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“Joe?” The macho paramedic who’d dated Maddie before Nick.
“No, somebody else. Somebody serious.”
Did the lights dim? “Who?”
“A nice guy. Professor at the University of Rockford where she did her doctoral work. Lucy and I spent some time with them.”
“Huh!” His stomach roiled. “Well, I’m glad for her.”
“You should be. He worshipped the ground she walked on.”
“You talk in the past tense. What happened?”
“He got a job at American University in D.C. before Maddie came back to the Center. He wanted her to go to Washington with him.”
Couldn’t be she cared about him enough if she’d passed on that. “Why didn’t she?”
“I’m not sure.”
John waited a beat. “What about you? Any women in your life?”
“No. There was someone, but…”
She was married. Still, his relationship with Katie Gardner had been comfortable and easy. Probably because there was no danger of commitment. She’d loved her husband, but he was absent and neglectful. They’d even separated a time or two, though they always got back together again.
“But what?” John asked.
Because he was embarrassed by the affair, Nick couldn’t tell his friend the truth. “It didn’t work out. End of story.”
“All right. But I’m here if you need to talk about it.”
“Sure.”
“And do me a favor? Be careful with Maddie. Don’t oppose her on everything.”
“I— You’re right. This has all been a shock to me. And I was blindsided by the changes around here.”
“They’re solid ones.”
“Maybe. I don’t know how I’m going to manage that support group thing. The thought of spilling my guts in front of people I don’t know well, especially my colleagues, makes me crazy.” He sighed. “And, yes, I do get the irony. I ask clients to do exactly that. It’s the old ‘physician heal thyself’ cliché.”
John chuckled. “You’re not alone. A lot of mental-health workers find opening up difficult. The first time I talked about Zoe and what her death did to mine and Lucy’s marriage, I broke down.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“So, young man, if I can put it out there, you can, too.” He stood. “Now grab your car keys.”
“Why? I want to make some informational posters to put up on the walls temporarily.”
“Not now. Our church members are still bringing us food every week and there’s a spaghetti dinner waiting as we speak. Lucy would hit the roof if she knew I’d left you working here. You’re coming home with me.”
“Like the prodigal son?”
His friend’s face sobered. “Nick, why do you continue to see yourself like that?”
“Like what?”
“You know.” He nodded to the door. “And in case you don’t, Lucy will fill you in while she stuffs you with pasta.”
CHAPTER THREE
NICK STARED at the eight young faces in the room and felt a surge of adrenaline rush though him. “Hi, everybody. Thanks for getting here on time.”
Some of the kids said hello. A couple watched him with suspicious eyes. A boy in a beanbag chair, which he’d dragged to a far corner, was reading the posters Nick had tacked onto the wall. Another, in a wheelchair, doodled in a notebook on his lap. A girl, who’d taken the futon, appeared to be text messaging on her cell phone.
The door behind him opened before he could continue, and Nick sighed. It must be the new counselor. Though Maddie hadn’t mentioned a name, she’d assured him someone would be here. This morning they’d had a row about his paying for the furniture and he hadn’t seen her since. He pasted on a phony smile and glanced over his shoulder.
“Hi, sorry I’m late.”
“Hi, Madelyn.” He cocked his head. “What do you mean, you’re late?”
“I’m your second counselor.”
Like hell. On Monday, he’d wondered how this situation could get any worse. Now he knew. He’d had a bad enough time being around her for the three days he’d been back at the Center. There was no way he was going to share counseling duties with her.
She smiled at the kids. “Hello, everyone.”
Nick was about to ask to speak to her in the hall when he noticed the expression on the face of one of the girls. She’d yet to take a seat and had been wandering around the room as if she was going to bolt. When she saw Maddie, the stiffness seemed to leave her body. “Dr. Walsh, hi.”
Maddie walked over to the girl. “Hi, Kara.” She sat in a director’s chair and Kara followed suit in one close by.
Nick gave them a weak smile. “Obviously, I’m surprised we have another counselor. But glad for the help. Welcome, Madelyn.”
She nodded.
Stretching his legs, Nick addressed the group. “So, here we are.” He pointed to the food he’d set out on a low table—chips, cookies and some fruit. “Help yourself to snacks first and there’s soda in the fridge by the door. I’ll give you a few minutes to get what you want before we start.”
