Reading Time: 100 Minutes

Title: Spread Your Wings and Fly
Series: Becoming Evan
Series Order: 2
Author: Chimera01
Fandom: 9-1-1
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Family
Relationship(s): Gen
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Underage Sex, Canon Abuse and Violence, Character Death, Racism, Mentions Sexual Assault, Adult Language, Sexual Situations, Mentions Domestic Abuse, Mentions Mental Illness.
Author Note: Glossary tab is on main page
Word Count: 62,099
Summary: Evan Buckley grew up without the love of the person who should have loved him the most. This is what happens when an Emotional Support Grandmother takes him under her wing—and sets him free.
Artist: Twigen

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Prologue: The Aftermath

“I can’t believe this happened!”

Daniel Buckley, normally a calm and serene individual, was frantically pacing in the hallway just outside of his dorm room. Inside the room, Daniel’s wheelchair-bound brother was grilling Daniel’s roommate about his classes—which hadn’t even started yet. Daniel’s father, Philip, was leaning in the doorway, forearm braced on the door jamb, supporting his head as he watched his youngest son. Next to Philip was the Buckley Matriarch, Magdelina Francesca Rubio Buckley, who was uncharacteristically leaning on the wall, silently watching Daniel expend furious energy.

“It has happened, Daniel,” she said softly. “As much as I want also to deny this situation, this is where we stand.”

“Or sit,” Daneil snapped, eyes finding his brother’s seated form through the doorway.

Magdelina offered a brief smile. “It was a clean break, Daniel. The wrist is a minor concern, but only because it means Evan cannot use crutches at this time. The physician was most encouraging in that regard; the wrist will heal faster than the leg, so Evan will be ambulatory in just a few weeks.”

“He’s just so…,” Daniel’s voice trailed into silence as he gazed at his younger brother. Daniel shook his head and he turned to look at his grandmother. “He’s precious to me, Abuela. He always will be.”

Magdelina reached out to touch Daniel’s arm. “He is precious to all of us.”

“Apparently, he’s not precious to Mother,” Daniel growled. “I just…I can’t believe she went after him just because I went off to school! I’m not even that far away, for crying out loud!”

“I never would have guessed that Margaret was so unhinged,” Philip said softly. “I knew, of course, that she was taking your college choice hard, like she was being personally attacked, but to lash out at Evan!” Philip sighed and stepped away from the open door.

“The doctor said it was a minor psychotic break founded in some sort of mourning. Margaret will have therapy, possibly medication, but he thinks she’ll be able to come home in a month or so.”

“Come home?” Daniel asked. “You’re going to let her come back to live with Evan after this?”

“Of course not, Daniel,” Magdelina soothed. “I will be taking Evan from the house. Margaret will heal best in her own home, but Evan will likely feel threatened around her for some time. Your father and I agree that Evan will also need therapy and a safe environment.”

“You’re not going to take him out of the country, are you?” Daniel asked with a rough laugh.

Magdelina chuckled softly in response. “It is an idea, is it not? But no, I would not take Evan far from his father. I will bring him to my home in Philadelphia, which is only a short train ride from his parents. Evan will always love Margaret, even if he fears her at the moment, so I want to make certain that visits are easy.

“School starts in a few weeks, so I shall arrange tutors until Evan can move with ease. I shall also make arrangements with a child psychologist.”

“Does Evan know? About moving, I mean.”

“Yes, Daniel,” Philip assured. “He’s sad about leaving, of course, but I think he’s viewing it as starting his ‘adventure’ much earlier than you or Maddie did.”

Daniel smiled briefly. “Speaking of Maddie, what did she say about all this?”

Philip sighed and shook his head. “I’m not sure Maddie understood exactly what happened, but she was at least concerned about Evan. Her courses have already started, so it’s impossible for her to get away right now, and she was talking about missing Thanksgiving this year, so I don’t know when she’ll come around.”

“I’ll call her later,” Daniel said. “I’ll make her understand.”

Evan chose that moment to call for his father, so Daniel allowed his grandmother to pull him into a warm hug. “I’m glad you came back, Abuela. I know you were supposed to be in Peru for another month.”

“Family is everything, querido. For any of you, I would move mountains; getting on an airplane was a simple choice. You are all precious to me.”

“I know that Abuela,” Daniel sighed. “But it’s still nice to see proof every once in a while. You’ll bring him to visit me?”

Magdelina patted Daniel’s cheek softly. “Of course I will. I, also, am invested in how you are doing, though I shall leave the intrusive questions to Evan.”

Daniel laughed and turned to his brother, now in the hallway. “Evan asks questions because he wants to find his way in the world. I’d expect nothing else.”

 

Chapter One: Fifteen

“Hurry up, Lina! We’re going to be late!”

Fifteen-year-old Evan Buckley bounced down the front staircase of his grandmother’s stylish Philadelphia townhouse before coming to an incomplete stop at the heavy oak front door. Following at a much more sedate pace was his best friend in the whole world (that wasn’t his older brother), Geoff Ratner. Geoff joined Evan at the front door and offered his jubilant friend a patient smile–almost humoring the other boy.

Evan was rarely still, body in motion even in his sleep. His grandmother, Magdelina Buckley, rolled her eyes as she joined the duo in the foyer, amused by her grandson’s excitement.

“We are not going to be late, nino tonto. How can we be late when the event does not even begin until the location closes for business?”

Evan grinned unabashedly, hands tucking into the pockets of his worn jeans. “I know, Lina. Sorry.”

Magdelina reached out to tousle Evan’s blond curls before snagging her purse and keys. She offered a smile to Geoff, who shrugged and laughed along with his friend as they were ushered out the door. “One would never believe you are almost a young adult,” she said with a laugh. “And to be so eager to purchase a simple book, as well!”

“Lina! How dare you!” Evan chastised. “The Harry Potter books are not simple books! They are…”

“Adventures, yes. So you keep telling me.” Magdelina locked the door behind them as they headed for the waiting taxi. “And I suppose you shall attend the next movie premier, as well.”

“Yeah, of course. But that’s not until next year.”

Geoff opened the taxi door and climbed in ahead of the Buckleys. He was often invited along for special trips, like this midnight book release, and he enjoyed getting away from his own little sister as often as possible. Evan slid into the taxi beside his grandmother and slouched in his seat, knee bouncing to a song only Evan heard. A gentle pat on the leg stilled the movement and Evan ducked his head slightly.

“You’ve read the books, Lina, I know you have. I don’t know how you can’t see how great they are.”

Magdelina laughed softly. “I do know, querido. I joke, si?”

“Si! You’re a real riot, Lina.” Evan shared a grin with Geoff before straightening his mock-robe and scarf costume. He was wearing Ravenclaw Blue-and-Bronze while Geoff was clad in Hufflepuff Black-and-Yellow. Geoff had tried to decline the costume but Evan insisted, declaring that they most certainly would not be the only ones wearing House Colors.

Evan watched the city fly by as the taxi traversed the busy streets. “Is Daniel still coming?” he asked as the taxi drew ever closer to the bookstore.

“He was when last we spoke. He should have left an hour ago to beat the traffic.”

Evan nodded and began drumming his fingers against his leg. Geoff nudged him with an elbow.

“Evan Milagro Buckley!” Magdelina scolded. “What must we do to calm your energy?”

Evan quickly folded his hands together in his lap. “Sorry, Lina. I’m just excited to see Daniel again.”

“I understand, Evan. I am sure he is excited to see you, as well. His studies have been quite exhausting, so this tiny break will do you both some good.”

“At least one of my siblings wants to see me once in a while,” Evan muttered as the taxi drew to a stop in front of a bustling Barnes and Nobles.

“Enjoy the feeling,” Geoff admonished softly. “My sister is always up in my business and my parents are constantly trying to push us together. I love Angie, but she drives me crazy sometimes. Thirteen year old girls are a pain!”

“Yeah, I know,” Evan acquiesced. “But you live with your sister. Daniel is all the way in Baltimore, so I don’t get to see him much. And Maddie…” Evan sighed. “I don’t even know what to think about her anymore. I got a card from her at Christmas, but she didn’t come to visit. And she missed my last two birthdays; no phone call or card at all. It’s like she just left me behind when she went to college. If Mom and Dad weren’t paying for the whole thing, I doubt she’d be in touch at all.”

Magdelina shooed the boys out of the taxi before paying the driver and exiting herself. She took a moment to gaze at the milling crowd gathering at the entrance of the bookstore: dozens upon dozens of eager readers of all ages, many dressed as characters from their favorite book series, chattering in groups and gesticulating wildly as they debated what the newest book would reveal.

Magdelina had always been a reader, as was her mother, and she shared her love of the written word with her son, Philip, and her grandchildren. Only two of them, both grandsons, found complete joy within the pages of books detailing the ‘hero’s journey’ of a young wizard in a magical world. Maddie preferred, at one time, flowery romance novels featuring shirtless men in kilts on the paperback covers. Magdelina favored non-fiction primarily, but she had made a habit of pre-reading any book that Evan had shown an interest in so that she could discuss the book with him as he read. As much as she might deny it, the adventures of a magical child the same age as her youngest grandchild were quite compelling, though Magdelina personally thought the true magic of the books was in how they drew modern children—the video-game zombies she often observed at her family’s resorts—into a love of literature. Through the books–and the release parties of late–Evan found his best friend, and the two shared many interests besides reading.

Magdelina was also amused at how Evan had convinced his older brother, Daniel, to read the books despite his heavy medical school course load.

Daniel said they were the perfect escape from his exhausting reality. And because Evan was so ‘into’ the books, Daniel had made an effort to drive from Baltimore to attend book release parties for the last three books.

Prior to this year, with the release of the fifth book in the series, neither Daniel nor Evan had yet expressed an interest in donning pseudo-wizards’ robes and lens-less glasses like so many other attendees. But as the hero of the book turned fifteen years old just like Evan, he decided that this was the year to dress in his House Colors to honor his literary hero. Magdelina took the opportunity to treat Evan and his friend with custom scarves knitted in the trademark patterns to go along with their plain black polyester robes. She had also secretly mailed a scarf to her oldest grandson, patterned in red and gold, so that he could blend in with the crowd once he appeared.

As for herself? Well, Magdelina pulled a custom-felted tartan witch hat, complete with a dyed feather held by a jeweled brooch, from her purse and plopped in on her carefully coiffed hair before joining Evan and Geoff in the crowd.

“Evan,” Magdelina admonished as they took their places in the gathering line, “you know your sister is terribly busy in Boston. Her job in the hospital takes much of her time and she has begun making a life with a young man who is very much new to her life.”

Evan huffed. “At this point, she’ll probably not invite us to her wedding.”

“Si, well,” Magdelina tsked.

Magdelina really had no good response to that, because Maddie hadn’t been in close contact with anyone from the family since her graduation from her nursing program. In fact, Maddie had not even told her parents or grandmother when she was graduating, so they had no idea about it until well after the fact. Philip and Margaret were also unaware that Maddie was dating anyone seriously since her sparse letters were devoid of any information about a personal relationship. Magdelina found out about the relationship during a surprise visit on Maddie’s birthday, and was privately dismayed to know how much older Maddie’s ‘young man’ was. Magdelina kept her composure, as always, and congratulated Maddie on her completion of her degrees and her new job at a Boston Emergency Room. Maddie accepted a dinner invitation reluctantly, bringing her boyfriend along to meet her grandmother.

Douglas Kendall, Maddie’s new boyfriend, seemed outwardly quite charming, and was certainly not someone Maddie would be ashamed of. He was a doctor at the same hospital Maddie worked in, though not in the same department, so he was certainly intelligent. He did speak of his own accomplishments quite a bit, but he was happy to expound on how lucky he was to find Maddie. That was when Magdelina learned that Douglas Kendall was older than Maddie—thirty-five to Maddie’s twenty-four–and that they met while she was working as a student nurse alongside him in the hospital. Magdelina kept her opinion of the relationship to herself, allowing that Maddie was quite grown and could make her own romantic decisions. Philip Buckley was understandably upset that his little girl was making a life with a man he had never met, but he did send a generous ‘graduation gift’ along with a letter requesting a visit in order to meet Maddie’s partner. They had not, as far as Magdelina knew, visited her son and daughter-in-law at all.

“It is no matter, Evan,” Magdelina said after a moment. “Maddie has said she will be visiting for Thanksgiving this year, so you shall see her then.”

Evan smiled then, bright and cheerful. “There’s Daniel!” he exclaimed, and then began waving an arm high above the crowd. Geoff’s head jerked up and he glanced around to find the man in question.

After a moment, Daniel Buckley appeared at her side and ducked down to kiss her cheek.

“It’s lucky that Evan is so darned tall,” Daniel joked, “or else I’d have never found you in this crowd.”

“I believe we stand out quite well,” Magdelina laughed, indicating her own custom tartan witch’s hat against her silver-blonde hair. “But Evan does make a statement on his own.”

“I’m not as tall as Dad,” Evan denied even as he hugged his brother.

“It’s a near thing,” said Daniel. “I think you’ll out-grow him soon, and then where will we be?”

Daniel greeted Geoff with happy ease, having met the other boy during a brief visit the past Christmas break, and the three were happily discussing the book they were about to receive. Daniel playfully flicked Geoff’s Hufflepuff scarf and said, “I think we need a Slytherin to make our party complete.”

Evan wrinkled his nose a bit. “I don’t really know anyone in that House, not for real. I think me and Geoff are the only Potterheads in our school.”

Geoff bumped shoulders with Evan with a laugh. “Not the only ones, Evan,” he corrected. “We’re just the only ones that admit to it. I bet there are other kids in our grade here tonight.”

“But I bet none of them have their own Professor with them,” Daniel declared as he hooked his arm over Evan’s shoulders and winked at Magdelina.

Magdelina rolled her eyes slightly but smirked at her grandsons. She would admit, if only to herself, that she enjoyed the energy of the young crowd clamoring for the next book in a favored series.

The last of the regular customers were escorted out of the bookstore and then the lights went dark. The release party crowd became more subdued as they tightened their tiny groups, clusters of children of all sizes now whispering their predictions as they waited patiently for the midnight reopening.

“While we’re waiting,” Daniel said softly, “tell me about your classes, Evan. Are you still going to the climbing gym on the weekends?”

Evan preened under the attention of his older brother, and he happily expounded on his love of climbing in the new gym that had opened near the Martial Arts Academy he and Magdelina frequented. Magdelina had begun practicing Tai Chi shortly after her own son started school, finding the smooth stretches and movements to be the perfect meditation and exercise technique for her. Philip was not interested in the exercise as a child or an adult, nor was her late husband, but when she introduced Evan to the Art, she found another budding devotee. Evan had loved the smoothe movements of Tai Chi, but he really loved the dynamic movements of Aikido as a form of self-defense. It was a peaceful way of defense, using movement and energy to protect one’s self, and Evan took to it as easily as he took to climbing at the gym.

Evan and Geoff were off and running, telling Daniel about the new difficult walls at the climbing gym or Evan’s latest Aikido tournament. Daniel asked appropriate questions of both boys and in turn answered their questions about his residency. The age difference between Evan and Daniel never mattered to either young man, and each was incredibly interested in the life of the other.

