The Better Man

* * *

“SO, MY COUSIN has a friend. Works for Abbott. Good-looking, great hair, super nice guy.”

“Don’t start with that today. I am not in the mood to discuss men. We have one hour before we sell this design to Mr. Sato.” Kendall stood in front of the presentation boards with her arms folded in front of her. She had spent the last month putting them together and was now sixty minutes away from sharing them with their potential client.

“You’re never in the mood to discuss men, which is what concerns me more than anything,” Owen said. “I mean, I’m not an expert in selective mutism, but I have to believe if Simon saw you living a life, he would realize that it’s okay to live his.”

He was lucky he wasn’t in arm’s reach because she would have hit him. Hard. She was much too stressed to be having this conversation.

“Trevor’s been gone just over a year,” she said wearily. The anniversary of his death had led to Simon’s regression. It seemed every time Kendall thought they were making some good progress, something would set him back. She was not going to give her son another reason to worry. “Simon does not need to see me running around with men on dates. He needs me home. He needs to know I’m not ever going to leave him.”

His father had left. His father had left them both.

“Avoiding a date here and there isn’t going to make him better.”

“He spoke in the classroom this morning. He whispered to me when we were standing in his classroom.”

Owen wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder. “That’s so great, K. He’s doing better. Before you know it, he’ll be like me and the teacher will be calling you because he won’t shut up.” He hugged her tightly.

Kendall leaned against her business partner and friend and smiled. “I would give anything to get that call.”

“As much as it kills you to see him close himself off to the world, it kills me to see you do the same. Trevor didn’t just leave Simon. He left you, too. Simon stopped talking and you stopped believing you deserve good things.”

Kendall patted Owen’s arms. “Trevor was the only guy I’ve ever truly been in love with. I can’t imagine feeling that way about anyone else.”

“People do it all the time. Hell, I’ve been in love more times than I can count.” Owen let go of his friend and threw his hands in the air.

“Love and lust are not the same,” Kendall corrected him.

He winked. “I know. I know. Lust was Brian, Greg and Manuel. Love was Hector, Johnny, Gil, Milo...oh, and Dylan. Wait, Dylan was lust and love. A lot of lust. A little love.”

Kendall shook her head. It was so easy for him. She couldn’t afford to be so careless with her heart. She had to be careful and cautious for Simon’s sake. Simon had to and would always come first.

* * *

MR. SATO SAT like a statue. He didn’t smile, didn’t comment, didn’t give any indication of loving or hating their design. When Kendall finished, the only sign of life he showed was the gentle tug he gave to the cuff of his shirt.

“We would love the opportunity to work with you,” Owen said.

Kendall’s rapidly beating heart was becoming a distraction. She unclasped her hands and tried to stand tall in front of her unreceptive audience, reminding herself that Mr. Sato never displayed emotion. The outside might scream apathy, but inside he could love it.

Mr. Sato leaned to his left and whispered to his son sitting beside him.

“We have a few questions,” the younger Sato said. Kendall felt her confidence surge. Questions were promising. She welcomed any and all questions. “And it’s likely Mr. Jordan will have some as well. We expect him any minute.”

Mr. Jordan was the restaurant manager who was already twenty minutes late. Kendall had no problem waiting.

Until her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She knew immediately that it was the school. Her family, Owen and the school were the only ones who called her. Her family knew not to call right now and Owen stood next to her.

“Excuse me.” She faked a smile for the Satos and looked to her partner for reassurance that he could handle this on his own.

“I got it. Go.”

She grabbed her bag and pulled out her phone as she headed out of the room to take the call. Not today. Not today.

“Kendall Montgomery,” she answered on the fourth and final ring.

“Mrs. Montgomery, it’s Lisa Warner.”

“Hi, Lisa.” Kendall sucked in a deep breath. Lisa was the social worker at Simon’s school. Lisa was always the one to call with the bad news.

“We need you to come in.”

“I’m in a meeting. Is he with you? Can I give him a pep talk over the phone?” She hoped but knew the answer would disappoint.

“No, he won’t come out of the bathroom.”

Kendall pinched the bridge of her nose as she made her way outside and prayed for a taxi. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. What happened?”

“We had a dad volunteer in class today,” Lisa said solemnly. The word dad was all Kendall needed to hear. She hung up and texted Owen, feeling every bit like the burden she had warned him she would be when he’d asked her to go into business with him.

The drive to Wilder seemed long, longer than it should have been. Kendall shoved money at the driver and jumped out of the cab. Her feet moved swiftly across the pavement, up the steps and into the building. Deep breathing did nothing to ease the knot in her stomach or the pain in her chest.

Trevor would have had mixed feelings about this school. He would have liked that the children wore uniforms, and not just because he was a military man. He had loved the simplicity of them. “No nonsense” had been his middle name. Trevor believed time should not be wasted worrying about things like “What color should I wear today?”

Trevor would have wanted a school with a male administrator, however. Not because he was sexist, although it might have come off that way, but because he felt more men should show interest in the development of young minds. Trevor, like his own father, took the role of father seriously and believed boys needed a strong male presence in their lives to survive in today’s world.

Familiar faces greeted her in the main office. Her welcoming committee consisted of Lisa, the social worker, the principal, and the school nurse. They quickly ushered her to the first grade hallway, into the small boys’ bathroom with blue-and-white tiles on the wall and worn-out linoleum on the floor.

“Simon, it’s Mommy.”

Black sneakers with neon green striping poked out from under the one closed door. He knocked as if she was the one who needed to open up for him.

“Can you unlock the door for me? We can go back to class together.”

His little feet shuffled back, recoiling from the suggestion of going to his classroom. Avoidance, escape—these were his friends. These were his comfort when the anxiety took over.

“I talked to Nana and she said you can hold Zoe’s leash when you go to the groomer, but you have to make it through the school day. If you don’t make it through the day, then there’s no playtime with Zoe.” It was a bribe, plain and simple, but sometimes that was the only thing that worked.

Silence.

Kendall hated the silence. She wished it was a tangible entity that she could strangle and put out of its misery. Her hand rested on the stall handle.

“Come on, Simon. Open up, honey.” She resisted the urge to say she would take him home. As soon as she made that promise, she was done for. One thing she learned from Psychologist #1 was that she couldn’t make a promise in the middle of one of these episodes and not follow through. His trust was essential. He had to be able to rely on what she said.

She wanted him to stay and finish his day of school. She wanted to try to save the mess she might have made of the Sato project. Yet what she wanted was of little importance when the anxiety was in charge.