Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) Read online

  It had been too tempting when Travis called, this chance to help her one last time and prove that she could depend on him again. To watch her shine in person, instead of hearing secondhand about what she’d accomplished with the program his grandmother had financially supported. But he wasn’t there to earn her forgiveness, or to erase the heartbreak in her eyes when she looked at him, or to convince her to spend more time with him after their meeting tonight.

  He had a job to do later for Vi. And first, he would rock the radKIDS graduation for Dru. It was time to make amends and get her out of his system for good. Then when Vivian was gone and he headed back to Savannah, he and Dru would both have the clean break they needed.

  Chapter Two

  Watching Brad work with fourteen-year-old Sally Beaumont and the younger radKIDS made Dru grateful he’d crashed her graduation program.

  The louse.

  He and Sally had become instant friends, reminding Dru of how great he’d once been with her when she’d tagged along after him and Oliver and Travis, and her foster brothers hadn’t always wanted her underfoot. But Brad had been her champion. If he’d minded, he’d never let her know. Instead, he’d made her laugh and smoothed things over with her grumpy brothers, and soon they’d all been doing whatever, just hanging out or playing ball or grabbing cones or shakes at the Dream Whip—on the house every time, even if Vivian had grumbled about it.

  Dru had been a tomboy, and he’d treated her like one of the guys. He’d also made her feel like a princess: teasing her about her girly favorite color, while finding her pink shoelaces when hers gave out, pink barrettes when she grew her hair longer, and even a pink soccer ball one time when she’d decided to play because her brothers did. He’d been that good at making her feel special, without seeming like he was trying.

  He hadn’t lost his touch.

  Sally had been through a lot the last couple of years. One of Dru’s first radKIDS, she’d come to class struggling with the aftermath of a school shooting that had paralyzed all of Chandlerville two years ago. She’d been withdrawn and shell-shocked, fearing another catastrophe. Graduating from radKIDS had helped rebuild her confidence. And Sally had come back to help teach other kids how to be strong and brave, whatever they faced.

  She was still hesitant to meet new people. Not that Brad had ever been a stranger to anyone.

  As if he did it every day, he’d headed into the gym before class started and talked the boys into some pickup basketball. He’d high-fived the girls and gotten the ones who played, including Sally, to join a half-court game. The guys had groaned. The girls had swarmed and stolen the ball. Within minutes, the kids had been cheering one another on. The positive teamwork vibe that was classic Brad had soared from there.

  Then, while Dru introduced the parents to the basics of the radKIDS program and the moves and skills the kids had learned over the last six weeks, he and Sally began helping the students suit up in protective sparring pads, a few at a time. Dan Beaumont had volunteered to help Brad don the bulky red suit that made him look like a Transformer. Then Sally, her own pads in place, had proudly demonstrated for the students how to stand her ground against a bully or an attacker, with Brad assuming the role of the villain.

  She’d tried to run, yelling “No!” When Brad grabbed her, she’d defended herself from front and back assaults. She’d fought him off with her hands and her feet and elbows and knees, never stopping, always yelling “No!” while he egged her on good-naturedly, challenging her to show him every way she’d get herself clear if anyone were to threaten her.

  Parents and kids had grown silent, the seriousness of what they were seeing sinking in; then they’d begun cheering for Sally to fight back harder. By the time she’d escaped, the other kids were raring to take her place. Since then, Sally and Brad had worked with each one on form and assertiveness as Brad took the kids through their demonstrations. And Dru had been relegated to recording her students’ success on her digital camera. Which basically meant standing behind the tripod and not jostling the device while it did its thing, leaving her free to watch Brad be . . .

  Amazing.

  She looked around at the spectators. She wasn’t the only one with stars in her eyes as he talked the more tentative kids through their moves and fielded the enthusiasm of the more aggressive ones. Most everyone in Chandlerville knew of Brad, that he was Vi’s grandson. Many had speculated about his infrequent returns home to see her, and why he wasn’t running the Dream Whip for Vi, instead of Dru. But Vivian, who’d never lived her life on anyone else’s terms, refused to discuss the matter.