Soon enough the doors of the bookstore opened, and Magdelina followed her grandsons into the party, grabbing a cupcake on the way to the main desk.

It was good to treat oneself appropriately.

~~~

“Lina, what do you think about going to Japan?”

Magdelina paused before lowering the newspaper into her lap. “What do you mean, nino?”

Evan gestured to the television, which was airing some sort of sporting competition. “This is a game show in Japan. It’s really popular there, and it’s getting popular in America, too.”

Magdelina abandoned her newspaper to join Evan on the sofa in the lounge. “What is this, then?”

“It’s like an obstacle course, but there’s a speed element to it, too.”

On the screen, a clip show presented competitors running over moving obstacles and reversed conveyor belts, often to be knocked into a pool of water.

“You like this…show?”

Evan grinned at his grandmother. “Yeah, I think it’s pretty cool.”

“So you would like to go to Japan to watch this being filmed, then?”

“Heck, no, Lina—I wanna try out!”

Magdelina sat back, startled. “Well, I think perhaps—not soon, no?”

Evan frowned. “You don’t think I can do it?”

Magdelina reached out and caressed Evan’s cheek. “I think, mi estrella brillante, that you can do anything you set your mind to. But I also think that you are still young and that your body is still growing. These athletes,” she gestured at the television, “they are in much better physical condition. They are also adults, and so they are fully developed. They have had time to train their bodies to do this thing.

“I think, if you want to do this, give yourself time to grow and become stronger. You are still becoming taller, and so your body is not completely under your control. I believe your brother has used the term ‘knees and elbows’, si? Allow yourself time to grow and train, and if you still are interested, I shall take you to Japan to try this thing.”

Evan smiled and nodded. “I can do that, Lina.” Evan turned back to the television and Magdelina crossed back to her chair.

She had only just resumed reading when he asked, “What do you think about me trying out for the wrestling team?”

~~~

Evan was sitting quietly in the school library trying to outline his Shakespeare essay when a body dropped into the chair across from him.

“Ev-aa-an,” sang his new tablemate, and Evan looked up from his notebook to see a dark-eyed blonde staring at him.

Evan refrained from sighing out loud. “Hey, Meggan. What’s up?”

“My folks are going out of town this weekend, and they said I could have a few friends over,” Meggan said with a saucy grin.

Evan shook his head at her and closed the notebook. “That sounds very ill-advised of them.”

Meggan reached across and ran her fingers lightly across his forearm. “You don’t wanna come over for a bit? We could have a fun time.”

Evan snorted and shook his head. “The only good time I plan on having this weekend involves Julius Caesar.”

Meggan raised one eyebrow and pouted. “I could show you a better time than Julius Caesar, Evan.”

“I’m sure you could, Meggan,” Evan agreed. “But I’m not getting graded on Meggan McCann, and Literature is the only sticky point on my midterms.”

“Maybe we could study together?” she asked with a saucy smile.

“Uh, huh, maybe.” Evan tossed his notebook and text into his backpack and zipped it shut. “And maybe that Leather Jacket I see you with after school might have something to say about that.” He shook his head and shouldered the backpack. “I don’t need that kind of hassle, thanks.”

Evan left a frowning Meggan behind him when he left the library and only flinched a tiny bit when a heavy arm landed across his shoulders, knocking him sideways.

“Geoff!” Evan laughed, shoving his friend away from him. “Get off! You’re heavy.”

“Uh-huh,” Geoff said with a grin. “I’m sweaty, too, cuz the showers are out in the locker room.”

“Delightful!” Evan rolled his eyes.

“So, I see the delectable Double-M was hitting you up again.”

Evan ran loose fingers through his hair, messing his curls badly. “Yeah, I don’t know what her deal is, man.”

“Ha!” Geoff scoffed. “Her deal is that she’s hot for your bod! Why do you keep leaving her hanging?”

Evan gave him a side-glance. “First of all, I doubt she’s hot for my bod. I barely have a bod. And secondly, and most importantly, she’s got a boyfriend I want no part of.”

“Oh, yeah. Andrew Greer.” Geoff shook his head. “I think he graduated a few years ago, man.”

“Uh-huh. Which begs the question of why he’s hanging with a fifteen-year-old girl, but whatever. I see him outside the Academy sometimes, but he never comes in. And Master Eng sometimes comes out to chase him off, so I know he’s bad news because Master Eng likes everybody.”

“Um, no,” Geoff corrected. “Master Eng likes everybody who has the discipline to study the Ancient Arts of Defence. Any of the Ancient Arts of Defense. And your grandmother—he likes your grandmother.”

Evan laughed and shoved Geoff’s shoulder. “Everybody likes my grandmother.”

“This is very true,” Geoff agreed. “When am I coming for dinner again?”

Evan threw up his hands and adjusted his pack. “I dunno—come tonight. Bring your sister and Lina can help her with her Spanish while you and I tackle Algebra and Julius Caesar.”

“Good deal, my brother. I’ll call the parents after lunch and tell them the plan. But first, I need to get the wet-wipes out of my locker and try to get rid of some of this stench.”

“Uh, huh, that sounds like a great idea. And you can take a real shower at my place before dinner.”

 

~~~

Evan knocked on the door of the two-storey colonial house he had grown up in, feeling out of place like he always did in that circumstance. He hadn’t felt at home there since he was nine years old.

Since the ‘incident,’ as it was called within the extended family.

He sighed in relief when his father, Philip, answered the door and enveloped him in a warm hug.

“You don’t have to knock, Evan. You’re always welcome here; this is your home.”

“I know, Dad,” Evan whispered. “I just didn’t want to surprise Mom, you know?”

Philip stepped back and pulled his son into the house, holding the door for his mother to follow.

“I know, Evan. She’s been good this week, though, and was really happy about your report card.”

Evan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “She was?”

Philip gave a half-shrug. “She said she was glad you were doing well. Right now she’s more anxious about Maddie being here after such a long absence, so I doubt anything else is really on her mind.”

Evan sighed again. “I’m anxious about Maddie being here, too,” he admitted. “I think Lina is the only one who has really met Maddie’s boyfriend, and she hasn’t said much about him.”

Behind him, Magdelina tutted and took off her overcoat. “I have always preferred to allow others to gain their own impressions, and you all know that. I will say that I found Douglas Kendall to be perfectly polite the one time that I met him.”

“And that’s a raving review if I ever heard one,” announced Daniel as he came in from the kitchen. “Hello, Abuela, Evan. How was the ride in?”

“Probably less frantic than yours,” Evan retorted, hanging up his own winter coat. “How are things in the kitchen? Did we get here in time to help?”

“You got here just in time to help make the sides,” Philip confessed. “I got the turkey in while your mother cleaned. I hate having you work on a holiday, Mother.”

“Nonsense, Philip,” Magdelina chastised. “This is a family holiday, and so the family must work together to make it so.” She clapped her hands together and announced, “Well, since you did the job of getting the turkey ready, I shall take my handsome grandsons into the kitchen and relieve your wife of the burden of working so hard on this day. The house is lovely, so no doubt she shall enjoy the break.”

Magdelina headed for the kitchen, calling a greeting to Margaret on the way. Evan lingered, shooting a questioning glance at his brother.

“Have you heard from Maddie yet?”

“Yeah,” Daniel confirmed. “She called the house a couple of hours ago. Apparently Doug insisted on driving, so they left early this morning. Incredibly early.” Daniel rolled his eyes. “Why they couldn’t have left last night is beyond me, because they both have the long weekend off.”

“Yes, well, apparently Douglas had other plans for this weekend,” Philip interjected before following his mother to the kitchen, leaving Evan and Daniel in the foyer. “And I doubt any of those plans included shopping with your mother for Black Friday Deals.”

“How is she, really?” Evan whispered cautiously.

Daniel shrugged and hooked an arm around Evan’s shoulders. “Not bad yet little brother. She hasn’t opened the wine yet, so that’s something, right?”

“I don’t know, Daniel. It’s only ten o’clock in the morning. Surely, she’s still nursing her pot of coffee.”

Evan’s relationship with his mother was cautious at best. He had been living full-time with his grandmother since he was nine years old—ever since his mother tried to attack him, leaving him tumbling down the front stairs backwards and breaking his right wrist and left leg. Margaret was sent to a psychiatric facility for evaluation that very night, which led to a six-month confinement with therapy and medication.

Evan had been destroyed.

Even as a child, he understood that his mother preferred her daughter and oldest son over him. Maddie was the girl, the perfect princess that Margaret doted on and spoiled until Maddie was old enough to have her own opinions about pink, frilly dresses. Daniel was the boy that Margaret said was her husband’s due—someone to carry on the family name. He was Margaret’s pride and joy until he became extremely ill at the age of seven years, and then he became her obsession. Evan, it seemed, was barely an afterthought.

Or so it seemed to him at the time.

After years of therapy, both by himself with a child psychologist, and together with his parents and a family counselor, Evan finally asked his father and grandmother why his mother just didn’t like him. With help from his child psychologist, Evan’s father told him the full story: How Maddie was a surprise pregnancy, but one they embraced whole-heartedly as they began their family. How he and Margaret needed IVF to have Daniel because natural conception would have been difficult. How, when Daniel got Leukemia, they tried every treatment available, until the only option was a bone marrow transplant. How they tried to find a match for Daniel before it was too late, but none were found. How, during the stress of the whole thing, Margaret found herself pregnant.

Miraculously.

With Evan.

Evan took the news easily, but with a drop of cynicism that Magdelina was proud of. What was the catch, he had asked. He was twelve years old.

Philip then had to admit that Margaret had, without his knowledge, gone back to the fertility clinic and used one of Philip’s ‘contributions’ that had been still frozen, and created a perfect HLA match for Daniel. She had continued the pregnancy as if it were a happy accident right to the birth, which was a scheduled C-section, and allowed Daniel to name the baby, which she called a gift to him.

Margaret. Had told Daniel. That the new baby was made just for him. Made. Just. For. Him.

To be a miracle, to give him a magical transplant that would save his life.

Taking that to heart, Daniel dove into Baby Name books and chose ‘Evan Milagro,’ falling back on his Spanish heritage. Basically, Daniel named his brother, his savior, Miracle from a Gracious Lord.

Evan at six always liked hearing that his brother chose his name personally.

Evan at nine would joke that Daniel had a wicked sense of humor when naming him.

Evan at thirteen wondered why his mother had bothered to create a miracle if she wasn’t prepared to love him.

Now, at fifteen, Evan was able to be in the same room as his mother and hold superficial conversations, but he always kept in mind that Margaret only saw him as a means to an end and didn’t really care for him.

The irony of the whole sad situation is that Margaret’s disdain for Evan made Daniel pull back from her, because Evan meant the world to Daniel. Maddie had distanced herself once she went away to college, growing tired of being Margaret’s dress-up doll of a daughter, but Evan was never sure if Maddie understood what had happened to him when he was nine. She was mostly absent from his young life from the moment she left for college, with only infrequent phone calls or letters reminding him that he even had a sister. Maddie visited once during her first Christmas break, but she spent most of those weeks spending time with high school friends that she was quickly growing apart from. Maddie stayed in Boston after the Spring semester ended, finding a job and a place to live with other students, and never came back again.

So Evan happily visited his father, Philip, every chance he got, and he was polite to Margaret when he was there. He talked about school and sports, and Margaret asked all the right questions. She was so very polite and pleasant most of the time, which is why Evan began suspecting that Margaret was keeping herself carefully sedated during his visits. Evan knew that Margaret was vocally against psychiatric medications because she would criticize neighbors that admitted to using them, and he also knew that Margaret stopped therapy as soon as she could get away with per the court order, but Philip seemed to support his wife as best he could.

Philip was with Margaret for better or for worse, until the very end.

It was Daniel that later confirmed the liberal application of wine after witnessing Margaret ‘doctoring’ her tea after a birthday celebration when Evan was twelve. It was Daniel’s twenty-first birthday. His first ‘legal’ birthday. Daniel enjoyed a drink with his father, but stopped at just one after watching his mother casually empty a bottle of wine by herself.

And if she wasn’t wining herself down to stay calm, she was caffinating herself up to face her personal tribulations.

“Gah, Evan!” Daniel exclaimed. “You know too much coffee is bad for you!”

Evan laughed at his brother and knocked his arm off his shoulder. “Yeah, but having her caffeinated and alert and engaged is better than watching her droop boozy all over the dinner table, isn’t it? So, what are your thoughts on our dear sister?”

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t even know, Ev. I mean, I’ve not seen Maddie since the last time you saw her. I got the same holiday and birthday cards that everybody else did, but no phone calls. I was hoping to make time before my residency to visit, but Maddie wrote and told me that she was super busy and couldn’t take time for a visit, so that idea got blown out of the water. At least Abuela got to visit her and get proof of life. I got the same Christmas card that you did last year, and she never mentioned a boyfriend to me.”

“Well, she’s finally bringing him home to meet the family,” Evan said. “That’s good, right?”

“Not if he’s an utter troll. Maddie was always the bubbly sort, cheerleading and lollipops.”

“Ha!” Evan laughed. “Cheerleading, maybe. But she always wanted to take care of people. I know she took care of me a lot. I think she’d be a great mom someday.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. “Of course, that might be a holdover from when I was in the hospital. We all practically lived there until after the transplant, so she taught me from her own homework, and we both fed and played with you. Dad and Abuela were more engaged back then, but Mom…”

“Yeah,” Evan huffed. “I know.” He shook his head and straightened his spine. “Well, mashed potatoes wait for no man, my brother, so let’s get to.”

The kitchen of the Buckley home in Hershey, PA, was large, bright, and inviting, so naturally everybody gathered there for meals and conversation. Evan’s favorite room in the house was the bright, cozy living room, but the kitchen held happy memories, too. He learned how to cook there, even if it was only simple stuff like meatloaf or pasta. Daniel would help Evan with homework while sitting at the small table in front of a large bay window. Maddie and Philip would sing ‘Happy Birthday” to him at the tiled island in the middle of the kitchen. Evan even had somewhat pleasant memories of Margaret sitting at the island, reviewing paperwork and humming while sipping coffee or tea. The kitchen was, as Magdelina always said, the heart of the home.

At that moment, the kitchen was filled with the scents of holiday cooking. Magdelina was adding spices to a rice dish while Philip was preparing yams. Margaret was sitting at the table, steaming mug in front of her, watching with detached interest.

“I’ll put the pies in the oven once the bread is out,” Margaret said before turning to her sons. “Evan, you’re looking well.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he said as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. “You look good, too. How is that gallery show going?”

“I think I’ll be pleased once we’ve opened. Magdelina tells me you’re starting on the wrestling team next semester.”

And so it went, small-talk and politeness when there should have been laughter and tall-tales and private family jokes. When Evan visited with just Daniel in Baltimore, things were easier. They were easier when it was just Philip, too, when Evan wasn’t trying so hard. He had long since stopped trying to get his mother to love him; now he settled for distant politeness. If Margaret was willing to go through the motions for a pleasant family dinner, then Evan could do no less.

He saved the bragging for his father and brother, once Margaret had wandered upstairs to change into ‘company clothes.’ Magdelina started, telling her son about Evan coming in second in an Aikido tournament. Then Evan admitted to being accepted at a wilderness adventure camp that would take place the following summer.

“I’m really looking forward to it because it’ll mean getting to do some free climbing outside of the gym for a change.”

“It’s more than rock climbing though, isn’t it?” Daniel asked.

“Well, yeah. There will be more hiking and some rafting. I’m really looking forward to riding the white water!”

Magdelina shuddered dramatically. “Why am I surrounded by such wild children?”

Philip laughed and kissed his mother on the forehead. “At least I stuck to basketball and driving lessons.”

“Oh!” Daniel exclaimed. “Speaking of driving lessons! Are you excited to get your permit, Evan?”

Evan shrugged. “I mean, I guess so? I take public transport everywhere I need to go now, so I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

Philip scoffed good-naturedly. “Don’t you want to drive your dates to the movies?”

“I don’t have dates, Dad. I’m too—not into dating, I guess?”

Daniel smiled knowingly. “Can’t find a fellow geek to go out with you?”

Evan laughed. “It’s not that, really. There’s just nobody I’m interested in like that. I have friends that I do class work with, and I have friends at the climbing gym and the Academy, but I’m just not interested in dating right now. But there is this one girl that keeps trying to get me to go out with her.”

“You don’t like her?” Daniel asked.

“I guess she’s okay. She’s not unintelligent, but she’s—not smart about some things. Like, before midterms, she told me that her parents were going out of town for a weekend and she wanted to have some people over for a party, which is totally the plot of every after school special I’ve ever heard of. And she’s always around this one guy who just gives off a really bad vibe.” Evan rolled his eyes. “I looked him up because he’s really shifty, you know? And he graduated four years ago. I mean, what twenty-year-old wants to hang out with a fifteen-year-old girl?”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound very responsible,” Philip agreed. “But you don’t have to worry about dating, Evan. You have plenty of time for that. There is no rush.”

Margaret had rejoined them by that time and chimed in with a friendly, “I didn’t date much in high school, either. I was too interested in earning a scholarship to college since paying for it would have been difficult for my family. I really didn’t fall in love until I met your father in college, so there is no rush on that sort of thing.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Evan said shyly. “That’s really helpful. I’d just like to concentrate on school right now, and then on the wilderness camp this summer. If I do as well at the training, I can get a part-time job at the climbing gym as a junior trainer.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting,” Margaret said as she refilled her coffee mug. “Is teaching climbing something you’re interested in?”

“Well, I like the climbing part,” Evan admitted. “Teaching might not be my ultimate goal, but I like working with the kids that come with their parents. If I get the job as a junior trainer, I can teach those kids the basics on a beginner wall. And any experience is valuable experience, right?”

“Too right, Evan,” Philip said as he basted the turkey once again. “Even if becoming a teacher isn’t your goal, that kind of experience shows how adaptable you are. A part-time job like that at your age will look good on college applications. Have you started looking at colleges yet?”

“Not yet,” Evan said, accepting a knife and cutting board from his grandmother. “I think I’d like to have a better idea of what I want to study before I start looking. There’s no point in heading to a college that won’t offer a program I’m interested in.”

“And in order to go away to any college, you’ll need transportation,” Daniel redirected. “So maybe you should look into driving lessons.”

The much-lighter conversation continued through the rest of the meal preparation until the doorbell rang just shy of one o’clock.

“Oh, that must be Maddie,” Margaret stated as she made her way out of the kitchen. “I’m so happy she was able to come!”

The muffled conversation could barely be heard in the kitchen, but since no voices were raised in anger or irritation, Evan counted it as a win.

“I wonder what this guy is like,” he said, glancing at his father and brother.

Daniel bumped shoulders with him and said, “Well, we’re about to find out.”

“See,” Maddie exclaimed as she led the way toward the rest of the family, “I told you everybody would be in the kitchen!”

“So I see,” answered a male voice slightly further away. “Does everyone in this family cook?”

“Yes!” all three Buckley males answered as one.

Laughing, Maddie jogged to Philip with open arms. “Hi, Daddy! I missed you!”

“I missed you, too,” Philip responded with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Maddie pulled away and immediately embraced her grandmother. “It’s good to see you again, Gran.”

“Si, Maddie,” Magdelina replied. “You are looking well.”

Margaret returned to the kitchen with Douglas Kendall in tow and the man looked around the room in a way that made Evan think of criminals in old gangster movies, the way they ‘cased a joint’ before planning a robbery. He stole a glance at his brother and found the same distrust on Daniel’s face.

“Doug,” Maddie said as she took the man’s arm and pulled him further into the kitchen, “this is my father, Philip, and my two baby brothers, Evan and Daniel.”

“I’m a year younger than you,” Daniel groused. “I hardly think I can be called a baby anything anymore.” Daniel reached forward to shake Doug’s hand. “Welcome to the family, I suppose.”

“Thank you.” Doug turned to Evan and extended his hand. “And you’re Evan, then?”

“Yeah, though I’m not a baby, either.”

Daniel chuckled and clapped Evan on the shoulder. “Ah, yes, a man at the ripe old age of fifteen!”

“Still not a baby,” Evan grumbled.

“Well, as much as I’d love to get to know my daughter’s beau on this family holiday,” Philip stated as he pulled the turkey from the oven, “why don’t we head into the living room? It’s getting crowded in here.”

“Oh!” Margaret started. “I have to get…the…pies.”

Evan glanced at his mother’s coffee mug and wondered how she added anything other than coffee when they weren’t looking. “I can do the pies, Mom, if you’d rather go spend time with Maddie and Doug.”

Margaret blinked, obviously surprised at being addressed by her youngest child. “Thank you, Evan. That’s very kind of you.”

Magdelina nodded to her grandsons before wrapping her arm around Margaret’s shoulders and guiding her from the kitchen. “You will join us soon, si?”

“Si, Abuela,” Daniel chirped, making Evan laugh.

Once they were alone in the kitchen, Evan looked at Daniel and mouthed “Wow!” before pulling pie crusts from the fridge.

“I know Abuela said he was older than Maddie, but really!”

Evan laughed. “Does she seem happy? I mean, I haven’t really seen Maddie since she went off to school in Boston. She didn’t even come home when…I went to live with Lina.”

Daniel sighed. “You can say it, Evan. It’s ok. Hell, it’s probably healthy to say it. Our mother went nuts when I took myself off to Baltimore, a whole two hours away by car, and she tried to do bodily harm to you for no good reason.”

Evan’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “It’s probably healthy to talk about it with my therapist, but I doubt it’ll be healthy for any of us to bring it up over cranberry salsa. Still, the fact remains that I saw you loads more often than Maddie after you both went off to explore higher education, and I haven’t seen her at all since my cast came off.”

“Yeah, she really burned her bridges, didn’t she?” Daniel sighed. “Well, I don’t know if she’s really happy or not, but it looks like she’s ready to put on a show.” Daniel took the two pies from Evan and popped them into the oven. “The question is—why is she putting on a show?”

The pre-dinner conversation was polite and proper. Doug asked all the right questions about Daniel’s concentration in medical school (I went in thinking about Oncology, but I changed to Orthopedics and Surgery after my surgical rotation.) and Evan’s favorite school subjects (I like math and history, but my favorites are outside of school.). Doug complimented Margaret and said how Maddie had to have gotten her good looks, and he was curious about Philip’s work as an architect.

Doug held Maddie’s hand the whole time.

Philip asked about Doug’s place at the hospital in Boston, which led to the revelation that Doug was offered a position in Neurosurgery at the Hospital in Hershey.

“Oh, so you’ll be moving here?” Philip asked cautiously.

“We’ll be moving closer, yes,” Doug confirmed with a tight smile at Maddie. “It’s one of the reasons we drove down instead of flying. We have a list of houses and apartments to look at on Saturday and Sunday.”

“So you’re staying…?”

“We have a nice room at the Hilton near the hospital. I’m afraid that we’ll be quite busy for the next week or so.”

“Surely you’ll have time tomorrow, Maddie?” Margaret pleaded. “You’ve been gone so long.”

Maddie glanced at Doug, and Evan saw him nod slightly. “I’ll have time for you tomorrow, Mother, of course! You weren’t planning on Black Friday shopping, were you?”

Margaret shuddered and drank deeply from her mug. “Oh, no. I think the family has outgrown that sort of thing, and I can’t bear the crowds.”

“Will you still be here, Gran?” Maddie asked Magdelina.

Magdelina shot a look at Evan, who shrugged slightly. “I think we may be able to stay for a bit, Maddie. I know Daniel must head back to Baltimore tonight.”

“Sorry Mads,” Daniel said. “I’ve got morning rounds.”

“That’s okay, Daniel. You’ll be close enough that we can catch up a lot in the future.”

Evan watched as Doug squeezed Maddie’s hand tightly before releasing it. Maddie barely reacted.

