Only In His Sweetest Dreams(45)

“I wasn’t certain if Dayton would be coming for his lesson,” Mrs. Garvey said, sounding breathless regardless of not having arrived on her own steam. “Are the children still with you?”

“They’re in the house with their mom. I should have phoned. Sorry we’re running late, but I was just about to bring Dayton up.”

“We don’t mind. It’s a nice evening for a drive,” Mr. Hilroy said. “And Edith was concerned about you.”

“Well, I had no idea what was going on. I haven’t seen you since you disappeared this afternoon. Your desk is in terrible disarray.”

“Oh, good grief, my desk! And the meeting tomorrow. I’m sorry, I forgot all about it. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I, uh—” She pushed her hair off her forehead, trying to work out the logistics. She hated to be paranoid, but the thought of leaving Ayjia with Porsha, while Dayton went to his lesson and she cleaned up the front desk, made her stomach knot with anxiety.

Why did everything have to be so complicated?

“What exactly is happening with the children?” Mrs. Garvey asked.

“Um.” Mercedes dried her palm on her hip and shifted so she could see into the unit, hating herself for being so suspicious of Porsha that she couldn’t even stand outside the back door without worrying her sister would steal the kids out the front. Mrs. Garvey was going to birth a cow when she heard Porsha would be staying a few days.

“It’s still up in the air,” Mercedes said, clearing her throat. “I, um, still have temporary custody so it’s not as simple as just letting Porsha take the kids.”

“‘Kids’ are immature goats, Mercedes. These are children we are talking about. I don’t mean to speak ill of your sister, but she plainly has no sense of consequence. You cannot allow her take them.” Edith Garvey tugged on the cuff of her sweater sleeve.

“Uh…” Mercedes was stunned.

Mr. Hilroy nodded, not nearly so shocked to hear this attitude out of Mrs. Garvey.

“You have fought very hard for the right to better the welfare of your niece and nephew,” Mrs. Garvey continued. “I would be very disappointed in you if you failed to continue in that vein.”

Mrs. Garvey’s stiff profile blurred. Mercedes sniffed as she looked back at the house where she could hear Porsha saying, “I’m on the phone.”

“Yeah, um...” Oh God, this was going to be hell.

“Perhaps Ayjia would enjoy a turn in the cart with Dayton. She could have a cup of juice in the cantina while you tidy up your desk. It truly is an eyesore, Mercedes.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. Thank you, Mrs. Garvey.” Mercedes took a shaky breath and walked on weak legs to fetch the children. Not kids, children.



As it turned out, the Sahir’s grandchildren were visiting. Little Rashmika came to the cantina and played Animal Snap with Ayjia while Mercedes tidied her desk.

So much for the reports she had planned to finish. Along with justifying L.C.’s rent-free arrangement, she had intended to prove to the board that providing a venue for community hours had been a win-win and something they might consider offering to some other nice delinquent in the future.

As it was, she didn’t even list all the various projects the Fogarty men had worked on, only totaled them as one grand figure and slapped it into the budget with a silent promise to do it properly down the road.

Where the time for playing catch-up would come from, she had no idea. Unless Porsha took the kids.

She couldn’t let Porsha take the kids.

How could she stop her? They were Porsha’s children. They belonged with their mother.

But Porsha wasn’t a fit mother. She, Mercedes, was a better mother and she didn’t even know what the hell she was doing. Porsha was her sister. She couldn’t take away her sister’s children. She couldn’t give them away, either. Not to Porsha.

“Snap!” the girls said in unison.

Mercedes thought she might. She missed L.C. She missed Harrison. She couldn’t do this on her own. She couldn’t not do it.

Hell.

“You are working so late, Mercedes,” Mrs. Yamamoto said, coming in through the courtyard doors. “Where are the children? Not with your sister?”

“No.” Mercedes smiled, amused but not surprised that the news of her sister’s arrival had made the rounds. “Ayjia is in the cantina and Dayton is at his lesson with Mrs. Garvey.”

