Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 23

I started to think I might have made a mistake pushing Hanna by the end of the week. Although we hadn’t ended up on a new normal since I got my car, most days Kat and Hanna would sit in the stands together and watch my baseball practice and talk until it was time for me to go to the Blue Ridge. For the few days before the fight between Hanna and her mom, Hanna had still gone to the Blue Ridge with us, at least for a little while, before heading home. Since the fight, she’d had various excuses for just going home after school. While Kat still sat in the stands by herself and went with me to the Blue Ridge after, I felt like I might have done something to hurt my friendship with Hanna.

She acted normal at lunch, but the few times I’d asked about after school she’d had a reasonable excuse ready. I hadn’t thought much about it the first day, or even the second, but by the fourth, I couldn’t help but feel there was something more to it. Worse, I had to keep acting like nothing had happened and it was no big deal, since Kat had noticed and her anxiety had started to kick in. Several times over the last few days she’d worked herself up thinking she’d done something to cause Hanna to back away, and it’d been all I could do to reassure her that she wasn’t at fault.

Today wasn’t an exception. I spent ten minutes after practice standing in the parking lot explaining why she shouldn’t be worried and Hanna just had a lot going on, getting ready for college.

“So you’re sure she’s not mad?”

“I’m positive,” I said, feeling a little bit like a hypocrite. “She was fine at lunch, right? Participated in conversation and acting normal, right?”

“Yeah,” Kat said, not making eye contact.

“Kat, don’t do that. We’re okay. Sometimes people get busy and if you take it personally every time, you’ll be tied up in knots. I’ve been telling you for three days that everything’s fine. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“And our deal is, you listen to what I say and trust my judgment, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, letting out a sigh, knowing where I was going.

This was my trump card when she started spiraling. Sometimes, she would convince herself she’d done something wrong and no matter of rationalizing or explanation would drag her out of it. It’s why she needed someone to defer to when her condition got the better of her, but she also found it frustrating sometimes, knowing I was just ending the conversation without resolving anything. The problem was, with mental illness, there wasn’t always a resolution to be had.

“Then you need to listen to me and believe me when I tell you it’s fine. If something was actually wrong, I’d tell you and help you find a way to deal with it. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, giving a sniffle and looking up at me with a weak smile. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a pain. I just get so worried that …”

Her voice trailed off and for a second I thought she was just starting to spiral again, until her eyes went wide and all the color started to drain from her face. Her expression shifted into what I could only describe as a look of pure terror.

I turned and saw a very nice car pulling into the parking lot. At first, it looked like it was going to head towards the entrance that led to the office, before suddenly turning and coming right towards us. Despite Kat shaking like a leaf in the wind next to me, it took me almost until the car pulled in front of us before I worked out who it was.

I hadn’t ever met Kat’s father or seen pictures of him, but when the car lurched to a stop and the man in what I would guess was his mid-forties jumped out, I was certain that was who this was.

“Katherine, what the hell are you doing here? You are supposed to be at home.”

“Daddy,” she said, her voice quivering. “I … uhh … “

“So you figure if I’m not at home my rules don’t apply, is that it? Here I thought we had this behavior sorted out from the last time, only to come home a day early and find you out here standing with some boy when you should be at home. Get in the car.”

Instead of doing what he said, Kat’s eyes darted to me, and I saw her father’s face go red. I’d been frozen in place, more out of surprise than anything else, until he started around the car in a headlong charge towards his daughter.

“When I tell you to …” he started to say before I moved in front of her and took a step towards him.

“Mr. Moore, I apologize,” I said, trying to diffuse the situation. “I was working with Kat on a project for school and …”

“Get out of the way,” the man said, still looking past me towards his daughter.

“Sir, if we could just …” I started to say, trying again, only to get interrupted again.

“This isn’t any of your business. You need to get lost and let me deal with my daughter.”

“Look,” I said, dropping the pleasant tone and taking a step towards him. “You’re scaring the hell out of her. Maybe you should calm down before you go any further.”

“And maybe you should move out of the way before I make you move.”

“Sir, I’m trying to keep this from getting out of control, but if you put a hand on me, you’ll regret it. I’m not your daughter and I won’t just stand by while you take a swing at me.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” he said, seemingly to notice me for the first time.