~~~

“Have you met Doug’s family, Maddie?” Evan asked as he poured iced tea at the coffee table in the cozy lounge. “What are they like?”

“I’ve met them a few times,” Maddie explained. “His father is an attorney, and his mother is a housewife. Doug isn’t…close to them, really.”

“Do they have any other children?” Margaret asked, pulling a cork from a wine bottle.

“No, Doug is an only child.” Maddie sighed. “When we started dating, Doug introduced me to his grandfather, who was a successful surgeon in Boston. Doug’s father is a popular attorney and he wanted Doug to follow in his footsteps and join his firm, but Doug had higher ideals and wanted to study medicine like his grandfather.”

“Being a lawyer is a big deal, Maddie,” said Evan. “It’s not like the man digs ditches.”

Maddie laughed. “Well, no, but the whole Kendall Family is in medicine. Stuart Kendall was a surgeon in the Army. His oldest daughter was also an Army surgeon and Doug’s youngest aunt has a thriving private practice in Boston. Randall is the only holdout in the family.

“In any case, Stuart paid dearly to make sure that Doug had the best education, and he apparently told Doug many times that it would please him greatly to see Doug settled with a good medical practice and a good wife.”

“Does working in a hospital count as a practice?” Margaret asked.

“Well, yes,” Maddie said after a moment. “I mean, that job Doug was offered was as Chief of Neurosurgery, which is very prestigious. Doug said that his grandfather was incredibly pleased with the offer, even if it meant moving from Boston.”

“So you’ll be moving back home because Doug is moving here,” Margaret said dully. “Are you really happy with him, then?”

Maddie hesitated, sipping her iced tea. “I am,” she said finally. “We knew each other from working in the hospital when I was just a student nurse, but he didn’t ask me on a date until I had settled in as a strictly Emergency Room nurse. He didn’t want there to be any suggestion of impropriety, which there could have been if I had decided to become a surgical nurse.”

“That sounds very…proper,” Magdelina allowed, and Maddie blushed.

“Some of my coworkers think he’s too old for me, but I like that he’s established in his career.”

“That’s good, Maddie,” Evan said, trying to sound sincere. “Maybe we’ll be able to get together sometimes now that you’ll be closer.”

“Closer?” Maddie scoffed. “We’ll be in the same town! We’ll see each other all the time.”

Evan blinked and looked frantically at this grandmother. “Um, Mads…”

“I need to…I’ll be right back,” Margaret stuttered, and she removed herself to the kitchen, taking her wine with her.

“Maddie,” Magdelina said, “you do remember the incident that occurred here when Evan was nine, yes?”

Maddie shook her head. “Dad said he fell down the stairs and broke his leg and wrist. He was just a clumsy kid, that’s all.” Magdelina sighed and Evan rubbed his hands over his face. “Is that not what happened?” Maddie asked.

“No, I did fall down the stairs,” Evan admitted. “But I did that when Mom kinda chased after me.”

“Do not question further, Maddie,” Magdelina interrupted when Maddie opened her mouth again. “Now is not the time, and this was all explained to you when you were apparently too busy to remember. The simple fact is that Margaret did not handle well the fact that Daniel was grown and leaving the family home. Your father tried to call you, to bring you back and make you aware of what was going on, but you were terribly busy in Boston.”

“I was building a life there,” Maddie excused softly. “I just couldn’t stand the way Mom ignored Evan on most days while Dad tried to make up for it. I hated that Mom always wanted me to be her perfect little girl no matter what I wanted for my life, and I needed to be away.”

“And Daniel was always Mom’s favorite,” Evan continued. “I knew it then, and I know it now. And that’s okay, really, but I was really afraid that she was going to kill me back then. Mom was in a hospital for a long time, Maddie, but we all knew that I wasn’t going to be safe at home when she was released, so Lina took me.

“Maddie, I grew up in Philadelphia with Lina,” Evan said, holding her gaze. “I’m doing well in school, and I see Daniel on really odd weekends, and Dad either visits us or I take the train here.”

“But that’s horrible, Evan!” Maddie exclaimed.

“No, it’s really not, Maddie. I’m good now. Dad is going to teach me how to drive this year. I mean, it would be nice if I got to see you now and then, but I’ve barely gotten a birthday card from you since I turned ten, and I only knew you have a serious boyfriend because Lina decided to surprise you last year.”

Maddie hung her head and twisted her hands together in her lap. “Doug’s grandfather wanted to make sure he was in a good relationship. I was under a lot of scrutiny because of how much money his family has, so we tried to keep things…intimate. Just us. I never told the Kendalls about my family, other than my father is an architect and my mother works in an art museum.”

“Geez, Maddie,” Evan exclaimed, “do they even know you have brothers?”

“Of course they do,” Maddie hissed. “Doug’s grandfather was very impressed that Daniel is studying to be a doctor.” Maddie shot a quick glance at Magdelina and added, “I just never told them about…the extended family.”

Magdelina smiled softly and raised her teacup to her lips. “The Kendall family do not know about the Rubio family and our own fortune, is that not so?”

“It’s just very important to Doug–and to his family–that he be a good provider,” Maddie defended. “Doug didn’t–doesn’t need to know about that part of our family. He knows that Dad paid for college, and he knows that I work hard to support myself and my lifestyle in Boston.”

Maddie sighed. “I have a good life in Boston, so moving back to Hershey is going to be hard.”

“You thought you left us all behind,” Evan whispered. “We’re part of your past, not your future.”

“Oh, Evan, no!” Maddie cried, and she fell to her knees in front of his chair, clutching his hands with her own. “I never wanted to put you all behind me! I love you very much and I’m so sorry that I’ve not been in contact with you. I got caught up in my work and my life and my friendships, and I guess I forgot what was really important.

“When Doug got the job offer here in Hershey and asked me to move with him, I was shocked. We don’t live together in Boston, and he keeps his family life separate from me in almost every way. I only met them last month, and that was because of the job offer. We’d still be living in Boston and maybe thinking about getting married if not for that.”

Evan lifted his stricken eyes to hers and sniffed. “Would you have just forgotten all about us, Maddie? You never call anymore and I don’t remember the last time you came to visit. You promised that you would come back every semester break, and that’s the first promise that you ever broke to me.”

