She put the car in reverse and begged her heart to calm down. If only there weren’t half a dozen kids loitering in the parking lot. She didn’t want any witnesses.
“No David today?” Mom asked.
Rae shrugged. She couldn’t think about the weight of Mom’s words right now. The meaning behind them. She needed to focus on driving.
“Okay, well, I circled some Help Wanted ads in the paper for you this morning.” Mom’s voice was chipper. “Summer’s only a few weeks away. If you keep putting off applying, all the good jobs will be taken.”
Rae eased the Explorer out of the parking space, hoping her inner panic didn’t show. “Mark said the church is planning to do a summer program for fifth through eighth graders, if they can get enough volunteers. I was thinking—”
“You’ve already put in a ton of volunteer hours this year, sweetie. And that’s great, but it’s not going to help you reach your career goals. You need some actual work experience.”
“But—”
“We’ll probably want to avoid fast food, but there were a couple of openings for cleaning jobs and four or five desk jobs. One of them is even at a law firm. Wouldn’t that be perfect?”
A law firm? The idea should excite her. What better way to impress the law school at Columbia than to have law-firm experience already under her belt? But the thought of working at a firm sat like a rock in her gut. She was only fifteen. She had her whole life to work in law.
“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe a cleaning job would be better. Keep me active.”
“That’s true.” Mom tapped her bottom lip with her index finger. “It would show you’re not afraid of hard work.”
Rae drove past the loitering kids, careful not to make eye contact with any of them. “Community Hope is hard work.”
Mom gave her a tolerant half smile. “That’s not real work, Rae. We’ve only got two more years until Columbia. You know what your father would say. We’ve got to follow The Plan. Besides, you’ll need to earn some money if you’re going to pay for car insurance.”
Rae nodded, but words of agreement stuck in her throat. Helping kids wasn’t real work? Mom couldn’t mean that. Maybe she was only referring to the fact that it didn’t pay.
She pondered Mom’s money statement. Her parents had agreed to buy her a car when she turned sixteen, if she paid for the insurance and kept her ranking as number one in her class. With Dad’s job, they could afford her insurance themselves, but they said they wanted to instill in Rae a sense of responsibility by having her pay for it. And it wouldn’t hurt to mention on her college application that she paid her own bills.
Volunteer work wouldn’t pay for her car insurance. But she couldn’t worry about that right now. There was a more pressing matter at the moment.
She pulled onto the road, trying to play it cool. Trying to drive smooth and easy so that Mom wouldn’t know how stressed out she was. If she just focused on the road, gave all her attention to her surroundings, did everything right, and kept everyone happy—
“What are you doing?”
Rae started and hit the brakes. Her head and Mom’s jerked forward. “I—I’m driving.”
Mom smoothed her blouse, flustered, and pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “We live that way.”
It was going to be a long drive home.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
Hannie gave the pan of scotcheroo bars an appreciative sniff. “Are these a thank-you?”
Gerrit nodded, though his heart wobbled a little. She had managed to convince Evi and Noah to come for Memorial Day weekend, and he was grateful. Yet his initial excitement at having the family all together was wavering. He only had ten days left to prepare. What if it was a disaster?
He’d whipped up the peanut-butter Rice Krispie bars with chocolatey butterscotch topping after returning from Community Hope because they were fast and easy. But now he realized he couldn’t remember whether Hannie even liked butterscotch. What if she hated it? He sure did. Butterscotch was the worst.
He should know if there was a food she hated, but he didn’t. Which reminded him of Rae’s question.
“What’s her favorite flower?”
Hannie loved flowers, he knew that much. She had them growing all around the house in every variety imaginable. She worked with them every day at her shop. Her car smelled like them. Her skin reminded him of them. But did she have a favorite? The thought of asking opened a cold, dark pit in his stomach.
“I can’t wait to see them.” Hannie cut herself a square piece from the pan of scotcheroos. “They haven’t been home in ages.”
He looked away. The Christmas after Noah left home to try a community college in Seattle was the last time he could remember all four of them being together in this house. He’d missed opening gifts Christmas morning because a cow had gone into labor. It was a difficult birth. The heifer’s first. He’d arrived home just in time for the Christmas dinner Hannie had planned for noon so it wouldn’t interfere with the second milking.
After hurrying to clean himself up, he joined them at the table but struggled to keep his mind from wandering. The heifer had been in bad shape when he’d left. What if she didn’t make it? Finances were tight. Money was scarce. Cows were money. A two-year-old heifer was worth her weight in gold if she could produce good milk.
He’d left the house less than two hours later to check on the mother and didn’t return until everyone was asleep. The kids hadn’t been back for Christmas since.
“I’m sorry.”
The light in Hannie’s eyes dimmed. He could practically see
