âWhy did Kit have to go?â
Sean sat beside his daughter and put his arm around her shoulder, fragile as a birdâs wing. âKitâs not part of the family, hon.â
âWhyâd you follow her?â
âIâ¦thought Kitâs feelings might be hurt. I wanted to apologize.â
âAunt Mariah wasnât real friendly to her.â
âNo, she wasnât.â He chucked Alex under the chin. âHey, sport, if you want to see your new cousin, weâd better get a move on.â
Alex stayed put. It was no secret sheâd inherited his stubborn streak. âI like Kit.â
âI know you do.â He rubbed the back of his neck, massaged the tense muscles. âAnd she likes you. Thereâs nothing wrong with that.â
What was wrong was his inappropriate attraction to a woman who rocked his sense of responsibility. When sheâd jumped on her motorcycle, his first thought had been to climb on with her.
âI just wanna be her friend,â Alex whispered. âI donât understand whatâs going on.â
âKit only came back because her mother messed up and she has to help her out. Sheâs not happy about it and she canât wait to leave. Alex, honey, itâs hard to make friends with a person who has no intention of sticking around.â
Dear Reader,
When I was in my early twenties and just starting out in the world, I used to play a mind game to help me cope with people who drove me nuts. I would imagine the difficult person and me in a very personal situation far removed from any situation weâd face in reality. My scenario might place me at a table for two with the guy who sold newspapers on the street corner and who could never manage to be civil. I would submerge myself in the fantasy, thinking what could I find out about this person that would make him more human? Perhaps the tough guy rescued stray dogs or ran the volunteer book cart on the hospital pediatrics ward. The fantasy never repaired these individualsâ real-time annoying habits; the exercise just reminded me that thingsâespecially other peopleâs livesâare never as they seem. It made me more accepting.
Acceptance is such a simple word, but it appears to be a difficult concept to implement. In The Trick to Getting a Mom, Kit Darling has never been accepted in her hometown. She is an outcast and a rebel, surviving only by forging a who-cares exterior and an itinerant lifestyle. Sean McCabe seems to accept his role as a single parent, but beneath the surface simmers a wanderlust that bows before family responsibility. One rootless, the other rooted, the two resist an unacceptable attraction. It takes an eight-year-old, Seanâs daughter, Alex, to teach the adults true acceptance.
Amy Frazier
WHAT KIND OF FATHER WAS HE if he couldnât keep one little girl out of trouble?
His gut in a knot, Sean McCabe pushed through the double doors of Pritchardâs Neck Elementary School. Alex, his eight-year-old daughter, had been suspended from school. For fighting.
At the end of the long echoing corridor that smelled of floor wax and chalk dust, Alex sat outside the principalâs office, alone, perched on an enormous bench that made her seem very, very small. Small and adrift on a sea of polished tile.
She looked up, and, even from a distance, Sean could see the shiner, reddish-purple and puffed and already closing one eye.
Instinctively, he rushed to her. âWhat happened?â
âI finished my work before everybody else,â she replied, her head cocked at a defiant angle. âSo I raised my hand to go to the bathroom.â
âAnd?â Sean prodded, suspicious. Alex had a way of complicating simple tasks.
âAnd I thought about how Seafaring Cecilââ Seafaring Cecil was Alex and Seanâs favorite travel writer ââsays you can adventure anywhere just by drawing a map.â
âSoâ¦?â Sean didnât trust this train of thought. Alex had inherited his wandering soul, and, more and more in her âexplorations,â she pushed the limits of what he considered safe for her.
âSo I started a map on one of the paper towels from the bathroom with a pencil I found wedged behind a radiator, and I ended up in the fifth-grade-wing.â
This wasnât the first time Alex had strayed. Or the first shaggy-dog explanation sheâd given Sean. It was, however, the first time his daughter faced suspension from school for her adventuring.
He leveled a stern look at her. âMs. Simmons told me you were fighting.â
With a stubborn one-eyed squint that showed no sign of tears, Alex met and matched his steady gaze. âI hit a fifth grader.â She sounded neither proud nor remorseful. To her it was only unvarnished truth.
He gently grasped her tiny face with his big weathered hand, turned her head to examine the darkening eye. Tried to steady the racing of his heart. âWhy, baby? Why?â