Maddie choked on a sob and rubbed her eyes furiously. Evan pulled gently away from her as Magdelina wrapped her arms around Maddie’s shoulders.

“Maddie, querida, we do not mean to make you sad,” Magdelina said softly.

Maddie shook her head. “No, it’s…you’re not making me sad. I’m mad at myself, I think, Gran. I couldn’t take how Mom was after Daniel got better, and I just…”

“You found your own way, querida nina. I do understand that, and so do your brothers.”

Evan took a breath to calm himself. “I’m sorry I made you upset, Maddie. I just miss you. A lot.”

Maddie laughed sadly. “I tried to find myself away from the crazy, and I lost the rest of you.”

“We’re not lost, Maddie,” Evan denied. “I’ve been right here. Well, in Philadelphia, really, but you could always reach me. And I’ve called you lots, but you never returned the calls.”

Maddie shook her head. “No, that’s not right, Evan. I got your cards, but I never got calls or messages.”

Evan frowned at her. “I’m not lying, Maddie.”

“Maddie,” Magdelina said gently, “we have all called you over the years, and have received no responses. It is why I just traveled to Boston last year without warning you that I was coming. I was honestly worried that something horrid had happened to you.”

Maddie broke away from her grandmother and reached for her purse just as Margaret rejoined the rest of them.

“I’m sorry,” Margaret hitched. “I just got such a headache.” She looked around at her children and looked lost for a moment. “Why is everyone crying?”

“There may have been a misunderstanding, Margaret,” Magdelina said, soothingly. “Perhaps I should make some tea, si?”

“I should help,” Margaret said hesitantly. “Yes, let’s make tea. Or coffee. We have pie leftover.”

Magdelina guided Margaret into the kitchen as the trio of siblings brought their cell phones together over the coffee table.

“Okay,” said Evan after a moment, “Maddie, I want you to call my number. I’ve had it forever, so you should have it saved in there.”

Maddie nodded and opened her contact list and pressed the key for Evan, and his phone chirped twice, and then twice again before Maddie cut the contact.

“Well,” he said after a moment, “at least we know that you haven’t, in fact, lost my number.”

Maddie shook her head as a tear fell from her eye. “Of course I didn’t. I would never! I just don’t know why I never called.”

“Sometimes when you get busy, everything else takes a back seat,” Evan said gently. “Daniel got bogged down with classes, too. Med school is no joke when it comes to pressure and it was really easy to forget everything that wasn’t a class, lecture, or dissection. But Lina and I made sure to call him often and to visit on the odd weekends, so we sort of forced Daniel to keep in touch.”

Maddie nodded absently. “Right. Keeping busy with school ensured that I would succeed in making my own way away from our parents, but that really is no excuse.” Maddie blinked away the tears and stared at her phone for a moment before looking up. “Evan, would you please call me?”

“Of course, Maddie,” Evan replied, and he deftly dialed his phone.

The call refused to connect.

Frowning, Evan hit the redial option from when Maddie called him.

No connection.

Maddie frowned at her own phone until Evan slipped it from her hands. Fiddling with the contact list and her settings for a moment, he finally huffed in anger.

“We’ve been blocked.”

“What?” Maddie sounded confused and angry. “I never blocked you!” she said as she took back her phone. Evan watched as she scrolled through her contact list and settings only to see that his contact number was blocked–and so was every other number belonging to her family members.

“I don’t understand. Can you find out how that happened?”

“No,” Evan denied with a laugh. “I’m not a tech expert. I just know how to navigate the blocked list. We’re all on there, even Lina.”

“Could, um, could I have done this accidentally?” she asked. “You know–like a butt-dial?”

“Maddie,” Evan said patiently, “you have a slide phone. You can’t even butt-dial with that thing because the keys aren’t exposed. Do you have a habit of programming your phone in your sleep?”

Maddie snorted at the absurd question before sobering. “I did not do this. I would never block any of you. Despite evidence to the contrary, my family is very important to me.”

“That is so wonderful to hear, querida,” Magdelina said as she and Margaret entered the lounge carrying two tea trays. “You are very important to me, as well.”

“What’s going on?” Margaret asked as she set her tray on the coffee table. “You two look so serious.”

Maddie huffed. “I just found out that the reason I never got any calls from any of you is because, somehow, your contacts are blocked on my phone. No calls or texts will come through from any of you.”

“How on Earth did that happen?” Margaret asked. “I mean, I always thought you preferred to send letters to us rather than call. It was charming to get a letter or card from you for no reason at all. The ladies at the museum all thought so.”

Maddie smiled wanly. “I’ll always send letters and cards, Mom, don’t worry. I like being able to take the time to think about what I want to say and phone calls always seem so…rushed.”

“Well,” Evan broke in with a grin, “you’ll be moving closer soon, so you won’t actually have to mail a letter or card anymore. You can actually take the time to visit once in a while.”

Maddie brightened considerably. “That’s right! I can go to lunch with Mom every week if I want to, and I’ll make an effort to visit with you, Evan. I promise. And I’ll make sure to unblock you so your calls will go through from now on.”

The conversation flowed more easily after that, and Evan was grateful. When the dinner hour approached, Margaret excused herself to the kitchen to start preparations. Magdelina began gathering the tea service and cups together on the two trays as she and Evan tried to convince Maddie to read more for recreation, with Evan expounding on the various fantasy series that he enjoyed.

Maddie looked toward the kitchen, which was silent. “Is mom really okay now?”

Magdelina shrugged daintily. “Perhaps she is, perhaps she is not. Philip said she quit therapy some time ago, but she seems stable. We try to keep the conversation light around Margaret.”

Evan reached out and patted Maddie’s hands. “Maybe she’ll even be okay to come to my high school graduation, Maddie. We talk to each other weekly, but I really try not to stand too close to her.”

“And Daniel tries to not come home often at all?” Maddie asked

“Daniel comes for visits when he can,” Magdelina confirmed. “He was very much distressed by the incident and does not like to think that his mother would harm his precious brother.”

~~

The knock at the door came late into the evening at the end of Christmas break. Evan looked up from his book and asked, “Are you expecting anyone, Lina?”

“Not at this hour, no. Please answer the door, Evan.”

Evan put down his book and left the warmth of the fireplace when the knock sounded again. Opening the door, Evan found his best friend, Geoff, standing on the stoop, dripping from the frigid drizzle that had been falling all day long.

“Geoff? What are you doing here?”

“Hey, man,” Geoff stammered. “Can I come in? I didn’t know where to go.”

Evan stepped back, noticing his grandmother behind him in the hall, and gestured for Geoff to come in. Once in the light of the hallway, Evan could see a bruise blooming on Geoff’s face and dried blood on his lip.

“What happened to you, man? You get into a fight?”

Geoff shoved his hands into his coat pockets and hunched his shoulders. “My dad, man. When he gets angry…”

“Your father hit you? Why?”

“Evan, bring Geoff into the kitchen,” Magdelina ordered softly. “I will make tea. No–chocolate, I think. That will soothe you.”

Evan took Geoff’s coat and hung it by the door before leading the other boy further into the house. Geoff was a frequent guest at the house, often joining Evan and his grandmother for dinner and math tutoring, so he walked confidently with his head still hunched down.

“Sit, Geoff,” Magdelina directed. “I shall bring you your chocolate and you shall tell us what has happened.”

Geoff laughed mirthlessly. “My mom was sorting the laundry, and she found some photos.” He looked up to see concerned faces staring back at him. “It was a strip of pictures from a photobooth, the one at the mall. I went there with, um, Michael Healey a couple of days ago.”

Evan frowned. “Who is Michael Healey? Does he go to our school?”

Geoff shook his head. “He’s the captain of the basketball team at Marshal Academy. He’s, um, my boyfriend?”

Magdelina sighed as she ladled the thick Spanish chocolate into mugs. “You have been keeping this secret from your parents, si?”

“Yeah,” Geoff sighed. “From everybody, really.” He looked up to see Evan ‘s frown. “Are you mad?”

Evan shook his head and accepted a mug and spoon from his grandmother. “I’m not mad at you, Geoff. Not like you think. I’m upset that you felt you couldn’t tell me, but I get why.”

“Yeah, well, Mom didn’t get it. Michael was kissing me in the pictures. He took half of the strip, and I got the other half, and I forgot to take them out of my cargo pants.” Geoff huffed. “Mom was crying and asking if I was sure I was gay—and Dad heard her and came into my room all angry. He said, ‘absolutely not,’ like it was his choice, and I said I was gay, and I had a boyfriend, and that we were happy.

“And then Dad got really pissed and said that no son of his was a freaking pervert and he started whaling on me like a crazy person! Mom pulled him off me, but Dad told me to get out, that I wasn’t his son, and I wasn’t living there.” Geoff’s voice broke and he sniffed back tears. “I just didn’t know where to go.”

“You are always welcome here,” Magdelina said. She patted Geoff’s shoulder and turned to her grandson. “Get some pajamas for your friend, Evan. I must make a phone call.”

Evan watched, bemused, as his grandmother left the kitchen in favor of her office.

“Your grandmother is a wonderful lady, man,” Geoff said as he drank the thick chocolate–which was superior to any cocoa mix that he’d ever had.

Evan laughed. “Yeah, I know. C’mon, Geoff, let’s get you changed. I know you won’t feel like sleeping but believe me—this is gonna hit you soon and you’ll drop like a rock. I was like that after every visit with my mom after the incident. Do you…do you want the guest room, or would you rather crash with me?”

Geoff choked back a tired sob. “You don’t think I’m a dirty pervert?”

Evan laughed. “I know you’re a dirty pervert, man! Just kidding. You’re my best friend, my brother from another family! I don’t care if you’re gay, straight, or slightly crooked every other Sunday.”

Geoff laughed sadly. “I think I’ll crash with you, then. I really don’t want to be alone right now.”

Evan nodded. “Then you won’t be.”

Moments later, when Geoff had changed from his wet clothing into dry, warm pajamas and was tucked into Evan’s bed, Evan was back downstairs looking for his grandmother, who was in her study. “Is Geoff sleeping?”

Evan nodded and slouched into a chair in front of her desk.“Yeah. I knew he would crash hard once he calmed down.”

Magdelina nodded. “Yes, I thought as much as well. Tell me, Evan, does Geoff ever talk about other family besides his parents or sister?”

Evan’s brow wrinkled as he thought. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

Magdelina sighed deeply. “I shall have to ask him in the morning, then. I have called my solicitor, and he will be here in the morning, after we have eaten.”

Magdelina stood and led the way back to the kitchen so that she could clean up.

“Why did you call your lawyer?”

Magdelina smiled sadly. “I made one misstep with your mother long ago, when I offered to arrange for her brother to fly in for her wedding to my son. Your other grandmother was dying of cancer and was in hospice care when they wed, and I knew her son had not been with her because your father told me he was estranged.” Magdelina shook her head, and she began gathering the discarded mugs for washing. “I did not know until your mother berated me quite harshly, but she was estranged from her brother for her own reasons. I apologized for the offer, and I did not bring the man back into her life.

“But I did take time with Jeanne Finlay after the wedding, and we talked as mothers do when their children unite in marriage. I told her about my family of three brothers and she told me that she was an only child, and that she did not want that for her own offspring. I mentioned offering to bring Margret’s brother for the wedding and Jeanne told me that she had not seen her son for many years. She was very sad when she said that and my heart went out to this woman who was fading from this world.”

“Mom never said she had a brother,” Evan mused. “Is he dead or something?”

“Or something,” Magdelina agreed with a frown. “Jeanne was dying. Her husband was long gone, and her daughter was now happily married. She was alone at the end of her life and I had the means to reunite Jeanne with her son, and so she was happy to allow me to do so. She explained that her son, Mitchell, had admitted long before to being homosexual. Her husband reacted much the same as young Geoff’s father and tossed him from the family home. Jeanne didn’t know where Mitchell had gone, but he returned after his father’s passing, trying to reunite with his mother and sister.

“Unfortunately, Margaret had reacted much the same as her father, calling Mitchell an unnatural freak and stating that she would rather not have a brother at all than have one like that.”

“Wow,” Evan gasped. “Mom’s a real piece of work, isn’t she.”

“I did not tell you this thing to make you hate your mother, Evan,” Magdelina said with a stern frown. “I am uncertain if Maddie and Daniel understand your mother’s stance on such things, but I told you because you need to know. Your best friend has confided a deep secret to the two of us, a secret that has now cost him much pain, and we owe it to him to treat that secret as sacred.”

Margaret dried her hands and held them out for Evan to take. “I called my solicitor because, if we are to harbor your friend in his time of need, and I think that would be your choice, si?”

“Yes, Lina, I’d like for him to stay if he can.”

Magdelina nodded. “Si, as I thought. So, if we are to do this thing, and we welcome your ‘brother from another family’ into our home, I must make sure we are legally protected. I should not like it if, at some point in the future, Geoff’s father tries to accuse me of kidnapping his only son and perverting him against his own family. Whitney was most agreeable to investigate this situation for me, and he will be here in the morning, with a social worker that he knows, and he will interview Geoff about the situation so that you and I are legally protected.”

“Okay, Lina.” Evan sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. He tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling and rubbed his hands over his thighs. “So—I have an uncle that I’ve never heard of?”

Magdelina laughed softly. “He is respecting your mother’s wishes, Evan. I had only met him once, long ago just after your parents married, after he allowed himself to be reunited with his dying mother. I think he stayed in Ohio with Jeanne until she passed, and then left again before Margaret held the funeral service. It gives me great peace to know that Jeanne was not alone at that time. I did not know what he did for a living, but I know that he was living in California at that time and that he was with a long-time partner. He asked to keep in touch with me as a means of thanks for my endeavor and I have allowed the odd letter each year. He seems to be very happy and is living his life as if it is some great adventure.”

“So I should just let him be, then? I mean, I should not ask questions and just let you slip information to me if you want to?”

“I think, for the sake of your relationship with your mother, that would be best,” Magdelina confirmed. “Margaret will not find happiness in the knowledge that we are aware of her brother, especially since she tried so hard to excise him completely from her life. I doubt she even remembers that the man exists.

“However, I also think that you should consider her stance on sexual orientation in regard to your friendship with Geoff. She may find the idea that your best friend is gay to be offensive, and she could take her ire out on you in some way. Margaret has proven to be not exactly stable emotionally.”

“You think she could consider me tainted because of my friendship?” Evan asked with a frown.

“I never know what to think when it comes to Margaret, corazon.”

~~

“A Jeep Cherokee?”

Evan laughed and looked at his best friend. “What about it?”

Geoff’s mouth twisted slightly. “You don’t have your license yet, and it’s a bit…much for Philadelphia, isn’t it?”

Evan rolled the magazine loosely and whacked Geoff on the head with it before slipping it back onto the shelf. “I’m not going to be in Philadelphia forever, you know. Plus, I’ve got those wilderness weekends coming up this summer. And the Martial Arts Tournaments all over the state that Master Eng wants me to compete in.”

Geoff rolled his eyes and bumped shoulders with Evan. “Like your grandmother will let you drive to those things by yourself anyway!”

