Page 13 of Bitter Falls

Lanny doesn’t answer, which is not usually her thing. I see it in that moment: she’s not okay, either, but she hides it better than my son. I made him go to school today. I did that out of a blind desire to have my kids lead a normal life when they patently and manifestly do not, and maybe never will.

I squeeze her shoulder a little. “Honey? Was it okay today for you?”

She’s quiet for a long few seconds, and she doesn’t meet my eyes. “It’s scary,” she says, and from her that’s quite an admission. “I was in the library. We got locked up in the book storage until it was over. The lights were out, and people were crying, and...” She audibly swallows. “It’s just hard, Mom. For some of them it’s just a game. But I know it’s not. I know what can happen. And it’s hard not to feel...trapped.”

I turn and hug her. I do it slowly and gently, because I’m trying not to show her how appalled I feel. She’s a tough kid, but I hear the vulnerability underneath. She’s not okay. My son’s not okay. I should have known.

Her strength wavers and cracks. “Mom.” It comes in a more subdued tone than I’m used to hearing from her. “You can’t send Connor back to that school. It was already bad before. They’re going to come after him twice as hard now.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’m going to keep him out. Maybe for a while. I can homeschool him. And you, unless you want to keep going—”

“I don’t,” she says, and it’s decisive beyond question. She gives me a half-ashamed look. “I tried, Mom. I really did. But itsucks. Dahlia won’t even talk to me. She avoids me like I’ve got the plague, and her clique are all totally shitty to me.” Dahlia’s her ex-girlfriend; I’d been really hoping it would last, but it hadn’t. Dahlia had moved on hard, and Lanny’s been trying. Not entirely successfully. “It’s hard enough to make friends here. And the ones I made all turned on me when—” She shuts up, but I know.When you went on TV.My fault. I made a bad decision to go on national television to try to vindicate myself, and instead I just fanned the fires of rage that were already burning. I’ve still got a few friends and allies here, but that doesn’t help my kids trying to navigate the already treacherous waters of small-town school social life.

I’ve made this worse for them. And the trauma being inflicted on all the kids—not just mine—by the active shooter drills has special meaning for Lanny and Connor, since they’ve been through threats most others haven’t. Lanny and Connor keep paying the price, and Ihate it.

And now the thing I didn’t want to do—insulate them—is the only choice I have. That, or move again and try to start over. I’m stubborn, but when it comes to my children, I need to use that in their defense. Not to their detriment. My instincts tell me to hold fast. But I’m no longer sure that’s right.

“Okay,” I tell her, and kiss her forehead. She makes a face and twists away. “I’ll call the schools tomorrow and formally withdraw you both. But that doesn’t mean you get to run wild either. You’ll have school hours, tests, standard textbooks. And Iwillbe the toughest teacher you’ve ever had.”

Lanny rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, I know,” she says. “Believe me.” But she’s relieved; I can see it in the way she walks away. There’s a confidence in her step that has been flagging recently.

It’s the right move. It has to be. I’ll make it work, and we’ll figure things out as we go.

As long as we’re together, things will be okay.

Sam’s been watching this silently, but now he puts an arm around me, and I turn into his embrace and take in a deep, shuddering breath. “Connor’s okay?” he asks. I hear the worry in his voice. I manage a nod.

“He’s going to need some more sessions with our therapist,” I say. “It was a classic PTSD episode, from what I could gather. He froze up, and then when somebody pushed him, he lashed out. He broke one kid’s jaw.” I laugh bitterly. It sounds shaky. “What’s really broken is the fact all these kids have to endure imaginary trauma six times a year. It changes people. Sam, he didn’t even know what he wasdoing.”

“I understand the theory. They need to be ready to react in an emergency,” Sam says, but he sounds subdued. “But this can’t be good for him.”

Lanny’s gone down the hall. So I lower my voice and say, “Sam—this town. I don’t know what to do. They’re shutting us out, closing ranks. You’ve felt it. So have I.”

“I know. I also know you swore you weren’t going to run anymore.”

“Maybe that’s just blind, stubborn pride,” I tell him. “I picked this place because we were anonymous. But we’re not anymore, and maybe I just need to accept that we never will be again.” I take a deep breath, and I look around. This house...it means something to me. We bought it as a half-ruined shell, and Lanny and Connor and I made it a home. We put in the new floor. New drywall. Paint and sweat and love. We chose this place, and it’sours.

But the truth is, it’s just a house. We can find another place to make home. And...and I think we should. Moving to Knoxville would be expensive, but Sam would have a chance to fly again, and I—I already have a job, and the move would put me closer to my boss, and the resources of her offices.

I take a deep breath and say, “I think we need to move.”

Sam’s been carefully expressionless but now he looks relieved, and it makes me feel a real wave of guilt. He’s been worried more than he’s told me. He puts his hands on my face and leans forward and kisses me gently on the forehead. “I think that’s good,” he says. “But I know you put a lot into this place. I don’t want you to feel like I’m pushing you.”

“You’re not,” I tell him, and smile. “But maybe you should. You’re part of this too.”

“Okay. Consider this a push.” For a second, his smile is so genuine that it makes me forget everything else. “Oh, by the way...hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable, but since you’re talking about homeschooling, I’ve got the details on Tennessee Virtual Academy. It could take us a while to get settled somewhere else, and I’m not sure you want to have them out of school that long.” When I pull back, surprised, he shrugs. “I figured it might come to this. You can enroll them in the online academy, but you have to withdraw them formally from the Norton schools first.”

“Wow,” I say. “Thank you.”

He shrugs. “I was worried. I thought it’d be good to know what to do if things went wrong. Backup plan.”

I kiss him. It’s impulsive, and it surprises him, but he doesn’t pull away. We’re still healing a very large rift that opened between the two of us in the rough, creepy town of Wolfhunter. Things came out about his past that I hadn’t known, had never suspected, and...it had hurt. A lot. Now we’re slowly rebuilding a bridge that will hold the enormous weight of both our pasts.

Something in this kiss ignites fires deep inside me, melts me like butter, and sends warmth coiling deeper in my body. We’re both a little unsteady. A little frantic. Sam’s thumb traces my lips, sealing the kiss, and the look in his eyes makes me think he’s feeling the same urgency I am.

But we don’t get a chance to indulge it, because Lanny comes around the corner and says, “Hey, do you want me to make a salad or—” She catches the mood right away because we react like startled teens, taking a step back from each other even though there’s no reason in the world for that to happen. “Really? Wow.”

“Lanny.” I try to make my voice sound firm and adult. I probably fail. “Why don’t you decide?”

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