Clay fiddled with the straps of his backpack, adjusting and readjusting until its weight was distributed perfectly. “I guess I’m ready.”
Sloane was surprised by the hesitation in his son’s voice. In the months they’d been together, Clay had shown an inbred self-confidence in every new situation. Whatever his secret anxieties, he radiated a quiet composure and strength of character far beyond his years. But this morning, his first morning at Miracle Springs High, he seemed like the adolescent he really was.
Somehow, Sloane found this reassuring.
“Feeling a little worried?” he asked Clay.
Clay looked up and gave his father a tentative smile. “Yeah.”
Sloane allowed himself a moment to run through his private and all too familiar litany of resentments. His son should not have to feel this apprehension. Going to school should be second nature, as natural as breathing. He ought not to have to worry about what he should do, what he should say. About now a gang of teenagers should be descending on the house, hooting on the front porch for Clay to come join them. Clay should be making some parting wiseass remark to Sloane, then standing with both thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans, eyes rolling while he listened to Sloane’s reprimand. His walk to school should be filled with discussions of girls and football and rock stars. The joys of adolescence.
“Miracle Springs High isn’t exactly a prep school for the Ivy League,” Sloane said, feeling a strong need to reassure his son, “but it’s a good school with some fine teachers. After a few weeks it’ll feel comfortable.”
“I don’t think I can sit still that long every day.”
Sloane tried to imagine what it would be like for Clay to be confined to a classroom for hours after the freedom of Destiny Ranch. Clay was right; the adjustment would not be easy. “It’s something you’ll have to develop. This world is filled with places where you have to sit still.”
“Once I was sick for three weeks. I had to stay in bed the whole time. I thought I’d go crazy.” Clay fidgeted as he talked, as if to make his point more emphatically.
Three weeks in bed. Sloane swallowed, but his voice was still harsh when he spoke. “What was wrong with you?”
“Nobody ever said.”
“Did anybody bother to find out?”
Clay stood very still. “They took care of me. I got better.”
Sloane knew it was useless to torture either of them with more questions. Questions didn’t change a thing. Questions, especially questions that were accusations, didn’t bring back the little boy he would never know. “If you’re ready, we ought to go now.”
Outside Sloane paused by the car door and silently debated driving or walking. Driving would get them there faster, and Sloane had a lot to do that day. Walking would give them a chance to talk, maybe help settle Clay’s fears a little. Was parenting always such a balancing act? Whose needs took priority?
“Can we walk?” Clay asked, eyeing the car warily. “I’ll be sitting enough today.”
“Good idea,” Sloane said, the decision having been made for him. “Let’s go by the springs.”
They covered the blocks to the springs in silence. The route had become familiar to them both. Sloane had kept his promise to his son, and in the past week they’d come every day for swimming lessons. Clay’s excellent coordination and uncanny ability to concentrate completely on a task had brought quick results. His strokes were still a little awkward, he sometimes forgot to lock his knees when he kicked, but by and large, he had learned to swim.
But he hadn’t learned to enjoy the water.
Sloane could see resignation in his son’s eyes when Clay waded into the icy-cold springs each day to begin swimming the laps he felt he had to do to perfect his skills. Learning to swim was a task. He brought tremendous natural ability and wholehearted participation to it. He did not bring the abandon, the childlike release of inhibition that Sloane remembered feeling at Clay’s age. Even now that Clay was safe in the water, able to cover distances without fear and able to submerge himself totally and find his way back up, he still showed no signs of liking the experience.
At the entrance to the springs they stood for a moment at the edge of the beach leading down to the water. Then they turned and continued along Hope Avenue toward Miracle Springs High.
“You’ve never told me why they call it Miracle Springs,” Clay said, turning for one quick look before he followed his father.
“I’m surprised your Aunt Lillian hasn’t told you the story.”
“She probably thinks you did.”
Sloane wondered why he’d never thought to explain the legend to his son. How many other things had he neglected to tell him? “Do you remember the mural in the lobby of the Inn?”
