When I Found You by Brenda Novak

Seven

The wrought iron arch over the entrance to the school read New Horizons and reminded Natasha of the arches she’d seen at the entrance of various cattle ranches.

“Where are we going?” Lucas asked as she turned in.

“To my work,” she replied, even though she’d already told him that two or three times.

“You work here?”

“Now I do.”

“This is where you take care of sick babies?”

“Not babies but bigger kids.”

“Like me?”

“A little older than you. The students here range in age from middle school to high school.”

“Oh.” They watched a boy’s PE class play basketball as they drove by. The turnoff for the administration building, marked with a black-and-tan sign, came halfway around the loop that circled the entire campus.

“Will I go here when I get bigger?” Lucas asked.

Because she knew it was a school for troubled teens, Natasha said, “I hope not.”

It wasn’t difficult to find a parking space. Although the school was open year-round, half their students went home for the summer. Aiyana had said that now would be a great time to start because the school wasn’t running at full capacity, which would give Natasha a chance to ease into her job before things got busy in the fall.

After she helped Lucas out of his car seat, Natasha hitched her purse up higher on her shoulder and led him inside, where they found a short, stout woman seated at a desk behind the front counter. “I’m here to see Aiyana Buchanon,” Natasha explained when the woman looked up.

“Oh, you must be Dr. Gray.”

“Yes, and this is my son, Lucas.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.” The placard on the desk gave her name, but she volunteered it anyway. “I’m Betty May. I’ve been here at the school almost since it opened.”

“Looks like a great place to work.”

“It is—because of Aiyana and the way she runs it.” She winked. “Let me tell her you’re here.”

Expecting to wait a few minutes, Natasha was about to take a seat in the reception area when Betty returned. “She’s ready for you. Right this way,” she said and gestured toward the corner office.

Aiyana didn’t look much different than she had on the screen of Natasha’s laptop—except that Natasha could now ascertain her height. Barely five-one or five-two, she was diminutive, with skin the color of café au lait and long black hair she wore in a braid down her back. With her kind eyes and warm smile, she was easy to like. “I’m glad you’re here,” she exclaimed as she came around the desk. The bangle bracelets on her wrist clanged together as she reached out to take Natasha’s hand, which she clasped in both her own. “Welcome.”

“That dinner you sent over last night was something special,” Natasha told her. “Thank you again for that. It was such a nice surprise.”

“No one makes Italian food quite like Da Nonna’s,” she said, and her long skirt puddled on the carpet as she squatted down to address Lucas. “And who is this handsome young man?”

Lucas could be shy with strangers, especially when directly addressed by an adult, but he showed no signs of that with Aiyana. “I’m Lucas.”

“Lucas!” Aiyana repeated. “What a nice name. How old are you, Lucas?”

“Six.”

“Will you be starting first grade or second grade in the fall?”

“First.”

“He has a late birthday,” Natasha explained. “He missed the cutoff and had to wait until he was six to start kindergarten.”

“It’s probably better for him to be on the older side than the younger side anyway,” she remarked and returned to her desk to get a ring of keys out of her top drawer. “Let me show you your office. Then I’ll take you around campus.”

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing it all.”

Aiyana made Natasha feel right at home. As difficult as everything else had been recently, being around someone like her felt almost like falling into a mother’s embrace—the kind of mother Natasha had always wished she had. Aiyana had such a way with people that Natasha couldn’t help being grateful she’d answered Aiyana’s ad for a medical professional, even if she was overqualified. At least she’d found a soft place to land. Maybe here she’d be able to pull her life back together.

Her office wasn’t large, but it was sufficient—about what she’d expected—and Natasha was surprised to find it well stocked. “Looks like I’ll have everything I need.”

“If not, all you have to do is ask,” Aiyana said.

