Chapter Three

As Tami enters the kitchen, she says, "Hey, sweetheart" to Gracie. The she turns the oven to 350 and opens the fridge to get the marinated meat out for dinner.

"Don't drink the orange juice," Gracie warns her. "Liam drank straight from the carton."

Fridge door ajar, Tami turns and looks cautiously at her daughter. There was an angry edge in the way Gracie said those words. "Well, that's not very courteous," Tami says softly. "I'll talk to him about it." She takes out the meat and sets in on top of the stove.

While she's waiting for the oven to preheat, Tami looks outside where Eric and Liam are doing yardwork. Eric used to get behind in the yard work. The fact was a bit of a sticking point for Tami. "When am I supposed to do it?" he would say. "I don't have the time."

"Oh, I don't know," she would think, "How about right now? Instead of watching more football?"

But ever since Liam came, the yard has been pristine. Yardwork was the shared activity Eric discovered would allow him to spend time with the boy without the necessity of speaking , so he could just show Liam he was there and that he was going to continue to be there. Side by side, silently, they would labor in the slightly cooler evenings, the crickets providing the only soundtrack, until at last they began to speak, pausing from the job at hand, Liam reading Eric's lips, Eric trying out his newly learned signs.

Tami was impressed by the way Eric threw himself, without complaint, into the sudden task of fathering her young cousin. She was bewildered to have been named guardian, and nervous about the new challenge, but it was Eric, who was not even blood related to the child, who stepped up and assured her they could do it, who quietly, steadily, patiently made the first real inroads with the boy.

The lawyer contacted them about the guardianship the Monday night before the funeral, and on Tuesday morning, on the way to the church, Eric swung by a book store and bought up every volume he could find on sign language. When they got back to Phili, he and Tami enrolled themselves in sign language classes. Though Liam was not his own son, Eric made for him the sacrifices that a good father would make for his own child. He left a comfortable position as a well-loved, three-time state champion coach at Pemberton High. He accepted a job that was bound to make him uneasy.

As Tami watches her husband now, trimming the high grass at the edge of the porch while Liam rips weeds from the flower bed to his left, she feels a wave of pride and affection swell up. After day in and day out of living with the same person and seeing his every flaw, after being subject to every common annoyance, after being pawed for sex at times when it happens to be unwelcome (and being pouted at when the refusal is politely made), after nights of broken sleep from light snoring, after gallons of milk not picked up and scores of trashcans that don't get to the curb on time, it's easy to forget why you fell in love with the man you married. But then life ironically, mercifully sends along the tragedies and challenges that remind you of who he is at his very core and of how lucky you are to share your life with such a man.

Tami is distracted by her thoughts when the oven beeps. After she has the chicken breasts inside, she turns her attention to Gracie, and notices that the girl keeps looking up from her book to watch Liam and Eric in the yard.

"Why don't you go out and help them?" Tami suggests.

Gracie's eyes dart back down to her book. "No thanks," she mutters.

Tami sits across from her daughter at the table, a four-person, light oak piece with distressed wood. Their kitchen is casual country style, and maybe it's the streak of obstinacy in her soul, but Tami would never have chosen it when she lived in Texas. Something about being on the east coast, however, made her suddenly want a touch of the south in her kitchen. "Do you want to talk, Gracie?"

Gracie does want to talk, but not, to Tami's disappointment, about her obvious jealousy. Instead, she jerks her head up from her book, and with accusatory eyes asks, "Why do I have to go to Veritas Academy anyway?"

Tami blinks. "You've been asking us to send you to another school for two years."

"I know, but why Veritas?"

"We toured a lot of schools, honey. Your father and I agreed it's the best match for you. And you know you're going to love the classical focus."

