Ellen Hartman - Calling the Shots

He stretched it flat to dry. Allie’s number seventeen was the same one he’d worn. Same color, same team, same name. James, number seventeen, Twin Falls Youth Hockey.

Erin would have killed him if he’d put the drying rack in the living room when they lived together. Hockey gear smelled like a pungent combination of dampness, sweat and locker room, but to him that smell was home. Before Allie, his best times had been on the ice. Hell, even after Allie, his best times had been at the rink, watching her skate and knowing this was one thing they shared, the one thing he was sure he could talk to her about that he knew better than Erin.

Home hadn’t ever been comfortable for him. He’d been out of his parents’ house, boarding with strangers during his junior-hockey days by age sixteen. He’d been married before college, and then he and Erin had so much upheaval in the beginning of their marriage. They probably shouldn’t have lasted as long as they did, probably wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been away so much.

Even this apartment, the first place he’d ever lived on his own, felt temporary. He’d picked it because it was close to his old house. Danny and a couple other guys helped him move his stuff in and he’d never done another thing to make it his own. He’d been living there for almost a year before Allie moved in and he’d had to go out and buy silverware and a set of dishes so she didn’t have to eat out of take-out containers every night.

He kept planning to get some better furniture or maybe even look for someplace bigger—the apartment had two bedrooms but the living area was small and he and Allie were constantly tripping over each other. He wished he knew what Erin’s plans were after the tour ended. She hadn’t said she was staying in California, but he didn’t really see her coming back to Twin Falls. If she wanted Allie to move to California with her, where would that leave him? Would Allie want to go?

He picked up Allie’s stick and leaned it in the corner with the other five or six already balanced against the wall. If only teenage girls were as uncomplicated as a sheet of ice and a couple of nets.

TIM’S ROOM WAS DARK but Clare knocked and when he didn’t answer, she went in anyway. He was an indistinct lump under his covers and for a second she was able to fool herself that he was six again and the worst problem in his world was the possibility that Target would be out of the red Power Rangers costume and he’d have to be the blue one for Halloween.

“I’m sleeping,” he muttered. Still angry at her.

“Tim, let’s talk about this. What are you thinking?”

He sat up abruptly, his face half-lit by the streetlight outside his window. The one eye she could see was swollen almost shut, turning his familiar features grotesque. “What I’m thinking is that you keep butting in when we already talked about Allie and you’re supposed to let me handle it.”

She came into the room and sat on his bed but he pulled away, lying back down, facing the wall.

“The parameters have changed since I agreed to stay out of this situation.”

“I’m not one of your software projects, Mom. You aren’t involved. I’m handling it.”

“Tim.”

“Mom.”

“I don’t even know what it is. Why is Allie bullying you?”

“She’s not bullying me.”

“I saw what she did to you tonight.”

“That wasn’t bullying—it was a fight.” His tone implied that she was being dense on purpose, but she wasn’t. She was trying to understand.

“I don’t see the difference if the outcome is you’re hurt and she’s not.”

“Did you want me to hit her back?”

That stopped her. What exactly had she seen? Allie and Tim, rolling on the floor. Had he been defending himself? Was it still bullying if he’d chosen not to fight back? Would she have wanted him to hit the girl?

“Why can’t you explain what’s going on? Is this your idea of teenage rebellion?”

“Where do you even get this stuff, Mom? It’s not rebellion. It’s me, living my life. You always want to fix everything for me, but you have to butt out.” He pulled the covers tighter over his head. “You can make me move seven times a year, do the new-kid thing every single grade, but you can’t tell me how to be me.”

Clare sat, taken aback by his anger. She’d seen Tim “do the new-kid thing” as he put it, many times. It hadn’t ever bothered him. They moved a lot, following her software security consulting jobs around the country. She’d ridden out the bumpy beginnings often enough to know he’d decided the fastest method to make friends in a new town was to get noticed. Mostly that strategy involved acting up in class or on the school bus. Her son had a lot of energy and when he put his mind to something, he generally saw results. Half the time she’d laughed with him about his efforts to jump-start his social life.

She felt instinctively that this issue between him and Allie was different, more personal and more dangerous. If only she could be sure she was pushing him to let her help because she was a responsible parent and not because he’d closed her out for the first time.

She jostled the bed as she stood up and Tim twitched the covers even tighter. She didn’t lean down and kiss the blanket in the approximate location of his forehead. She didn’t smooth the covers across his feet, making sure they were tucked in tight at the bottom of the bed the way he liked. She didn’t even touch him gently on the shoulder or give his knee a reassuring pat. The pat would reassure her, but it would make him mad.

She waited for a second.

She knew she had issues. Her only sibling, Gretchen, had been diagnosed with a fatal neuromuscular disease at the age of ten. As soon as they’d gotten the diagnosis for Gretchen, almost before the family had processed the news, the doctors had hustled eight-year-old Clare through testing to find out if she had the same time bomb ticking inside her.

When her tests had come back negative, she’d felt such fierce relief and then horrible guilt. She and Gretchen had always shared everything and suddenly they were on opposite sides of a chasm. For the next ten years, their family had revolved around Gretchen—a desperate search for a cure, treatments meant to slow the inevitable and extend her life, gifts and wish fulfillment and last time to see this, do that, be here, and above all, worry. So many ordinary things—infection, a fall, even overexertion—were dangerous and Clare grew up hemmed in and protected right along with Gretchen. Even emotions were dangerous. How could Clare feel stifled by the caution and care that might be saving Gretchen’s life? How could she be angry about anything when she was the one who got to grow up? How could she indulge her wild side when Gretchen was so reduced?

Clare might be overprotective now, but she wasn’t an idiot. She knew damn well that the root of her worst, most instinct-driven decisions was buried deep in the screwed-up psyche born of being Gretchen Sampson’s healthy little sister.

The trouble was, being aware of her issues wasn’t always enough to help her decide if a decision was a good one or one warped by her past.

She backed toward the door, one hand pressed flat against her lips to keep from saying anything that would upset Tim further. It was hard to be silent when her every instinct was screaming at her to help him. Now. Her work in computer security was all about immediate action in the face of immediate threats. That world made sense. This wasn’t work, though, this was Tim. Immediate wasn’t the answer this time.

She flicked on the light in the hall and then pulled his door almost shut. “I love you,” she whispered, loud enough for him to hear, soft enough for her to deny he’d heard if he didn’t answer her.