Mrs. Yamamoto’s worried frown softened to a serene smile. “Your sister has left with her fancy-man, then?”

“No, she um...” Mercedes glanced toward the cantina, assuring herself that Ayjia couldn’t hear her and wasn’t paying attention anyway. “Porsha’s staying with me for the moment.” Mercedes sighed, thinking of Ayjia’s crying fits and midnight requests for her mother. “What am I going to do? They want to be with her.”

Mrs. Yamamoto looked across to Ayjia and her new friend, kneeling on the floor, giggling and mixing up their cards. Mrs. Yamamoto wore a serene expression that might have been nostalgic or indulgent, but there was something else there, too. Wistful? Regretful?

“My sister had a friend she played with at that age, the only other Japanese girl in our town. They both married at the same age, but my sister’s husband was kind and her friend’s husband was cruel. My sister told her, ‘This is America. You don’t have to put up with that.’ Her friend said it was not that simple. She loved her husband.” Mrs. Yamamoto fiddled with her knitting bag.

Mercedes took her fingers from the keyboard, insides going still at Mrs. Yamamoto’s somber tone.

“My sister loved her friend. She did not feel it was her place to interfere so she didn’t. Her friend’s husband killed my sister’s friend. Beat her to death. It was very sad.”

“Oh my God.” Mercedes covered her gasp with her fingertips, staring into Mrs. Yamamoto’s rheumy eyes.

“I have always wished I had interfered,” Mrs. Yamamoto said softly. “She was my friend, too.”



Mercedes was as bad as Porsha, sneaking around behind her sister’s back, tasting her sister’s orange juice—spiked with vodka, of course—then leaving a slightly more urgent message for Shonda and tying up Porsha with a call to their mother so she could drive the children to school without her.

“She’ll be there when you get home,” Mercedes promised the kids. If I have to chain her to a kitchen chair.

Porsha hadn’t been able to reach Ray and was saying things like, “If I could just get up to Page for the day.”

“Okay, have a good day,” Mercedes told Dayton after a small scene when she dropped Ayjia at daycare. For the first time, the little girl had fought being left there. Her tantrum was still on Mercedes’s mind as she walked Dayton through the gate of the Elementary School.

“Why are you coming in?” he asked.

“I just need to speak to the principal a minute.”

“To ask if we can leave school before it’s finished?”

“Actually,” Mercedes prevaricated. “I just want to ask a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Like what their rules are about which people can collect children from the schoolyard.”

“Oh.” He lost interest and darted off to greet a friend.

Mercedes blew out a breath and climbed the stairs, not impressed she and Vice-Principal Wilcox would have to sit down for about the tenth time in a handful of weeks.

Shockingly, the woman treated her like a human being.

“I understand. We have procedures we follow in situations like this. I’ll meet with staff at lunch and bring the need for extra caution to the attention of the schoolyard supervisors. As for Holly, there’s no need to bring her in to introduce her. She was a student here. I know her very well. Please call first if she’ll be collecting the children. Other than that, well, I wish there was something else we could do. This must be very hard for you.”

Mercedes let out a shaky laugh, deflated after working herself up to what she had expected would be a confrontation with harsh judgment.

“It’s brutal,” she admitted. “I haven’t even told my sister that I... Well, I couldn’t do it with the kids right there and I wanted the social worker there to help me, not that she can do anything. Porsha’s going to flip and who wouldn’t? She’s not a bad person. She loves her kids. She just...can’t expect to raise them when it suits her and drop them when it doesn’t.”

Dana—they had arrived at using first names—nodded.

“These things are never easy, are they? But if there’s anything we can do, documents or letters of recommendation?” She seemed so anxious to help. It was weird. “Dayton’s improvement as a result of the tutoring speaks very highly of your dedication to making a difference in his life. I’d be happy to draft a letter to that effect.”

“Thanks, but I don’t know if it’ll be necessary. Or have any bearing. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” She sat across from the Principal, looking into empathetic eyes, and couldn’t find the will to move. She was fighting tears. “This is going to kill my sister.”





Chapter 24





Am I doing the right thing?