Page 7 of April Flowers

“Twenty.”

“Wow.” Sam let out a gentle laugh. “Those years got away from me, I guess.”

Margot remembered that she’d never understood why Sam had married her brother Daniel. Sam seemed too good for him: too kind, too funny, too cool, too good. If Margot remembered correctly, she worked as a social worker, a career she’d opted for despite her parents’ wishes for her. The Coleman name casts a long shadow, Sam had said.

“Are you still in Boston?” Sam asked.

“I am. You’re in Nantucket?”

“Still here,” Sam said.

“But you and Dan aren’t together anymore?”

“We’re over,” Samantha said. “It’s been two years. I’m with someone else now.”

It always mystified Margot how quickly people moved on. How did they find it in them to fall in love all over again when falling in love had been the source of all their trouble in the first place?

“I hope it wasn’t too hard,” Margot said because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“It’s okay. Really.” Sam sounded strained.

“But you’re not calling about that.”

“No. I’m calling because I realized nobody else in your family was going to,” Sam said. “It’s your mother.”

Suddenly, the room spun. Margot’s heart beat at a thousand miles an hour.

Mom? What was wrong with her?

“Just tell me,” Margot whispered, realizing Sam awaited the go-ahead. “I can take it.”

But even as she said it, Margot knew she couldn’t. She knew that whatever Sam said would bring a world of pain.

Chapter Three

The Nantucket Island Juvenile Detention Center wasn’t a well-trafficked building. When Noah pulled his car into the lot, he was one of only five others, and when he sat in the waiting room, he was the only one in a tiny plastic chair with his shoulders hunched. He hadn’t imagined how lonely this experience would be. He hadn’t imagined how hollow his heart would feel.

It wasn’t his first time in the juvenile detention center. In his line of work, the center was a regular stop. He’d been here six other times during the month of February alone. But this was the first time he’d been called here for personal, non-work-related reasons. And the emotion of it was far different. It put him in line with his clients. It put him in line with the families he spent every day of his working life helping. He’d always understood their anger and frustration and fear. But now, he felt it deep in his bones.

He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t reveal himself like that. Not here.

The woman at the front desk was named Bethany. Like every other time he’d seen her since she’d started working here, she wore her blond ponytail way up high, so tight that it pulled ather forehead. Noah got up and forced himself to smile at her when she called him back. Naturally, she thought he was here for work.

“It’s been a pretty active month, hasn’t it?” she said, making light small talk.

“Sure has,” Noah said.

“But you know how the kids get over the winter. They get all pent-up,” Bethany said. “They need to get outside, run around.”

“Sure do.” Noah had no interest in giving Bethany anything more.

“This one’s a real fighter,” Bethany warned him. “Be careful.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

Bethany led him down the hall and unlocked a wooden door. Inside the room was a security guard and a teenage girl with long dirty-blond hair, loose-fitting blue jeans, and a black shirt that was purposely revealing. She was a teenage girl experimenting with boundaries and how she wanted to reveal her body to the world. She wore black makeup and looked up at Noah as though she hated him and wanted to curse him.

She looked so much like Noah’s sister had when Noah’s sister was sixteen.

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