“Right now I’m the person keeping you from assaulting your daughter, but if you want to take this to the next level, I’m up for it.”

“Charlie,” Kat said softly. “It’s okay. I can go home.”

“I’m her father and legal guardian and she’s a minor. If I tell her to get in the car, she’s going to get in the car. Now get out of her way.”

“Charlie, let me just go. I don’t …”

I finally looked away from her father back to Kat. Tears were streaming down her face and she was starting to melt down. I didn’t want her to go with him, because I knew what was going to happen. He’d caught her breaking his rule to not leave the house except for school and he was the kind of guy who didn’t deal with not getting his way. While I was worried he might hurt her, I also knew that there was little I could do to keep her from going with him except call the cops myself and tell them about the abuse. Even then, it would be my word against his, and Kat would have to admit to them that was what was happening. She was already starting to break down and I was worried if I took it that far, she’d have a complete mental break.

“It’s okay,” Kat said, walking around me. “I’ll be okay.”

As she got in the car her father stood and glared at me another moment before turning and going back around to the driver’s seat. I watched them drive away and felt like a failure. I’d said I would protect her and then just stood there as she left with her abuser. Even though I knew there wasn’t much I could do in this situation, at least not without finally telling someone and going down the path of having Kat publicly accuse her father and possibly breaking her mental health forever, I still felt like this was somehow my fault. I stood there for several minutes, just watching where the car had pulled out of the parking lot and worried about what would happen next.

My worry amplified through the weekend when we didn’t hear a word from Kat. I sent a text message to the cell phone I’d gotten her, but I didn’t call for fear of her dad finding where it was hidden and making everything worse. Hanna said I should just wait and see what happened. She’d seen Kat for a few minutes after they left the school parking lot when her dad drove her by Hanna’s house to pick up Kat’s car. Kat hadn’t said a word to Hanna except to give her a sad look, just getting in the car and following her dad out of the subdivision.

Kat was only a few months from her eighteenth birthday and then she’d have more options that didn’t involve the police and her having to tell strangers what had happened in front of her father, something I was pretty sure she’d never actually be able to do.

So I waited, going through the motions of practice and training without really being connected to either. It was obvious my bandmates and Chef both noticed, but I think Hanna must have talked to them beforehand, because they’d didn’t say anything. That was particularly unusual for Chef, who normally dealt with a lack of focus by sweating it out of me. Today, though, he just said ‘try again’ each time I screwed something up or missed an instruction.

Things got worse on Monday. I hadn’t expected Kat to be at Hanna’s that morning to ride with us to school, but I had expected to at least see her car in the parking lot. I’d still waited until the last possible moment to leave though, just in case, and was cutting it close when I got to school. I looked around for Kat’s car, since the last time her dad put her on lockdown, he’d still let her drive to school, but didn’t see it. Although I thought maybe he’d taken her to school himself, to ensure she didn’t go anywhere else, I couldn’t help but take it as a bad sign.

I got to lunch early, waiting for her to join us so I could find out what happened, but the longer she didn’t show, especially after most of the lunch crew started showing up, the more worried I got.

“Have you seen her?” I asked Hanna when she sat down.

I knew Hanna had P.E. with Kat in second period, so I hoped she would have had a chance to talk to her first, or at least get an idea of how bad it was.

“She wasn’t in class,” Hanna said.

“Are you talking about Katherine?” Laura asked.

“Yeah.”

“I have office aide first period. Her dad called in and pulled her out of class, told her he’s moving her to another school.”

“Where?” I asked, shocked. “There aren’t any other schools around here. What’s he going to do, send her to a private school in Asheville? Move?”

“Maybe,” Hanna said. “You should have seen them when she picked up her car. He was pissed. Mom tried to go talk to him and he wouldn’t even open the window.”

“Shit. Do you think we should …” I started to say before Hanna interrupted me, her eyes darting to the others listening to our conversation.

“No,” Hanna said. “She made what she wants very clear. I know it’s hard to do nothing, but you have to be patient.”

