Season Of Wonder

She opened her mouth to yell about that but caught herself. She had other things to worry about right now.

Silver didn’t look up when Dani came inside and moved to the bed. She waited her out, standing for a long moment until her daughter finally rolled over and held out her phone.

“Here. I know I’m not supposed to have it. I wasn’t texting anyone. I was just looking at pictures of my friends back in Boston.”

Dani’s heart squeezed with sympathy, but she schooled her features so Silver didn’t see.

“Thanks,” she said calmly. “I’ll put it on the charger in my room.”

She said nothing else, just waited for Silver to speak first and explain herself. “Go ahead. Yell at me. I know you want to.”

She did want to yell—to scream and rant and ask Silver what the hell she was thinking. The pain on her daughter’s face held her back.

“I’m not going to yell.”

“You’re not?” Silver’s shock was evident in her wide eyes.

“What would that do? It would only make both of us feel worse and wouldn’t change what you’ve done.”

“O-okay.”

Dani turned on the bedside lamp then sat on the edge of the bed. “A deputy sheriff, though? Seriously? In what alternate reality would you ever think that was okay?”

Her daughter threw her forearm over her eyes, as protection from the light or to avoid her mother’s gaze, Dani wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was a stupid thing to do, okay? I know it was dumb. We... I wasn’t thinking.”

Dani didn’t miss that telltale pronoun. She wanted to pounce on it and make Silver tell her who else had been involved, but somehow she sensed further interrogation would do nothing to move the conversation forward.

“Do you hate it here so much that you want to sabotage everything for all of us?”

A little tear leaked out of Silver’s eye and dripped into the hair she had dyed herself. “I miss my friends,” she said.

“You know the way to make the sort of friends you want to keep isn’t to engage in criminal activity with them, right?”

“I know.” She scratched a pattern into her quilt. “Nana says if I really hate it here, I can come live with her back in Queens.”

Dani’s insides twisted at the mention of her former mother-in-law. “When did you talk to your Grandma DeLuca?”

Silver looked more guilty about this than she had about showing up at the door with a deputy sheriff. “She messaged me and sent me her phone number a few months ago. After, you know. In case I wanted to talk to her about...about Dad and what happened. We’ve been texting on and off for a while now.”

“You know I check your texts. I haven’t seen anything like that.”

Silver looked away. “I always delete them. I know you don’t want me to talk to her. I can stop.”

Again, Dani wanted to yell, but did her best to keep control. Silver loved her namesake grandmother, who had been an active part of their lives for her first few years, even babysitting her when Dani had classes.

Dani never would have made it through her undergraduate degree without Silvia DeLuca’s help.

Their relationship had become strained after Dani filed for divorce six years ago, but even then she had allowed Silvia DeLuca to see her granddaughters, until the other woman started slyly undermining Dani to them. The final straw had come when Silvia dragged Silver to visit her father in prison without Dani’s permission.

Silvia was one of those women who could never see her child as he was. Tommy could do no wrong in her book. As far as she believed, anytime Tommy found himself in trouble, it was always someone else’s fault.

She had been furious about the divorce and even more upset when Dani left for veterinary school in Boston. Their contact had dwindled to Christmas and birthday cards, which was exactly the way Dani preferred things.

“Are you mad that I’ve been texting Nana?”

“I’m mad that you’ve been hiding it. We can talk about that later, though. Right now, we need to focus on your actions tonight.”

“I made a mistake. It was stupid. It won’t happen again.”

The words sounded far too well practiced to be sincere.

“No. It won’t. You’re grounded until further notice. That means extra chores here and at the clinic, no video games, no YouTube and no phone except at school.”

Silver huffed but said nothing, obviously knowing she was on extremely thin ice. No doubt she could almost hear it cracking beneath her feet.

“Also, I need you to give me the names of the other girls involved so I can let their parents know and they can help you with the cleanup.”

“I told you. It was just me.”

They both knew that was a lie but Dani had no idea how to force the truth out of her.

“Fine. You can do the cleanup on your own.”

“Fine,” Silver said, her voice short. “Is that all?”

“For now.”

With a sigh, Dani rose and squeezed Silver’s arm. “You know I love you, Silverbell, right?”

Her daughter shrugged, not meeting her gaze.

“I brought you and Mia to Haven Point because we’ve been offered a chance to make a good life here, a place where you girls would be safe and healthy. A place with low crime, good schools and nice people.”

“There were good schools and nice people in Boston. And in Queens before that.”

“Agreed. We could have made a good life for ourselves somewhere else. This is the one that felt best. When I got this opportunity, you and Mia and I talked about it and we all agreed we wanted to give Haven Point a chance to become our home. I don’t think any of us has really done a good job in that department. I’d like to try harder. What about you?”

“I guess,” Silver said.

Dani reached down and hugged her daughter and after a moment, she felt small arms go around her.

Silver rested her head against Dani’s chest, just above the thick nest of emotions there. She loved this beautiful, smart, contrary creature beyond words.

“Get some rest. Everything seems better in the morning.”

She hoped, anyway. Because right now things seemed pretty bleak for Team Capelli.