Cross Fire

from Ali’s school.
    “Dr. Cross? It’s Mindy Templeton at Sojourner Truth.” Mindy was a school secretary and had been there for years, including during Christine’s tenure as principal.
    “I feel a little awkward about this, but Christine Johnson’s here to pick up Alexander, and she’s not on his caregiver list. I just wanted to get your permission before we let him go.”
    “What?”
    I didn’t mean to raise my voice so loud, but suddenly everyone in the coffee shop was turning to look at me. A second later, I was out on the sidewalk, still talking on my cell. “Mindy, the answer is no. Christine may not take Ali, do you understand?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “I don’t mean to alarm you,” I said more evenly. “If you could just please ask Christine to wait, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Maybe fifteen minutes. I’m on my way right now.”
    When I hung up, I was already running for the parking garage, my mind completely unsettled. What the hell was Christine thinking?
    Had she been planning this all along?
    And, for that matter, what
was
she planning?
    As far as I was concerned, I couldn’t get to the school fast enough.

Chapter 49

    “I’M HIS MOTHER, for God’s sake! I wasn’t doing anything wrong! I’m not one of your stalkers.”
    Christine was defensive from the minute I got there. We had it out in the hall while Ali waited in the school office.
    “Christine, there are rules about this kind of thing — rules you used to abide by. You can’t just show up and expect to —”
    “What are you saying?” she snapped. “Brianna Stone, this woman I hardly even know, can pick my son up from school and I
can’t?
Half the teachers here still know who I am!”
    “You’re not listening,” I said. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to squirm out of this or if she truly believed she was in the right. “What exactly were you planning to do with him anyway?”
    “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she said dismissively. “I was going to call.”
    “But you didn’t. Again.”
    “When I got him out of school, I mean. We were going to go for ice cream, and he would have been home for dinner. Now he’s all confused and upset. It didn’t have to be this way, Alex.”
    It was like listening to an out-of-tune piano. Everything just seemed a little off. Even her clothes. She was dressed to the nines today, in a fitted white linen suit, sling-back heels, and full makeup. In fact, she looked absolutely gorgeous. But who was she trying to impress?
    I took a deep breath and tried again to get through to her.
    “What happened to your conference?” I said.
    For the first time, Christine looked away from me. She stared over at one of the bulletin boards in the hall. It was covered in crayon drawings of cars, planes, trains, and boats, with the word TRANSPORTATION in construction paper letters across the top.
    “Did you see Ali’s?” she said, pointing at his sailboat.
Of course I had seen it.
    “Christine, look at me. Did you even have a conference?”
    She crossed her arms and blinked several times as she met my eyes again.
    “Well, what if I didn’t? Is it such a crime that I missed my son? That I thought he might want to see his mommy and daddy in the same room, just for once? God, Alex, what’s happened to you?”
    It seemed as if there were an answer for everything here, except my questions. The only part I really trusted was that she loved and missed Ali. But that wasn’t enough.
    “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” I said. “We’re going to go get some ice cream. You can say your good-byes after that, and then you’ll see him again in July, like always. Anything else, and we’re going back to mediation. That’s a promise, Christine. Please don’t test me on this.”
    To my surprise, she smiled. “Make it dinner. Just the three of us, and then I’ll get on my plane to Seattle like a good little girl. How’s that?”
    “I can’t,” I said.
    Her mouth tightened into a hard, straight line again. “Can’t? Or won’t?”
    The answer was
both,
but before I could say anything else, the office door opened and there was Ali. He looked so all alone, and scared.
    “When can we go?” he wanted to know.
    Christine scooped him up just as she had the night before. To her credit, there was none of the thunderstorm in her eyes that I’d seen a second ago.
    “Guess what, honey? We’re going to go out for some ice cream. You, me, and Daddy, right now. What do you