Clay nodded. “The one that needs to be repainted?”
“I would prefer wallpaper. It’s supposed to be a depiction of the story about the springs.”
Clay tried to summon up the picture. “It had Indians on it, didn’t it?”
“It’s a very Anglicized Indian legend. This part of Florida was inhabited by Indians as early as ten thousand years ago, and by the first century A.D. most of the peninsula was well populated.”
“The Seminoles,” Clay interrupted. “I studied Indian tribes one year because we had two Ind… Native Americans living on the ranch. They were Hopis.”
“Well, you’re right about Seminoles being in Florida, but not until much later. Originally the Timucuans inhabited this area. And the tribe in this county was called the Ocali. They were village and town dwellers who hunted and fished and grew corn. They were noted for being a beautiful people.”
“What happened to them?”
“They got caught in the cross fire between the English and the Spanish, and they also fell prey to the Creeks, or Seminoles as they were later called, who were invading from the North. What few remained were said to have been taken back to Spain by the Spanish when Spain ceded Florida to England.”
“The Timucuans named this town Miracle Springs?” Clay sounded skeptical.
“No, the town fathers named the town Miracle Springs back in 1883.”
“It’s all clear to me now,” Clay said, teasing his father.
Sloane smiled. He was enjoying himself. Somehow this conversation seemed free of the tensions that permeated most of their discussions. He wanted to prolong it. “Well good,” he teased back. “Then I don’t have to explain anymore.”
“Go ahead if it makes you happy.”
“Have you ever noticed the little island in the middle of the river, just down from the spring?”
“There’s a big gnarled mass of roots and a bunch of spiky-looking plants that the water doesn’t quite cover,” Clay observed.
“That’s where the miracle occurs.”
“The miracle is that nobody’s dug it up so boats can get by easier,” Clay said, obviously not impressed.
“The legend says that once, hundreds of years ago when the Timucuans still called this area home, there was a beautiful Indian maiden …”
“Let me guess. A chief’s daughter.”
Sloane smiled at Clay’s cynicism. “Right. She was about to be married to a handsome young man whom she had loved since she was a child, but she grew very ill. The chief and the tribal shaman did everything they could to save her, but it was soon apparent that she was going to die.”
“So they put her in the waters of the spring, and she was instantly healed,” Clay finished for him.
“No. She died.”
“Then they should have called it Disappointment Springs.”
“Who’s telling this story? Anyway, right before she died, the young maiden called her father and her young man to her side. She told them she had asked the sun— the Ocalis worshipped the sun—to spare her so that she could do good works. She said her life had been too short to do enough good for others, and she wanted a chance to do more. But the sun had withdrawn its rays in answer. Then she fell asleep and had a dream. In her dream the sun came to her and told her to ask her father to place her body on the island after her death. Then, every year on the anniversary of that day, she could return to grant wishes to those pure of heart who asked for her help.”
“And does she?”
“Well, supposedly she died that afternoon and her body was taken out to the island. And every year on that day, May 13th, she comes back and grants wishes to those worthy few who ask for her help.”
“Come on!”
“Variations of the story were passed down through the centuries. Some of the stories say it was a young Spanish girl, some say it was an old Seminole woman. Some say May, some say December. The version I told you is the one you’ll find in the tourist brochures. Every May the town has a big celebration with festivities at the Inn. Then about an hour before midnight, anyone who wants a wish granted goes down to the beach and waits. About midnight, or a little after, the maiden is supposed to appear in a cloud of vapor. If you see her, it means your heart is pure, your wish desirable, and your chances of having it granted, one hundred percent.”
“Have you ever had a wish granted?” Clay asked.
“I never tried. Not even when I was a child. I guess I figured I never qualified.”
The story had carried them to the sprawling Miracle Springs High School complex. Sloane turned to face his son. “I’ll take you in to meet the principal, then he’ll show you where you’ll need to go today.”