“Thank you.” As she closed the cabinets and drawers, a poster that hung on one wall—the picture of a louse, magnified to such a degree it looked like a monster from a science fiction film—caught Natasha’s eye. She’d had head lice in second grade. She’d scratched her head so hard and so often her teacher had finally sent her to the school nurse. Without Nurse Seamus shampooing her hair with the expensive medicated shampoo and painstakingly picking out all the nits even a fine-tooth comb couldn’t strip off her hair shafts, she might’ve become even more of a pariah. She’d already been largely ignored, as if she didn’t matter or have anything to offer, because she couldn’t come to school on time, in clean clothes or even with a lunch.

Following her gaze, Aiyana said, “If you don’t like that, feel free to take it down. This is your office. You can personalize it any way you’d like.”

“Thank you. I think I will take it down.” She could put up rules about sharing hairbrushes and touching another student’s hair without scaring those who found themselves in the same situation she’d been in at seven. Had she seen that magnified louse back then, it would’ve given her nightmares to think she had such vicious-looking creatures crawling around in her hair.

The rest of the buildings and landscaping were clean and well maintained. She knew from what Aiyana had told her during their interview that, although New Horizons was a private school, it did receive some public funding. Aiyana worked closely with both the foster care system and the court system to try to provide a safe environment for teenagers who hadn’t received the proper love and care at home and were acting out because of it. She’d started the school with just the boys’ side before expanding to include a separate girls’ side a few years ago, and she’d adopted eight of her students—mostly grown men now. Her youngest would be leaving for college this fall.

“Many of the kids who come here have been neglected or abused in some way. Some of their stories are heartbreaking,” Aiyana was saying as they made the trek back from the gymnasium to the administration building.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Natasha said, especially because she could relate. Her mother hadn’t been abusive in a physical sense—at least, not terribly. But Anya had often been emotionally abusive, and she’d certainly neglected Natasha, which was why, once she met them, the Amos brothers had tried to step in to help.

As they meandered back, they talked as comfortably as if they were old friends, and the immediate connection made Natasha feel coming to New Horizons might turn out to be a blessing. She loved the gentle, healing atmosphere. Maybe she’d be working as a nurse, and she wouldn’t make as much as she could as a doctor, but the money would be steady, she wouldn’t have the cash-flow challenges she’d faced before, which had put so much stress on her and her marriage, and she could still do a lot of good. She’d always wanted to make a difference. That was the reason she’d become a doctor—that and to make sure she didn’t wind up like her mother, with nothing to show for her life.

“Thank you for this opportunity,” she said to Aiyana. “I know it couldn’t have been an easy decision to hire a doctor when you were looking for a nurse. You must be at least a little worried that I won’t be fulfilled and you’ll just have to replace me in a few months.”

“I admit the thought that you might move on rather quickly crossed my mind,” Aiyana said. “But when you responded to my ad, I recognized your name, and once I went online to figure out why, I knew you were just the person for the job.”

“What?”she cried with a startled laugh. “Learning what happened to me didn’t scare you away?”

“Why would it scare me away? You weren’t responsible.”

“Not directly. But don’t you wonder whether I could’ve figured it out sooner? If, had I been more vigilant, I could’ve saved little—” Her throat tightened to the point she couldn’t speak.

“Are you okay, Mommy?” Lucas asked.

Natasha swallowed hard and managed to say, “Yes, I’m okay, honey.”

“No,” Aiyana said, earnestly. “I didn’t wonder any such thing.”

“Because...”

She stopped, so Natasha and Lucas stopped, too. “Because I saw you on the news.”

Natasha didn’t know which segment she was referring to. There’d been several stations that’d come out. She’d spoken to the media because she’d wanted to make parents and other doctors more aware of what could happen. There were other people out there like Maxine, and they needed to know what to watch out for. Anyway, in whatever interview Aiyana had caught, she’d been so shocked and devastated that it must’ve come through.

“Besides, why would a brand-new doctor allow someone to harm her patients, even through negligence? When it would ruin everything she’s worked so hard to establish—all those years of getting through school and the tremendous expense of setting up a practice?” Aiyana shook her head as she started walking again. “No, I knew you had to have been as much a victim of Maxine Green as your patients were, and I didn’t want to make it possible for the harm she did to continue on and on.”

