Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(13)

“Well, it did,” he says, and shoves past her and off down the hall. “Thanks for the sympathy.”

“Squirtle—”

He whirls back. He’s as tall as she is now, and probably a year from topping her by several inches. “Stop calling me that!” There’s real anger in it. He doesn’t wait for an answer. He heads toward his room.

“Dinner’s almost ready!” she calls after him. “I made pizza!” No answer. Lanny looks disappointed.

“Frozen pizza?” I ask as I put my arm around her. She shrugs. “I think the word is ‘heated.’”

“Hey, I added stuff. I’m good like that.” She gets serious quickly. “Is he okay?”

“I think so, but . . .” I take a breath and let it out before I say it. “Lanny, you never really talk about how it feels to do the active shooter drills. Neither does he. But he’s not dealing well with it. How about you? Are you okay?”

Lanny doesn’t answer, which is not usually her thing. I see it in that moment: she’s not okay, either, but she hides it better than my son. I made him go to school today. I did that out of a blind desire to have my kids lead a normal life when they patently and manifestly do not, and maybe never will.

I squeeze her shoulder a little. “Honey? Was it okay today for you?”

She’s quiet for a long few seconds, and she doesn’t meet my eyes. “It’s scary,” she says, and from her that’s quite an admission. “I was in the library. We got locked up in the book storage until it was over. The lights were out, and people were crying, and . . .” She audibly swallows. “It’s just hard, Mom. For some of them it’s just a game. But I know it’s not. I know what can happen. And it’s hard not to feel . . . trapped.”

I turn and hug her. I do it slowly and gently, because I’m trying not to show her how appalled I feel. She’s a tough kid, but I hear the vulnerability underneath. She’s not okay. My son’s not okay. I should have known.

Her strength wavers and cracks. “Mom.” It comes in a more subdued tone than I’m used to hearing from her. “You can’t send Connor back to that school. It was already bad before. They’re going to come after him twice as hard now.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’m going to keep him out. Maybe for a while. I can homeschool him. And you, unless you want to keep going—”

“I don’t,” she says, and it’s decisive beyond question. She gives me a half-ashamed look. “I tried, Mom. I really did. But it sucks. Dahlia won’t even talk to me. She avoids me like I’ve got the plague, and her clique are all totally shitty to me.” Dahlia’s her ex-girlfriend; I’d been really hoping it would last, but it hadn’t. Dahlia had moved on hard, and Lanny’s been trying. Not entirely successfully. “It’s hard enough to make friends here. And the ones I made all turned on me when—” She shuts up, but I know. When you went on TV. My fault. I made a bad decision to go on national television to try to vindicate myself, and instead I just fanned the fires of rage that were already burning. I’ve still got a few friends and allies here, but that doesn’t help my kids trying to navigate the already treacherous waters of small-town school social life.

I’ve made this worse for them. And the trauma being inflicted on all the kids—not just mine—by the active shooter drills has special meaning for Lanny and Connor, since they’ve been through threats most others haven’t. Lanny and Connor keep paying the price, and I hate it.

And now the thing I didn’t want to do—insulate them—is the only choice I have. That, or move again and try to start over. I’m stubborn, but when it comes to my children, I need to use that in their defense. Not to their detriment. My instincts tell me to hold fast. But I’m no longer sure that’s right.

“Okay,” I tell her, and kiss her forehead. She makes a face and twists away. “I’ll call the schools tomorrow and formally withdraw you both. But that doesn’t mean you get to run wild either. You’ll have school hours, tests, standard textbooks. And I will be the toughest teacher you’ve ever had.”

Lanny rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, I know,” she says. “Believe me.” But she’s relieved; I can see it in the way she walks away. There’s a confidence in her step that has been flagging recently.

It’s the right move. It has to be. I’ll make it work, and we’ll figure things out as we go.

As long as we’re together, things will be okay.

Sam’s been watching this silently, but now he puts an arm around me, and I turn into his embrace and take in a deep, shuddering breath. “Connor’s okay?” he asks. I hear the worry in his voice. I manage a nod.

“He’s going to need some more sessions with our therapist,” I say. “It was a classic PTSD episode, from what I could gather. He froze up, and then when somebody pushed him, he lashed out. He broke one kid’s jaw.” I laugh bitterly. It sounds shaky. “What’s really broken is the fact all these kids have to endure imaginary trauma six times a year. It changes people. Sam, he didn’t even know what he was doing.”

“I understand the theory. They need to be ready to react in an emergency,” Sam says, but he sounds subdued. “But this can’t be good for him.”