later.
“What do you want for dinner?” Conrad asked Lizzie, who looked up from her dolls with a shrug. “So, mushrooms and olives?”
“Daddy. Yucky.” She made a face, and Conrad laughed. “Cheesy pastas.”
“Not again,” he said to himself. It was what she asked for all the time. “How about some green pasta?”
“Okay.” She went back to playing, and Conrad hurried out to his small garden, picking the last of the basil for pesto.
In some ways Lizzie was a typical child when it came to food, but sometimes not so much.
She loved pesto, Caesar salad, spinach salad, cauliflower, and broccoli, things most kids refused. So all in all, he was pretty lucky.
He got water started for the pasta and made up the fresh pesto. Lizzie loved lots of cheese, but he couldn’t eat it, so he made the pesto without and would add the cheese to hers. While the water heated, he started on a salad.
“Daddy,” Lizzie asked as she came in with her stuffed penguin under her arm, “why are you sad?”
Leave it to kids to notice everything. “I’m not. Not really. Just thinking a lot.”
“About what? Mommy?” she asked.
“Yeah. Sometimes.” He seemed to think about Gwen less and less, if he were being truthful.
He had the best part of her right here with Lizzie, and he intended to make good on the promises he’d made her.
But she was gone, taken too young and too fast by a drunk driver.
Conrad thanked all that was good that Lizzie hadn’t been with her in the car at the time.
He turned off the water and sat in one of the chairs.
Lizzie climbed onto his lap, still holding her penguin.
“I want Mommy back,” Lizzie said softly.
“I know. I want her back too.”
She leaned against his chest. “Grammy says that she’s in heaven and that she’s an angel mommy now. That she still loves us and watches over us to keep bad things away.” She looked up at him with wet eyes. “But sometimes Grammy lies.”
That was a surprise. “She does?”
“Yeah. If Mommy keeps bad things away, then why does Billy Harper keep pulling my and Bethany’s hair?” Damn, how wonderful it would be if life were that simple.
“He does?” Conrad said.
“Yes, and I don’t like it. Neither does Bethany. He made her cry yesterday.” Indignation filled his daughter’s face, as though she were a five-year-old avenging angel.
“Then pull his right back,” he told her.
“You don’t have to take people being mean to you.
” He wanted her to stick up for herself.
Conrad had never done that when he was in school.
He had been quiet like Lizzie, and Rodney had always said he wanted to toughen him up. But all he did was bully instead.
“But I’ll get in trouble and the teacher won’t like me anymore,” Lizzie said, looking up at him as though it were Sophie’s choice.
“Sweetheart. Standing up for yourself is something we all have to do, and your teacher is not going to stop liking you because of it.” She looked skeptical.
“Honey, it’s true. If Billy is mean to you, then you can tell the teacher, or you can stand up for yourself.
And you can always tell me like you did just now. ”
“Will you help me?”
He hugged her tightly. “Always.” And it turned out she was going to need his help sooner rather than later.