“I understand how you feel, Audrey.” His gentle manner allowed a breath of hope to fill her lungs. “But—”
Oh. There’s a but. The breath solidified into a chunk of ice in her chest.
“We were fortunate to get Mark on such short notice.” He indicated a chair for her, and she sat as he leaned against the front of his desk, hiking a leg up into a half-sitting position. “Most of you young folks aren’t looking to come to a small district like Taylor’s Grove. Our enrollment’s waning, and we can’t compete with the bigger schools salary-wise. But, timing’s everything, as they say, and Mark was just recently back in the States after all those years in the Peace Corps and looking for a way to give back to the community that nurtured him. The other kids’ parents are thrilled.”
Audrey gritted her teeth. He made Mark sound like some kind of hero. “Surely, you can understand my hesitance to place Tess’s safety in Mark’s, um, Mr. Dublin’s hands for seven hours a day.” His responsive sigh sounded too much like “No, I don’t understand,” so any viable solution would have to come from her. “Maybe she could test out of the first grade. She’s very bright, so perhaps she could skip it and move on to the second.”
The principal pushed his glasses higher on his nose in a gesture she remembered from her childhood. Then he clasped his hands loosely in his lap. “I wouldn’t advise that. Her lower maturity level might cause problems socially later on. And, besides, it wouldn’t solve anything. She’d still be in Mark’s class. With so few students, we decided to save a salary by combining the two grades when Betty retired. That still puts only fifteen children in the class. Tess will make it sixteen.”
Audrey rubbed the throbbing area between her brows. Why couldn’t anything be easy anymore?
As if he’d read her mind, Mr. Williams spoke again. “You’re making this too difficult, Audrey.” He turned his palms up and splayed his fingers. “It is what it is.”
And what it was was a disaster. Here, she’d thought she’d done the right thing—moving back to Taylor’s Grove to keep her mom from having to go to a nursing home. She hadn’t expected to be rewarded, but she also hadn’t expected everything to turn to crap...especially on the very first day.
“Maybe one of the districts nearby...” She hadn’t meant to speak her thoughts.
“That would mean paying out-of-district tuition and providing your own transportation.”
“Which would mean having to get Mom out in all kinds of conditions—hers and the weather.”
“It would also make your daughter an outsider in her own community.” Mr. Williams’s voice took on its fatherly sound. “There is a way, though.” He paused long enough to give it meaning. “Forgiveness would be the way.”
Forgive Mark Dublin? Audrey’s insides coiled like a snake intent on striking. She tried to suck in a breath, but the room seemed ten times smaller than it used to be and void of any usable air.
“You and Mark were inseparable for a lot of years, Audrey. Give him—give us—a chance.”
The throbbing inched toward Audrey’s temples, threatening a full-blown migraine. She didn’t need one of those on top of everything else.
She sighed in resignation. Some things in life she had no control over. Her sister’s fall. Her dad’s heart attack. Her husband’s falling in love with someone else. Her mom’s early onset Alzheimer’s.
But forgiving Mark Dublin? That she could control.
“I may not be able to keep Tess from being in his class, but Mark Dublin lost any chance of friendship with me eleven years ago.”
She heard the bitterness in her voice, and when she swallowed, the taste of it remained on her tongue.
And in her heart.
* * *
“HUNTER?”
A pair of large, blue eyes turned Mark’s way.
“Didn’t you just have a turn?”
The little boy nodded, eyes downcast now.
“Then you have to go to the back of the line and wait for your turn to come around again.” Mark laid a hand on the boy’s back, combining the gentle nudge in the right direction with an affectionate pat. “I saw how you skipped every other bar that last time. Boy, you’re strong!”
The little towhead’s face jerked up and he beamed at the praise. “My dad calls me a monkey!”
“Well, take that as a compliment because monkeys are smart animals, very clever.” Mark went into his best monkey imitation, bending his arms and legs, scratching the top of his head with one hand and his side with the other as his lips protruded monkey-style. “Oooo, oooo, oooo,” he huffed, jumping his way up and down the line, eliciting shrieks of delight from his audience of six-and seven-year-olds. A couple joined his antics, followed by a few more. Soon his entire area of the playground had become a simian relocation program.
“Hence the name monkey bars.”
Mark spun around mid-oooo at the sound of the principal’s voice. But it wasn’t George Williams’s imposing sight that filled his eyes and made his head spin so hard he had to take a step back to keep his balance.
“Audrey.” The last syllable compressed as his air ran out.
“Hello, Mark.” The blue-gray eyes held none of the warmth that suddenly engulfed him.
He thought he was prepared for this moment, had known it was going to happen for two weeks now. Being close to Audrey and his aging parents was the reason he’d moved back to Taylor’s Grove and taken this job.
He’d prepared for the icy glare and the bitter tone and the eleven years of aging since his last glimpse. But he hadn’t prepared for the richness that age had added to Audrey’s voice, or the deeper beauty that had emerged like a stone from a grit tumbler, polished to perfection by the sands of time.
He wasn’t prepared for the way his heart swelled or how the sight of her made him feel like a thirsty man struggling to reach the far oasis.
He’d prepared for the hatred—not the love.
The only thing that saved him from making a complete fool of himself was George clapping his hands, effectively drawing attention long enough for Mark to take a gulp of air that jump-started his brain. “We have a new student this morning, Mr. Dublin. This is Tess Merrill. She’ll be in your first-grade class. You already know her mother, Audrey Merrill.”
Yes, she was no longer Audrey Paschal but Audrey Merrill now. Mark’s eyes dropped to the little girl, a miniature version of Audrey at that age. She had dancing blue-gray eyes and a wide smile that met his as he squatted and offered his hand. “We’re glad to have you, Tess Merrill. I’m Mr. Dublin, also known as Monkey Man.”
Tess giggled as she shook his hand. “I would have brought you a cookie, Mr. Monkey Man, but I ate it.”
“That would explain the crumb on your cheek.” He reached out with a finger to dust it off, but Audrey’s hands appeared on her daughter’s shoulders, inching the child protectively back against her legs. The gesture cut through Mark’s insides like a scythe, but he redirected his finger to point to the same place on his own cheek. Tess picked up the cue and flicked away the crumb with a sweep of her palm.
Mark straightened back up, meeting the wrath in Audrey’s eyes and understanding the silent warning. “Tess,” he said, without breaking eye contact with the child’s mother, “we have about five more minutes of recess. Would you like to meet some of your classmates?”
In his peripheral vision, he saw George hold out his hand to the little girl. “I think I see a couple