  Dru had heard the rumors about why she avoided Brad the way she would a root canal. And that maybe she still held a grudge about whatever had happened between Brad and Oliver when the boys were high school seniors. She’d taken her cue from Vi and never gossiped about it, either. These days, not many people in Chandlerville remembered Brad as a hell-raising teenager. And now, in just under an hour, the upstanding police officer he’d become had won over a roomful of admirers.

  He was a dream instructor: gentle, fun, firm, challenging, full of praise. As advertised, he’d clearly done this before. One of her thirteen-year-old boys was with him now, showing off how heavy a punch he could deliver. Brad took it in stride, blocking each strike, encouraging Dakota to assert himself and break free, and always, always to get clear of his attacker and seek help from a trusted adult as soon as he could.

  “I was a little worried,” Dan said. After Sally had finished her demonstration a half hour ago, her dad had made his way to Dru’s side of the gym. “Officer Douglas is so . . .”

  “Big?” Dru finished for him.

  “Formidable. If all that red padding weren’t enough to scare Sally, the way he came after her, even being nice about it the way he was, sure as hell should have. But she . . .”

  “Trusts him.” Brad had always been so easy to trust. Things would be so much simpler for Dru if he’d been a bad guy through and through.

  “He’s Vivian’s grandson?” Dan asked. Like a lot of the families in town, the Beaumonts had settled in Chandlerville after she and Brad grew up, to take advantage of the suburbs’ slower pace and top-notch schools.

  “Her only daughter’s son.”

  “His mother died when he was born,” Dru explained, “and his father . . . there was never a father in the picture. Vivian kept Brad. Raised him. Did the best she could for him.”

  “I’ve seen him around every once in a while, but he never seems to stay long enough for people to get to know him.”

  “I think he’s doing pretty well for himself in Savannah.” Vivian rarely brought Brad up to Dru. But Travis kept trying to, no matter how many times Dru shut him down. “Being on the force there must take up a lot of his time.”

  “And he’s back now because . . . ?” Dan asked.

  Dru nodded. “She didn’t want him to know until now.”

  “Vivian didn’t let anyone in town know before today, except you.”

  “She only told me Saturday. I’d been worried for weeks about how little she was eating. She didn’t tell me what was going on until her lawyer had everything set up for her admission to hospice.”

  Vivian had given her lawyer power of attorney over her legal, healthcare, and financial matters. Dru’s sole responsibility had been to bring Brad home.

  “She depends on you for a lot,” Dan said. “Without you, she couldn’t have managed the house or the business the last few years.”

  “She’s a sweet lady.” How close Dru was to losing her friend took a deeper hold on her heart, where she’d been hurting since Saturday.

  Dan snorted. “She’s a crusty old bat.”

  “She wants what she wants the way she wants it,” Dru agreed, smiling fondly. “And she doesn’t mind shocking people with the way she sees things, as long as she gets the job done. Like running the business on her own since the sixties, after she lost her husband. Back then, not many singl
e women, single mothers, did that sort of thing. Then she raised Brad by herself. She took me in, when she hardly knew me and had no reason to be so generous.”

  A lot of people thought Vi was cantankerous and a throwback to another time: wearing her dated clothes and hairstyles; expecting others to see the world the way she always had, or to change their minds once she explained just how wrong their newfangled ideas were. But she’d also made a place for herself in the hearts of dozens of friends and neighbors who would mourn her.

  “She’s worked harder than any woman I know besides my foster mother,” Dru said. “She’s donated money, whether she could afford it or not, whenever she thought someone else needed it more than she did. There’s not a cause in town that’s been turned away when they’ve asked if they could use the Dream Whip for a fund-raiser.”

  “Still”—Dan raised his eyebrows—“she doesn’t mince words when she has an opinion, and she always has an opinion about something. She’s been good for this town. But she can’t have been easy for either of you to live with.”