Natasha struggled to hold back tears. The fact that Aiyana had so easily seen past the stigma and was willing to give her a chance made her emotional. She supposed it didn’t help that, these days, she was always on the verge of tears. “So you hired me.”

“That’s right. And I’m glad I did.” She smiled. “Because I like you already.”

Natasha turned her face away so that Aiyana wouldn’t see her wipe her eyes. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“LA’s loss is Silver Springs’ gain,” Aiyana joked.

Natasha drew a deep breath as she lifted her head and, once again, surveyed the campus. “I think I’m going to like it here.”

They were almost back to the administration building when Aiyana pulled her to a stop. “Natasha, before you go, I wanted to apologize for Camilla’s blunder last night. She called me from the car after she left your place, afraid she’d put you in an awkward position. I hope that’s not the case.”

Natasha saw nothing but compassion in Aiyana’s eyes, so she said something she probably wouldn’t have said to any other stranger. “It was a little awkward. Mack and I have a long history, and...and we’ve always cared about each other very much, so...it sort of raised the question.”

Aiyana frowned. “I hope he didn’t get angry.”

“No. He demanded a paternity test, but he would’ve done that eventually anyway.”

“What’s a paternity test?” Lucas asked, shading his eyes against the sun as he looked up at her.

“Just a way to see if you’re genetically linked to someone else,” she replied.

He wrinkled his nose. “What?”

She’d known that explanation would be indecipherable to him, which was why she’d used it. “Never mind.”

Aiyana seemed thoughtful. “Which way do you want it to go?”

Natasha wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Given Ace’s behavior the past twelve months, it would be nice to know she wouldn’t have to deal with him indefinitely. If he wasn’t Lucas’s father, she could send him a check each month for the next three years and be done with him. If he got too difficult, she might even take him back to court to get rid of the spousal support—make him work for his own living. The thought of that brought a certain amount of relief, especially because she believed Mack would be a good father. He took care of those he loved, and she’d already seen how interested he was in Lucas, had watched them interact in a positive, healthy way.

But she didn’t want to switch fathers on her child if she didn’t have to. Even if that didn’t cause Lucas to struggle now, it could leave a nasty scar, especially if Ace bugged out as if he’d never really meant a thing.

“That’s hard to say.”

“Who’s the better person?” Aiyana asked.

“There’s nothing wrong with either one of them,” she replied, just in case her son could understand even a portion of what they were talking about. But she knew in her heart there was really only one answer to that question: Mack.

Mack expected Natasha to be somewhat depressed when she got home. She was taking a big step down, going from being a pediatrician with her own practice to working as a school nurse, but he was surprised to see a smile on her face when she walked through the door.

“Your meeting must’ve gone well,” he said, turning away from the frame he was tearing out so that he could replace the broken window.

She stopped, obviously taken aback by the demolition. “What are you doing?”

“The landlord dropped by. He said he ordered the window right after you leased the place and stuck it in the garage for safekeeping until he could get over here to install it.”

Lucas, excited by what Mack was doing, hurried over to play with the tools strewn at his feet.

“Where in the garage?” she asked. “I didn’t see it when I parked in there.”

Using the claw part of the hammer, Mack pried out the sill of the old window, which had so much dry rot it was turning to sawdust anyway. “It was wrapped up in padding and cardboard behind the trash cans.”

“So where is my landlord?” she asked. “Why isn’t he installing it?”

“He’s got to be eighty years old, didn’t look strong enough to lift it, let alone put it in. So I said I’d do it.”

“And he let you, even though he doesn’t know you? He doesn’t care that you’re tearing out part of the wall?”

“I have to tear it out. Wood’s bad.” He stopped working long enough to look over at her. “So? How’d it go at the school?”

She put her purse on the counter. “Really well. I like the woman I’m working for. And I’m excited to have the chance to make a difference in the lives of kids who really need the time, energy and love I’m willing to invest. Because I was an outcast growing up, too, so different from all the other little girls at school who were clean and well cared for, I’m thinking I should be able to understand a little of what these poor, broken kids have endured.”

