Emily rose early on the first Tuesday in September. This year, she would have two at the local junior high and two at the elementary school. Getting Derek and JJ up was Emily's first order of business. They both had alarm clocks, and they both were skilled at ignoring them, even when Emily had started leaving them across the room so they had to get up to turn them off. The junior high started at 8:15, the elementary school at 9:00. Driving Derek and JJ was a must, and leaving Aaron and Spencer on their own was not an option. Emily already had Dave and Carolyn lined up to come over while she dropped off the big kids.
"Good morning," Emily greeted softly from Derek's doorway. A year later, she was still careful not to cross any boundaries, especially with regard to his bedroom. There were no kisses on the forehead, as there were with Aaron, Spencer and even JJ, to rouse them from sleep. Derek seldom initiated such affection and when he did, it was on his way out the door, usually to a ballgame. He claimed it was "for luck" and Emily didn't mind.
He groaned in response, ignoring his clock radio blaring some hard rock song and tossing a pillow in the general direction of the door.
"Get up, buddy. School in an hour."
"I don't need an hour to get ready…" he complained. "Wake me up at 8:00."
"I'm pulling out of the driveway at 8:00," Emily countered. "If you're not ready to go, you're on your own getting to school. I'm waking you up now. I want you up and moving," she insisted softly.
Emily climbed the stairs to check on JJ, shocked to see her dressed in pretty jeans with splashy red flowers and a coordinating top. Her bed was made. She seemed anxious.
"Hey. Good morning. You okay?" Emily asked.
JJ bit her lip. "I'm trying to make a different choice," she admitted, casting haunted glances at her own closet door, which stood consistently ajar now.
"That's my girl," Emily smiled, putting an arm around JJ's shoulder. "I know this is a hard time for you. But you can call me anytime. I know Janet's anniversary is coming up and I'm talking to your therapist about how to best deal with that. I want you in school, but I want you to feel free to grieve, too."
JJ looked away. "It's okay. I'm just trying not to think about it. It's not going to help anything to freak myself out about it, you know?"
Emily waited until JJ met her gaze again. "Don't shut down," she urged. "If you're feeling something about this week - anything - I want you to come to me, or your therapist and tell us about it. You've tried it that way before, remember? What did stuffing your emotions lead to?"
"Running wild and stealing…" JJ mumbled.
Emily nodded. "Keep trying new things. Try opening up. If you can't. Come find me. You don't have to talk, just hang out a while. You can squeeze my hand, or write me a note. There are a million things you can try. Just don't shut down again, okay? Try your hardest?"
JJ nodded, swallowing.
Emily had dropped off a nervous seventh grader and a surly eighth grader and returned home. Out of habit, she dropped her purse off in her bedroom, as she had ever since JJ came the first time. She was on her way out, when Emily spotted a piece of notebook paper on her pillow. It featured JJ's adolescent bubble handwriting, with hearts dotting the i's.
It read: i miss janet.
In response, Emily added her own note beneath JJ's and left it next door on her pillow: So sorry you're hurting. Let me know if anything comes to mind that might help. So proud of you. Keep opening up. Love, Emily.
Spencer was tired. He had stayed up much too late last night thinking about school. His grades last year had been so exemplary that he was being promoted a grade. He would start third grade today. He would be six next month. There were a lot of changes happening. When Emily got back from dropping off JJ and Derek at the junior high, she woke up him and Derek. When Spencer got upstairs, he received a great surprise because Dave was cooking in the kitchen. A big breakfast of waffles, strawberries, and bacon.
It had taken a long time, but Spencer was finally able to eat almost any color food without panicking or checking it for government bugs. His name change helped. The adoption helped. It was like a new start. Plus, he got lots of extra time with his therapist to deal with his feelings about missing his mother, the literature professor. He had spent a lot of time learning about emotions and handling them appropriately. He almost never harmed himself now. If he thought about doing it, he made himself take a deep breath and count to ten very slowly, imagining his stress getting smaller every second. The strange and wonderful thing about it was, it actually worked.
"Hi, Dave!" he exclaimed, dressed in his brand new khaki pants and Star Wars shirt. It was black, and Spencer didn't even mind. "I didn't know you were coming over," he said, launching himself at Dave's leg and being careful to avoid the hot stove.
"Well, somebody had to be here while Emily dropped Derek and JJ off at school, and I figured, as long as I was here, I might as well make you boys a breakfast of champions."
"Sounds good to me!" Spencer said, opening a drawer for silverware and setting it around in his own, Aaron's and Emily's spots. "Hey, Dave! Are you and Carolyn eating over?"
He didn't get the chance to hear Dave's reply because Aaron was pulling open the door to see Penelope on the other side. It made Spencer feel a little nervous because Penelope had been at their house nine months ago, and it hadn't been very good. But Emily was letting her visit more and spend time in the house a little bit, as long as she was healthy.