  Dru wiped at her eyes. “I’m going to miss her.”

  Vivian could be eccentric and stubborn. But she’d never once pushed Dru to talk about what had happened between her and Brad. Vi had simply accepted Dru into her home, no questions asked, as if she’d always belonged there.

  Dan frowned. “The next month or so will be tough.”

  Dru shrugged.

  The holidays were her favorite time of the year. It would be Thanksgiving soon. The YMCA was decorated with construction-paper fall leaves and handmade turkeys made by the Kid Zone center’s after-school group. Christmas decorations were waiting in the wings, plastic bins of them. So much holiday fun, a glittery world of magical lights and smiles was on the way.

  But the news had been spreading through Chandlerville since Vivian had moved into her hospice room late yesterday evening. Her care team didn’t think she’d see another Christmas morning.

  “We’re meeting to talk about her plans tonight,” Dru said.

  Dan, a contracts lawyer with a prominent Atlanta firm, patted her shoulder. “You let me know if you need anything, okay? Horace Baxter’s a friend of mine. I’m sure he’s advising Vivian well about her estate. But if you need to talk to someone yourself—”

  “Stop it, Lisa!” one of the boys, Simon Fisher, shouted from the dwindling group of kids waiting for a turn with Brad. “Stop pushing me. Stop talking to me. Stop trying to get me to like you. Nobody likes you. Nobody wants you here!”

  Lisa Burns shoved Simon away. “Who said I want to be here, practicing this stupid stuff like it matters.”

  “Oh, no.” Dru looked to Dan. “Could you—”

  “I’ve got the camera.”

  Dru hurried through the bustle of parents and kids who were either watching Brad work with his current “victim” or gawking as Lisa incited another of the disruptions she’d been involved in at practically every radKIDS meeting. Dru arrived in time to see Simon push Lisa in retaliation.

  Lisa, fist curled, looked ready to deck her nemesis. Marsha Dixon, Lisa and Dru’s foster mother, grabbed Lisa’s hand and kept it at the fifth grader’s side.

  “What did we talk about on the way over here?” Marsha asked. “Keep your hands to yourself, keep out of other people’s personal space, and keep your temper under control, no matter what happens.”

  Dru shared an understanding glance with her kind-hearted, unconditionally loving mother.

  If Chandlerville were to elect a patron saint, Marsha Dixon and her husband, Joe, would be candidates. Through their group home, they were raising their second generation of foster children, after Dru and the rest of the group the couple had started with had grown up and struck out on their own. The couple didn’t shy away from difficult placements like Lisa—they were at the top of the county’s go-to list when a particularly challenging case popped up. With the exception maybe of Oliver, Lisa was fast becoming their most challenging placement to date.

  “He pushed me first.” Lisa tried to pull away from Marsha. She was a little heavier than the other girls her age, a little louder, and a lot more easily upset.

  “She thinks she’s so funny,” Simon said. “She’s not. She’s—”

  “You laughed!” Lisa, an adorable carrottop with a riot of curls cascading down her back and the kind of porcelain skin grown women would kill for, looked ready to tackle the larger boy. “You—”

  “I laughed the first two times you told the joke.” Simon glanced up at Dru, and then down at the floor, guilt edging out some of his anger. “She just kept telling it, over and over, trying to get me to laugh at her again, or like her, or—”

  “I hate you.” Lisa cuddled against Marsha. She scanned the ring of kids staring at her while, thanks to Brad and Sally, the radKIDS demonstrations rocked on. “I hate all of you. I don’t care if any of you like me.”

  “Yes, you do.” Marsha hugged her. “Go stand with Mr. Dixon for a few minutes, okay? Once you’re ready, I’m sure Dru won’t mind if you take your turn with Officer Douglas.”

  Dru nodded her agreement.

  Mr. Dixon.