“Thanks.”
Sloane wanted to say so much more. Clay looked calm, and except for the ponytail he’d decided not to cut, he looked like any other teenager. A little less gawky, a little more reserved perhaps, but a normal teenager nonetheless. Still, he wasn’t a normal teenager. He was going to school for the first time in his fifteen years. He was going to school in a strange town, in a strange state, and with only a strange man who happened to be his father to comfort him. He had shared a little, but what other feelings were hidden under that veiled demeanor?
Elise would know.
Sloane was startled by that insight, although in the weeks since he’d come back to his hometown he’d ceased to be startled by the number of times he thought of Elise Ramsey. Elise would understand how Clay felt because her life had been spent trying to understand others, trying to walk in their shoes. If he chose to ask her, she could help him get beneath Clay’s surface. Only, asking Elise for anything was a bad idea. The bond between them was already too strong.
“We’d better go,” Clay said.
Sloane realized he’d been standing on the sidewalk staring right through his son. Even though they were early, the school yard was filling up fast, and curious looks were being directed at Clay.
“You’re right. Let’s go.”
Sloane led Clay through the throng of gathering teenagers and in the wide, glass front doors of the school. The school had been new twenty years before and except for obvious wear and tear, it was exactly as Sloane remembered it. From an adult perspective, however, it seemed smaller—much, much smaller.
He hesitated at the principal’s office. “I spent so much time here,” he joked, “that I always thought that when I left town they’d name it after me.”
“Why’d you spend time here?”
Sloane realized that Clay wasn’t kidding. He didn’t understand a principal’s function. It was going to be a hard year for him. There was so much to learn.
“I hope you never have to find out,” Sloane told him, putting a hand on Clay’s shoulder. “Let’s go meet Mr. Greeley.”
Elise listened to Lincoln Greeley’s inevitable first-day-of-school pep talk and along with everyone else in the room, nodded her head at the appropriate times. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling buzzed annoyingly, and the one over Mr. Greeley’s head flickered on and off making a flashing neon sign of his shiny bald head.
Bob sat next to her listening intently to Mr. Greeley’s speech as if it weren’t the same one they heard every year and others before them had heard every year, too. Elise fantasized generations of teachers, women in Gibson Girl hairdos, men with waxed handlebar mustaches, all of them listening to Mr. Greeley’s speech.
“And so,” he concluded, “it is our duty to carry on the tradition of excellence that was begun ninety years ago in that one-room schoolhouse on the Wehachee. In your hands rests the future of this town, this state and this great country.”
Elise applauded politely. Mr. Greeley took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Obviously he, too, was glad to have his first speech of the day out of the way. The faculty stood and filed out row by row in a fashion that would have made the fire marshal proud.
“Same classroom this year?” Bob asked as they waited their turn to exit.
“Same one. How about you?”
“Yes.”
Same school, same speech, same homeroom, same boring questions. Elise wondered why she was feeling so dissatisfied. The sameness of her life had often been a comfort to her. Now it was barely tolerable.
Out in the hall she headed for her classroom, smiling and exchanging the inevitable greetings as she went. She was in one of the far wings. The school was designed to resemble a dissected spider. The administration section and auditorium were the body of the tortured insect, and the classrooms were laid out along each of six spider legs with triangles of lawn in between. A parking lot, football field and track had been laid out where the rest of the spider should have been, and there was also a small pond with a resident alligator who was the unofficial school mascot.
The unforgiving Florida sun and humidity had made a mockery of the attempt at architectural innovation. The school board had never had adequate funds to keep up with all the surfaces that needed painting and the grass that needed tending. Like many other things about Miracle Springs, the high school was a well-intentioned failure.
As she passed Mr. Greeley’s office, Elise glanced through glass walls soon to be covered with the smudges of countless teenage fingers. Clay and Sloane were standing by the wide counter, obviously waiting for Mr. Greeley. She stopped, debating what to do.