"Hey, Penelope," Aaron said, sounding sad.
"Hey, you. Why the long face?" Spencer heard her asking. He didn't understand the expression, since Aaron had an oval face, and he went to investigate.
"Spencer's in third grade and he's five and I'm in fourth grade, and I'm nine," Aaron pouted. "Pretty soon, he's going to be in a higher grade than me and still be younger."
"Hey, don't worry about it. I'm still trying to get my-"
"Are you healthy?" Spencer asked, eyeing Penelope critically. Her hair was copper and she was smiling and wearing a lot of make up. She had on a yellow dress with lots of bright flowers on it.
Aaron elbowed him in the ribs. "That's not polite, Spencer. You can't ask that."
"It's all right. He can ask," Penelope reassured. "It's a fair question. I am healthy. Trust me, Emily makes sure. Otherwise I wouldn't be allowed to come visit you guys and wish you luck on your first day of school and that would be a bummer."
"What are you still trying to get?" Spencer wondered, threading his fingers through hers and admiring the huge pink ring on her finger.
"My GED so I can go to college and major in computer programming or something…" Penelope confided. They entered the kitchen and Penelope smiled and waved at Dave, Carolyn and Emily who were all sitting around the breakfast table, drinking coffee.
"Boys, hurry up. You don't have much time. Hey, Penelope," Emily greeted, putting an arm around her.
"Hey," Penelope smiled. "I didn't want to intrude. Just wanted to bring these by," she said, gesturing to a bag that Spencer hadn't noticed she was carrying. Inside, were numerous picture frames of different shapes and sizes.
"I figure I broke about twenty of these last year, and your stairway wall still looks so bare. I wanted to make it up," she said.
"It's not necessary…" Emily reassured. "You've done more than enough to pay us back."
"I won't take no for an answer," Penelope insisted, abandoning the bag at Emily's feet. "Now I have to go to work. But you two," she said turning to Spencer and Aaron with a big smile. "Have a great first day, and tell me everything next time, okay?" she said, bending down and enfolding both boys in her ample embrace.
A hug from Penelope was a great way to start the day.
Derek was two minutes into his day and already had narrowly avoided trouble. The only reason was because his geography teacher was so old he couldn't catch Derek and didn't know what to say to convince him to come back inside when Derek went out the ground floor window in the middle of a quiz to see how much they knew.
He felt sure Emily wouldn't be notified. He didn't care if she was. His whole life felt like it was falling apart. And it was either fall apart, too, or have a little fun along the way. Over the summer, he got into plenty of trouble at camp for a week with JJ. She was rebellious more quietly, but he could not ignore all the pretty female counselors and made his feelings more than obvious. He got in trouble with the director, but it didn't phase him. What he was doing was harmless. If it really bothered the director, he should have hired ugly girls.
His life just felt like it was settling down when JJ moved back in last May. As an idea, she'd been great, but as an actual person living in the house, it was different. She took up time and space and energy to deal with. She was a thief and a liar, and Emily dealt with her differently than she did himself and the little boys. Derek didn't like double standards. He didn't care how many lectures Emily gave about different kids having different needs. She obviously didn't care about his needs because he sure as hell didn't need a girl living in the house with him. He, Aaron and Spencer belonged to Emily, JJ didn't. He figured she needed to get adopted or get out. But when he tried to say that, he just got in trouble for hurting her feelings.
She helped JJ deal with her sister's death, but didn't ever push him to see his own parents' graves. She asked him once and that was it. Plus, Emily was totally tight-fisted with her money now that JJ was around. Because JJ had major problems respecting money and property. That meant when Derek asked for something, she usually said no. He hated his old life, but he missed the money that came with it. He missed asking for anything and knowing he could get it. It hadn't been such a bad deal. He could probably do it again if he had to. Derek was positive he'd seen one of the people who paid for his time hanging out by the school last year.
Derek was so messed up inside, no thanks to puberty and all the other damn changes in his life. He couldn't relate to any kids his own age because they were all immature and thought sex was cool and half of them had already given it up to someone else in order to be accepted.
All he had to do was look at JJ to know he could never take the coward's way out like her sister had done. He could never do that to Spencer or Aaron or Emily or JJ…but he couldn't keep living like this. Looking over his shoulder and thinking he saw people from his old life. He had to do something.
His own anniversary of coming into care was coming up and Derek couldn't forget the last words he'd heard from the family friend as he was led away in handcuffs.
"Like it or not, you'll be back."
So, even though it wasn't something Derek wanted, he found himself preparing, regardless. The friend had been right about so many things. He had to be right about this, too.
A/N: The kids are growing up so much! And there's so much drama going on. Thanks everyone for your continued support. Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments. No account is necessary. You're so wonderful. Hold onto your hats. It's going to be a bumpy ride.