“This is very true. For this year, anyway. Speaking of grandmothers, when is yours coming?”

Geoff sighed and he ran his fingers through his hair. “This evening, I think? She sounded angry on the phone.”

“Not at you, I hope.”

“Nah, but I’d hate to be my father right now.”

Evan hooked an arm around Geoff’s neck and pulled gently, guiding the other boy out of the bookstore. “Well, homework waits for no man, so let’s get on with it and we can keep both our grandmothers happy.”

After Geoff’s late-evening arrival, beaten, bruised, and scared, at her townhome, Magdelina was true to her word in protecting herself and her grandson by all legal means. Whitney Morgan, of Morgan, Chalmers, and Peete, had, indeed, brought a social worker to the house the next morning, and Geoff was questioned in depth about his beating and ejection from the family home.

Whitney asked about any other relatives that might be able to take Geoff in, and Geoff mentioned his grandmother—his father’s mother—in Erie. While the social worker was taking photographs of Geoff’s black eye and split lip, Whitney was in Magdelina’s study, placing a telephone call to Erie—to a Mrs. Grace Ratner.

Evan never heard the details, but Magdelina was helping Grace find an apartment in Philadelphia–and helping plan for the lady to move from Erie. Geoff was humbled with gratitude, and incredulous that his grandmother would move to his city to care for him, rather than having him move away from his school and friends. From what Evan could get from Magdelina, Mrs. Ratner was moving to Philly, in order to make life uncomfortable for her son. Evan predicted that Magdelina and Mrs. Ratner were going to be great friends.

Privately, Evan feared for Geoff’s father. Righteous, widowed old ladies of means could be scary.

Chapter Two: Sixteen

“Are you excited about starting your Junior year?”

Evan snorted at the question and quickly lowered his glass of iced tea. “I mean, I guess so? My classes might be slightly different, but the teachers will be the same.”

“But you’ll be getting college credit for some of your classes this year, won’t you?” Daniel asked, exasperated.

“Only if I do exceptionally well,” Evan confirmed. “My trigonometry class will count for a Freshman-level credit, and my English class will, too. I have a plan for doing a creative writing course in the Spring Semester that will also give me a Freshman-level credit.”

Daniel hummed. “So that’s two classes you won’t have to take as a Freshman. Every little bit helps when it comes to core classes.”

“That’s what the guidance counselor told me. Next year, I hope to knock my History requirements out of the way.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard, Evan. Take time to have fun, too.”

Evan laughed. “I’ll have plenty of fun, I promise. I might be getting paid at the climbing gym, but it’s still a good time for me.”

“Gone on any dates yet?”

“Geez, Daniel! I’m not…I just…gah! I just turned sixteen! Give me time to start school before you ask those questions, okay? There might be new students this year.”

“Of course, little brother,” Daniel agreed. “And maybe some of the old students might have improved over the summer.”

“Yes, that may have happened as well,” Evan agreed. “But remember, I’m not actually looking for a girlfriend. Or a date.”

“You’re going to be a Junior this year, Evan. You’ll officially be allowed to go to the Junior/Senior formals, and there will be girls looking for dates.”

Evan laughed again. “You know, I do read those so-called fashion magazines at the doctor’s office, so I’m quite aware that girls go to those dances so they can dress up for each other. There is no date required.”

Evan practically felt Daniel’s sigh through the phone connection, so he chuckled softly.

“Anyway–I met someone,” Daniel said after a moment. “Someone special.”

“Oh, yeah?” Evan asked delightedly. “Have you told Dad or Lina?”

“Nope, not yet. I thought of you first.”

“I’m flattered, really. Tell me about her.”

Daniel chuckled, then proceeded to tell Evan all about Helle Beck, a German exchange student at Johns Hopkins. She had just finished her third year of Medical School, had been stressing about audition rotations, and Daniel was totally gone on her.

Evan couldn’t wait to meet her, but he had to promise not to tell the elders that Daniel told him about her first. The jealousy could be real.

~~

Evan glared at the paper in his hand as if it had committed great offense to his entire family.

“What’s that look for?” Geoff asked as he bumped shoulders with Evan.

“This class schedule is crap,” Evan declared, waving the paper in Geoff’s face.

Laughing, Geoff took the sheet of paper and compared it to his own schedule.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” Geoff said cheerfully. “You and I have three classes together besides homeroom.”

“And did you happen to notice that our first class after homeroom is supposed to be a gym class? And I have Trig right after that, and we don’t have lunch until the late period.”

“Right after my chemistry class,” Geoff added, “which is going to be hell on our appetite. Yeah, this schedule isn’t the greatest.”

Evan took his schedule back and tucked it into his notebook. “I’m going to ask Coach Thompson if we’ll be allowed to pick our Phys Ed requirement like the Seniors do. If he allows it, I can use the Tai Chi and Aikido for my requirements and take that class period for an extra study hall.”

Geoff nodded agreeably. “Let me know if that works for you. I might actually be grateful that you got me and Gran into Tai Chi last year.”

Evan laughed and patted Geoff on the shoulder. “I’m going to head to the gym office now, so I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll save you a seat in the Homeroom.”

Evan waved him off and headed into the depths of the high school. One of the things Evan liked about this school was how the students were permitted to tailor their lessons to fit the way they learned. Evan had personally tested into advanced classes for maths and English since he was a Freshman, so many of his classes were geared toward college credit before he even graduated. Some of the athletes were also allowed to choose their own Phys Ed credits rather than to take group classes. Since Evan was on the wrestling team, he was allowed to use weight training as a class credit in conjunction with wrestling practice.

His plan now was to ask for credit for his extracurricular activities at the Martial Arts Academy and the climbing gym. Evan was plenty active; he just hated regimented gym classes. He always had, even before the Incident that landed him in a wheelchair temporarily. For some reason, gym teachers seemed to see him as some sort of project, and they ignored his actual capabilities. Master Eng was a wonderful exception for Evan.

So was Coach Thompson, for that matter. Coach understood how tough Evan really was when it counted and he never second-guessed Evan’s choices.

Evan knocked politely on the door frame of the open office and Coach Thompson looked up from his lesson plans. Recognizing Evan, Coach waved him in and asked, “What do you need on the first day of school, Buckley?” he asked in good humor.

Evan shrugged and hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder. “I was hoping I could negotiate my gym credits, Coach.”

Coach grunted and shifted a few papers around on his desk. “Are you going to be on my wrestling team this year?”

“Yes, Coach,” Evan agreed. Coach grunted again.

“Are you still attending Eastern Ways Academy? Still doing tournaments?”

“Yes, Coach. To both.” Another grunt and more paper shuffling.

After a moment, Coach looked up and said, “I’ll want you in the weight room after classes on Tuesday and Thursday until wrestling season, and I want invitations to your tournaments this year.”

Evan smiled. “Yes, Coach.”

“Fine, fine,” Coach muttered as he dug out a sheet of paper and handed it to Evan. “Give this to the front office, and make a copy for Ratner since the two of you actually share a brain. Why anybody tries to schedule gym class first thing in the morning is beyond me.”

Evan took the paper and tucked it into his backpack. “Thanks, Coach. There’s an invitational next weekend, so I’ll put you and your wife on the list.”

Evan practically skipped out of the South Wing on his way to the front office. Maybe his schedule wouldn’t be so bad after all.

As he was opening the Admin office door, Evan accidentally ran into another student that was on her way out.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized, quickly bending down to gather the papers the girl had dropped in the fracas.

The girl laughed breathlessly and said, “It’s okay; totally my fault for not watching the door.”

Evan stood carefully and held out the paper mess, smiling awkwardly at the pretty girl in front of him. She was shorter than him, but most people were nowadays, and she had the most generous smile. Her hair was curly and flowed almost to her waist and was as dark as the Spanish chocolate that his grandmother gave to him when he needed to settle his mind.

And her eyes were…

“Buckley? Why are you here?”

Evan shook his head and turned away from the pretty girl. “Sorry Mrs. Gladstone,” he said to the imposing school receptionist. “I, uh, have some paperwork from Coach Thompson for my Phys Ed credits.” Evan waved the sheet of paper he got from his coach.

The no-nonsense receptionist just shook her head at him as she let her jeweled glasses fall from her face to hang on the chain around her neck. “I suppose you’ll have one of those for your other half.”

“Just as soon as I make a copy,” Evan assured.

“Fine,” the harridan snapped. “I’ll let you use my copier, but you have to do a favor for me.”

“Mrs. Gladstone, I live to do favors for you,” Evan said with a smile.

“Uh-huh,” Gladstone sneered–and then she ruined the effect by winking at Evan.

“The young lady you tried to flatten in my doorway is Jill Taylor. She’s new and she’s in your homeroom.”

Evan offered a small salute with the paper in his hand. “Consider the favor done.”

Turning back to the pretty girl, Evan offered his hand in greeting and said, “Jill Taylor? I’m Evan Buckley, and it would be my honor to escort you to our homeroom class.”

Jill laughed, covering her mouth with one hand. “Are you always like this?”

“Earnest and eager to make new friends?” Evan asked. “Yes, I’m always like this.”

~~

“Evan! How have you been? Is school treating you okay?”

“Yeah, Maddie, it’s all good. How’s your job going?”

Maddie sighed. “I think all ERs are pure chaos, really. You just go-go-go, and then you crash for a bit before go-go-going again.”

“I can practically hear you smiling, Maddie,” Evan laughed. “I bet you thrive on the chaos.”

Maddie giggled softly. “I will admit that there is a great deal of satisfaction helping people who are in the middle of that chaos.”

“I bet. You’re a very nurturing person; I’ve always thought so. Anyway, Lina and I are taking the train your way this weekend because I’m car shopping, so I was wondering if you had time for lunch with your youngest brother.”

“Hmm, let me look at my schedule for this weekend, okay? Give me a second while I dig it out.”

“Aren’t you on a regular schedule at the hospital?”

Maddie sighed. “I should be, but we’ve got three nurses out right now for maternity leave, so I’ve been picking up some of the slack.”

Evan winced. “Three pregnant ER nurses at once? That seems like poor planning.”

“Well, no,” Maddie denied. “There were two nurses at varying stages of pregnancy, but one went into premature labor during a car accident emergency. The other was actually scheduled for a Cesarean delivery this week.”

“Um, Maddie? That’s only two.”

“The third nurse is the husband of the preemie-nurse, so he’s out with her.”

“Ah, that makes more sense.”

Maddie laughed again. “Okay, I’m actually not scheduled for work on Saturday, so will that work for you?”

“Yeah, it will. Lina and I are catching the train right after I get out of school, so we’ll arrive by four-thirty-ish, depending on the taxi from the train station.”

“What kind of vehicle are you looking for? I mean, my Jeep was great for college, but I think I’ve graduated to a sedan of some type.”

“I plan on being able to do some off-road trips, so I’m keeping my options for a sport utility vehicle of some sort. But definitely not like your Jeep. Have you seen the safety ratings on that thing lately?”

The conversation with his sister was easy for Evan, but it was fought-for. After making sure that his number, and those of his family members, were no longer blocked, Evan tried to call or text at least once each week. Maddie always seemed happy to hear from him, but she frequently had to cut the conversations short, and that was never due to work issues.

Doug was constantly with Maddie, which Evan figured made sense since they were getting married. Maybe. But he demanded a lot of her attention, so Maddie could never talk for long. Even when he tried to call on her day off, Doug would call her from his own job and transfer her attention away from Evan. It was frustrating, almost as if Doug was jealous of any person that held Maddie’s attention for more than ten minutes.

Magdelina had hinted at the attitude when she returned from her impromptu visit almost two years prior. While Evan knew his grandmother would never bad-mouth anybody, because she was a generous and polite person, she certainly did not keep her opinion of Douglas Kendall to herself when it came to his treatment of her granddaughter.

“He is very intent on her,” Magdelina had said. “And I am not certain that the intense attention is such a good thing. There is a hint of something there that is not gentle.”

Evan just thought the older man was insecure in the relationship, and that was why he didn’t like when Maddie was out of his sight.

Or out of his control.

While Evan always tried to talk to Maddie about neutral topics, somehow she always found a way to mention Doug. She’d talk about how nice it was to work in the same hospital with him, or the care they took to decorate their house together. Doug apparently had specific ideas of what a proper house should be and Maddie was happy to live in one with him. Evan was afraid that, if he actually went to visit Maddie at her house, he wouldn’t see much of her there.

He was afraid of losing his sister to Doug just after he got her back.

~~

“It’s not black.”

Evan snorted and shook his head before heaving a sigh. “No, Geoff, it’s not black.”

Geoff tucked his hands into his jeans pockets and paced back and forth in front of the shiny SUV parked along the curb. “The photo you showed me was black.”

“Geoff, the picture in the magazine was also a Jeep Cherokee, and this is not that.”

Geoff stopped his pacing and opened the driver’s side door to peer inside. “It’s got a stick-shift,” he said. “I didn’t know they still made those.”

“Just because you learned to drive Coach’s Sentra doesn’t mean manual transmissions no longer exist,” Evan replied sarcastically, making Geoff laugh and step back onto the sidewalk.

“I just never thought you’d get a shiny, silver car, is all,” Geoff defended with a smile. “So, you gonna take me for a drive, or what?”

Evan nodded, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets. “That was the plan, yes. Actually, Lina was hoping I could drive us all to dinner, so you should call your grandmother and invite her over.”

Geoff brightened and said, “Yeah, I can do that. G’Ma was just saying that she wanted to try that new Italian place in Fishtown.”

Evan clapped Geoff on the shoulder and guided him into the townhouse. “Let’s make that call, then.”

Despite Geoff’s teasing, Evan was actually proud of his new SUV, a 2006 Nissan Xterra in a color called ‘Silver Lightning’. It wasn’t big on passenger space, having four seats but little leg-room in the rear, but it was off-road ready, had a great cargo capacity with the roof rack, and had an excellent safety rating. Most of those things were important to Evan, but Magdelina was happiest about the safety rating. Evan wouldn’t use the vehicle much in the city, but he could use it while traveling for his wilderness retreats–and to visit his family away from Philadelphia.

But his official maiden voyage (because Evan’s father drove it from Hershey to Philadelphia after the tags came in) was apparently going to be escorting two grandmothers and a best friend across town to dinner. Things could be worse.

~~

“Evan, could you please explain this to me?”

Evan looked up from his own History text to find Jill Taylor approaching his table in the library. “Hey, lady! Explain what, exactly?”

Jill slumped into the chair next to him and dumped her stack of notebooks onto the table. “Algebra!”

Evan chuckled and pulled one of the notebooks over to him. “What part of Algebra?”

Jill huffed and threw her hands into the air. “All of it! I’m just not Algebra-inclined”

Evan shook his head and took her proffered textbook and tried to find her current assignment. “I’m not much on Algebra, but I get by. Let’s see where you’re having trouble, okay?”

For the next fifteen minutes, Evan completely forgot that he was supposed to be studying for a History test, and helped Jill figure out why she had so much trouble transposing letters for numbers. By the end of the study period, Jill finally got through her issues–and Evan asked her if she’d like to go to a movie that weekend.

