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Sandy sat back from her laptop and exhaled heavily. She no longer held out any spark of hope that her father was coming back for Kevin. In fact, it didn’t appear that he would be going anywhere anytime soon. According to Lenny, he’d been arrested for racking up a substantial debt on stolen credit cards and was being held without bail in Atlantic City. No luck in locating Kevin’s mom either.
With only a few days to go before she was supposed to start her new job, Sandy had whittled her available options down to two: take Kevin with her to New York or kiss her dream job good-bye and stay in Sumneyville for the foreseeable future and hope that, someday, she might get another chance.
She thought about her small loft. Cozy for one, but it would be suffocating for two. Even if they could manage it, it wasn’t as if she could leave him alone all day while she went to work, especially to a job that promised seventy- to eighty-hour workweeks. The city did have day care centers, but they were expensive.
Staying in Sumneyville, as unpalatable as it was, was at least financially viable. Lenny wouldn’t have a problem with her staying in the house, and the rent she was paying him was a fraction of an apartment in the city. Plus, she had her job at Franco’s, and Lenny told her they’d hire her back at the township building in a heartbeat. Apparently, Mrs. Delvecchio saw the front desk as more of a social position than a secretarial one, and many of the locals were grumbling.
The town hall conference room was usually empty too, which meant she could take Kevin with her until she found another solution, and there was Mrs. Mitchell for her evening shifts at the restaurant.
There really is only one feasible option, she realized bleakly.
Not for the first time, she felt a wave of frustration rise up inside her. Through no fault of her own, she was being forced to put her carefully crafted plans back on hold. Plans that had taken years to build were now gone because of her father’s thoughtless, selfish actions. The man truly was a menace, creating messes and leaving others to clean up after him with no thought to how it would affect their lives.
Then, she looked at Kevin, and some of the anger drained away. None of this was his fault.
It couldn’t be easy for him either. Outwardly, he didn’t look any different than he had before she told him their father wouldn’t be coming back. His expression was as neutral as ever as he sat quietly, sketching more horses in his book.
But something had changed. Kevin was staying closer to her now than he had been, and there was no mistaking his increased anxiety the last couple of times she’d left him at Mrs. Mitchell’s house. It didn’t take an expert to put the pieces together and see that Kevin was afraid she’d be abandoning him soon too. He’d probably overheard her increasingly desperate phone calls and nightly conversations with Lenny over the past few weeks. He might be autistic, but he wasn’t deaf or stupid.
Kevin deserved better. They both did. Unfortunately, life was sometimes about what you were dealt, not what you deserved. The important thing was, they were family, and family stuck together when things got tough.
She shut the laptop down and summoned a smile. “I have to run some errands. We’re nearly out of coffee and Cheerios. Want to come with me?”
He gave no indication he’d heard her.
“We could stop at the arts and crafts store and pick up some new drawing pencils while we’re out.”
Kevin stopped sketching.
“Or charcoals, whatever. Maybe a new sketchbook too. Looks like you’ve just about used up all the pages in that one.”
Immediately, Kevin began putting his things away, methodically sliding each pencil back into the box, and then he put that and his sketchbook into his backpack. He stood and shifted his weight back and forth.
She hid her grin. “I take it, that’s a yes?”
He nodded.
“All right then. Let’s go.”
They went to the grocery store first. Sandy wasn’t sure what to expect. She’d never taken him out to a public place before, so she didn’t know how he would be around strangers in an unfamiliar environment. It looked as if they would both be sticking around Sumneyville for the foreseeable future though, so taking him with her on small errands might be a good way to get him acclimated.
He did pretty well. He stuck close to her, answering her questions about what he did and didn’t like with nods, shakes, and occasional blank stares, which she interpreted as not caring one way or the other. He didn’t talk to or acknowledge anyone, but that was okay. He was only starting to warm up to her, and they’d been living in the same house for weeks.