When the kids began to mill about, he stood and crossed the room. Kara had gone to get a soda, so he took her chair and leaned in close to Maddie. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The red tunic and pants she wore darkened the color of her eyes. “Just what I said.”
“Maddie, no. This is a bad idea.”
“It’s the only idea.” Her jaw tightened. “Do you think I’d be here if it weren’t?”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“This isn’t the time to get into that, Nick.”
When he saw the kids returning to their seats, he stood. “We’ll talk later. I want some answers.” Back in their midst, he took a sip from the bottle of water he’d put by his chair. Its cool wetness didn’t soothe the heat in his throat. With a poise he didn’t feel, he started his intro. “What I’d like to do today is get to know you better and hopefully have you get to know each other some.” Actually, he’d memorized the contents of their folders and would only have to refer to the clipboard by his side in an emergency. “Then I’d like to talk about how our group will run. You all are going to decide much of how we’ll operate here.”
A snort from the corner. He glanced at the kid’s name tag. “What, Hector?”
“Real choices, dude, or phony ones like they give us in the group home?”
Hector Santos and his twin sister Carla had been placed in a teen shelter after their father had brutally beaten and killed their mother—in front of both sixteen-year-olds. The elder Santos had been put in jail, with no bail, and the kids were going to have to testify in court about what they’d seen. Meanwhile, they were headed to foster care.
“I hope I give you real choices. But if I don’t, you got the job of telling me I’m not living up to what I said I’d do.”
The kid shrugged.
“Remember, Hector—and all of you—I’m fully aware that you’re the victims of crimes, and not the perpetrators. Nor are you at-risk juvenile delinquents. This is your group. Together, we have to find the best ways to help you deal with any issues caused by your victimization.”
Most of the kids nodded or made eye contact at his acknowledgment of their status.
“Let’s start with introductions.” He patted his chest near the square that held his name. “I’m Nick Logan. I have a bachelor’s degree in social work and a masters in psychology, but more important, I’ve worked with teenagers extensively in the past.” He held up a sheet. “On here, along with other information, are the e-mail addresses of three kids from my last job who’ve agreed to tell you what kind of guy I am.”
That brought surprise to many of their faces.
“What do we call you?” A skinny boy with red hair that looked like he’d chopped it himself asked the question. J. J. Camp. Before his fifteenth birthday, J. J. Camp had fallen victim to a series of tragic incidents. His parents had been killed in a car accident a year ago and he’d gone to live with his aunt in the city. As the new kid on the block, and a gawky one to boot, tough inner-city school life had been miserable for him. He’d consistently been the brunt of bullying. Two of his taunters had been suspended for a month and sent to juvenile detention because, in one of their harassment incidents, J.J.’s arm had been broken. It was still in a cast. Nick suspected the bullying hadn’t ended there. One set of bullies had just been replaced by another.
“I hope you’ll call me good things, J.J.,” Nick joked.
“I mean, Dr. Logan, Mr. Logan, Nick?”
“Either of the last two. Though I’d prefer Nick.”
“What about you?” Hector’s sister Carla asked Maddie. The twins shared the same dark curly hair and big, almost-black eyes. “When we met that day we signed up, we called you Dr. Walsh.”
“That or Madelyn’s fine, Carla.” Maddie’s smile was forced. Too bad. If she’d let Nick know she’d be joining them, he and she could have discussed how she wanted to be addressed.
“Now that that’s settled, let me tell you about the schedule.” He was giving them time to acclimate before he asked them to introduce themselves. He held up the paper again. “The schedule for the group sessions is on here; we’ll meet in this room. I’m offering them Tuesday after school, Thursday nights and Saturday mornings.”
Hector shook his head. “I gotta work on Saturday.”
His sister said, “And I got softball practice most days at three.”
“That’s why there are three sessions. I’m trying to make this easy on you. You’re welcome to come to all of them, but I do want a firm commitment from you that you’ll attend at least two. This support group isn’t meant to be a drop-in thing.” Since they’d all agreed to come—either by choice or coercion from their guardians or parents—he expected their cooperation. “For individual counseling appointments, we can meet here at the Center, at your school if we can find some place inconspicuous or even at a coffee shop. I hear the Spot is still hopping in Rockford.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Maddie shift in her seat. One of the differences in their style was his informality. She played by the rules. In the past, he’d liked to tease her out of that box.