Clay was in her homeroom. She had fought with herself since the night a week before when Sloane had come to her house to put their relationship in perspective. But in the end, she had requested Clay’s presence in her English class and homeroom, too. Her relationship with Sloane might be a problem, but Elise knew that she had the capacity to understand Clay and the significant adjustments he would have to make at Miracle Springs High. Not everyone else on the faculty had that capacity. And no one else had the emotional investment in him that she did, as dangerous as it was.
Now she took a deep breath and pushed open the doors that led into the office.
“Good morning, Clay, Sloane.”
“Hello, Elise.” Sloane’s smile was no more than polite, and Elise chastised herself for caring.
“Are you waiting for Mr. Greeley?”
Sloane nodded. Clay fastened his long-lashed brown eyes on her face as if she might unlock the puzzles of the day for him. Elise’s heart did a flip-flop. What a beautiful young man he was. “Am I going to be in your class, Elise?”
“Miss Ramsey,” Sloane corrected before Elise could answer.
“Elise will be fine outside of school,” Elise said gently. “But you’ll be accused of being a teacher’s pet if you call me that here.”
“Teacher’s pet?”
“Someone who gets special favors,” she explained. “And yes, you’re in both my homeroom and my English class.”
Clay smiled his thank-you. Elise wondered what it was about the Tyson men that made her insides run together when they gave her that certain little grin. She remembered all too well what effect that same expression had had years before when Sloane had aimed it her way.
The door wheezed open, letting in a rush of warm air from the open hallway, then shut. Lincoln Greeley came in behind the warm air, still mopping his forehead. He looked up and his pug-dog features were transformed into a mock grimace. “Sloane Tyson. Right back where you belong.”
Sloane extended his hand and the two men shook warily. Elise watched as they readjusted their relationship. It was always the same. It took time for alumni who returned as adults to come to terms with their new status. Sloane wasn’t immune, not even after seventeen years and two best-sellers.
“I’d like you to meet my son, Clay Tyson,” Sloane said, stepping back to give Mr. Greeley a full view of the boy. “He’ll be a student here this year.”
“Glad to have you, son,” Mr. Greeley said, extending his hand. His sharp, well-practiced eyes examined this new student for signs of trouble. “Hair’s a little long, isn’t it?”
“Does the school have a dress code?” Sloane asked politely.
“Not one that covers hair. We got out of that business after the sixties. Keep it clean and I can’t say a word.” He continued to examine Clay. “How many people have told you that you look just like your dad?”
“A lot,” Clay answered.
“Did your dad tell you about the time I caught him chiseling the mortar out of the bricks in the library during study hall?” He watched Clay shake his head. “Get him to tell you about it sometime. We haven’t had too many like your dad in all my years as principal. He kept me on my toes. Are you going to keep me on my toes, too?”
Clay frowned a little. “Am I supposed to?”
The answer seemed to please Lincoln Greeley. He laughed and slapped Clay on the shoulder. “We’ve put you in Miss Ramsey’s class. She asked for you specially, so you treat her right, son.” He dismissed Clay and Elise with a wave. Elise opened the door and ushered Clay through without meeting Sloane’s eyes. She wished he didn’t know that she had asked to be Clay’s teacher. She had done it for Clay, but she wondered if Sloane would see it as an excuse to be closer to him. Then she wondered why she cared.
“First days are always a little chaotic,” she told Clay as they walked to the classroom. “Everybody feels strange, so don’t imagine you’re the only one who doesn’t know exactly where he’s supposed to be. If you need any help, find me and I’ll see what I can do.”
“All right.”
Out of the corner of her eye Elise watched Clay covertly examine every aspect of his surroundings. His expression gave nothing away, and she was left with nothing but her own projections to help her understand his feelings. Two things were certain, however. It wasn’t going to be an easy day for Clay Tyson. And watching him suffer wasn’t going to be easy for her. She felt a stab of maternal concern so intense that for a moment it was a physical pain.