Last year, Gracie put together three pieces of poster board and carefully compiled a family tree of all the Greek gods and hung it on the wall beside her bed. "Is that a little peculiar?" Eric asked her, and Tami shrugged. Tami works with teenagers and young twenty somethings, and she isn't entirely confident she knows what normal is for an elementary school kid anymore. She doesn't read all the parenting books she once read with Julie. She isn't a stay-at-home mother anymore. She doesn't have the time, and, more to the point, she doesn't have the will. When she looks back on it, she sees that, in some ways, in those early years, she might have made Julie her career. She's taken a much more wait-and-see approach with Gracie, which could account for the fact that they didn't pull her out of her old school sooner. Gracie's always been a little peculiar, but Tami could see a kid from Veritas Academy joining in her in a Greek-God-tree-making exercise.

"Yeah," Gracie concedes, "but all that public speaking!"

"It's not that much," Tami reasons. "And it mostly involves group unison, specifically so you don't have to stand out. It's all about getting you comfortable with that sort of thing. No one expect you to be an actress or a social butterfly, Gracie. But there will be times in life when you have to step out of your comfort zone, and we don't want that to be so painful for you."

"So, what, you're forcing me to be in pain so I won't be in pain? "

Tami sighs. "It's like a vaccine, Gracie. You get a little bit of the virus, so when the real thing hits you…it's not as bad."

"Well, that's not precisely how vaccines work, Mom."

"I'm sure you get my point." Tami leans toward her daughter, and in a voice of conspiratorial confidence says, "I do understand that in some ways this is going to be hard for you, but I also believe that in some ways it's going to be easier, because you'll be with people who have more of the same interests as you, and you'll be able to make friends more easily."

"What if I don't want friends? Dad doesn't have any friends, and he's fine."

"Dad most certainly does have friends." Tami says it decisively, but in truth, Eric has acquaintances. Workmates. Allies. He rarely "goes out with the guys." His social functions involve church pot lucks (where he stands mostly to the side and lets people approach him), Tami's Braemore cocktail parties (which he abhors), and booster functions (during which he networks and talks shop).

"He's says you're his best friend."

"Yes, so he has a best friend, see. Not everybody needs a lot of friends. I understand that, Gracie. I do. But everyone needs a friend."

"Well, Dad's my best friend." Gracie toys with the pages of her book. "We used to do a lot of stuff together, anyway."

"Gracie, I know your dad's been busy lately, and I'm sure he'll make more time for you soon. But even when he does, you have to understand. He's your father. He's not your pal. We both want you to be able to talk to us about anything, but at the end of the day, we're your parents. And that's different than a friend. And I just think you're going to like this school a lot better than your current school, once you give it a chance. And maybe the girls will be kinder to you there."

"Why do you and Dad keep saying that? How would you know?"

Tami had a sit-down with the Veritas school principal and the school counselor (who doubles as school nurse) and also asked to observe recess one day. She approved of the methods in place to resolve conflict and encourage tolerance among peers. Gracie's been through a bit of bullying at her old school, probably more than she's told them about. Tami feels guilty that she wasn't aware of it earlier, that she was so caught up in work that Eric had to bring it to her attention last year. She's dropped one of the committees to which she used to belong in order to make more time for Gracie – and Liam - this year. "It's a feeling I have."

"Oh, that's real logical, Mom."

"Don't use that tone with me, Gracie."

Gracie's face flushes, her apologetic blush.

"I'll tell you what," Tami says. "Give it a year. If you hate it, we won't renew the contact, and we'll find another school."

On the last words, the sliding glass door opens and Eric comes in. "What's that?" he asks.

Tami repeats what she just told Gracie. "Do you agree with that?"

"Sure," he says. "What's for dinner?"

Behind him, Liam enters and slides the door closed.

"Chicken," Tami says, and then waves to get Liam's attention. "Liam, sweetheart, could you not drink out of the carton in the future?"

Liam appears confused.

"It's just, we use glasses here. And you're welcome to take one any time you want."

Liam, looking embarrassed, nods. He shoves his hands deep into his pocket. As he leaves the kitchen to wash up for dinner, Tami thinks he narrows his eyes at Gracie.