He remembered how angry she’d been at the world when she and her mother moved in. At sixteen, she’d used more profanity than they did—and with five brothers growing up mostly without parents, their language had never been good. Dylan was constantly trying to get Natasha to quit swearing—he’d tell her that the way she talked didn’t sound like a young lady—but she’d just tell him to fuck off. It used to make them all laugh, but Mack secretly admired how tough she was for being so small and vulnerable and how hard she worked around the house and the auto body shop. She was determined to earn her place in the world and pay them back for their “charity.” But she refused to allow them to tell her what to do otherwise. She wouldn’t alter the language she used, the clothes she wore or the friends she hung out with.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked.

He wiped the nostalgic expression off his face. “No reason.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me.”

“I was remembering what you used to be like.”

“Don’t remind me. I had a huge chip on my shoulder. I know.”

They all did, he thought, as he grabbed Lucas by the back of his shirt to stop him from carting away the hammer he’d put down. “I admired you,” he admitted.

“Because you didn’t know me when I was the little girl no one wanted to sit next to. Consider yourself lucky that you didn’t come into my life until I was old enough to get the lice out of my hair.”

“What’s lice, Mommy?” Lucas asked, picking up Mack’s new screwdriver.

“I hope you never have to find out,” she told him. “Or if you do, that I’ll catch it here at home, and you won’t be embarrassed at school the way I was.”

That her mother hadn’t taken proper care of her had always made Mack angry. He wished he would’ve been around to protect her sooner. “You’re right—I didn’t know the little girl whose mother would routinely forget her at school, or send her to class without even combing her hair. By the time I met you, you had most things figured out.” He hid a smile. By then, she’d been determined not to need anyone, was willing to take on the whole world by herself if she had to. He’d never forget her getting into a fight with a boy at school—one that turned physical—because that boy said something about “the dirty Amos brothers” she lived with. Their reputations weren’t any better than hers. Plenty of people had gossiped about them, tried to insinuate that she was sleeping with them all, but he and his brothers had looked out for each other, done what they could for Natasha, too, and somehow they’d gotten through those difficult times, some of which he actually remembered fondly. Not too many kids messed with him; they knew better than to rile up the Amoses. And Natasha had proved herself one of them that day.

“I was so angry,” she said. “Sometimes I’m still angry—and have to talk myself down. Since my mother isn’t capable of living a productive life, it’s a waste of time to expect more than she can deliver. Once I realized I would never have the mother I wanted, or the father, either, I’ve done a lot better.”

She was so damn smart. “I still don’t know how you graduated from high school, let alone college and med school. The odds were stacked against you, but you’ve done amazing things.”

“I thought I was going to do amazing things—until last year,” she grumbled.

“Last year takes nothing away from what you’ve achieved. You’re no stranger to hard times. You’ll get past this.” He started to saw through the Sheetrock and two-by-fours that held the rest of the window frame in place. “By the way, the internet company’s come and gone. You’re all hooked up.”

“That’s wonderful. Now we’ll have Disney Plus and a few games to entertain Lucas while we unpack.”

“Has your mother shown much interest in Lucas?” he asked.

“Not really,” she replied and gave Lucas some of his toys as she moved him out of Mack’s way. “Occasionally, she’ll call and want to talk to him, or she’ll send him a little something, but she doesn’t make a great deal of effort. You’re not surprised by that, are you?”

“Sadly, no.”

She went over to get the leftovers out of the refrigerator. “You hungry? There’s still some pasta.”

“You go ahead, unless you’d like to wait for what I have coming.”

“What’s that?”

“Lasagna. Should be here by one.”

“You bought more food from Da Nonna’s?”

“Yes, and don’t pretend you aren’t glad,” he teased.

She scowled at him. “I’m going to have money again soon.”

“I don’t mind picking up a few things.”

“I mind,” she said. “I feel terrible about it.”

Only because she hated to take help from him—or anyone else. “Don’t waste your time with that.” If Lucas was his son, he should’ve been providing for him all along anyway.

She went into the bedroom and came back in a pair of white shorts and a yellow T-shirt. Her hair, which she’d curled for her meeting earlier, was now tied up in a messy bun. He loved it like that, but he was trying not to notice how beautiful she was—or what it had felt like that night at Christmas seven years ago to finally surrender to the desire she evoked.

