A/N: Thanks for your support on the original, Eye of the Hurricane. I hope you enjoy!
Luna was finishing up her breakfast at the table, perfectly on time and ready for school. Her cousin Ellie was on her booster seat, getting most of her Cheerios in her mouth, but many on the floor. I checked my watch again and saw that it was about 15 minutes before the girls needed to leave for school. I sighed and strode down the hallways once again to Isabel's room. For the third time this morning.
I was done with knocking. I pushed the door open and found Isabel with her head slightly off the bed, her mouth open as she snored.
"Isabel!" I said loudly, striding to her bed. I stripped the covers off her and gripped her upper arm. She groaned. "Get up. Now."
"I don't wanna go to school," she mumbled to me, trying to turn over on her tummy.
"We're not doing this," I told her as I pulled her up to sitting. "You are fifteen years old. You need to be able to get up without being harassed."
"Why can't I homeschool?" she asked. That was a recipe for disaster. The kid had zero initiative. If she did homeschool it would turn into a non-stop nap and video game session. I didn't answer her, not wanting to get into an argument. The truth was my niece was far from trustworthy. I would never in a million years allow her to be at home by herself with the responsibility of getting things done on her own time. It would be a recipe for disaster.
"Up," I said simply. "I'm not leaving until you stand up."
She rolled her eyes and then yawned. She took her time, pulling the hairband out of the bottom of her braid. She pulled it onto her wrist and began raking her fingers through her hair.
"Isabel," I prompted her.
"Okay!" she moaned, finally pushing herself up. I sighed and walked down the hallway to finish making the girls' lunches. They were in different buildings now but were close enough that they left at the same time and took the same subway. Isabel was a sophomore and Luna was in third grade. They couldn't be more different. Luna was level headed and very conscientious about school. She was excelling in New York City. Isabel, on the other hand, had never quite found her stride. School was a constant battle.
Our daughter Ellie was now three and into everything. She was constantly laughing and getting into everything. She was all dressed and ready to go to preschool, except for her shoes. I got a paper towel and wiped up a little milk she'd gotten on her shirt.
I heard Isabel in the bathroom and Pippa walked down the hall dressed in a professional-looking dress and cardigan. She filled her water bottle and grabbed a banana from the basket.
"Ready, Ellie?" she asked our daughter. I helped her down and she ran to find her shoes.
"Alright, we're out," she told me, taking Ellie by the hand. My wife gave me a kiss on the lips and tousled Luna's hair before heading out the door. We had married two years before, making her a step-mother to Luna and Isabel. I was still their uncle but I had adopted them three years before. They both still called me Uncle Lin or Lin.
Their father had married his girlfriend, Guadalupe, down in Puerto Rico about two years ago. His wife had a daughter one year younger than Isabel, and they'd since had a son together. Isabel had never gotten over what she saw as a betrayal. He'd basically given up rights to them three years ago when I brought them back to New York City after his arrest and the hurricane. Isabel couldn't understand how he could now have a new family without her. She hadn't seen her father in two years.
Since Luna was all ready for school I let her watch TV for a few minutes while she waited for Isabel to get ready. She finally emerged just a few minutes before it was time to leave. She went to the cabinet, standing on her toes to reaching for the breakfast bars. As she did, the back of her shirt rode up and I saw something dark on her skin.
"What's that?" I asked.
She quickly realized her mistake and flattened her feet, pulling her shirt down. "Nothing," she told me dismissively.
"Let me see it," I told her. "Was that a tattoo?"
I turned her back around and pulled up the back of her shirt a bit. The tips of a crown peeked out from her low-cut jeans. I pushed them down a little to see the full tattoo, on her right lower back.
"Isabel," I chided her, letting her go. "What the hell is that?"
"I told you, it's nothing," she told me, grabbing at the bars again. I watched her as she avoided eye contact with me. Obviously it wasn't. In the last year, she'd taken a turn for the worse. She'd practically given up on school. Math was humiliating for her so she avoided it at all costs. She snuck around and I didn't know a lot of her friends.
"What kind of place did you go to?" I asked. "Minors aren't allowed to get tattoos without parental consent."
"I didn't go to a place," she informed me, opening her bar.
"The Latin Kings did it!" Luna shouted from the couch. I turned back to Isabel, crossing my arms.
"The Latin Kings?" I asked, knowing it was Puerto Rican-based gang in New York City. "Isabel, are you involved with them?"
"So what if I am?"