Clay Tyson might not be her son and she might not be anyone’s mother, but Elise was sure that if she’d had a son, Sloane’s son, the bonding could not possibly have been any stronger than what she felt at that moment.
No, it wasn’t going to be an easy day. It was, in fact, going to be a very difficult year. For all of them.
Algebra. Obviously, Clay thought, it was a foreign language using numbers and letters. A code, probably related to Egyptian hieroglyphics. Clay sat through his first period algebra class and wondered what the day was like back in New Mexico. Destiny Ranch was gone now, but for the fifty minutes of the class he pretended that when the bell rang, he could stand up and walk out of the school, stick his thumb out on Hope Avenue and get a ride all the way back to Destiny to find it thriving as it had been when he was a young boy. At least at Destiny he’d had some idea who he was. Here, in Miracle Springs, he wasn’t even sure of his own name.
Clay Tyson. What was this Tyson bit? he wondered. Sure, he looked like the man who said he was his father. At times he even noticed similarities in the way their minds worked. But what did that mean?
Once a woman named Willow had claimed to be his mother. He remembered her only vaguely. She had been tall, but then he’d been pretty short so how would he really know? Her hair had been long, like Elise’s, and dark, if his memory was correct. He remembered running to her once to be kissed and cuddled after a childhood injury. After that he only remembered her from a distance. And then she was gone.
When would Sloane leave him or make him leave? It didn’t really matter. He was fifteen and he’d understood how to get along in the world for years. Oh, there might be things he didn’t understand, like algebra and how to find his way around this ridiculous building. But he did understand the important things, things like not causing anybody any trouble, and teaching himself how to do what needed to be done. He didn’t need Sloane. He wasn’t even sure he liked Sloane. At least, once, Willow had picked him up and held him and kissed away his hurts. He couldn’t imagine Sloane holding anybody.
The sound of a bell interrupted the teacher’s indecipherable lecture. The school operated on bells. The kids were trained to respond, just like Pavlov’s dogs. What had that experiment been called? Some kind of conditioning. Well, these kids were conditioned. Everyone jumped when the bell rang. In another week, he’d probably jump, too. Was that one of those skills Sloane had said he needed to develop?
The classroom emptied quickly. Clay followed the group of students out into the hall. His next class was American history. He recognized the teacher’s name. Bob Cargil. It was the man Elise had introduced him to at the Inn. The man hadn’t liked him, but then the algebra teacher hadn’t looked any too pleased to see him either.
Was it the ponytail? None of the other boys had long hair; in fact few of the girls did either. Actually they all looked pretty much alike. Everyone had short asymmetrical haircuts that were molded a certain way and didn’t move. They wore blue jeans or bright flowered shorts and oversize shirts. And shoes. Shoes seemed to be a big deal here. He’d watched the kids comparing brand names. Athletic shoes seemed to have some magical allure, especially if they were made by a certain company.
He found the history classroom just as the bell rang, and slid into a desk at the back of the room.
“Tyson? Third seat on the fourth row. On the double.”
Clay stood and found the seat, stooping to stow his books in the metal cavern beneath before he sat down.
“Tyson? I expect you to be on time from now on. Tyson! Did you hear me?”
Clay listened to the giggles of two girls next to him. What was he supposed to say? He shrugged, his face a careful blank. “I heard you,” he said politely.
“Yes sir!”
Clay realized that something was expected of him.
“Yes sir!” the teacher repeated a little louder.
Clay returned Mr. Cargil’s stare. For some reason, few adults expected someone his age to meet their eyes. He liked to show them they were wrong.
“One more chance, Tyson. Yes sir!”
Clay understood. He was expected to say “Yes sir!” back. He complied amiably. “Yes sir.”
“I don’t want any trouble with you, Tyson. I’ve got my eye on you.”
Actually, Clay thought, Cargil’s eyes weren’t really on him at all. His eyes shifted when Clay tried to return his stare. It was funny; he acted like a man with something to hide.