He’d been ignoring a lot of things since coming to LA.

“Has Dylan told you that he thinks our parents might be getting back together?” she asked as she opened a box marked “kitchen” and started to unpack it. “He thinks Anya’s living at J.T.’s again.”

Mack wiped the sweat from his face with his forearm. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I wish I was.”

He started to push the broken pieces of the frame he’d removed into the corner so that it would be easier to keep Lucas out of it until he was done. “Won’t last.”

“I agree.”

Her phone went off as he measured the length of wood he’d have to cut for the new window casing.

“Speak of the devil,” she said.

“It’s your mother?”

“Yeah.”

He heard her say hello right before Lucas perked up.

“It’s Mimi? Mama, is that Mimi?”

As Lucas hurried over to speak to Anya, it occurred to Mack that if the boy lost Ace as a father, he’d lose a set of grandparents, too. Lucas wouldn’t be able to count on Anya and J.T. for anything—just as Mack and his brothers and Natasha had never been able to count on them.

Mack wondered how much contact Lucas had with Ace’s parents and how the outcome of the DNA test might affect those relationships.

After Natasha finished letting her son talk to Anya, and was in the middle of a conversation herself, Mack was tempted to take Lucas into the bathroom and swab his cheek. He wanted to send in the paternity test as soon as possible, to finally get an answer. But he didn’t want to make her feel as though he was trying to strong-arm the whole thing. After what she’d been through, he could have a little patience, wait until she was ready to deal with the situation and felt she could cope with the outcome, whatever it was.

“Stop. Don’t say that.” When he heard the volume of Natasha’s voice escalate, he turned around to see what was going on, but she had her back to him.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she continued. “Because I know... Quit it! I’m not going to be that stupid. You’re wrong. I promise you, I will never fall in love again. I don’t care... Seriously? That’s why you’re getting back with him? Sex is such a lousy excuse. They have toys for that... No, I won’t. I have no use for a man, and you should’ve learned your lesson by now, too. Stay away from J.T. You’ll only cause each other more pain—and while we’re talking about this, it’s not fair to lean on his sons the way you do... That’s so untrue. You take whatever they’ll give you... Oh yeah? They’re the ones who moved you last time, remember? And they gave you your car. Who knows what else they’ve done that I haven’t heard about... It’s not like they’d tell me... I’m aware of that, Mother—I know they’ve done a lot for me, too. They’ve done a lot for both of us. That’s why we need to get out of their way and let them go on with their lives... I didn’t ask him to come! I’m fine on my own, and I’ve told him that... No, I don’t need anybody.”

After she hung up, Natasha made a sound of frustration and shoved her phone in her back pocket.

“I take it they are getting back together.” Mack couldn’t help being stung by what he’d heard. So much of that conversation had been about him. But he was doing his best to pretend otherwise.

“Yes. It’s unbelievable,” Natasha responded, oblivious to the fact that he knew she’d been using him as her best argument against getting with a man.

Or maybe she did realize that he would be able to decipher the conversation. After all, she hadn’t made it hard. She just fully believed he didn’t care enough about her to mind.

“Talk about not learning from her mistakes,” she went on. “She insists it will work this time, but she’s lying to herself, and I’m tired of hearing the excuses she gives when she makes yet another bad decision.”

Natasha had said that he and his brothers had done a lot for her. That was nice. But he also knew that he was the man she didn’t need, the one who’d hurt her so deeply she preferred a sex toy. “Not every relationship is doomed,” he said.

“No, just every one of mine and my mother’s,” she responded. “I don’t know when she’s going to make herself stop wanting what she can’t have.”

“The way you have,” he said.

“Yes, the way I have,” she responded and marched down the hall.

Lucas gave him a quizzical look. “Mimi makes her so mad.”

Mack would’ve laughed at the boy’s exasperated response. The expression on his face was funny. But it was tough to laugh when it felt as though Natasha had just shoved a knife in his chest.