"It's a gang, Isabel," I said. "It's dangerous. You cannot be messing around with that."
"Stop trying to tell me what to do!" she told me, full of attitude.
"I know you like to think you're grown, but you're still only fifteen," I reminded her. "Do I need to start tracking your phone again?"
Last year she'd gone through a phase when she ran away from home frequently. Whenever she didn't like something I was making her do, or not do, she left. She stayed with friends, youth hostiles, homeless shelters, you name it. The police had brought her home numerous times. I started tracking her phone to keep track of her.
"Nooo," she groaned, rolling her eyes.
"Stay away, or I will," I told her, but I was terrified. If she was already involved so much that she'd gotten a tattoo, she must be in deep. You couldn't just leave a gang. I set the girls' lunches on the corner of the counter.
"Isabel, I've got a meeting with your teachers at 2:30, so I'll meet you after school," I told her.
"Great," she groaned as she and her sister picked up their lunches.
"Love you," I told them both. "Have a good day."
The house was silent after they'd left. I fixed another cup of coffee and set up shop at the kitchen table with my work. I worked for hours, writing, emailing, calling, and finally took a break for lunch. Before heading to my meeting with Isabel's teachers I ran a couple errands around town and stopped to see my friend Chris Jackson. Around 2:25, I arrived at Isabel's school. I was lead into a conference room where several of Isabel's teachers sat, along with the principal. I let a breath out, wondering what they were going to tell me.
This wasn't my first meeting with her teachers. Over the three years she'd been with me, I had at least half a dozen meetings a year. She was a special education student, so she had an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, to help her deal with her dyscalculia. In the last couple years she'd also developed some behavioral issues. She'd also officially been diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. She regularly gave the staff a run for their money.
I took a seat and unscrewed the top of the bottled water they'd provided for me. The principal thanked me for coming. There was no need for introductions. I knew all three teachers there pretty well.
"We've begun to notice some alarming behavior with Isabel," her math teacher, Mr. Lucas, informed me. "I've overheard her talking about some gang activity and we believe she might be associating herself with the Latin Kings."
I nodded, running my finger along my goatee. My fears were being validated. "I noticed a tattoo on her this morning. A crown. I'm gonna have to start tracking her phone again."
"When I asked her about it, she of course became very combative and argumentative," Ms. Wessner, her language arts teacher, told me. "I dropped it, but I've noticed her associating with other kids known to be in the gang."
I nodded, become more and more worried. The started telling me more about her behavior lately, how she deliberately tried to provoke other kids and get under teachers' skin. I hated that she was causing so much negativity and I didn't know what to do about it. This was out of my parenting skillset. What parent knew how to deal with a gang-member kid?
The hard thing with Isabel was that if she was questioned by authority she would become very combative. It was all part of being Oppositional Defiant. A lot of people thought it was just a kid being a brat in need of a good spanking, but it was a real disorder. I constantly dealt with adults who didn't understand.
My worst fear was that she would have a run-in with police. If she indeed was a member of the Latin Kings, that was a very real possibility. Plus, those gangs were obviously mostly adults. I could see Isabel as very willing to go along with whatever she was told; have sex with whoever wanted her. My mind raced with how terribly downhill Isabel's life could go.
I didn't hear a lot of what they told me from that point. It was more of the same. She wasn't completing work. She was disrupting class. She had a terrible attitude. I'd tried everything. Taking privileges, grounding her, sending her to counseling.
"Have you considered sending her to a group home?" Ms. Wessner posed.
"I have," I told them. "I worry she'll feel betrayed and given up on. It already happened with her father. She'd think I was abandoning her."
We talked more about the possibility. They'd taken the liberty to research some places nearby to help teens with behavioral issues. I'm sure they just wanted her out of their hair. I didn't blame them. Isabel was a handful. She was a challenge every day.
I thanked them all and shook their hands, tucking the notebook I brought under my arm. The bell rang as I walked out and the high school students began to stream out of their classrooms, heading to lockers. Most were happy and laughing, or just looked exhausted. I waited in the office for Isabel, who came strolling in five minutes later, chewing gum.
"Hey," I told her. "How was your day?"
"Shitty," she told me. I'd long given up correcting her on her language. She cussed like a sailor.
I nodded and tucked my phone away. "Let's go get Luna and we'll head home."
She walked a few paces behind me, her thumbs flying away on her phone. I looked back every once in a while to make sure she was still there. We reached Luna's school, where she was waiting for me on a bench. She smiled widely when she saw me. Luna still adored me and she was such a joy. She was into dance majorly. When she was six, she'd tried out ballet and jazz dancing and loved them both. I hugged and kissed her, then we began walking, holding hands.
