Beth Harbison - Head Over Heels

“No.” Grace tried to temper her frustration at having to make him feel better about the move when she was having so much trouble feeling good about it herself. “For one thing, you’ve got this nice big yard to play in.”

“Yeah, and no one to play with.” She didn’t like the sulky edge to his voice. It sounded too familiar. She herself had said almost the same thing to her mother last night when they were talking about the unlikely possibility of Grace ever having a date again.

It’s not like there’s anyone to go out with in this town even if I wanted to, which I don’t.

“So you’ll have to get out and meet new people,” Grace said, like a tape recording of her mother.

“There are no new people here.”

She turned to him, startled. It was exactly what she’d said, but she had reason to say it. Blue Moon Bay held on to its inhabitants the way a spiderweb held flies…once you were trapped here it was difficult to leave. It was hard to say whether that was because people loved it so much or whether it was just too much trouble to move away. Unless, of course, one was an attractive eligible male.

But whatever problems Grace had with moving back, it should have been a dream town for a kid, with the ocean and the bay and the freedom and safety of living in a town where everyone looked out for everyone else.

“ Everyone here is new to you,” Grace said.

“Everyone here is old! ”

Grace laughed. “Come on, you’ve met Jenna’s kids.”

“They’re babies. They’re only, like, eight.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, because when you start summer school you’ll meet a bunch of new kids.”

“That’s another thing,” Jimmy said, like a little lawyer with his Evidence Against Blue Moon Bay all lined up. “Why do I have to go to summer school? If we were back home, with Dad, I’d get the summer off like normal kids. Like my friends.”

Grace winced inwardly. He was absolutely 100 percent right. But if he were back home, he’d be going to a school that was less academically challenging than Connor. “Well, in this case it’s a good thing you have summer school, because you will meet kids your age there. See? So it’s all working out perfectly.”

“Dad’s not here,” Jimmy muttered, kicking a bag of topsoil.

She was tempted to point out that Dad had seldom been around in New Jersey either, that whole days had passed when he got home after Jimmy had gone to bed and was asleep in the morning when Jimmy got up for school…but pointing out Michael’s parental inadequacies wouldn’t really make her feel better, and it for sure wouldn’t make Jimmy feel better.

Grace set her trowel down and pulled off her gardening gloves. “He’s not at our old home either, honey,” she said gently, putting an arm around her son’s narrow shoulders. “You know that. It’s not as if we could just drive back to New Jersey and walk into our old life. We’re making a new life, you and me. And if we can just be a little open-minded about it, we might be able to make a really great life here. Maybe we won’t even want to leave.” But she couldn’t imagine things turning out that way.

“I’ll always want to leave,” Jimmy vowed.

“Why?”

“Because this place is stupid.”

Grace experienced an unusual twinge of protective loyalty toward her hometown. “No, it’s not, Jimmy. This is where your parents grew up. It should be interesting to you for that, if for no other reason.”

“Do people here hate Dad?”

The question was so unexpected that for a moment Grace couldn’t formulate a response. “Why on earth would you think that?” she asked at last.

He smushed the topsoil bag with his toe, staring intently as he did so. “You do.”

“I don’t,” she said, trying to convince herself that it wasn’t a lie. “Dad and I just can’t be married to each other anymore. There are lots of people I can’t be married to whom I don’t hate.” Luke Stewart came to mind, a little joke from her subconscious.

“Does everyone know he left us?”

It broke her heart that Jimmy felt the abandonment so keenly. If Michael had a bit of heart to go with his good looks, he would have made more of an effort to maintain contact with his son. Since the divorce, though, he’d been in California seven months out of twelve and had only seen Jimmy about once a month when he was around.

“No one knows the details of what happened with Dad.” Of course, everyone knew at least some version of it. She’d heard several variations on the story herself. “You know what? Most people I’ve seen are just so glad we’re here. I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said what a fine young man you are.”

Jimmy’s face reddened. “They don’t know me.”

“But they want to. Give them a chance, Jimmy. You might really like them.”

He shrugged.

“And look at all this room you have.” She gestured at the backyard with the trowel she had picked up again. “We didn’t have a tenth of this in New Jersey. I think you’re going to have a lot of fun out here this summer.” She got up and went to him, pulling him into her arms. “I know it’s hard, buddy. It’s kind of hard for me too. But if we stick together and make the best of things, I think we might end up even happier than we were before.”

That much, at least, she believed. It was certainly possible for her to be happier divorced than she’d been with Michael. From the day they’d married, she’d felt a certain sense of this is it? They’d dated in high school and college and everyone had expected them to get married, so they had. They’d moved to the suburbs, bought two cars, had a child, done all the things that were expected.

If she was honest, Grace had to admit that it wasn’t the stuff that fairy tales were made of. In a way, she couldn’t really blame Michael for wanting something new. What she blamed him for was the way he set about getting it, and the way he’d treated his family—his son —in the process.

“There is one thing that might make me happy,” Jimmy said slowly.

Grace frowned. “What’s that?”

“A dog.”

“A dog.” Just as her mother had suggested.

She liked dogs. She’d had one herself, growing up. So why was she so resistant to the idea?

She knew why; it was because Michael was allergic, or at least he’d claimed to be, though she’d never seen him so much as sniffle. She remembered, with some irritation, how, during her teenage years, they always had to put Buff, her golden retriever, in the laundry room when Michael was coming to the house. Before now, a dog for Jimmy hadn’t even been a possibility.

Now it felt as if getting a dog would be the final nail in the coffin of her marriage to Michael.

“I think it’s a great idea,” she said.

He brightened. “Really? I can get one?”

“Are you going to take care of it? Feed it, walk it, brush it?”

“Yes!”

“Then I don’t see why not.” It was so good to see that hope in his eyes again. She smiled and pulled him into a hug again. “Why don’t you think about what kind of dog you want, big or small, and we’ll go to the humane society tomorrow and look.”

“Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air. “I’m gonna have a dog!”

And we’re really building a home without Michael now, Grace thought, without regret.

“Go on in and get ready to go to Jenna’s now,” she said to her excited son. “I’ve got to go back to the school for a couple of hours.”

For once, he didn’t argue. He skipped into the house so lightly she wouldn’t have been entirely surprised to see him click his heels together. She would bet he’d clean his face and hands without being told.