The Word Game Read online

  Alyson didn’t agree at all. “I think if the kids want to do it and we can make it happen for them, then it’s better that than playing on their electronics all day, staring at a screen.”

  “There must be a perfect medium in there somewhere, right?” Melinda smiled and then nodded toward the doors, where someone Alyson didn’t recognize stepped in.

  “I’m so sorry for being late. Myah had to cancel last minute. I hear you all had a fabulous recital last night, so today we’re just going to have fun and work on those new yoga stretches Myah showed you all last week. How does that sound?” The girls all clapped. “Have you all been warming up? I’m Jessie. Just let me just get the music going, and we can get started.” Jessie kept up a running commentary as she dropped her bag on the floor. The girl was young, probably fresh out of school, and thanks to Myah’s cancelation, the girls were probably going to have a free-for-all lesson.

  “Great,” Melinda muttered. “Should have just stayed home.”

  Alyson rolled her eyes. “You do realize the Saturday classes are optional, right?” Unable to take anymore, she pulled out her phone, ignored the woman beside her, and spent the next half hour scrolling through recipe websites to find suggestions for dinner. She almost jumped when Lyla appeared at her side.

  “Ready?”

  Alyson placed her phone back in her purse. “Ready.” She couldn’t wait to leave. She’d had enough listening to Melinda and a few of the other mothers grumble and complain all throughout the class about Myah’s absence.

  “So tell me,” Alyson said to her daughter as they stood at the counter, mixing ingredients for muffins. “How was it last night?”

  Lyla shrugged as she poured agave nectar into a measuring spoon. “It was fun. I’m really tired though.”

  “What time did you get to sleep last night?”

  Again with another shrug. “We watched a movie and then some videos and played some games. It was late though. I fell asleep a few times and then woke up from the laughing.”

  “Sounds like a regular sleepover.” It felt like pulling teeth to get Lyla to talk about it, and that wasn’t like her at all. “What movie did you watch?”

  The look her daughter gave her was priceless.

  “What? I’m curious. I wish I had been there, and I want to know all about it. Did everyone get along? Everyone behaved, right?”

  She thought for sure Lyla would say yes and was surprised when her daughter hesitated before answering.

  “Well . . . Katy and Keera snuck out of the basement for a bit.” She looked at Alyson from the corner of her eye before looking away.

  Katy and Keera? “They did? Where did they go?”

  Lyla shrugged. Again. She was really beginning to hate these noncommittal gestures from her daughter.

  “Lyla . . .”

  “I don’t know. I thought they just went upstairs to grab some food and bring it back down. Katy said she had some chocolate chips hidden in her room.”

  The batter was ready, so Alyson began to spoon it into the waiting muffin tray.

  “You don’t do that, do you?” She attempted to remain casual, but inside, she couldn’t help feeling a little worried.

  She glanced over at her daughter, who stared at her with eyes wide open.

  “I don’t. I never have. Daddy said that’s how ants get in your room.”

  “He did, did he?” That probably gave her nightmares. What was he thinking? “I’m not sure about the ants, but I do know that hiding food in your room is being dishonest, and it’s not healthy. If you’re hungry, you eat downstairs. You don’t need to hide it from me.” She wasn’t surprised that Katy would hide things from her mom. And if she was hiding food, what else did she think she could get away with?

  She loved her niece and nephews, but she wasn’t one to turn a blind eye to their faults, one of those aunts who thought they could do no wrong. She’d often said to Scott that those kids would be the death of Tricia and Mark. Look at David . . . the kid was only interested in playing video games and rarely went outside unless forced to walk their dogs.

  “In fact, you never need to hide anything from me, Lyla. I’ll always believe in you, trust you, and love you, no matter what. You know that, right?”

  Almost every day of Lyla’s life, Alyson made sure she said something along these lines. No matter what, she would always believe her daughter and stand by her side. That’s what being a mother was all about.

  “I know.”

  Alyson placed the muffin tray in the oven and poured herself some tea she’d made earlier.

  “So did they come back with food?”

  Lyla shook her head. “They were gone for a while though.”

  “How long was a while?” She really wasn’t liking what she was hearing.

  “Oma said not to dwell on the things that don’t involve me.”

  Oma. That name irked Alyson more than she wanted to admit. She’d hated her own Oma. The woman had been hard and unbending, and no matter what Alyson or Tricia did, it seemed like it was never good enough.

  “Do you like calling your Grandma Oma?”

  Lyla nodded. “Oma said you grew up knowing how to speak German. Do you still?”

  “Ja.” Alyson closed her eyes for a brief moment. “Ich kann sie sprechen ein wenig.”

  Lyla scrunched up her face. “What does that mean?”

  “I can speak it a little. I think. My German is really rusty.”

  “We should learn it together then! That would be fun, don’t you think?”

  Like stepping on broken glass. Lovely.

  “Grandma . . . oops, Oma could teach us too.”

  Alyson’s face froze with a smile she prayed her daughter didn’t realize was fake.

