She stopped, releasing her hands from the clay. Aidan wasn’t perfect. Had she set her expectations too high in regards to him? Had she set him up to fail because of the people he came from?
Fox slammed into the studio. “Mom!”
“At the wheel,” she replied.
He turned the corner of a shelving unit, which held other pottery pieces, already fired and waiting to be glazed. He smiled at her, his dimple flashing, causing an ache in her heart. He was a handsome boy, tall for his age. Responsible, fun, outgoing, and adventurous. She loved him with everything that was inside her. A catch caught in her throat and she had to clear it in order to speak. “How was your day?”
“Freaking amazing. Grand asked Janette to go out with him and she cut him off at the knees. It was so cool.”
“What about Grand? Aren’t his feelings hurt?”
“He’ll get over it, but the best part is that the reason Janette said no was because she likes someone else. Guess who?” He bounced on his heels. “She likes me. Me!” He did a touchdown dance. “Can she come over and watch a movie tonight?”
“Uh…” He was too young for girls. Just last year, girls were gross and disgusting. When had that changed? “I don’t like the idea of you and Janette watching a movie together. You’re too young for a—” dare she say date? “—get-together like that.”
“It wouldn’t be just the two of us. There’d be other guys.” He looked at her with those dark beguiling eyes. “What do you say? I’ll do the dishes and sweep too.”
“Uh…” This was new territory. “How many friends, what movie, and how late?”
There, those all sounded like good and responsible questions a loving, concerned mother would need to know.
“I need to make some calls.”
“Get me the info and then I can decide. But chores first. And homework.”
“Yes, Mom.” He turned to head out of the studio but then stopped. “Did you guys make it to Mr. Harte’s cabin okay with my map?”
“Yes, we did, which reminds me. Pull up a stool, Fox. I have some questions for you.”
“Can’t it wait? If I don’t get a hold of Grand before three-thirty he’ll make other plans for tonight.”
“You’re going to invite Grand to this get-together with Janette here? Won’t that be awkward?”
“Naw. Grand’s already got his sights set on Tina.”
She shook her head, trying to clear it. “I still need to know how you knew how to get into Earl’s place. And when we got inside the cabin today, someone had been there. Do you know anything about that?”
He sat on the stool, letting his backpack slide to the dusty floor. “How did you know someone had been there?”
“Whoever they were, they’d gone through the place, tossed it. When you went in to get blankets for Aidan, how did it look?”
He shrugged. “Normal. It wasn’t clean, but then it never was.”
“How many times have you been inside Earl’s place?” Fear sunk into her bones. “Why were you ever there? Did he touch you?”
“What? No. Gross, Mom. Mr. Harte wasn’t like that.”
“He was an evil man. One I warned you about, and now I find you’ve been inside his place. What else? And don’t think of lying to me, I’ll know.”
“Jeez. It’s no big deal. You always taught me to make up my mind about people and not listen to other people’s opinions. So one day, I came across Mr. Harte when I was exercising the dogs. He wasn’t that bad. He invited me back to visit when I wanted to. I dropped in every now and then…just to—you know—check up on him. He didn’t have anyone who cared about him.”
“Didn’t you wonder why?”
“He told me why. He’d said that he was a bully and pushed his son, hoping he would push back. I guess Aidan never pushed back.”
Yeah, he did and that push had killed Earl Harte. “Interesting parenting idea.”
“You kinda got to see where he came from to understand his thinking. I’m not saying it wasn’t whacked. He was nuts on a lot of things, but he treated me fair. I couldn’t judge him on anything else. Right?”
How did she argue against her own teachings? She’d brought up her son to do exactly what he’d done. She wanted him opened-minded, fair in his thinking, able to make his own judgments and not rely on the opinions of others. But why had Earl Harte treated her son decent? Had he finally felt guilt for killing Fox senior that this had been his way of making it up? Had he mellowed in his old age? He hadn’t been that old. Maybe fifty-five, sixty. But the man had been so pickled in his thinking that there couldn’t have been any mellowing.