They Rejected My Daughter novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Fourth Spot

Audrey reads the text, feeds Chloe dinner and drives her home to a warm, smiling Lorna. Back home, the principal's car is parked outside.

I made grilled cheese and tomato soup, because it was the fastest thing I knew how to make well.

Chloe sat at the end of our kitchen table with her coat still on.

She ate the first sandwich in four bites.

She looked at the second one, then at me.

"Take it," I said. "There's more bread."

She ate three.

Ruby sat across from her, stirring her soup and saying nothing.

I could tell she was angry, and I could tell she did not want to be, and the two feelings were fighting in her face.

"Did your mom pack you lunch today?" I asked Chloe.

"She has the housekeeper do it." Chloe put her spoon down. "I give it to a boy in my homeroom. He doesn't get one."

"That's kind of you."

"It's mostly so I don't have to eat it. It's salads."

Ruby almost smiled.

She reached over and moved the salt closer to Chloe without looking at her.

I watched that and said nothing.

After dinner I asked Chloe the question I had been saving.

"What do you want to happen?"

She blinked at me.

"Nobody has asked me that," she said slowly.

"I'm asking."

"I want off the team," she said. "I want my name off that list. I don't want to stand on a stage and get every question wrong." She wrapped her arms around herself. "And I don't want my mom to know I told you."

"Those two don't go together," I said.

"I know."

"I can't promise you the second part."

Chloe's chin shook.

"But I won't do anything to you," I said. "I won't tell your mother what you showed me tonight, and I won't use it before you say I can. Is that fair?"

She nodded once.

Ruby slid down in her chair.

Chloe turned to her. "Ruby, I'm sorry about before. About the... you know."

"Later," Ruby said, and looked hard at her soup.

Chloe stopped.

I noticed it, and I put it away to ask about another day.

At seven I drove Chloe home.

Ruby stayed behind with her homework and a promise that I would be back in forty minutes.

The Staniforths lived in a brick house on the good side of the park, with a trimmed hedge and every window lit.

A woman stood on the porch before I had even turned off the engine.

She was tall, with blond hair blown out smooth and a camel coat belted at the waist.

She came down the steps with both hands out.

"Chloe! Sweetheart, where have you been? I've called six times."

"Piano ran late," Chloe said, in a small flat voice that she had clearly used before.

"Of course it did."

The woman turned to me, and her whole face warmed.

"I'm Lorna Staniforth. Thank you so much for bringing her home. I hope she wasn't a bother."

"Not at all," I said. "I'm Audrey."

I did not give a last name.

She took my hand in both of hers.

"Audrey. Wait. Are you Ruby Sharples's mother?"

"I am."

"Oh, I thought so! She has your eyes." Lorna squeezed my fingers. "I have been wanting to find you. I'm so sorry about this roster business. It's all been so complicated."

"Has it?"

"The review process is brutal. Mr. Haskins and I were talking about it only last week. Ruby is a marvelous girl, truly. It must be so hard."

Her voice was lovely, soft and sure and full of care.

"I run the booster fund at Ridgeline," she went on. "We have a little scholarship for gifted students that never gets used. A Saturday enrichment program, a private tutor. If you'd like, I could put Ruby's name down this week."

She said it so kindly that it took me a moment to understand what it was.

It was a price.

"That's generous," I said. "We've moved Ruby to Cedar Hill, so she won't need it."

Lorna's smile stayed exactly where it was.

Only her eyes changed.

"Moved her?" she said. "Already?"

"She started yesterday."

"Well." A little laugh. "That's a shame. For Ridgeline, I mean."

"I'm sure it is."

She looked me up and down, once, taking in the old gray coat and the sensible shoes.

I saw her decide that I was nobody.

"Come in for tea some time," she said. "Chloe, inside."

Chloe went up the steps without looking back, and Lorna followed her, one hand on the girl's shoulder.

At the door Lorna turned around.

"Do give my best to Ruby," she said, "and tell her not to take any of this personally."

I drove back through the dark with both hands on the wheel.

A car was parked at the curb in front of my house, a gray sedan with its engine off.

A man sat behind the wheel with his forehead pressed to his hand.

It was Howard Haskins.

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