  “Sounds like a good plan, Lyla. We can start on Sundays, during our family dinners.” Why now? She’d successfully erased German from their home life early on when Lyla was about four. All it had taken was a few words to her mom about how they didn’t speak German at home to Lyla, so please stop confusing her, and suddenly everything was English.

  “So, other than Katy and Keera sneaking out of the basement for some reason you don’t know about, did anything else happen? Did you watch a lot of movies?”

  Maybe it was the way her daughter’s gaze skittered across the room or the moment she started to rub her fingers together, a sure sign her daughter was nervous, but everything in Alyson went on high alert, waiting for her daughter’s reply.

  “Lyla? What aren’t you telling me? Do you know what took Katy and Keera so long? Or did you watch something that wasn’t appropriate?”

  Lyla started to shake her head but stopped. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  “You don’t know? Lyla Elizabeth Ward, you know better than that. Either you watched a video that was okay or it wasn’t.”

  “Katy . . .” Lyla started, then stopped. She hung her head. “You’re just going to be mad at me,” she said quietly.

  “Why would I be upset with you?” Alyson bent down and touched her forehead to Lyla’s. “Remember our promise to one another? To always be truthful?”

  Lyla nodded.

  “Then how about you tell me what happened, and I’ll try to help you fix it? Okay?”

  “Okay.” Lyla whispered. “Keera really likes Brandon, David’s friend, so they wanted to go see what they were doing. I think he sent Keera a text to meet him in David’s room.”

  “He . . . they . . . are you kidding me?” Keera is only eleven years old, and Brandon—he was a teenager. Okay, so only a few years apart, but still. The girls were too young for stuff like that. “And Katy went with her?”

  Lyla nodded. “Keera wanted him to kiss her.”

  “Keera’s too young to want to be kissed.” Alyson couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Tricia must have stopped them . . . she was s
upposed to keep a close eye on the kids. In fact, she promised something like this would never happen.

  “She’s been kissed before.” Lyla said quietly.

  “She has?” Kids were growing up way too fast nowadays. Eleven was too young for this stuff. Way too young.

  “She said she wanted to know if a boy’s kisses are different than a man’s.”

  Alyson’s world stood still.

  She did not just hear what she thought she heard. She couldn’t have.

  “Is that what she said?”

  Lyla nodded.

  “No, I need to know her exact wording. Did she say exactly that, Lyla?”

  Again, Lyla nodded, but this time Alyson could tell her daughter was a little frightened.

  “What man, Lyla? Did she say?”

  Lyla’s head shook rapidly. “No. They just giggled, and then left.”

  “Did anyone else hear her say this? Was it to the whole group?”

  “Just me. They wanted me to come too, but I said no. I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

  Alyson closed her eyes. “God help me,” she said under her breath. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Then what happened, honey? What about when they came back? Did Brandon kiss her?” Could it possibly get any worse than it already was? Did her sister know? Did she realize what happened in her own house? And what did Keera mean exactly?

  She knew what Keera could have meant, but she prayed to God she was overreacting.

  “We started to watch some videos on the computer. First, it was funny kitten videos, and then we started to watch music videos. We all got to pick our favorite song to watch, and then . . .” Her voice faltered, and Alyson could see her struggle with her words.

  “And then? Did you see something you shouldn’t have?”

  Lyla nodded.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” Scenarios ran through Alyson’s head, and none of them were good.

  “Keera picked a song that she knew the moves to, but Mommy, I didn’t like it.” Lyla’s voice was barely a whisper.

  Alyson swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat at her daughter’s words. What her daughter meant, and what she was imagining were two different things. Two very different things—they had to be.

  “And then Keera wanted to teach us the moves, but I didn’t want to. Katy did though, and then Keera wanted to play a game. Where we’re blindfolded, and we have to guess what she was writing on our skin with a feather.”

  Okay, that wasn’t so bad. She remembered playing that when she was young. They would write words on a palm or on the back, and it was all so very innocent.

  “But you didn’t want to play that?”

  Lyla shook her head. She shifted in her seat and gave Alyson a look that broke her heart. “So I went to sleep. I put my headphones in and listened to music and fell asleep before everyone else.”

  “Why didn’t you tell your aunt that you weren’t comfortable?”

  “They’re going to be mad at me now,” Lyla said.

  “They’re not going to be mad at you, honey. If anything, you should be upset with them. You were there as Katy’s guest. And these are your friends. Friends don’t do things like this to each other. They don’t place each other in uncomfortable situations.” Alyson leaned in and wrapped her arms around Lyla, holding her tight.

  “You did the right thing, honey. Anytime you feel uncomfortable, you leave the situation. And you tell me.” She placed her hand beneath Lyla’s chin and raised her face until she was looking at her. “You always tell me, okay?”

  Lyla nodded, and her voice dropped into a whisper. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  Alyson nodded.

  “You can’t tell anyone. Promise.” Lyla held out her pinky, and without a second thought, Alyson hooked her own pinky inside her daughter’s finger.

