LITMIR.BIZ

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back. She always came back. Of course, she’d never spoken to him like that before. He couldn’t remember a single time she’d raised her voice—not that she’d raised her voice just now—or been anything other than a younger version of his mother. Nancy followed Owen’s lead. That was how marriage was supposed to work, wasn’t it?

      Was that even what Adam wanted? For Jenny to be some kind of clone of his mother, a woman who loved her husband and kids, but who had never made a decision that wasn’t based on what was best for someone else?

      He listened for footsteps in the hallway, but the house was silent except for the chattering of the boys in the kitchen.

      Jenny wasn’t coming back.

      He wanted her to come back. Which was weird, because just yesterday he’d decided to walk away from their little family, for her benefit. Now that she was the one walking it felt...like he should maybe chase after her. Beg her to stay.

      The clock in the living room chimed the quarter hour. It was better this way. She deserved more than he could give her, and at least if she was angry with him, she wouldn’t cry. He didn’t think he could take Jenny’s tears, not on top of everything else in his world falling apart. So he’d go. This time of year there would be rooms available at the B and B near downtown. He could make it a clean break, for her and the boys.

      Adam wheeled himself down the hall. Frankie and Garrett were at the kitchen table, their backpacks leaning against the island. Fall hadn’t yet hit Slippery Rock, and they both wore shorts and T-shirts, with Velcro tennis shoes on their small feet. God, he was going to miss his boys.

      “Morning, Dad,” Frankie said.

      “Where’s Mom?” Garrett asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I put Washington in my pack for show-and-tell, but now there’s no room for my lunch. I think I need a bigger pack. Like Frankie’s.”

      “My pack is full of school stuff, not stuffed animals,” Frankie said, referring to the giant yellow-and-purple stuffed cat Garrett had won at the fair over the summer. Adam’s younger son and the cat had been inseparable ever since. “You can just carry your lunch sack until you get to school and put it in the bin.”

      “But what if someone sits on it?”

      “Who’s going to sit on it? It’s just you and me and Mom in the car, dummy.”

      “Dummy isn’t a nice word.” Garrett clenched his jaw and leaned forward. Adam had no idea what else the boy was about to say, but he didn’t want this whatever-it-was between them to go any further.

      “Okay, okay. How about the three of us walk to school, then, and you can both hook your packs on the chair so your hands are free for the lunches?” Adam wanted to pull the words back into his mouth. The last place he wanted to be was in public in the chair. He’d avoided most Slippery Rock events and businesses since the accident. Walking kids to school was one of those everyday events, and he would run into people he had known most of his life. People he’d avoided since the tornado.

      Garrett stared at him, wide-eyed. Frankie looked past Adam to the empty hallway and the living room beyond, as if he expected Jenny to come rushing in at Adam’s words. She didn’t appear, to save him from his declaration.

      “You’re gonna walk with us to school?” Garrett said incredulously.

      “Mom drives,” Frankie added.

      “Well, I can’t drive, but we have time to walk it.” He motioned to the backpacks, and the boys dutifully hung them on the handles below Adam’s shoulders. “Let’s go.”

      Neither boy said anything until the three of them were down the driveway and a few houses along the street. When his grandfather left him the land and broken-down farmhouse on the edge of Slippery Rock Lake, Adam had imagined one day walking his kids to school. He’d never bothered before today, not even before the tornado. He’d always had a reason for leaving the school runs to Jenny. He couldn’t remember a single one of those reasons now.

      “So, it’s show-and-tell day?” he asked Garrett, not wanting to delve too far into why he’d never walked his kids to school. Had to be his schedule. Running a business was time-consuming.

      “No.” Garrett stopped to pull a couple yellow dandelions from the grass in Mrs. Hess’s yard. “Friday is show-and-tell.”

      Adam blinked. “Then why did you put Washington in your pack today?”

      “So I won’t forget him.” Garrett skipped ahead, and this time pulled some purple ground cover from another neighbor’s yard.

      Adam looked to Frankie for help, but the older boy only shrugged. “Kindergarteners,” he said, with no small amount of disgust in his voice.

      “You don’t have show-and-tell in third grade?”

      “We have I-C-M-M days, and we have to earn them. We can’t just bring toys in anytime we want.”

      “What’s an I-C-M-M?” Adam had a feeling he should know this.

      “I Can Manage Myself. It means we’re doing our work and not messing around. I’m already halfway to mine and when I get it, I’m gonna bring in my Xbox.”

      “I don’t think a gaming system is a good option for show-and-tell.”

      “It’s not show-and-tell, it’s I-C-M-M, and it’s a whole afternoon. Not just five minutes. If I get ten more marks on my card, I get a whole afternoon to myself. And I’m bringing my Xbox.” He crossed his arms over his chest, but kept pace with Adam’s chair. Garrett was still picking wildflowers from neighbors’ yards, blissfully unaware of the conversation.

      “I think your iPod or DS would be a better option. For the Xbox, you’d need a TV and the system and the games. That’s a lot to bring in.”

      “I’m bringing the Xbox,” Frankie said through clenched teeth.

      A few kids turned onto the street ahead of them, and Frankie took off at a run to catch up with them. Adam returned the waves of the parents. The faces were familiar, but most faces in Slippery Rock were. Ruby Kildare, who had been a couple years ahead of him in school, trailed her son, Bobby. There was Jackson Crane and his twins, Blair and Bree. The other parents watched him, but didn’t say anything, and Adam was grateful. Blair and Bree started picking wildflowers with Garrett, and Jackson slowed to keep pace with Adam.

      “You’re looking good,” he said after a moment.

      “Doing fine,” Adam said.

      “Think the weather’s going to break anytime soon? October will be here in another couple weeks.”

      “Won’t be much longer.” He watched as Garrett presented his small bouquet to Bree. Blair stomped her foot. Garrett twisted his mouth to the side, then took back the bunch of flowers, split it in two and gave half to each twin.

      “He’s going to be a heartbreaker, Adam,” Ruby said. He hadn’t noticed the woman slowing her pace, but now here he was with two people who probably wanted the intimate details of his injuries. He should have stayed home.

      Blair lifted the bouquet to her nose, then sneezed all over it. Jackson hurried forward, wiped her nose with a handkerchief from his back pocket. The group turned the corner, and Slippery Rock Elementary spread out before them. The school took up most of the block, with the big gymnasium on the right side and the junior high classrooms making up the wing on the left. Playgrounds and a small nature area were in the courtyard behind the elementary classrooms, the gym and the junior high.

      On the block beyond was the high school, football fields and the natatorium where they taught swimming lessons in the summer, and where the high school and junior high swim teams practiced and competed. Between the high school and the football field was the State Championship Memorial. The town commissioned it, setting Adam’s, Aiden’s, Collin Tyler’s, James Calhoun’s and Levi Walters’s names in gray limestone, along with their jersey numbers the summer after their team won the state high

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