I knew Hanna was keeping me from sharing Kat’s secret. Not only did she not want everyone to know about the abuse, but the more people who knew the more likely it was that one of them would end up saying something and getting her thrown into foster care. Once again, I was trapped with options I couldn’t use and all I could do was sit and wait.

When lunch ended I grabbed Hanna and held her back from everyone else so we could talk.

“We can’t just wait,” I said in as vehement of a whisper as I could manage. “She’s now stuck with him and can’t even escape to school. If he does something to her, we won’t know until it’s too late.”

“He’s not going to seriously hurt her, not until she tries to leave.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I can’t, but what could we do if he was hurting her, short of telling the authorities.”

“I’m starting to think we should do that anyway,” I said.

“What about what you said about her condition?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s why we need to tell someone. This is way out of our league.”

“I know, but telling someone IS making a decision. Also, things are the same as they were four months ago. She turns eighteen in July. It’s the middle of March. Do you think they’re going to try and find a foster placement for her for just two and a half months? Or do you think it’s more likely that they stick her in some kind of temporary group home or shelter and just wait out the time? They’ve done stories about those places on the news. Long periods of minimal adult supervision, adults and other kids who are just as abusive as her dad, plus she won’t get her diploma, so she’ll hit eighteen and have to figure out what to do while trying to get a GED or whatever.”

“One news story doesn’t mean that’s what will happen. You know they sensationalize things.”

“Maybe. I’m just saying it’s a risk no matter what we do. It’s only been two days. We should wait and see if she gets in contact. She has that cell phone you gave her and it’s hopefully held away. He can only keep an eye on her for so long before he goes back to work. Give her time.”

“You know last time we talked about this, it was me arguing against telling someone because of her mental health. At some point, you and I are going to have to get on the same page.”

“Yeah, well, we both want to do what’s best for Kat and she doesn’t want us to tell anyone, so we’re kind of in a weird place. We’ll at least be on the same page after her birthday.”

“I hope so,” I said.

It was still the beginning of the week, and I still had a big week ahead of me. I’d been all but useless all weekend and I had a test coming up at the end of the week and then a double-header baseball game on Saturday, followed by a very late practice and then a gig later that night. I wasn’t worried about my test, since Kat had already gotten me prepared with lots of reviews, although this was the last thing we’d prepared for.

Thankfully, I had Chef to help me get focused. Apparently, he’d decided that I’d had enough time to get myself together. He didn’t so much train me as run me ragged. Since I didn’t have much homework and I didn’t have music practice on weekdays anymore, he decided I had time to do an extra hour. He even sent Vinney out to watch me and yell at me if I slowed down when he needed to go inside and start getting dinner service ready. By the time we finished, I could barely make it to my car and once I did I just sat there for twenty minutes trying to pull myself together enough to drive home. On the flip side, while I was still worried about Kat, I wasn’t completely overwhelmed by my concern anymore.

While I’d been pouring out sweat for Chef, I’d decided I’d give Hanna the week like I’d agreed to, and then I’d talk to Chef about it. Kat might not be happy with me, but I’d rather she hate me and be out of that situation than still like me but be living with her father.

The next day, I might not have been struggling over my worries for Kat, but I still struggled. The downside of Chef’s form of therapy is that it made me incredibly sore, to the point of having trouble walking without feeling the pain in my legs. I was all but useless in conditioning class, although at least Coach understood my exploration and even applauded the initiative for extra workouts. I did have to convince him to let me spend practice in the batting cages, since running was almost completely out of the questions.

Chef, however, wasn’t as understanding. I still had the same warm-ups, conditioning, and training as I’d normally have, despite thinking I was going to die from how bad my legs were hurting. He actually knew what he was doing, it turned out, since once I got properly warmed up, a lot of the pain went away. Not all of it, and it was still rough, but enough that I could make it through without crying.

It turned out, however, there was an easier way for me to forget how much pain I was in. Nearly all of my discomfort, or at least my noticing it, flooded out of my body when I pulled up to the trailer and saw Mom’s car parked next to it, along with another car I didn’t recognize.

