LITMIR.BIZ

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an hour. She refused to respond to anything I said. By working, of course. I don’t mean verbally.”

      “An hour?” he asked, adjusting his balance on the chair. Why had she let Maddie sit there that long without calling Mrs. Eggers, the school counselor, or him, for that matter? Ms. Serval gathered the report-card papers, then clasped her hands.

      “Not quite an hour,” she said, tipping her chin, “but I was doing what I could. Mrs. Eggers wasn’t here that day. She covers other schools certain days of the week. I had to keep seventeen other students on task, Mr. Corallis. I tried to get her attention as I kept teaching, and hoped she’d come around on her own. It was so close to the end of the day that I didn’t want to encourage the behavior by letting her go home early.”

      “I don’t think she was trying to be difficult or manipulative.”

      “I didn’t mean to imply that at all.”

      Then, maybe he needed a hearing aid. Ms. Serval scratched her cheek.

      “It’s just that we’re almost through the first quarter and I’m worried that if she withdraws more, as opposed to showing improvement, it’ll take its toll on the rest of her school year. I realize you’ve been taking her to a therapist and thought you could share these observations. I’ll be honest. I spoke to Mrs. Eggers, and she mentioned the option of putting her in Special Ed if things got worse.”

      “No.” Ben couldn’t help it, but the mention of taking Maddie out of a regular classroom so early in the school year felt like a threat. “I’m sure that would be appropriate and helpful for a lot of kids, but Maddie isn’t learning disabled. Nor is she autistic. This is different. She belongs in a regular class with her peers,” he said, standing up. Ms. Serval quickly followed suit.

      “I agree...if she doesn’t regress. Which is why I thought that maybe more interaction with kids casually, outside school, might help. This is just a suggestion. Actually an idea her art teacher gave me. A lot of children respond to art, and I teach an art club at the community center on weekends. I’d be more than happy to work outside school hours with her. If you think she won’t be comfortable with a group, I wouldn’t mind coming over and spending time with her. Her brothers could even join us if they wanted.”

      Wow. Ben’s neck itched. Zoe had been an avid artist and photographer and used to tell him how much she enjoyed volunteering her skills at the school. No doubt Ms. Serval knew that. What he didn’t feel like sharing at this moment was that they were between therapists. He’d stopped taking Maddie to the one she’d been seeing and was still in the process of finding someone who’d do a better job of connecting with her. Even with medical coverage, nothing was free, and he’d expected her to show improvement at the couple hundred an hour the therapist charged.

      He hadn’t bothered with family counseling, in spite of everyone bringing it up. He figured the boys were still young, and he... Well, he’d survived loss before. He’d pulled through that year in college, when his mother, who’d single-handedly raised him down in Virginia on nothing but waitressing jobs, had passed away from an undiagnosed tumor. That was when Zoe, a photography student, had come up to him in the library and asked if she could take candid shots for a project. She’d said that he had a distant look she wanted to capture. Everything had changed after that moment. It was then that he decided to join the marines. He’d needed to prove himself. Make something of that latchkey child his mom had sacrificed for. And for Zoe.

      He’d survived.

      But he hadn’t been a kid at the time, and with the changes Maddie’s teacher had noted over the past few weeks, he had to wonder if the sessions had indeed been doing any good at all. Or had the changes for worse occurred because he’d been devoting more time to his computer lately?

      “Thanks, but I’ve already arranged for help outside school.” Not exactly the kind she was talking about, but not exactly a lie, either. He didn’t have details beyond the fact that Hope was a medical intern, so for all he knew she could be specializing in pediatric psychiatry. “Let’s see how she does over the next month or so. After the holidays.”

      “Of course. Oh...” Ms. Serval picked up a blue folder and textbook from the corner of her desk and handed them to him. “I put together the work she missed today and some of the worksheets we’ll be doing tomorrow, just in case it turns out she’s coming down with something. Thanks so much for coming in here today. Maddie really is a sweetheart. I’m so sorry for all you’re going through.” She reached out, so he shook her hand. It felt limp.

      “Thank you, ma’am,” Ben said. Then he escaped for the peace and quiet of his SUV.

      A solid night’s sleep would be better, but that would have to wait until he made it home and got the kids to bed. Hopefully Ryan would have a good night, but that was about as predictable as peace in a war zone. He swore as he put the gear in Reverse. He’d never inflated the guest bed in Chad’s room. If Chad fell asleep early... Well...if any kid could sleep through the pump noise...

      He pulled into the airport parking lot at 1700 hours and found a spot two lanes and six cars north of the target entrance. The sun was setting, and the edge of the cold front they were expecting had definitely arrived. He scribbled Hope on the back of a sheet of paper he ripped from a notepad he kept in the console for whenever Maddie forgot hers, and headed for baggage claim thirteen. He stopped briefly to check the monitors in case changes had been made since he’d called to check on the flight earlier that afternoon. Thirteen it was.

      The hustle and bustle of people headed their own way, doing their own thing, was nice. Like being camouflaged in a crowd. He needed a few minutes of feeling invisible today, but traffic had made him later than he’d hoped.

      He waited for a passenger shuttle car to drive by and then crossed over to the carousel. He crumpled the paper in his hand. Hope was hard to miss. Other passengers had already left with their luggage, save for a family of four and a man in a suit on his cell phone. The slender woman he was certain was Hope stood about five-five or six and wore a bright orange scarf that framed her face like a headband, holding back a mass of dark curls. She wore flat sandals, one of those flowing ankle-length skirts in a bright pattern and an orange sleeveless top. As a marine, he was trained to register details. If she didn’t have a sweater on her, she was in for a surprise. She stayed close to two green suitcases as she scanned the opposite direction, while alternating between fidgeting with one of her big hoop earrings and gripping an oversize woven purse against her side.

      “Hope Alwanga?”

      “Yes,” she breathed, her hand pressed against her chest. No doubt she was relieved she hadn’t been forgotten, alone in a foreign airport.

      “Ben Corallis.” He extended his hand, and she shook it firmly. Her full lips spread into a bright smile.

      “Ben. It’s so wonderful to meet you. Jack speaks so highly of his family.”

      Ben nodded, releasing her hand slowly, then stuffed his into the front pockets of his jeans.

      “We miss him around here.” Jack was one of the few guys he’d hung around with whenever he was on leave. He wished he still lived here. “These your only bags?” he asked, in case the airline had lost any.

      “Yes.”

      “You don’t happen to have a sweater you want to pull out of one of these before we hit the road, do you? It’s a little chilly out,” he said. He wasn’t offering his sweatshirt. No one wore his favorite marine sweatshirt. Either Jack should have warned her about the weather or she should have checked her destination weather on the internet.

      “Oh, I have one here.” She reached into her shoulder sack and dug out a wad of cloth so small, he knew it wouldn’t be warm enough. She set her bag between her feet while she slipped it on. Thin as an old undershirt. “I could use some cool, fresh air, actually,” she said.

      “First time in a plane, huh?”

      “Yes,” she said, closing her warm brown eyes briefly. “I’m going to try to forget that I have to do this again

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