  Marsha and Joe welcomed each of their foster kids calling them Mom and Dad, when the kids were ready. Everyone did, eventually, once they let themselves feel at home. Even Oliver had, before he’d left. Marsha had confided in Dru last week that she wasn’t certain Lisa ever would, redoubling Dru’s determination to help.

  She’d tried for months, since Lisa had been placed with the family, to help forge a connection with a child who’d been removed from three other homes before the Dixons’. Dru couldn’t imagine what that kind of instability and rejection must feel like for a little girl.

  Dru had been lucky. She’d been part of the Dixon clan since birth, when someone had dropped her off at a church—a teenage mother, most likely, who’d never looked back. But she’d seen many of her brothers and sisters struggle to blend into an already sprawling brood of former castaways, after rolling in and out of multiple homes before coming to Chandlerville. She watched Lisa now, as the girl trudged to the far corner of the room.

  Joe, a rock-solid center in every storm, had calmly observed the altercation. Lisa gazed up at him. She wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of a lovingly worn holiday sweatshirt Dru had seen on at least two of the older Dixon girls. It sported a grinning turkey sitting in front of an overflowing Thanksgiving banquet, wielding a knife and fork and ready to dive in.

  Joe brushed Lisa’s bangs back and smiled down at her. He winked, understanding without a word, accepting and promising that nothing was too big for Lisa to handle, because she now had a family to handle it with her. Lisa threw herself against him. Her tiny shoulders began to shake.

  “She’s been doing better the last few weeks,” Dru said to Marsha. The students and the other parents had returned their attention to the demonstrations. “She’s been keeping her cool with the other kids, even when we practice moves and things get out of control and loud.”

  “She likes you very much.” Marsha patted Dru’s arm. “She wants to do well here. On the drive home, she keeps saying how pretty and strong and fun you are. She’s starting to see you as a real sister, I think, more than the girls in the house. You’re more than her teacher, honey. She wants you to be proud of her.”

  Dru swallowed past the gratitude trying to gum up her words. It could still sneak up on her, the shocking rightness of this life she’d been given.

  “Sisters, huh?” She smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  “You’re working wonders for her self-esteem.”

  “I try to make a little extra time for her before class starts, just the two of us working together on whatever I’m teaching each week.”

  Except she hadn’t tonight. She’d been too preoccupied with Brad to notice the Dixons slipping in with the crush of other families arriving at the last minute. And then she’d gotten caught up talking with Dan.

  �
�We came from having her tested right after school,” Marsha said.

  “Is she sick?”

  “We were with a psychologist Family Services recommended. Her caseworker and teachers think ADHD is part of what’s keeping Lisa from settling in anywhere else she’s been placed.”

  “Why didn’t someone catch it before now?” Dru checked on Lisa. She was watching the demonstrations, leaning back against Joe and ignoring everything but what Brad was doing.

  “The disorder’s harder to detect in young girls than boys. Girls are better at hiding what they’re going through and how much it hurts to not feel like they fit in. Sometimes until it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “From what I’ve been reading and what the social worker at county said, ADHD girls with Lisa’s displaced background can develop disorders that lead them to harm themselves.”

  “Like eating disorders?”

  “And cutting. The suicide rate is higher, too.”

  “Suicide?” Dru remembered the pain that had shadowed Lisa’s expression as Simon pushed her away and the other kids laughed.

  “Overactive boys will get physical with other kids. Girls seem to turn the pain on themselves when they can’t stop doing things other people don’t like. If the meds don’t work, if everyone’s thinking you’re messing up on purpose or because you don’t care, and no one’s helping you . . .” Marsha shook her head, worried and fighting with everything she had to understand—as she and Joe did with all their kids. “What would you do if that was your life?”

  “Especially if what you can’t change on your own got you dumped from one home after another.”

  Dru had heard her foster siblings talk about starting to like new parents and friends in a house, only to have it all ripped away overnight when someone thought they’d be better off somewhere else. Lisa seemed to be compensating by either trying way too hard to get everyone around her to like her, or spending all her time alone, as if she didn’t care.