Kara leaned over and her light brown hair obscured her face as she whispered something to Maddie, who responded to her privately, then said aloud, “I won’t be doing any individual counseling with you. But I promise to be at all these group sessions. And as Nick told you, he’s very experienced.”
Nick rose and picked up one of the brand-new notebooks. “First off, I’m suggesting we write in these at each session. If the activity doesn’t work for us, we can stop, but I’d like to try this because it has worked with kids in the past. The entry today should be one you can share with us.”
Anne Nguyen raised her hand and Nick nodded for her to ask her question. A fourteen-year-old Asian girl, she’d been traumatized by a break-in at her house. Her father had been severely injured when he’d tried to stop the intruder, who’d been caught, tried and put behind bars. “What about other entries?”
“I thought we’d have several types.” He moved to the whiteboard he’d set up. “One will be a communication between you and us.” He wrote down, types of journals, then you, Nick and Madelyn. “Or you can choose one of us to read it. The second will be for teen eyes only.”
“Sounds like a song.” From his wheelchair, Tommy Danzer looked up for the first time. His curly blond hair fell over big and distrusting blue eyes. The victim of a drive-by shooting, the boy had a spinal cord injury and would never recover. He was only fifteen years old.
“Yeah, but don’t expect me to sing. I’d only do that to punish you.” Nick smiled. “Some entries you can record and plan to share at a later date.”
Slouched in a chair far away from the group, Nato Keyes called out, “Yo, man. I don’t do writing.” The young black boy had been assaulted on the street and his assailant was awaiting arraignment. In the intake notes, Madelyn had indicated his anger seemed to be seething inside him. Nick hoped to bring it to the surface.
Nick picked up a different notebook from the stack and brought it to Nato. “I happen to have a journal without lines.” He also knew from the intake interview Nato was an artist. “You can draw or doodle entries. But you have to discuss some of them.”
“No shit?”
“Speaking of that, I’d prefer we keep the language clean in here. Even if it’s not your or my style.” He hoped including himself would ease the caveat.
“What about language in the journals?” Hector asked.
Since she needed to be included, Nick looked to Maddie. She said, “Anything’s fine by me in the journal, but I’d prefer you didn’t read aloud language that might make somebody else uncomfortable.”
“Can you guys live with that?” Nick asked.
“What if we can’t?” Hector’s mutinous expression was one Nick was familiar with. When he was the boy’s age, he’d perfected it.
“Por favor, el hermano,” Carla said softly.
So Hector was here for his sister. She might be his Achilles’ heel and Nick’s entry into his life.
Hector shrugged. “Sí, bien.”
Nick made eye contact with everybody but Kara, who wouldn’t look at him. Her file stated that she’d been beaten up by some girls in the school parking lot, but Madelyn had commented in her folder that something about her story didn’t ring quite true. Counselors paid attention to gut instincts.
Maddie asked, “Kara, this okay with you?”
“I guess.”
“Shamika?” Nick addressed the one girl who hadn’t yet spoken and was still fiddling with her cell phone. Overweight, with cornrows gracing her dark head, she was quiet, reports said. Which might explain why she spent most of her time on the computer and had become the victim of an online predator. He’d ended up being a level-three sex offender and had taken her halfway across the country before he was apprehended. He was back in jail now, as Shamika was under seventeen, the legal age of consent in New York.
Her face was impassive. “Yeah, no worries.”
“First entry, then. Write down what you’d like to get out of this group. Why you’re here. Anything specific you might want to do. You can read all or parts of it today to us. Any portion can be marked private, which means neither Madelyn nor I will read it. But you’ve got to share at least one thing. Also, put in what snacks you want to have this week.” He glanced at the clock. “Ten minutes. Madelyn and I will write, too, of course. We’ll never ask you to do something we wouldn’t do.”
“That’s a switch,” J.J. said.
“Not for me. It’s the way I operate.” Nick passed around the books. “I hope you’ll come to see that.”
“What about you, Dr. Walsh?” Tommy asked. “You gonna do what you ask us to?”
“Yes. I fully agree with everything Nick has said.”
Hmm. Now that was a switch.
J.J. WROTE FURIOUSLY in his journal.