  “Some of the dances her dad taught her, but Keera said that they were private dances.” Lyla’s gaze dropped to the ground, and she played with one of the measuring spoons on the counter. “And the game she wanted to play, she plays with her dad too. But she made us promise not to tell anyone, because then she would be in a lot of trouble.”

  “The game with the blindfold?” Alyson didn’t like the sound of this.

  Lyla nodded. “When Keera’s dad plays the game with her . . . he writes things on her skin, and she guesses the words. There’s a prize . . .” Alyson gripped the edge of the counter tight and forced herself to speak in a calm voice.

  “What kind of prize, honey?”

  Lyla’s lips quivered before she looked up at Alyson with big doe eyes.

  “Then they do it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘do it’?”

  Lyla’s cheeks burned bright red. “You know.”

  Alyson shook her head. She prayed to God she didn’t know. Her daughter couldn’t mean what she thought she meant.

  “They do it. Like what you and Daddy do.”

  “Sex? Are you sure?” It was very hard for Alyson to keep her voice calm and not freak out. Inside she was in full freak-out mode. Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod . . .

  Lyla nodded her head.

  “Mommy, I’m not lying. That’s what Keera said. And she was going to show us some of the moves of her dance, even though her daddy made her promise not to show anyone, and . . . I didn’t like that.”

  Alyson hugged her daughter close. So many emotions were running through her head, through her heart . . . so many memories of things she didn’t want to recall.

  “Oh honey. Did she actually say her daddy does this?”

  Lyla nodded.

  “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  “You won’t tell anyone, right?”

  Alyson sighed. “I have to, Lyla. This . . . what you told me, that’s not okay.”

  “But Mommy, you promised. You can’t tell. Not anybody.”

  “I know I did, but sweetheart, sometimes promises have to be broken if it means protecting someone else, especially when it involves a child.”

  Lyla frowned. “They’re going to be so mad at me.”

  “But I’m not.” She was proud of her daughter, proud that she said something, that she had come to her.

  Now it was her turn to right a wrong, to do something she’d wished long ago had been done for her. Believe her and do something about it rather than turn away and pretend everything was fine.

  “You did the right thing, telling me.” She gave her daughter another hug. “And I’m so glad you did.”

  “Are you going to tell Aunt Tricia?”

  Alyson nodded. She hated hearing the insecurity in her daughter’s voice. “I need to, especially since this happened at your aunt’s house. And Keera’s mom is Aunt Tricia’s best friend. I’d want her to tell me if the roles were reversed. But”—she leaned over and placed a kiss on her daughter’s forehead—“I don’t want you to worry about anything, okay? I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’m not lying.” Lyla whispered.

  Alyson believed her. With everything in her core, she knew her daughter told the truth. Why would she lie? There was no reason.

  “Lyla, I will always be on your side. Always. I will always believe you. Always fight for you and always be there to protect you. Okay?”

  She’d expected to see something akin to relief on her daughter’s face, but instead she saw signs of panic, of worry, and of doubt.

  Alyson knew that she had to do everything in her power to wipe that doubt away. She knew what it was like to tell the truth and not be believed, to feel alone and to be betrayed by the one person who should always remain your hero.

  She would not do to her daughter what her own mother had done to her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MYAH

  The moment they entered their home, Keera ran to
her room, slamming the door so hard that the picture frames on the walls wobbled.

  Myah seethed. If there was one thing she could not handle, it was slamming doors. Yell if she needed. Stomp if she had to. But never slam a door.

  She wanted to race after her daughter, open the door, and demand she talk to her. She didn’t care if they had to yell their feelings out until they were both exhausted . . . But instead of doing what she wanted, she hung her coat in the closet, kicked off her shoes, set her purse on the entryway table, and made her way into the living room, where she sank down on her couch and clutched a pillow tight to her chest.

  When she was little, she used to scream into a pillow, something she knew Keera did as well. And given the lack of noise coming from her daughter’s room, she was probably doing it now.

  Things had been a little tense in the car after she’d picked Keera up from Tricia’s. Myah asked them both questions about the evening, and neither one of them said much, which should have been an indication of things to come. Tricia only shook her head and then changed the subject to the dance recital, while Keera stared out the window. When they arrived at the restaurant where Eddie was waiting, Keera had ignored her and walked in to the restaurant without a backward glance.

  What Myah assumed would be a casual coffee with Tricia, in the same restaurant, turned out to be something altogether different.

  First, she had to hear about her daughter’s shenanigans the night before. She couldn’t quite believe that Keera would sneak out to meet a boy, in a closed bedroom of all places, but then she had to deal with the angry confrontation of her daughter, who approached their table saying I hate you loud enough for everyone in the restaurant to hear.

  The moment she saw the tears streaming down her daughter’s face, she knew Eddie had told her about the divorce. If Tricia hadn’t stopped her, she would have let her Latina temper flare up and told her soon-to-be ex-husband where to go. Instead, she walked out, leaving Tricia alone, and went in search of her daughter. Thankfully, it was a small town, and Keera had only walked a few blocks.

  The car ride home had been silent. Myah called a replacement for her dance class and tried to figure out what to say to Keera about getting a divorce.