Afterward, they went to the arts and crafts store, as promised. She could sense his excitement as he followed her inside. She led him to the section with all the drawing tools and told Kevin he could pick out any pencils he wanted.
She wasn’t sure he understood at first because he just stood there, slightly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. But then he reached out, his hand hovering just above the try me sample of a charcoal pencil.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “Anything you see with this symbol”—she pointed to the smiley face sticker with the word tester stamped on it—“you can try out to see if you like it.”
After another moment, he did, picking up the charcoal and making long, sweeping strokes on the sample paper provided. At first, they looked like random lines, but after a few, they began to take shape.
Sandy was amazed. “You see all that in your head before you even start drawing, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer. She watched, fascinated, as he tried each of the items, leaving behind small masterpieces amid the scribbles and scratches of the others who’d come before. She wondered what the store workers—the ones who passed by every so often and shot them curious looks—would think when they saw his doodles. The thought made her smile.
Thankfully, she’d had the foresight to take a cooler along for her frozen and refrigerated grocery items—a must during the hot summer months—so she didn’t have to rush him. He took his time, examining each option with absolute focus and intensity.
After he tried them all, he finally made his selection. Sandy insisted he get a new sketchbook, too, and then were on their way back to the house. He grumbled a little bit about helping her unload and put away all the groceries, proving that they were indeed making some progress.
All in all, she counted their first foray out together as a success.
That afternoon, Sandy walked Kevin over to Mrs. Mitchell’s house a little earlier than usual. She wanted to stop at the township building and see about getting her old job back before her shift at Franco’s. It was a bittersweet visit—sweet because they seemed glad to have her back and bitter because it meant she’d once again had to put her dreams on hold.
She was recapping the day’s events to Jeannie later that evening as she was tying the apron around her waist, preparing for her shift.
“So, what are you going to do with Kevin when you’re working for the township?”
“Take him with me, I guess,” Sandy told her. “There’s usually a meeting room open. There’s a TV and DVD player in there. Plus, he’ll be able to draw and stuff while I’m working.”
“They’re okay with that?”
“They don’t have much choice—at least, not until I can come up with an affordable alternative. Besides, after dealing with Mrs. Delvecchio for a couple of weeks, I think they’d agree to just about anything.”
Jeannie laughed. “Yeah, I can see that. Mona is a piece of work. What did Kevin do before he came to live with you, do you know?”
“No idea. I didn’t even know he existed until my father dropped by, and he sure didn’t provide much in the way of information. I’m winging it here.”
“Maybe you should ask him.”
Sandy smiled at that. “Kevin’s not really a big talker. He only nods and shakes.”
“Then, ask him questions he can answer with nods and shakes,” Jeannie said matter-of-factly.
Just then Carmella, Franco’s wife and the occasional hostess, entered the kitchen and spotted them. “Oh good, you’re here. The Sanctuary guys just came in.”
Marietta appeared out of the back, her face flushed and her hair slightly messed. Over her shoulder, she saw Derrick, one of the dishwashers, try to sneak by, unnoticed.
“I got it,” Marietta said, applying a fresh coat of gloss.
“I don’t think so.” Carmella smirked. “They asked specifically for Sandy.”
Marietta shot Sandy an evil look. Sandy shrugged and slipped a pad and pen into her apron pocket. Grabbing two pitchers of ice water, she tried to ignore the quickening of her heart and pasted a smile on her face.
The guys were in their usual spot, taking up two tables in the back of the dining area, strategically placed where they could observe the rest of the room. It was a military thing, Sandy knew. After he’d come home, her brother Trace used to position himself where he could see the entire room too.
“Hey, guys,” she greeted, filling each of their glasses with ice water. “The usual, or do you want to see menus tonight?”
“The usual,” they chorused, making her laugh.
“Good thing I already put in a double order of wings and nachos then. I’ll put the rest of the orders in and be back with your beer in a minute.”