“Say ‘yes sir,’“ a voice behind him prompted.
Clay complied. “Yes sir,” he said again, as pleasantly as before.
The response seemed to mollify Mr. Cargil. He began to list supplies they would need, books they had to read and give a year’s overview of assignments. Clay leaned over to retrieve his notebook from under the desk. As he did so he turned to see who had offered him help. The girl behind him was writing fast and furiously, but as Clay straightened, she stopped for a moment and gave him a tentative smile. His momentary impression was of curly golden hair and eyes so light that they were almost silver. She belonged in one of those fairy tales someone had read him as a child. A fair maiden who had rescued him from the dragon. It was a nice twist.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
Her smile broadened a little showing the hint of a dimple, and she nodded.
Until that moment, Clay hadn’t even realized just how lonely he was.
Elise watched the group of tenth-graders file back into her classroom for the last ten minutes of the day. Where was Clay? All day long she’d worried about him with the hysterical fear of a hen who knows one of her chicks is heading straight toward the jaws of a hungry fox. There was something so vulnerable about Clay Tyson, she reflected, for all his adult mannerisms and conversation.
She had been relieved when fourth period came and he showed up in her English class. She’d started the kids on a writing project immediately. They were to write ten pages in a journal every week, and today they were to begin with their impressions of the first day of high school.
Afterward she’d collected the journals to take a look at the writing samples. She hadn’t had much time, but she had checked Clay’s right away, expecting trouble.
She had worried needlessly. His handwriting was average, but his writing itself was extraordinary. His control of the language, the depth of his analysis, and his unusual perspective made the simple journal entry a small masterpiece. She had seldom, if ever, seen such talent.
His father had kept a journal although no teacher had required it. Elise had known about it and wondered what Sloane found to write about. And then she’d had the chance to find out. Sloane had presented it to her the day he left Miracle Springs. It had been an ironical goodbye gift. She had never opened it.
Now, instead, she was reading his son’s.
The realization of Clay’s potential had affected her deeply. There had been few moments in her life to daydream. But on the rare occasions when she’d had that opportunity, she’d found herself imagining a child. The child had grown in her imagination until one day she’d realized how unhealthy the fantasy was. A child would never grow inside her, never come to her for comfort or advice, never achieve adulthood because of her efforts.
But if there’d been a child … If there’d been a child it would have had Sloane’s face and her gentleness. The child would have had their love of the English language and their talent to communicate it. It would have had both Sloane’s uncanny ability to analyze and her own ability not to judge too harshly.
The child would have been Clay.
Fantasies had been bad enough, but having the flesh and blood child in front of her, and knowing that she could never be more to him than an English teacher, might well tear her apart.
“Miss Ramsey?”
Elise looked up from her desk and focused on Clay’s face. She knew immediately that it hadn’t been an easy day for him. He looked tired. No, he looked emotionally exhausted. She felt a wave of anger at all those who had given him trouble. “Stay after class a minute and tell me about your day,” she invited.
Clay seemed surprised, as if the simple request was incomprehensible. He recovered his poise quickly. “All right.”
“Do you need something right now?” she prompted him.
“I’m supposed to go to the counselor’s office and take some kind of test. I got in trouble once today for not having a pass in the hall.”
Elise took a packet of blue forms out of her desk drawer and filled in the necessary information. She gave the pass to Clay. “Come see if I’m still here when you’re finished.”
“Okay.”
Elise watched him gather his books and leave. She couldn’t miss the stares of the other teenagers, the laughter, the mimicking. Kids were so cruel. It was no wonder they drove each other to find ways of blotting out the pains of adolescence. Anyone who didn’t understand drugs and alcohol and teenage sex hadn’t been to high school lately.
The final bell rang, and a spontaneous cheer echoed through the building. Elise watched her classroom clear out until, one minute later, it was a ghost town of desks.