Isabel kept her distance from us on the subway, earbuds in and her eyes glued to her phone. I wondered who she was texting. I hated to do it, but I'd have to start getting in her business bigtime. If I had to block numbers I would.
We got home and Isabel went straight to her room. I hung out with Luna on the couch watching some after school cartoons as she snacked and we talked about her day. As we chatted, my phone rang with Miguel's number on screen.
"For you," I told Luna, handing her my phone. She accepted the Facetime call and her father's face appeared on screen.
"Daddy!" she greeted him.
"Hello, mija!" he said, smiling widely. I got up to give them some privacy, cleaning up in the kitchen a bit. As always, Miguel asked if Isabel wanted to talk to him. Luna diligently travelled down the hallway to her sister's room and knocked on the door. As always, she said she didn't want to talk. It broke my heart every time, and I knew it crushed Miguel. He told Luna he loved her and told her to tell Isabel too. Luna hung up and gave me back my phone.
"Thank you, sweet pea," I told her, tucking my phone in my back pocket. "Why don't you get started on homework?"
She nodded and found her backpack. Luna was a super easy kid. She wanted to succeed in school and was an adult pleaser. If I so much as gave her a warning look she instantly shaped up. I wished she and Isabel would balance each other out a bit more. It was okay to get in a little trouble every now and then.
As I started dinner, Pippa walked in with a cranky Ellie, looking a bit exhausted. She set her messenger bag down by the counter, sighing out heavily.
"Hey," I greeted her.
"Hey," she answered back, toeing her heels off as she set Ellie on the floor. As she let her flat feet touch the floor, her face relaxed, feeling much more comfortable. She walked over and gave me a quick kiss before finding herself a drink in the fridge. She took a few long chugs of a Vitamin Water. Ellie got her own snacks now. We kept a couple healthy choices on the bottom shelf where she could reach them. She grabbed a graham cracker and ran to the living room.
"How was your day?" I asked.
"Oh, fine," she said. "Work was fine. We had a little baby shower for one of my coworkers at lunch. She's having a little girl."
I glanced up at Pippa and could see a longing in her face. She desperately wanted to have another baby, but with Isabel's challenges it didn't seem like a good time to bring a baby into the mix. Dealing with Isabel was a full time job.
"Sounds fun," I said. "Did you get her anything?"
She smiled and nodded. "I found this adorable dress at Macy's. It's a pale green with this cute little cream cardigan to go with it. And a little headband."
She stared off into space, no doubt imagining the day she might have another baby of her own to buy things for. I felt badly that I couldn't give her what she wanted right now. I set down the spoon I was using and walked over to her. I rested my hands on her hips, looking into her eyes.
"Hey," I said softly. "We'll get there. I had a meeting with Isabel's teachers today and they have some ideas."
She nodded but looked away. I gently used my finger to tilt her chin back to look at me. "You'll be a mom again. We just need to get Isabel over this hump."
She shifted her weight around, looking down again. She met my eyes a moment later. "Lin, we've been trying to get her over a hump for two years now. Nothing's working."
I let my hands drop and took a step back, leaning against the counter. "I know," I agreed. "They suggested having her go to a group home. I've been opposed to it before, but I don't know. Nothing else has worked."
"She'll feel abandoned," Pippa said.
"Maybe not if it's here in town," I said. "If we're with her all the time."
"We'd be busy with her every day then," Pippa pointed out, crossing her arms. "We'd never have time for a baby."
"Maybe we would," I said, but didn't believe it. No matter what, Isabel seemed to find a way to be the center of attention. She ruled our lives and it wasn't fair. Pippa looked annoyed now.
"Lin, there's never going to be a 'good time' to have another baby," she said. "There will always be an excuse. I'm thirty now. I want to be done having babies by the time I'm thirty-five."
I nodded, looking down. Being a mom was the most important thing to Pippa. It was causing a strain in our marriage because I was hesitant. I wanted this baby to be born into a stable, loving home. With Isabel the way she currently was, it could be toxic.
"Sweetheart, we're working on it," I told her gently. "It will happen. We just have to be patient."
She huffed a little, looking away. "Well, maybe I'm done being patient."
With that she stormed off, down the hall and into our bedroom. I heard the door shut roughly and I sighed out. Nothing was going right, and I wasn't sure when it would change.