“Um, Maybe,” Jill prevaricated. “I mean, I would love to go out with you, but you’ll have to meet my parents first. Um, my parent, actually. At least one; preferably my mother.”

Evan smiled. “I have no problems with that, Jill. I fully expect to have to meet your folks at some point because you’re my friend.”

Jill frowned and twirled a lock of hair around one finger. “There might be a problem, Evan.”

“Why?”

Jill sighed. “I like you, Evan. I mean I really do. But my parents are…not together. Which is why we moved here and I transferred in my Junior year.”

Evan reached out and took her hand in his. “Hey,” he said softly. “I get that divorce is hard, yeah? I mean, I don’t think any families are without some kind of trauma, so if you need a friend, I’m here. And I’m sure Geoff will be there for you, too, because he understands family crap, too.”

Jill laughed mirthlessly. “It’s not just that, Evan. My mom is here, in Philadelphia, which is great because I think the school is better than my last one, but my father is in Trenton. I mean, he’s visiting this week because his parents are here, but he lives in Trenton. And that means me and my sister have to go to Trenton every other weekend.”

Evan shook his head. “Okay? So I’ll meet him this week, then, before the movie. Or,” Evan said quickly before she could argue, “we could not go out this weekend, and I can still meet your parents so they’ll at least know me.”

Jill took a shaky breath and nodded her head. “I’ll think about it, okay? My dad can be…difficult.”

Evan frowned. “Difficult in a bad way?”

“No,” Jill assured. “Not like that, okay? He’s just strict about dating and stuff, and he has some weird ideas about the kind of guy I should be dating.”

“Oh,” Evan said, wide-eyed. “I, uh, I can…afford to take you to the movies, Jill.”

Jill blinked at him and then shook her head. “Oh, Evan, it’s not that. I’m sure you’re a very upstanding guy, and I bet my mother will love you. But you’re not…black.”

Evan sat back with a thud and his hands dropped to his lap. “Huh. There’s not much I can do about that.”

~~

“That sort of thing is not completely uncommon, querido,” Magdelina said soothingly as she passed Evan the cutting board.

“No, I know that, Lina,” Evan replied as he began chopping the onions for the stew they were making. “I guess I was just shocked, is all. I mean, Jill seems…normal. Not prejudiced, I mean. And she seems to like me.”

“I am sure she does, indeed, like you, Evan. What is not to like?”

Evan laughed, which was her intention. “What may be difficult is for Jill to go against her father’s wishes in any capacity, no matter how distasteful she may find his beliefs.”

Evan sighed. “Yeah, I know. But Jill is the first girl that I’ve ever wanted to get to know more than as friends.”

“And she will not be the last,” Magdelina confirmed gently. “For now, be her friend. Meet her mother–and her father, if you must. But do not compromise your own ideals and feelings, Evan. You must be true to yourself.”

~~

Evan was leaving the school to meet Geoff at the Academy when he was accosted by a bouncing blonde.

“Hello, Evan,” Meggan McCann said as she tried to hook her arm around his.

Evan evaded her grasp and turned to face her. “Hello, Meggan. What can I do for you?”

Meggan offered what might have been a sultry grin–if she hadn’t looked like she was trying so hard. “Oh, I can think of a lot of things you could do for me, Evan.”

Evan rolled his eyes. “I’m kind of in a hurry, Meggan, so could you get to the point, please?”

“You’re always so polite,” she cooed. “Any other guy would be grateful that I wanted to spend time with them.”

“Then why don’t you spend some effort on one of them?”

Meggan stepped forward and reached out to touch Evan’s arm, moving her hand upwards to reach his shoulder. “You’re so strong, Evan. I bet you know just how to hold…”

Evan stepped back forcefully and turned to face Meggan fully. “Look, I have someplace to be, with people I actually want to be with, so if you don’t actually have a reason to talk to me, I’d appreciate it if you’d just go.”

Meggan stepped back with a scowl. “You’ll want me one day, Evan Buckley. I’ll make sure of it.”

Evan watched as she stormed away, shaking his head. “Some girls be crazy,” he muttered to himself as he left the building.

Evan pondered the interaction as he waited for the bus that would take him across town. Geoff had had a doctor’s appointment earlier that morning, so he was out of school that day, but he would be at the Academy for their regular Tai Chi session. Maybe Geoff could help Evan make sense of Meggan’s actions, because for the life of him, Evan could not figure out why some girls went after boys that weren’t interested.

Geoff had had more than his share of girls asking for his attention, and that was after it was known that Geoff had a boyfriend at another school. Maybe some girls just liked a challenge.

Evan got off the bus a block from the Academy and Geoff was waiting at the stop for him.

“This is a surprise,” Evan said with a smile.

Geoff shrugged. “I think Master Eng doesn’t know what to do with me when you’re not there, so he sent me out to meet you.”

Evan laughed and hitched his gym bag higher on his shoulder. “I got accosted by Meggan McCann on the way out of the school. I think she waits until you’re not with me so she can ambush me.”

Geoff laughed. “I told you she was hot for your bod! And you actually have one now, so you can’t brush that off.”

Evan sighed. “Maybe she thinks you’re my boyfriend and she’s trying to steal me away from you.”

Geoff paused and looked over at Evan, allowing his eyes to rove mock-seductively over Evan’s body from head to toe and back again, and then they both began laughing hard enough that they had to hold each other up on the sidewalk.

After a moment, Evan wiped tears from his eyes and took a deep breath. “Man, I really needed that laugh.”

Geoff hiccupped and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, me too. I never thought high school would be so stressful!”

“I think it’s not just high school, Geoff. Lina said life has a way of sneaking up on us. I think we’re getting ambushed from all sides, is all.”

Geoff nodded and began walking down the street toward the Academy. “Well, you’re about to get ambushed again, fair warning. Master Eng has a sort of surprise for you, but he agreed to let me tell you all about it.”

“So–it’s a good surprise, then?”

“If you consider loads more physical work to be a good surprise, then, sure,” Geoff laughed. “Of course, I know you’re actually a lunatic, so you’ll probably like it.”

Intrigued, Evan jogged to catch up with his best friend and they strode together to the Eastern Ways Academy. The building itself was most unassuming, with a brick facade just like most buildings in the Walnut Hill area of Philadelphia, and huge oak double doors. The building was three storeys tall, with iron fire escapes along the outer wall. All of the windows facing the street were covered with Roman shades depicting Asian landscapes on the exterior, which was the only real advertisement for the Academy other than the bronze address plaque next to the front door. The interior of the building was cavernous, with hardwood floors and partial wood paneling and silk wallpaper. The first floor was one huge gymnasium, with mirrors on some parts of the walls, mats on large sections of floor for sparring, and practice dummies in clusters near the locker room area.

The second floor was for meditation and yoga, and Evan spent Sunday mornings there with his Grandmother. He tried to coax Geoff along, but the other boy was not interested in twisting himself into a pretzel, thankyouverymuch. The rooms on the second floor were paneled with rice paper paintings of pastoral scenes. There were yoga mats available, but most people brought their own, and bamboo plants in troughs and planters in all the rooms and along the halls. The meditation rooms were smaller, but meditation was a private thing. Evan preferred to meditate in his own backyard on nice days, and in his room when the weather was bad.

The third floor of the Academy was mostly business offices. Master Eng and the other instructors did not live on the premises, but they did need their private places. There was a roof garden, as well, but it had been undergoing some private renovations as of late and Evan had not been up there in a long while.

Master Eng, who was probably middle-aged but looked ancient when he wanted to, met Evan and Geoff at the locker room door.

“Your friend has not told you of our surprise, then?” the old man asked cheerfully.

Evan shook his head before bowing in respect to his venerable teacher. “Geoff only told me that there was a surprise, but not what it was.”

Master Eng grunted in satisfaction. “Come, then, and let us see what time and skill has brought to fruition.”

Master Eng led Evan and Geoff up the heavy oak stairs, past the meditation rooms and offices, until they reached the door to the roof garden.

In the past, part of the garden was covered, much like a greenhouse, and the flowers and plants were a source of calm within the city. The uncovered portion of the roof deck offered benches and fountains and a view of the park on the other side of the neighborhood. That’s what it looked like the last time Evan was up there.

This time, however…

Where the greenhouse once stood, there were now walls and rails with climbing holds of various sizes and shapes, balance beams, ramps, and rope nets. There were now industrial girders running along the main garden, rising and falling in irregular patterns that would make an interesting finger-climbing route. At the end of the garden stood a fourteen-foot high inverted-curved wall. Everything was brightly colored, green and yellow and red, and the colors didn’t seem random at all.

Evan stood in the middle of it all and just stared, turning round in a wide circle. “What is all of this?”

Master Eng folded his hands together in front of him and stood beside Evan. “Given your…preoccupation…with that Ninja Warrior game, and its growing popularity in this country, the proprietors of this fine Academy have seen the wisdom in including such a training facility here. I must confess that I had not anticipated as much of an interest as we have found, so there are many new memberships to the Academy just because many young people wish to use this particular facility.”

Evan laughed in delight. “This is incredible! Master Eng, this is…”

“Incredible,” Master Eng finished. “So you have said. I see that you are pleased with the new addition to our Academy.”

“Oh, I am, Master Eng.”

Master Eng simply bowed and backed away. “Then I shall leave you to your exercise, Mr. Buckley. I suggest that, for now, you stay on the green path until you build your strength and proficiency.”

Geoff joined Evan after Master Eng withdrew back to the lower levels. “Man, I really hope you don’t expect me to join your personal insanity.”

Evan shook his head. “Nah, man, this is sort of my dream, you know. But I could always use a spotter.”

“I can spot with the best of them,” Geoff agreed. “So, there’s a homecoming dance coming up.”

Evan dropped his gym bag and regarded his friend. “Look, Geoff, I like you a lot, but I’m not going to a dance with you. Lina might not mind, but what would your boyfriend say?”

Geoff laughed. “So you don’t think it would be strange if I invited Michael to come to the dance with me?”

“I’d be more surprised if you actually invited me, Geoff. I mean, this is the first big dance that you seem excited to attend, so of course you want to go with your boyfriend.”

“Well, there’s always the Winter Formal and the Junior/Senior Prom in the Spring, but yeah–this is the first big one. Are you thinking about going?”

Evan sighed. “There’s only one girl I’d want to ask, Geoff, and I doubt that’s going to happen this time.”

“Jill Taylor?”

“Yeah. I apparently need to meet the parents first, but there’s an issue with that.”

Geoff frowned. “What kind of issue?”

Evan chalked his hands and tested the climbing net, pulling himself up using the links that were painted green. “Well, her parents are apart, and her father is in Trenton. And apparently he’s a huge racist that doesn’t want his beautiful daughter to date a white boy.”

“Wow, I did not see that issue coming up.”

“I know.” Evan shook his head and climbed some more, moving across the net with deft hands and swinging feet. “I really like her, you know?”

“Yeah, she’s a great girl. So what are you gonna do about it?”

Evan dropped to the floor and swiped his hands across the backs of his thighs before finding a new route over the ropes. “Well, Jill kind of hinted that her mother might like me, and her father’s all the way in New Jersey, so I’ll ask to meet her mother. I think I’ll bring Lina with me, just to make a good impression.”

Geoff nodded. “Your grandmother makes a great impression.”

“I just hope the Homecoming dance isn’t on a weekend that Jill is spending with her father.”

~~

Evan sighed and tucked his keys into his front jeans pocket before walking around the front of his car to open the passenger door for his grandmother.

“This is not going to war, nino tonto,” Magdelina chided. “Are you certain that you want me with you?”

Evan nodded briskly. “Yeah, um, yes, please.” Magdelina laughed softly and Evan sighed again. “Sorry, Lina. I just…I’d like to see if Jill and I can be maybe a bit closer than just friends. But she’s really worried about how her parents are going to react.”

Magdelina offered a kind smile and tucked her hand into Evan’s arm, allowing him to escort her to the front door. “And you are hoping I will soften your introduction, si?”

“Either that, or I’m hoping you can keep me from dying from embarrassment.”

Magdelina laughed as they climbed the steps to the porch together. “But this girl knows you are coming, does she not?”

“Yes,” Evan confirmed. “We talked about it two days ago, and then again yesterday at lunch. If anything, she’s more nervous than I am.”

“If that is so, I pity the both of you,” Magdelina tutted. “Dating was much easier when I was your age.”

Evan gave her the side-eye as he raised his hand to knock on the door. “When you were my age, you were married and probably pregnant.”

Magdelina merely set a serene smile on her face as Evan knocked. Her smile widened when the door creaked open, revealing a very pretty mocha-skinned girl with wide whiskey-brown eyes.

“Hey, Evan,” the girl greeted with a shy smile.

“Hey, Lady,” Evan replied, causing her smile to widen. “May I introduce my grandmother, Magdelina Rubio Buckley.”

Magdelina held out a hand in greeting and said, “It is lovely to meet you, Jill. Evan has told me wonderful things about you.”

Jill shook the older woman’s hand with a grateful smile. “He says a lot of great things about you, too. Please come in. My mother is in the living room, but my sister is out with friends right now.”

“Is your sister younger or older?” Magdelina asked.

“She’s older, by three years,” came the answer. “I have a baby brother, too. He’s with my mother.”

“Ah, and how old is your brother?”

Jill closed the front door and blew out a quick breath. “He’s not quite a year old.”

Jill led the duo from the front hall to the living room, announcing, “Mom, Evan and his grandmother are here.”

Evan heard a woman’s voice reply, “Oh, good. I’ve been wanting to meet this young man.” before they turned a corner into the next room and came face to face with a lovely chestnut-haired, caucasian woman who was bottle-feeding a young boy with the same coloring.

Evan blinked, stunned, before Magdelina urged him further into the room.

“Mom,” Jill said after a moment, “this is Evan Buckley and his grandmother, Magdelina Buckley.” Turning to Evan, Jill continued, “This is my mother, Catherine, and my baby brother, Isaiah.”

Evan stepped forward to shake the hand of Jill’s mother without jostling the baby, and he opened his mouth to tell the woman how nice it was to finally meet her.

What actually came out was, “I’m so very confused to meet you, Ma’am.”

“Evan!” Magdelina hissed.

Evan bit his bottom lip and hung his head, shaking it slowly. “I have no idea why I said that,” he muttered.

“Oh, I might have an idea about that,” Jill’s mother responded with a smile. “Why don’t the two of you sit down, and Jill can bring in the lemonade?”

“Right,” said Jill. “Yes, sit–and I’ll be right back.”

Magdelina nudged Evan to get him to sit beside her on the loveseat. “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Taylor,” she said while Evan tried to bury himself in the cushions.

“Thank you for that,” Catherine replied, “and please call me Catherine. I would apologize for the mess, but Isaiah hasn’t been well for the last few days and I’ve been up with him constantly.”

“He’s a beautiful child,” Magdelina offered. “So is your daughter. You are very blessed.”

“I am so sorry,” Evan blurted out. “I just…I was so nervous to meet you, and Jill was nervous about me meeting you.”