She stood, smoothing her yellow flowered skirt around her knees and absentmindedly repinning a long strand of hair that straggled down her neck. Her eyes caught a movement in the doorway, and she realized Sloane was leaning there, arms folded, watching her.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could pretend, even to herself, that his presence there meant no more to her than the presence of any other parent of her students? Her hands fumbled with the hairpin and she jabbed it harder, wincing when it dug into her scalp. She waited until she’d inhaled deeply before she spoke.
“Hello again, Sloane.”
“I was looking for Clay. Have you seen him?”
“He’s down in the counselor’s office taking a test, but he’ll probably stop by here before he heads home. Would you like to wait?”
He inclined his head in a motion that could have meant anything at all. Elise decided to ignore him, turning to clean the chalkboard so that she could print the next day’s assignment.
“Do you really enjoy teaching?”
His question surprised her. It seemed to be a continuation of the conversation they’d had at her house. How was she to answer? Truthfully? In depth? Or just politely?
“Well, sometimes I feel pretty frustrated. I actually get kids who can’t read, as impossible as that sounds. They’ve been pushed through the system, or they’ve managed to fool teachers who wanted to be fooled. I have to start back at the beginning with basics and convince them how important reading is, then I have to stay with them every step of the way. I also get a lot of kids who don’t want to read, and I have to spend the whole year trying to make them want to. Then, every once in a while, I get a wonderful student. Like Clay.”
“Oh? You can tell after one class that he’s going to be a wonderful student?”
“You teach. You should understand that.”
“But I don’t get as involved as you evidently do.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would,” she said evenly. She finished wiping the chalkboard before she turned, dusting off her hands.
Sloane had moved closer. He was restless, and his energy seemed to vibrate through the small classroom. “Why did you ask to have Clay as your student?”
“Because I’m the best this school has to offer.” Elise lifted her chin as she said the words. “And because he’s your son, although that was almost as much a reason not to ask for him.”
If Sloane was surprised by her honesty, it didn’t show. “Clay will be fine. With or without your help.”
“It’s going to be a tough year for him, Sloane. He’s not like most of these kids. He’s way beyond and way behind at the same time. He needs all the help he can get.”
“Elise Ramsey. Rescuer.”
“Sloane Tyson. Cynic.” Elise realized she was feeling the effects of a long and emotional day. She really wasn’t up to trading insults with her teenage lover. And Sloane was hitting entirely too close to home.
“Don’t get too involved, Elise. We’ll be gone by June. The boy doesn’t need one more person flitting in and out of his life.”
“What the boy doesn’t need,” Elise said sharply, “is a hands-off policy. He’s flesh and blood, unlike his father. He needs love, just like the rest of us humans do, and even if that love is short-lived, it’s better than holding him at arm’s length.”
“You always did get overly emotional.”
“And you always did put me down for it.”
“Don’t play games with my son!”
“Then you play games with him, Sloane. Somebody needs to. This year is going to kill him if somebody doesn’t show him they care!”
They stood glaring at each other. Elise wondered if either of them really understood what their fight was about. The real conflict seemed to shimmer under the surface of their angry words, just out of reach.
“I’m going to have him removed from this class. I don’t want you clinging to Clay.”
Elise knew the color had drained from her cheeks. Even Sloane looked pale, as if he couldn’t believe he’d said what he had.
“Only you,” she said finally, “would think that of me. And you most of all, should know how untrue it is.”
“Me most of all?”
“I loved you once, but I let you go. Would I do less for your son?”
Sloane passed a hand over his eyes as if to wipe away any feeling that might show at her words. He straightened. “Elise,” he began.
Elise shook her head. “I’d like you to leave,” she said. “You can wait in the office; you can even change Clay’s schedule while you’re at it.”
“Elise…”
“Not now, Sloane. Not ever. Please go.” She turned back to the chalkboard, effectively shutting him out. Then she began to write the next day’s assignment in tiny, precise letters. When she had finished, Sloane was gone.