For the Sake of the Children. Cynthia Reese

They figured all they had to do was get in there with a jug of bleach and a scrub brush. But mold, even when it’s been killed, can still cause trouble if it’s not been properly removed. And it can cost half a million dollars to have professionals do a mold abatement. That’s money the school system doesn’t have.”

      “Wait a minute. Are you telling me they left mold—”

      “No, well, sort of. They took the do-it-yourself approach. Patrick researched out the yin-yang of how to do it, and one CYA thing he’s apparently still doing is these asthma checks.”

      Dana huffed. “Pardon me, but he’s not doing the asthma checks. I am.” Now her irritation at having to do twice-daily checks increased. If the school system wasn’t going to properly abate the mold, then tracking the school system’s most vulnerable population was like holding a hose over a house on fire with no water in the hose.

      Suze shrugged. “He’s probably afraid of a lawsuit. The whole thing was all hush-hush. The only reason I know anything about it is that I’m vice principal.”

      Dana’s chest tightened. Lawsuits. That was something she knew about only too well. “They haven’t told the parents of the kids?” She hopped off the exam table and started pacing the tight confines of the clinic. “I can’t believe that! The school has a duty to report—” But she cut off her words. Of course she could believe it.

      Suze appeared genuinely miserable. “Hey, I’ve said way too much.”

      “No, you’ve said just enough. I’m going to talk to him.”

      “Who—Patrick?” Suze blanched. “Listen, you should understand—”

      She broke off. Dana peered at her. “Understand what?”

      “Could you avoid bringing my name up?”

      “They wouldn’t fire you for telling me, would they?” Dana gawked at Suze.

      “No, no. But Patrick is one stubborn son of a gun, and, well…there’s some history between us.”

      “You dated?”

      Suze leaned her head against the wall. “No. Not that kind of history. I’d rather not say, okay? I don’t—Patrick’s not a bad guy. He just has…issues.”

      Dana glanced at the clock on the wall. Five minutes past the time to pick up Kate. Great. “Well, Patrick Connor is about to have a few more issues—because how he’s proceeding isn’t right.”

       CHAPTER THREE

       A LL P ATRICK COULD HEAR in the kitchen was the thunk of Melanie’s knife on the cutting board, as she whacked up carrots a little harder than necessary, and the tap-tap of Lissa’s shoes against the tile floor. The girls had their backs to each other, stiff, unbending.

      He’d asked for this. Patrick admonished himself. Self-inflicted agony. He had been the one who said the only thing he wanted for his birthday was a dinner at home with his daughters. Right now, he could have been enjoying a gift card from the home-improvement store.

      Patrick sighed and opened the door to the cabinet where the plates were. “Lissa, is that chicken about ready?”

      “Uh, yeah. I think so, anyway.”

      He handed her a plate. “Should I be worried? Should I head for KFC?” he joked.

      His effort at levity lifted the corners of Lissa’s mouth ever so slightly. For a moment, he was tempted to push the joke. But this was probably the longest sentence his eighteen-year-old daughter had spoken to him in months, and at least she’d looked him in the eye.

       I should be thankful she’s even agreed to be here. She skipped my birthday last year.

      “Dad, salad’s ready. Should I toss it with the dressing?”

      At Melanie’s question, his youngest daughter’s tiny smile faded. Patrick’s hope for the evening faded right along with it.

      He could remember a time when the two girls—no, Mel was a young woman now, and Lissa, for all her immaturity, was nearly one—were not so polarized by sibling rivalry. But then the divorce and everything that had gone on between Jenny and him had destroyed any closeness. The girls had wound up in either their mom’s corner—that would be Lissa—or their dad’s—that would be Melanie.

      Just once he wanted them to forget who had sided with whom and be a family.

      Melanie hadn’t been happy about Patrick’s birthday request, he knew. She’d planned on taking him out to dinner and, he suspected, not asking Lissa to join them. Which was understandable. Lissa had ignored more than one of his birthdays.

      Except when she wanted something. So what did she want now?

      In a desire to mend fences between him and Melanie, he said, “Your cake looks so good, Mel, that I’m tempted to skip the leafy greens altogether.”

      She beamed, his approval lessening some of the tension in her still-necked posture. “It was a cinch, Dad. Coconut, your favorite.”

      “He likes German chocolate, too,” Lissa observed as she drained a piece of chicken before dropping it on the plate Patrick had given her.

      “No, Mom likes German chocolate. Why is it that you can never remember—” But Melanie didn’t finish what she was about to say. “The coconut’s all right, isn’t it?”

      “I’m easy to please. Coconut, German chocolate—doesn’t matter to me. But yeah, coconut’s my favorite.” Patrick figured that if this strained atmosphere went on for much longer, his dessert would be Maalox, not cake.

      If just he and Lissa had been having this conversation, he would have come straight out and asked her why she was even here. What had made her say yes this year when he’d asked her to spend his birthday with him? Was he foolish to hope that her coolness toward him was thawing?

      He jammed his hand into the silverware drawer, smothering an oath when the tine of a fork poked him.

      Damn Jenny, anyway. She was the one who’d left. She was the one who’d thought their marriage—their family, what was left of it, anyway—should be scrapped. All because some other guy listened to her. Listened.

      Tonight it seemed that he was about to lose Melanie by trying to salvage what was left of his relationship with Lissa.

      But if he’d learned anything, it was that you were never guaranteed tomorrow. That and you’d better take advantage of what you had today. Maybe Lissa felt the same way. Maybe her first semester at technical college had rammed home how quickly time flew and how things could never stay the same.

      Lissa, in college now. This was the year Annabelle should have graduated from high school.

      The silverware in his fist slipped out of his grip and landed with a clatter on the floor. Everybody jumped at the racket.

      For an endless moment, Patrick felt his eyes shift from Melanie to Lissa and back again.

      Then Melanie chuckled. Lissa joined in and Patrick laughed himself, but out of relief.

      “Boy, we’re strung tight,” Patrick told them.

      “Long day.” Melanie went back to tossing the salad. “I swear, the phone at my office rang nonstop all afternoon.”

      “At least you’re an accountant and you work in an office. You’re not stuck ringing up groceries. Man alive, but I got chewed out for carding somebody who wanted to buy beer,” Lissa said. “I wish I could quit. I have to keep this job, though, and my other job to earn the car down payment because somebody won’t co-sign a loan for me.”

      Patrick caught Mel’s knowing older-sister eye. “Oh, poor baby,” she sniped. “Maybe if you had actually done what you were supposed to do and showed a little responsibility, Dad would have a little confidence in you.”

      “I