Page 8 of Candy Cane Dreams
Perhaps it was just a relic of Edward breaking up with her.
"I think you'll find a lot of kids at our school will appreciate you being here," Isadora said easily, as though she also wanted to avoid the political discussion.
She couldn't talk to them about the specific children that Principal Stevens had talked to her about that day, although one little girl—she couldn't remember her name—had been mute since her mother died. That had intrigued Kate. Hopefully she was going to meet the little girl tomorrow when she visited the third-grade classroom.
"Principal Stevens had a lot to say about the children. And it does sound like I could be useful here."
"In more ways than one," Nelly said with a secretive smile.
Kate smiled back, but inside she was curious. What in the world could Nelly mean?
Nelly had been correct about the mac and cheese. It was the best that she had ever had. And that was saying something, because she had had a lot of mac and cheese growing up. But this was warm and savory and creamy and delicious, and when the container got passed around for a second time, she found herself taking another scoop. She had planned to skip dessert, but when the apple pie came around, she took a slice of that as well.
"I'm not going to be able to eat here very often. My waistline won't allow it," she joked as they cleared off the table, and Nelly told her she'd need to come back.
"You just need to do a lot more exercising," Nelly said with a laugh.
"Or you can call it middle-aged spread, which is what I do," Isadora said, although as Kate looked at Isadora, she didn't really see any spread, middle-aged or not. Although she did see dark circles around the woman's eyes, and if she remembered correctly, Nelly had told her that Isadora's husband had cheated on her and left her and her three children.
Gilbert and Summer had arrived with their children. Apparently Summer was a licensed equine therapist, and Kate made a note that she wanted to see if she could talk to Summer and see if perhaps they could work with each other. She didn't know exactly what she was going to run into at the school, but it wouldn't hurt to have an idea of what Summer offered in mind as she thought about the children.
Isadora soon took her kids into the living room and had them sit down to do their homework. Interestingly, Gilbert and Summer's kids had brought their homework as well, and soon the cousins were all sitting at the table, laughing but also working.
How nice it would be to have a ready-made study group, Kate thought to herself as she glanced in and saw Marjorie helping one of the girls with her homework, and Isadora bent overanother helping with reading. Roland and Gilbert were standing around the table too.
"I had hoped to have a chance to talk to you," Kate said to Summer, who was rinsing off the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher.
"Oh?" Summer said, looking up in a friendly manner.
"Yes. I'm going to be the new counselor at the school, and I heard you do equine therapy."
"I do. It sounds like you and I might have a lot to talk about."
"You work with children?"
"Almost exclusively. Sometimes I do family counseling therapy, but almost always it's children. It's not that I'm not open to adults; it's just... horses seem to relate to children, and children seem to relate to horses the best."
"I think as we get to be adults, we start to be scared of things that didn't used to bother us at all."
"You could be right about that," Summer said with a laugh.
She and Summer talked for a bit about different ways that they could help each other with their therapy, while Nelly cleared off the tables and counters and wiped them down.
"I look forward to working with you," Summer said, and then she nodded toward the table. "I probably better go and make sure that my children are actually getting their schoolwork done."
"Spoken like a wonderful mother," Kate said.
She was just about ready to offer to help when Nelly touched her arm. "I was hoping I could have a word with you, if you don't mind?"
"Not at all," Kate said, her brow furrowing, wondering what in the world Nelly wanted.
"Can we step out on the porch?"
"Sure," Kate said.
Her jacket had been hung on a peg by the door, and she grabbed it as they walked out quietly. She didn't think any of the kids noticed, although she saw Marjorie glancing up to see what was going on.
That was when she noticed the deep shadows around Marjorie's eyes and the slight droop of her eyelids. Like she was exhausted.
