Page 72 of The House on Blueberry Lane

“And what do you love?” he asked her.

“I love our rocking chairs, the blanket, the fire and the sky. I need this after today.”

“I take it your meeting didn’t go well with Allen Bordeaux.”

She released a deep sigh. “Not the way I’d hope. In the end, I told him if he had a problem with the core subjects needed to advance to the next grade, then he could take it up with the school board. Hopefully, they will have the backbone that my principal obviously doesn’t have.”

She sipped her wine and said, “I guess Lenny didn’t talk to his dad about his love for art like I had suggested. You should have seen the way his eyes lit up when I complimented him on those sketches. But he feels he needs to have the future his father wants him to have.”

“That’s sad,” Jaye said. “I know my grandad always wanted Dad to go into construction, but Dad had a good head for numbers. At no time did he force a construction career on Dad.” After taking another sip of wine, he said, “And Dad did the same for me, Dean and Franklin. All three of us were good with numbers, but Franklin was the one who loved working with his hands and building things a lot more than Dean and I. That’s why Grandad took Franklin under his wing and taught him everything he knew. Now, Franklin has the best of both worlds and it has benefited him.” He chuckled. “I’m fine juggling just one. I love banking.”

“And you’re good at what you do.”

“Thanks.”

She said, “Grades for this term go in on Friday and there’s only two more grading periods left. If Lenny doesn’t show any improvement, then he will not only fail my class but the grade.”

“Maybe that’s what he wants to do.”

Velvet frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“He’s a kid and probably figures if he fails, then that will keep him from having to play ball. He knows his father won’t see it as his fault but yours, mainly because Allen Bordeaux expects you to do for his son what his teachers did for him.”

Velvet thought about what Jaye had said. “I hope what you’re saying isn’t true.”

“Not saying that it is, but it might be a possibility you shouldn’t dismiss.”

Not wanting to talk about the Bordeaux family any longer, she decided to change the subject. “Now, finish telling me about your visit with your mother.”

“She was so different than I remembered,” he said. “Older, of course. But still pretty. She’s taken care of herself and has a classy look about her. Had I passed her in the street, I would not have known her. That’s sad, isn’t it?”

“No, not really. You were pretty young when she left, right?”

“Yes. I was twelve, Dean was ten and Franklin was seven. And none of us had seen her since. She never called or reached out to us on our birthdays. She walked out and never looked back.”

“Was she surprised to see you?”

“Yes and no. I didn’t just show up, if that’s what you’re asking. I called a week ahead and asked to see her. I invited Dean and Franklin to go with me, but they weren’t interested.”

It was hard for Velvet to wrap her head around a mother who would just leave her family like that. “Did she say why she did it?”

He took another sip of wine and looked at her. “Bottom line, she didn’t offer any apologies for what she did and said we were better off without her. She wasn’t cut out to be a mother and Dad was talking about having a fourth child because he wanted to try for a daughter. She felt that she needed to leave before she had a breakdown. Those were her words, not mine.”

Velvet didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Are you glad you went to see her?”

“Yes,” he said, quickly, as if he didn’t need to think about it. “For years I thought my parents’ breakup was my fault.”

She tiled her head. “Why?”

After taking a sip of his wine, he tilted his head back and stared up into the sky. When he finally looked at her, he said, “Although I was young, I knew what my mother was doing. At least I soon figured things out. Dad didn’t know she was leaving us home alone while she met up with her lover, sometimes even at night, when Dad worked his second job at the university. I would wake up from a bad dream and she wouldn’t be there. I was getting scared and when I got scared, Dean and Franklin did, too. Mom always got home before Dad got off from work and made it seem as if she’d been there all along.

“One night, Dean woke up with a bad tummy ache and Mom wasn’t there. He was throwing up all over the place and I got scared. I didn’t know how to reach Mom, but I knew how to get in touch with Dad at the university. I called him and he came directly home. He rushed Dean to the emergency room. It had been his appendix. Dad said if I had not called him to get Dean to the hospital, his appendix might have burst and killed him.”

“Oh, my goodness.”

“Dad was furious. I think that’s when he found out what she’d been doing and about all the times we’d been left alone. Mom told me that it was my fault. I was the oldest and should have known what to do.”

“What! You were only twelve.”

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