The Challenge(39)

“Let’s see how it develops,” he said. Beth could tell he wasn’t sold on the idea. And she wasn’t ready to let her daughter go at fourteen. It had never occurred to her that Juliet might want to stay.

She and Juliet said a tearful goodbye the next day, and Beth left for the airport. She had time to kill once she got there so she called Anne and asked her what she thought, and if the local high school was any good. She liked Anne and respected her as a mother.

“It’s as good as the effort the kids put into it. If she’s a good student, she’ll be fine. If she’s lazy, she’ll get lost. That’s true at any school.”

“She’s always been a good student.”

“It would be fun for her, and we’d love to have her, but she’s young to leave you, Beth. It won’t be the same living with her dad. Girls need their mothers, even if they hate them for a while.” They both laughed but it was true. “Wow. I don’t know what I’d do in your shoes. I think I’d want her in New York with me. You don’t want to miss out on these years with her. It’s too soon to let her go.”

“That’s how I feel about boarding school at her age,” Beth said. “I’d never consider it. I don’t want some twenty-five-year-old teacher telling her about his values, instead of ours.”

“I agree. I want to keep a tight grip on Peter until college. After that, there’s not much you can do.” They called Beth’s flight then, and she had to go. “Let me know what you decide, and if there’s anything I can do. It’s a good school. I just don’t know if it’s for her.”

“Tom and I are going to talk in a few days. He doesn’t seem too keen on it either. Having her with him full-time would be a big commitment for him. That’s a lot different from a weekend once a month and six weeks in the summer.”

Beth thought about it on the two long flights back to New York, and for several days after. It was a harder decision than when Tom told her he wanted to move to Montana. Given the state of their marriage, she had been willing to lose him, but not her daughter. Juliet didn’t press her for an answer, but they had to decide soon. They were down to the wire. Beth was glad she had taken out tuition insurance, though it seemed redundant when she did it. Now it suddenly seemed like a good idea.



* * *



—

She made the decision while she was alone in the apartment over the weekend. The decision she made was a sacrifice she had been unwilling to make for Tom, but she was willing to make for her daughter. She couldn’t see it any other way. It would have to be an experiment for a year, and then they’d see if it was working.

She called Tom a week later and asked him to put Juliet on the phone with them. It had to be a joint decision between the three of them.

“I’d be willing to let you go to school in Montana under one condition,” Beth said. “I don’t want to be away from you most of the time. It wasn’t what I had planned for myself, and I have no idea how it would work. But I could do it for a year, if I rent a small place in Fishtail myself—like two bedrooms, so you have a room there too, and you could go back and forth between me and Dad. I would work there some of the time. I need to be in New York too, but I can do some of my writing in Fishtail and keep an apartment in both places, for when I need to work there. How does that sound to both of you?”

“You weren’t willing to do that a year ago,” he reminded her. “You said you’d rather die than live in Montana.”

“That’s true,” she admitted. “But I would definitely rather die than not live close to my daughter for the next four years. You’ll have to kick me out of your life when you go to college, but I’m not willing to let go when you’re fourteen,” she said to Juliet. “How would both of you feel about my living in Fishtail part-time? It’s a small town and, Tom, I don’t want you to feel that I’m encroaching on your turf.”

“To tell you the truth, I’d love it. And I think it would be great for Juliet,” he said. “She’d have both of us, at least part of the time. Do you think you’d be happy here?”

She had thought about it and asked herself the same question. “I’d be a lot happier than I would be alone in New York without my daughter. There are sacrifices you just don’t want to make for a man, but you will for a child. What about you, Jules? What do you think?”

“I think I’d love it, Mom. I didn’t want to leave you either. It’s the best of everything if I have you and Dad, even if you’re not together. And when you’re in New York, I could stay with him.”

“And we wouldn’t need formal visitation rights,” Tom said, warming to the idea. “Juliet could go back and forth between us, and stay where she wants. In some ways, it might really work, if you don’t hate living here.”

“If I do, I’ll move back to New York full-time in a year. But something tells me this might work for all three of us, especially if I have the flexibility to be in New York when I want to. Or need a fix at Bergdorf’s.” They all laughed at that. “So, shall we do it?”

“Yes!” Juliet sounded ecstatic.

“You have my vote,” Tom added.

“I’m in too,” Beth said. “Tom, please go to the school tomorrow and get that all worked out, before I cancel the tuition here. We don’t want her to end up with no school at all.”