In the nine months since we’d been living in Wellsville, I could count on one hand the number of times Mom was home from her second job before the sun went down. At a little past six, she should actually be just starting her night job, instead of being at home. My first thought was something bad had happened, which is why I skidded to a halt in front of the trailer and ran inside, only to pull up short when I saw Mr. Eaves sitting at the kitchen table with her.

“What happened?” I asked, concerned.

My first thought was something had happened with the videotape, and he’d had to explain to Mom where exactly we got it and why I was in trouble for having had it at all. I was just starting to wonder what the penalties were for assisting in hacking when Mom’s face broke into a giant smile.

“The case has been dismissed,” she said, sounding happy and hopeful for the first time in forever.

“Really?” I asked, looking from her to Mr. Eaves. “They asked to have the …”

“Yep. They submitted a request to voluntarily withdraw from the case after they saw our submission of additional discovery materials and file, specifically the video you found.”

“They were worried they were going to lose?”

“Well, we made sure it wasn’t worth it for them to continue, once we had proof that their case wouldn’t hold water. The day after I submitted the new discovery materials, I also put in a request to file a counterclaim for an assault on you. They decided that, with the video, it wasn’t worth pursuing and called my office to see if we’d agree to pull our counter suit if they withdrew.”

“We should have gone ahead and sued them,” I said. “We could use the money and maybe they’d think twice before trying to bully people again.”

“It wouldn’t have been worth it. The amount of money we would have gotten is negligible, and Doug Campbell would have kept it wrapped up in appeals for years. Anything you would end up making would have been eaten by court costs by then, even if I was willing to spend years counter suing for free, which I’m not. I get wanting to go after them, but there’s no upside here. The best thing for you and your mother is to just get all of this put behind you and move on with your lives.”

“I guess,” I said, grumpily.

For half a second I thought maybe I’d be able to score a victory after a craptastic week. I knew he was right, but the idea of sticking it to Aaron and actually making him and his father pay a price for trying to bully someone had been really appealing.

“What Charlie means to say is thank you; we really appreciate everything you’ve done for us. We can honestly never repay it.”

“Yeah,” I said, properly chastised. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to seem ungrateful. You really saved us from all of this. I do really appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said with a laugh. “Honestly, without your help, this might have drawn on for another year at least. Although I’d suggest if you get into trouble again, you let your lawyer handle it and not try to fix it yourself. You got lucky this time, but it could have just as easily gone the other way.”

“Mr. Eaves was just telling me about how you’d helped the case, something I couldn’t help but notice you haven’t told me about yet.”

“I didn’t want to say anything if it didn’t pan out. I promise I wasn’t trying to go behind your back. The video of the fight just kind of fell into my lap, and I wasn’t sure if it was something we could use or not.”

I was being very careful to keep from mentioning Kat’s name at any point.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Mrs. Nelson. Charlie probably should have mentioned it to you, but he did the right thing by giving it to me instead of trying to do something else with it, like blackmail the Campbell kid. Which is something I’ve had clients do in the past, tanking the case.”

I also wasn’t going to mention to him that that option had also occurred to me, and I hadn’t been that far from trying it. If Kat had found the video before Mr. Eaves offered to take our case for free, I probably would have.

“Well, we’ll still be having a conversation about that later. Again, thank you so much for helping us with this. It’s a huge relief to not have this hanging over our heads anymore. I’m sorry that you felt you had to drive down here and do this, though. I know you’re very busy and I’m sure we’re costing you all kinds of money.”

“Nonsense. Giving good news to a client is one of the high points in being a lawyer, especially when I can go up against Doug Campbell and win.”

“Well. Okay,” Mom said, smiling.

Mr. Eaves had been all business since I’d first met him, but he really wasn’t a bad guy. I guess as a lawyer he’d just learned to deal with stuff a certain way.

“Now, I’ve already talked to the district attorney, and you should hear from them soon, although it’s probably a formality at this point, since they pulled most of the restrictions already. If you run into any issues though, don’t hesitate to call my office.”

We spent a few more minutes talking about the case, although it was mostly just us thanking him, before Mr. Eaves had to leave and go back to his office to deal with cases that actually paid him.

Mom and I spent the rest of the day celebrating, both of us ecstatic that we didn’t have to deal with this anymore. Mom never did get around to reprimanding me for not telling her about the video.