LITMIR.BIZ

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      “It sucked.”

      “Having trouble with your fastball?”

      “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, turning to avoid her startled gaze. “Let’s just get the hell out of here. I want to go home.”

      Keeping her temper in check, she regarded her son with a neutral expression. She would deal with his language later. “Ty, what’s going on?” she asked quietly.

      Her son’s mood had been increasingly dark ever since Bill’s last visit. Her attempt to force the issue the other night had apparently fallen on deaf ears. He was still angry and he still wasn’t speaking to his dad. When Bill had come by the night before to pick up the kids, Ty had remained locked in his room, refusing to see him.

      On some level, she’d counted on the start of baseball season to provide a certain normalcy for him. He loved the game. He excelled at it. He’d claimed there was nothing he wanted more than a shot at being a professional ballplayer. Usually by this time in spring practice, he was quoting Coach Maddox every chance he got. Of course, in the past his father had been there to listen.

      When he remained stubbornly silent, she prodded again. “Ty, talk to me. I’m not starting this car until you do. What’s going on with you?”

      “Why does everybody keep asking me that?” he exploded. “You know what’s going on. We’ve already talked it to death. Dad walked out for some bimbo. What am I supposed to do when I find out my dad’s a jerk? Can’t we just leave it alone? I’m sick of talking about it.”

      Maddie couldn’t really blame him for being sick of the topic, but clearly he needed to discuss it further, if not with her, then with a professional. He needed to deal with his resentment in a more constructive way than lashing out at anyone and everyone around him.

      “Sweetie, yes, we’ve talked about his, and I know you don’t understand what your father’s done,” she said for what must have been the thousandth time. “But that doesn’t give you the right to call him names, okay? He’s still your father and deserves your respect. I do not want to have to tell you that again, understood?”

      He regarded her incredulously. “Come on, Mom. I know you keep painting this rosy picture of things, but even you have to know what a jerk he is.”

      “What I think of your father isn’t the point,” she said. “He loves you, Ty. He wants you to be as close as you always were.”

      “Then why the hell did he leave us for her? She’s not much older than me.”

      “She is an adult, though,” Maddie said. “You, your brother and sister need to give her a chance. If your father loves her, I’m sure she has plenty of good qualities.” She managed to get the words out without gagging.

      “Yeah, right. I’ve seen her good qualities,” he retorted. “Like a 38-D, I’d say.”

      “Tyler Townsend!” she protested. “You know better than to make a remark like that. It’s rude and inappropriate.”

      “It’s the truth.”

      Maddie fought to temper her remarks. “Look, change is never easy, but we all have to adapt. I’m trying. You could help me a lot if you’d try, too. You’re a role model for Kyle and Katie. They’re going to follow your lead when it comes to how they treat your dad and his…” Maddie stumbled. Until the divorce was final and the relationship could be legalized, there was no name for what Bill’s new love could be called, at least not in front of her children.

      “Special friend,” Tyler suggested sarcastically. “That’s what Dad calls her. It makes me want to puke.”

      Maddie would not allow herself to agree with him. That didn’t mean it was easy to give him a chiding look. “Careful, Tyler. You’re very close to crossing a line.”

      “And Dad hasn’t crossed a line?” he said. “Give me a break.”

      “Did something happen yesterday that I don’t know about?”

      “No.”

      “Are you sure? Did you have words with your father?”

      He remained stubbornly silent and kept looking out the window, refusing to meet her gaze.

      Obviously she wasn’t going to get through to him, not this afternoon. But she had to keep trying. At the very least, she had to rein in his nastier comments.

      “Maybe we should table this discussion for now, but in future I want you to speak to your father—and other adults, for that matter—in a respectful manner.”

      Ty rolled his eyes. Maddie let it pass.

      “Let’s talk some more about why baseball practice sucked,” she suggested, finally putting the car into gear and pulling away from the curb.

      “Let’s not,” he said tersely, then looked directly at her as if seeing her for the first time. “How come you’re all dressed up?”

      “Job interviews.”

      “And?”

      She resorted to his terminology. “They sucked.”

      For the first time since he’d climbed into the car, Ty grinned. He looked like her carefree kid again…and so much like his dad had looked at that age, it made her heart ache.

      “A chocolate milk shake always makes me feel better when I’ve had a bad day,” he suggested slyly.

      Maddie grinned back at him, relieved to see the improvement in his mood. “Me, too,” she said, and whipped the car into the left-turn lane to head for Wharton’s Pharmacy, which still had an old-fashioned soda fountain.

      Ever since her own childhood, that soda fountain had been the place where some of the most important events in her life had played out. She and Bill had shared sodas there during high school. She, Helen and Dana Sue had shared confidences. Bill had even proposed to her in the back booth with the view of Main Street with its flower-filled planters and wide, grassy median. They’d celebrated the arrival of each new baby by making a ceremonious first visit to the soda fountain so Grace and Neville Wharton could gush over the latest Townsend.

      Going there today would be bittersweet, but fitting, Maddie thought. Maybe she and her son would be able to start the healing process over chocolate milk shakes. Then again that was asking an awful lot of a shake.

      “I was real sorry to hear about you and Bill,” Grace Wharton told Maddie in an undertone while Ty was at the counter getting their milk shakes. “I just don’t know what men are thinking when they walk away from a fine family to be with a girl who’s still wet behind the ears.”

      Maddie could only nod agreement. As much as she liked Grace, she knew that anything she said would be reported far and wide by nightfall. Fortunately, Ty came back to their booth before Grace could pry anything more from her.

      “I hear you’ve been looking for a job,” Grace said, regarding Maddie with sympathy. “There’s mighty slim pickin’s here in Serenity. It’s a crying shame the way this town has been losing business to those big ole stores outside Charleston. I tell Neville all the time if we didn’t do such a good business with the soda fountain, we’d have to shut our doors, too. Goodness knows, the pharmacy’s not making money the way it once did. People would rather carry their prescriptions thirty miles than pay a little more for good service right here at home.”

      “It’s affecting you, too?” Maddie asked, surprised. “Don’t people realize how wonderful it is to have a pharmacist who knows them and who’s willing to bring the prescription right to the door in the middle of the night if need be?”

      “Oh, they care enough about that in an emergency, but it’s the day-in, day-out prescriptions we’re losing and the over-the-counter medicines they can buy cheaper someplace else. Losing that factory over in White Hill hasn’t helped, either. Folks there had good jobs with

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