“And Jill probably explained that her father is a complete ass that wouldn’t appreciate you dating his Beautiful Black Daughter,” Catherine said wryly. She deftly winded the baby when he finished his bottle, and placed him on his back on a cushion beside her before pulling a blanket over him.

“I’ll be honest with you both,” Catherine continued once the baby was settled. “Daryl Taylor was a brilliant young man when we began dating, and he never voiced any questionable opinions in my presence that whole time. I met his parents, who were delightful, and they were pleased and surprised to meet me. They never mentioned Daryl’s questionable opinions, which was good since they don’t have the predilections themselves. Everything in our relationship and marriage showed a very different image than the one he projects now, so I was completely unaware of his racist tendencies.”

“That seems very odd,” Magdelina remarked. “I have seen much in my lifetime, but it has been my experience that tigers do not shift their stripes. How could he have hidden such a thing from you for so long?”

Jill entered the room at that point and Evan rushed to take the drink tray from her. Once the drinks were poured and Jill was curled in an armchair, Catherine sipped delicately from her glass as she pondered the question.

“I think he was filled with some kind of macho image of himself,” she said after a moment. “He believes himself to be a ‘Strong Black Man’ that makes the world move for him rather than moving with it himself. It’s odd, really, because his own family–parents, siblings, and all that I’ve met–are not like that at all. His mother is a doctor at St. Christopher’s and his father was a Family Law lawyer until he retired and was voted in as a judge in Family Court. His sister is a teacher in Erie, married to another teacher, and his brother volunteers as a fitness instructor at the local ‘Y’.

“Somehow, when I wasn’t looking–when none of us was looking–Daryl got it into his head that race was more important than anything else, even common sense.”

“What changed?” Evan asked. “I mean, clearly something did. I never understood any kind of prejudice, especially based on skin color, but if he really felt that way..?”

“Why did he marry me, of all people?” Catherine asked. “I have no idea. Maybe he loved me enough to overlook my lack of melanin. I’ve learned, in the past year, that he berated some of our college classmates for dating outside of their race, but he defended his relationship with me by saying I just couldn’t resist a strong man.” She shook her head and reached out to rub her baby’s foot. “If I’d ever heard him say anything so stupid, I would have broken it off before we got past two dates.

“As to what changed? Well,” Catherine sighed and she gestured toward the baby, “Isaiah changed. After I married Daryl, I settled into my job in the library at Temple University. Daryl was a civil engineer working at the Department of Urban Planning. I got pregnant two years after we married, and I gave birth to my oldest daughter, Alicia. She had my eyes–but she had Daryl’s everything else. Three years later, along came Jill, who has my nose, but that’s about it.”

“She’s got your smile, too,” Evan said, earning twin smiles of gratitude from the Taylor women.

“Thank you, Evan,” Catherine said. “That’s so sweet of you to say. I will say that Jill and Alicia also have my common sense, so I’ve also got that going for me. Anyway, Daryl and I had our problems, as all couples do, but I had my friends and hobbies to keep me sane. My children, of course, brought me joy every day, and that may be why I could ignore the fact that Daryl seemed to keep company with blatant racists. As long as he didn’t bring that attitude into my home, I didn’t allow it to bother me.

“And then I got pregnant again, with the son that Daryl desperately wanted.”

“I understand the male desire to pass along a name,” Magdelina said. “I was fortunate enough to have a husband that did not care about the gender of my child, but I was also happy and proud to have birthed a strong son for him, as I was unable to have more children after my Philip was born.”

“Men can be so silly about some things,” Catherine agreed. “Daryl was overjoyed with Alicia, so proud to be a girl-daddy. And when Jill came along, he bought drinks for everyone at his club to toast another beautiful daughter. But he really wanted a son.”

“And so you have now given him a son, si?” Magdelina said, nodding to the sleeping baby on the sofa.

“Oh, yes,” said Catherine. “I gave him a white son. That’s when everything fell apart for Daryl.”

Evan looked between Catherine, the baby, and Jill, and shook his head. “I, um, don’t get it.”

Catherine snorted. “Well, at first, Daryl thought I cheated, because Isaiah didn’t look like him. So we had a DNA test done just to shut him up. My mother-in-law was so angry with him! And once he was proven to be Isaiah’s father, Daryl argued that his Black Genes should have won out for his son, just like they did for his daughters.”

“That’s not how genetics work, though,” Evan mused. “I mean, that’s what my brother would say, and he’s a doctor.”

“Oh, believe me, Daryl’s doctor-mother had many, many words to say about that,” Catherine admitted dryly. “It was the last straw for me, really. I think I overlooked a lot when it came to Daryl, mostly because he doted on the girls and he was a decent husband. But accusing me of cheating, and then saying I had defective genes because my son took more after me than he was comfortable with was just my limit.”

“Did he leave of his own volition,” Magdelina asked, “or did you ask him to leave? I only ask because you don’t seem put out about any of it, and your daughter is being remarkably calm while listening to you.”

“I actually told Dad he was being incredibly stupid about the cheating thing,” Jill admitted. “I’m not a doctor or scientist, but I know he was being stupid, and I don’t understand how he could come from my grandparents’ home and be such a…yeah,” she sighed. “He’s a mess, but the divorce isn’t final yet, so I still have to visit him in Trenton two weekends every month.”

“Ah,” Evan said sadly. “I mean, I knew you were torn up about your parents splitting up, but I guess I didn’t understand the extent of your upset.”

Jill shook her head sadly. “My sister and I are not exactly torn up about the divorce, Evan. Alicia started college two years ago, and Dad jumped all over her because of the school she chose to go to. He wanted her to go to Howard University or Spelman College, but she wanted to go to Columbia. He said she should go to a black college, but that’s a bunch of…pucky…because he and Mom both went to the University of Illinois–and he got there on academic scholarship.”

Catherine smiled sadly and looked at Magdelina. “Both of my girls are horrified about their father’s reaction to Isaiah.”

“That seems to be a good reaction,” Magdelina replied. “I also find myself horrified by such a reaction, and I have never met your husband. It is commendable that you have such a good relationship with his parents.”

Catherine laughed. “Oh, Jackie and Roland are wonderful people! I think they’d disown Daryl completely over this if they didn’t have limitless capacity for love. And I really treasure them because both of my parents are gone.”

Jill smiled at Evan and said, “I totally get why your grandmother is so important to you because my grandparents are total rocks!”

Evan laughed. “So that’s another thing we have in common.”

Jill shrugged. “I know good when I see it.”

Catherine clapped her hands together. “Well, darling daughter, why don’t you take your aspiring boyfriend into the kitchen so that Magdelina and I can talk about you both.”

Jill laughed and held out her hand to Evan. “I guess that’s an order, fella. C’mon and I can ply you with cookies while I ask for more math tutoring.”

“What kind of cookies?” Evan asked as he followed Jill out of the living room. “I do most of my best tutoring under the influence of chocolate chips.”

~~

“So we’ve set a wedding date.”

“Wow,” Evan said as he pushed away from the desk in his bedroom. “I guess I need to mark my calendar, then.”

“I’m not sure if that’ll do any good, Evan. Doug doesn’t want a big production for a wedding, so I’m not sure if anyone besides the parents will be involved.”

Evan paused on his way down the stairs and stared at his cell phone. “Um, Maddie, do Mom and Dad know about that? Or Lina? Daniel? Doug’s not the only one getting married, and we’d all like the opportunity to celebrate with you.”

“I know that, Evan, really. And I would love for all of you to be there. But Doug isn’t big on displays like that.”

Evan could hear the wistful tone of his sister’s voice and it made him sad. “What about what you want, Maddie? I mean, I’m sure you thought about your potential wedding day a lot. I know I’ve thought about what I would like mine to be, and I don’t even really have a girlfriend.”

“What about Jill Taylor?” Maddie teased. “Aren’t you going to a dance with her?”

Evan rolled his eyes, even though Maddie couldn’t see him. “Homecoming was last week, and Jill and I had a great time. She doesn’t dance any better than I do, but we jumped around a lot. And we looked smashing while we did so, so don’t change the subject. Is a courthouse wedding what you want? Really?”

“I’m very happy with the decision that Doug and I came to,” Maddie said after a moment. “He has a reason for it, Evan, and I don’t expect you to understand it.”

“Can you explain it using small, easily pronounced words?”

Maddie sighed. “Doug’s grandfather is dying, okay? He’s in a hospital in Boston, and his dying wish is to see Doug married and happy. It’s not pretty, but it’s real, and that’s the reason.”

“Geez, Maddie!” Evan exclaimed. “That’s horrible! And I’m sorry I pushed, okay.”

“No, you’re right,” Maddie said, “it’s horrible. And it’s really not how I pictured my wedding day, but we can always do another, better wedding at a later date.”

“Yeah, like maybe on your anniversary or something.”

Maddie laughed. “Yeah, that’s an idea. Anyway, Doug and I are going to Boston before the end of the month. It’s not great, but his grandfather deserves to have this.”

“Yeah, okay. Are you going to be gone for a long time?”

“I’m sure we’ll be back before Halloween, but that’s unfortunately a really busy night in a hospital emergency room.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Evan muttered. “Why do people get stupid on certain nights of the year?”

“It’s usually worse on the night of a full moon, so thank heaven that’s not on Halloween this year.”

“I think we have a long time before that happens, so you won’t have to worry about it.”

Maddie laughed again. “You always know the oddest things.”

~~

Chapter Three: Sixteen, Part Two

“Maddie, what happened to your face?”

Evan started, aghast, as his sister got out of her car and made her way to the porch of their parents’ house.

Maddie rolled her eyes and adjusted her grip on the casserole she was carrying. “Believe it or not, I actually got hit by a door.”

Evan regarded the black eye and deep red scratches on her face and neck. “It doesn’t look like you got hit by a door.”

“I know, but I really did,” Maddie assured. “I was leaving the house for work when I dropped my keys, and as I bent down to pick them up, Doug opened the front door to come in and rammed it right against me. It was just lousy timing, is all. And bad key placement.”

Magdelina rushed forward to take the casserole from Maddie and gently prodded the scratches on the side of her face. “You were seen by a physician, si?”

“Yes, Gran,” Maddie replied. “I was seen by many physicians. All day long, while I was working. I think doctors I’ve never met found an excuse to stop by the ER just to check on me. Doug, of course, felt horrible, and said that he wanted to change our front door to one with a glass front so he could see into the front hall at all times.”

“And when did this unfortunate encounter occur?” Magdelina asked as she led the way into the house.

“Not quite a week ago,” Maddie said. “That’s why there’s so much color on my face. Of course, my boss was horrified, but then she admitted that the same thing happened to her a few years ago. Now I just make sure I keep hold of my keys tightly as I leave the house.”

“No offense, Maddie,” Philip said as he hugged his daughter, “but it looks like you were mugged.”

Maddie offered a wan smile. “I know,” she said ruefully. “I was put strictly on desk duty the whole week. On the plus side, people kept bringing me cookies and tea, so I got pampered for my trouble.”

Thanksgiving right after Maddie’s elopement to Doug Kendall would not be a loud, crowded mess like the year before. For one thing, Daniel was working and could not make the trip. And then Margaret Buckley came down with pneumonia a few days before the holiday and was spending the day in her bed, with Philip dutifully bringing her tea, orange juice, and soup.

Turkey noodle soup. Because Thanksgiving.

And Doug Kendall was also working, much to his own ire, so Maddie was attending alone. But she did promise to bring him a plate for his evening meal.

Evan didn’t think Doug was particularly happy about the situation, but he didn’t voice his concerns. He was just happy to be spending the holiday with his family.

Evan was also thrilled that he had been allowed to drive from Philadelphia to Hershey in his own vehicle. Magdelina had only just returned from a trip to Brazil and was not in the mood for another encounter with public transportation, so she offered to pay for the gas if Evan would agree to drive.

No arms were twisted during the negotiation.

Philip made a modest turkey and a few sides, but Evan and Magdelina brought the desserts with them. Since there were only four seated for dinner, they used the cozy kitchen table, rather than the formal dining room, and they spoke in hushed tones so as to not disturb Margaret in her sick bed.

Maddie kept the conversation light, asking about Magdelina’s family visit and Evan’s upcoming mid-term tests, but Evan really wanted to know about Maddie’s ‘accident’.

While the black eye was the most prominent injury she’d sported since her return to Pennsylvania, Evan had noticed others: a bruised wrist at Christmas the previous year, a slight limp when she came with Philip to watch one of Evan’s wrestling matches, what looked suspiciously like fingerprints on her throat when Evan managed to take her on a hike the previous summer. Evan had asked about each supposed injury, but Maddie had brushed him off each time.

Evan had never spent much time around Doug, had not even been to their wedding in Doug’s family home in Boston, but he had been doubting the older man’s devotion to his sister. Could abuse be going on? It was something he desperately wanted to discuss with his father or brother, but as far as Evan knew, Philip and Daniel knew even less about Doug Kendall than he did. His grandmother was the one to meet the man first and the best thing she could say was that he seemed ‘charming’.

One thing Evan definitely knew, per Maddie, was that Doug didn’t seem to like close family relationships. She said he wasn’t close to his own family, and despite the fact that Doug insisted they travel to Boston to get married in front of his grandfather, Evan believed it. And as much as they were all spread out, the Buckleys were close. They all talked to each other on the telephone at least twice a week; even Evan managed that much with his mother. They visited when school and/or work permitted. They even sent cards and letters to each other for no reason other than someone saw a funny card and wanted to share it.

But Maddie had been difficult to get in touch with since she moved back from Boston, returning phone calls sporadically and never initiating contact. Philip and Margaret had both complained to Magdelina that they never really saw Maddie, even though she lived mere minutes from the parental home. After discovering the blocks of Buckley contacts on Maddie’s phone, Evan made sure to call his older sister every week, if only to make sure the connection remained. Maddie always answered, but the conversations were short–mostly because Doug was present and demanding Maddie’s attention.

Evan was certain that, if Doug had not been scheduled to work an emergency rotation that holiday, Maddie would not be present for the family Thanksgiving Dinner.

He really needed to think hard about his suspicions. Magdelina could help, Evan knew, if there was something nefarious happening.

~~

“So–how do you think you did on the Mid-term?”

Evan looked over at Geoff, who was unpacking his own gym bag, and scowled. “Which one? I mean, I’m confident that I did well on the English exam, but I’m not too sure about Sociology.”

Geoff laughed and said, “I was actually thinking about Trigonometry.”

Evan groaned. “Oh, that one. I did okay, I think. I certainly studied hard enough, and I’ll probably have nightmares about right angles, sines, and that freaky description of the mansion in that Shirley Jackson story, but I think I did okay.”

Geoff laughed again. “Only you would look at a math test and see a correlation to an evilly-constructed Gothic mansion.”

Evan gave him a side-eye as he centered himself for the first motions of their Tai Chi workout. “I can’t help it! I had nightmares after reading that book! Can you imagine living in a house with no right angles and stairs that are just off enough to cause headaches? I may never forgive Mr. Hansen for assigning any of Jackson’s works last year.”

“At least he didn’t make us watch any of the movies based on the stories,” Geoff countered. “Blake’s class had to watch that Liam Neeson disaster this year, and last year she made them watch two movie versions of ‘The Lottery’.”

“That is a true shame,” Evan muttered. “‘The Lottery’ is a quality short story and the writing is very tense and engaging, but everybody knows they never get that stuff right when a movie gets made.”

The two friends began the slow, deliberate moves of the Tai Chi katas, keeping pace with each other. The exercise was comforting to Evan, as it was his grandmother who introduced him to the art. It was the perfect blend of meditation and physical activity, and that was a necessary combination when it came to healing his mind and body after the Incident.

Bringing Geoff along was a natural move for Evan. He’d made a friend in school–his first real friend–and Evan wanted a way to spend time with the other boy outside of a school setting. Geoff had resisted the call to Tai Chi for years, happy to study with Evan in school and to go climbing with him at the climbing gym after school. But after Geoff was forcibly removed from his family home and moved in with his own grandmother, Magdelina Buckley made sure to befriend Grace Ratner so that the two boys could remain close, and that led Magdelina to invite Grace to the Academy Tai Chi classes as a way to keep her aging body limber and healthy. Geoff followed along to keep his grandmother happy, and found that he enjoyed the exercise. The two best friends were a common sight at the academy; where one was, the other was not far behind.

Now that the Ninja Warrior gym was open in the roof garden, Evan and Geoff did their Tai Chi workout three times a week after school before Geoff served as a spotter for Evan’s antics on the balance and climbing obstacles of the Ninja course. The fact that the boys could get gym credit for their school requirements was a bonus they both enjoyed. Geoff was not much of an athlete, while Evan enjoyed being on the wrestling team, but they both loved climbing.

Evan had plans to take Geoff rock climbing during summer break. Geoff just didn’t know it yet

~~

“How was your visit with your father?” Evan asked as Jill unpacked her textbooks next to him in the library.

She shrugged and opened a notebook filled with scribbles that could loosely be called an essay. “It was okay, I guess. Sometimes I think he’s really lost the plot, you know?”

Evan huffed. “Well, yeah–but I figured that after I met your mother. I mean, she’s pretty great, so anyone who could not look at her and see that is…not right.”

Jill offered a brilliant smile in response. “I love that you think that. Now–please help me with Spanish! I don’t know why I can’t get this!”

Evan shook his head. “You can’t get it because you waited until you were sixteen to start learning. Studies have shown that people learn languages better if they start young. I’ve been speaking Spanish since I could talk because of Lina, and I also speak Portuguese and French for the same reason. But my brother, Daniel, is trying hard to learn German because his new girlfriend is from Germany, and he’s having a heck of a time of it.”

Jill laughed. “How old is your brother?”

“He’s twenty-five, and he’s fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French, and has a deep understanding of Latin because of medical school.”

“I guess having a multilingual family member is a good thing,” Jill surmised. “My family only speaks English, although I supposed my grandparents might understand some Latin for the same reason as your brother.”

“Yeah, it’s all in how often you use it. I mean, Lina will use all three languages in telephone conversations with family members, and I sometimes get dizzy just listening to her.” Evan opened his own notebook and pulled Jill’s notes toward him. “I speak Spanish every day with Lina, but I only use the other languages when I’m on the phone with my family. My father rarely uses Spanish at home and my mother doesn’t speak it at all.”

Jill nodded. “So if you don’t use it, you lose it? Gotcha. Um, my mom wanted to know if you wanted to come to dinner this weekend?”

Evan frowned. “Was that a question? I mean, the invitation, because it almost sounded like you’d rather I didn’t come.”

“Oh, no,” Jill soothed. “I really do want you to come, but my sister and grandparents will be there, so it might look more like an inquisition than a dinner.”

“That’s fine,” he replied with a smile. “I really have no big secrets, and you’ve already met Lina. Fair is fair, right?”

Jill nodded. “Yeah, fair. So, Saturday? My sister will only be in for this weekend until her semester break.”

Evan quickly took out his phone and sent a quick text. Once the return text had come in, he nodded and put his phone back in his pocket.

“Lina says we’re all clear this weekend, so Saturday is good for me. I can’t stay late, though, because we’re leaving early Sunday for Harrisburg. I have a tournament on Sunday.”

“Okay,” Jill said, agreeably. “We promise not to keep you late.”

Evan pulled his chair closer to Jill’s and he began pointing out the grammar points that Jill was having trouble with. If their hands brushed together often, neither of them remarked about it.

~~

“Michael has the flu,” Geoff groaned as he fell backwards onto Evan’s bed.

“Well, it is going around,” Evan replied as he tossed a towel and some socks into his gym bag. “Why is this a problem?”

Geoff propped himself up on his elbow and glared at his dearest friend. “It’s a problem,” he said in a clipped tone, “because the Winter formal is at the end of the week.”

Evan gave him an unimpressed look. “Please tell me you weren’t going to wait until the last minute before asking him to go with you.”

Geoff huffed and fell backwards again. “No. I asked him as soon as the tickets went on sale, and he said he would love to go. And then we went and looked at suits because neither of us wanted to wear a tuxedo, and then I ordered a boutonniere for the occasion because I wanted to be classy.”

“That sounds very nice,” Evan replied as he tucked a pair of jeans into his gym bag.

“Yeah,” Geoff sighed. “And then a flu epidemic hit his school, and half of the students–and almost a quarter of the teachers–all got sick at the same time. Even if he does recover before the weekend, I’d never ask him to go out in public when he’s still weak from the illness.”

“So–why don’t you get dressed up and take your boutonniere to Michael’s house and watch bad ‘High School Dance’ movies while you spoon-feed him chicken soup?”

Geoff laughed and sat up. “That’s not a half-bad idea, actually. And could you tell me why you didn’t ask Jill to go to the dance with you?”

Evan sighed and zipped his bag. “It’s her weekend with her father and she was reluctant to ask to not go. He’s apparently not taking the separation from his daughters well and is really enforcing the visitation.”

“That sucks, man.”

“It is what it is,” Evan said blandly. “I’ll get to see her next weekend, and she’ll probably have more to complain about, so I’ll be the good friend and listen to her gripe. But right now, I’m more concerned about the wrestling match tonight, so can we talk about something else, please?”

Geoff nodded. “Sure, we can talk about anything else you want. How about Christmas?”

Evan groaned. “No, not that. We can talk about Christmas after my match.”

The truth was, Christmas was a sore subject for Evan at that moment. He and Magdelina had traveled to Hershey to spend the day with Philip and Margaret as usual, but Daniel was going to be absent due to work, and Maddie and Doug were supposed to host Doug’s family.

Evan didn’t mind missing his siblings on the holiday, but Margaret was in a mood the whole day, and she started adding sparkling wine to her orange juice at breakfast. She was coherent during the gift exchange, but by the time lunch rolled around, the same could not be said. Evan winced slightly as he recalled how Margaret slurred her way through a phone call from Daniel. When it was Evan’s turn to speak with his brother, Daniel wanted to know if he had any plans to see Maddie around the holiday. Evan confirmed that Maddie probably would not be available.

Evan had called Daniel about his suspicions of domestic abuse involving their sister after Thanksgiving. Daniel, fortunately, had taken Evan seriously and had made his own plans to visit when he had a weekend off. That had occurred the second weekend of December, and Daniel showed up at the hospital that both Maddie and Doug worked in, surprising Maddie completely. While Daniel had originally been happy to see Maddie in her element, at work in the Emergency Room, he had been dismayed to see her physical condition. The black eye caused by her encounter with her front door had not quite faded at that time, and was a sickly green-yellow. Daniel had been warned by Evan and Philip, so he was prepared to see that.

Daniel was not prepared to see fresh bruises on Maddie’s left wrist–in the shape of fingerprints. Or the large bruise on her collarbone that had a visible thumbprint in the hollow of her throat. Concerned, Daniel inquired, but Maddie brushed his concerns aside. She had a slew of excuses, from workplace incidents to household accidents.

None of it was abuse.

None of it was Doug’s doing. And if it were, he certainly hadn’t meant anything by it.

It was all Maddie’s fault somehow or another and Daniel shouldn’t suggest otherwise.

Everything was compounded by the fact that Evan had tried to see Maddie the day after Christmas, only to find her indisposed at home. Injured, she said, by a fall down their steep stairs, and in no condition to see visitors. Sorry.

Evan whispered to Magdelina, who in turn whispered to Philip–who promised to keep a weather eye on his daughter as much as he could. Maddie could deny all she wanted, but Philip went to the hospital, castigating Maddie’s co-workers for being lax mandated reporters who could not recognize that one of their own was in danger.

Maddie was being closely scrutinized when she was on the job, and because of that, there were fewer visible ‘accidental’ injuries. During her phone calls to Evan and Daniel, Maddie complained that her co-workers were being ‘odd’ when they were around her: The Charge Nurse kept barging in on her private meetings with Doug during meal breaks, security followed her to and from the parking lot, and Maddie was often required to leave patients that might have violent tendencies. She didn’t understand why she was being looked-over so closely, and none of the Buckleys felt the need to tell her.

Still, Evan wasn’t in the mood to revisit the disaster that was Christmas Past. Geoff had the good sense to understand that and changed the subject yet again, this time to talk about his boyfriend, Michael.

Evan grinned into his gym bag as Geoff plotted how, exactly, he could convince Michael’s parents to allow him to nurse the ill boyfriend in a very Winter Formal manner.

~~

Evan pulled the last notebook from his locker before closing the door with an echoing click.

The last day of school, finally, and Evan was mentally packing for his summer. There were several trips in his future, with family and with just Geoff, and Evan planned to enjoy each and every one of them.

“Hey, Evan,” came a soft voice from behind him, and Evan sighed before turning around.

“Hello, Meggan,” Evan replied politely.

“Big plans for the summer?” she asked casually.

Evan shrugged. “There are always plans in my family, especially when school isn’t in session.”

Meggan smiled and moved closer to him, forcing him to back almost into the bank of lockers lining the wall. “I don’t suppose there’s a chance for us to spend time together?”

Evan shook his head slowly. “Meggan, there would never be a chance for us to spend time together. I’ve been telling you for years that I’m not interested, so I wish you’d just get that into your head.”

“Don’t front, big boy,” she cooed. “I know I can show you a good time, and you know it, too.”

Evan choked on a laugh. “I know no such thing. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to hand in my last textbook so I can meet Geoff in the parking lot.”

Meggan scowled. “Does his boyfriend know he’s cheating with you?”

Evan did laugh at that. “Hearing that crap coming out of your mouth just makes my day, Meggan. You can’t seem to decide if you want to flirt with me, or if you want to argue and accuse me of ridiculous stuff. Why don’t you take the summer to get your head on straight, okay? Senior year is coming up, so you only have that long to make something of yourself, and you seem a little lost to me.”

With that final shot, Evan pushed away from the lockers and strode down the hall, leaving a fuming Meggan McCann behind him.

He didn’t really care. Meggan had been hounding Evan since he started as a Freshman at the high school, and he’d done nothing to encourage her. When he was a skinny kid of fourteen, he didn’t understand her interest. Over the years, Evan had grown physically, as well as mentally and emotionally, and he understood that some people found him attractive.

His grandmother called it a family curse: being so beautiful.

Evan had laughed then, only sixteen years old. But he knew that it was probably true. His grandmother was gorgeous–occasionally a fashion model even at her advanced age, and so very poised at all times. His father, an only child of a beautiful Spanish woman, was by all accounts a very handsome man. Evan’s older siblings were also incredibly attractive, although Evan saw the goodness, the genuine kindness and empathy, behind the physical image they showed the world.

Evan was raised with the same kindness and empathy, and so he came to understand that anyone who was attracted to him because of his physical appearance was missing out on the real treasure that was Evan Buckley. Girls like Meggan McCann didn’t do anything for him, and so he had no patience for their vapid attention.

Evan wanted a real love, like the one his grandmother told him she had with her late husband. Like the one Daniel seemed to have with his girlfriend. Like the one his best friend, Geoff, had with Michael Healey.

Evan had had no doubts that Geoff and Michael were going to be together for freaking ever. They had the kind of high school romance that stories were written about. And really bad movies.

As if thinking of his friend made the boy appear, Geoff popped out from around a corner and met him in front of the main school entrance.

“Sorry, man, I got to talking to Mr. Philips about my summer plans,” he said as soon as he saw Evan.

Evan laughed. “No worries, man. Meggan tried to trap me at the lockers, so I just got here. Let me hand this book into the office, and then we can scram.”

Geoff nodded. “I’ll just text Grams and let her know we’re on our way.”

To celebrate surviving their Junior Year–and for making the Top Ten list for exceptional students–Evan and Geoff were taking their guardians out on the town. As much as they could at their age, anyway. Geoff and Evan were both working as youth instructors at the climbing gym, which was a fun part-time job, and they had decided to treat their respective grandmothers to a fun early dinner at the Frankford Hall Beer Garden before taking them to a student production of ‘Rent’. Magdelina Buckley and Grace Ratner were both fans of contemporary musical theater, something they passed along to Evan and Geoff, so the boys were looking forward to their fun evening out.

~~

“Don’t move, Evan!”

Evan glanced down in incredulity. “Don’t move? Dude! I’m hanging by a freaking rope!”

“I know,” Geoff fretted. “But you’re hanging by a rope over a freaking rattlesnake! Don’t. Move.”

Evan shifted minutely to look at the rocks directly beneath him and, much to his dismay, he saw a large snake sunning itself on the flat rock at the cliff base.

“Now where in the hell did that come from?” he muttered, disgruntled. Evan was certain there were no snakes in the area when he and his team climbed up the rock face. As he had no choice at that time, Evan tightened his grip on the rope wound through his harness and just hung there, hovering ten feet above the dangerous reptile.

He’d been rappelling down the rock face after a successful morning climb, so his descent was very quick. Having Geoff scream for him to stop moving had been a very jarring experience. There were no hand-holds where he was, so Evan was dependent on his rope.

Fortunately, the snake had not seemed to notice him, so Evan was safe for the moment. That could change, however, as the snake was easily four feet long and could strike upward about one-third of its length. That might only be just over one foot, but Evan’s hold on the rope could become precarious and he could slip downward.

Looking around, Evan noticed that Geoff had disappeared. He really hoped that he hadn’t been left alone to face his fate. Evan had just tightened his grip again when Geoff reappeared–carrying a large stick. The rest of the climbing team had stayed back, well away from the danger of the snake (and any other possibly hidden snakes), but Geoff stepped slightly closer so that he could poke at the snake with his stick. It was a long stick, so Geoff was relatively safe, and the snake was easily annoyed so it didn’t stick around for long.

Fifteen minutes after spotting the snake, Geoff was helping Evan finish his descent down the rock face. Evan’s arms were shaky from supporting his weight for so long, and his legs were shaky due to the adrenaline from the fear of the snake. After he reached solid ground, Evan threw himself into Geoff’s arms and began laughing.

“Let’s never do that again,” Evan said as he caught his breath.

“Yeah, that’s a deal,” Geoff replied.

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