Diana stood in the doorway to the den, where they'd set up a bed for Isaac. The doctor had said he shouldn't try going up the stairs while taking the medication. He slept now, peaceful and quiet. She couldn't see the wrist he'd cut, but the sprained one was in a brace and it was in full sight. The sight of it made her furious all over again, and she left the doorway to calm herself down. How dare he nearly kill Zac and come out of that with barely a scratch on him! And then to....
"Diana." She snapped to attention, finding herself in the kitchen, with Walker sitting at the table. "Why do you even go in there?"
She looked at him for a minute, then sat down next to him. "Because he's my son and I love him, even if he makes me angry."
"He's not awake to see you're not there," he said softly. "Just let him be a while."
"What are we going to do?" she asked after a minute. "It's like both of them are in comas, not just Zac. The only difference is that Isaac's here."
"I know." He held her tightly. "I don't know what we'll do yet, but we won't give up."
"Mom?" Taylor's voice was hesitant. She looked up to see him in the doorway, an anxious look on his face. "Are you busy?"
"No. What is it?"
"I think I know what happened, and I want to do something, but I'm not sure how to do it. Can I talk to you? Both of you?"
"Sure, Tay. Come on in and sit down," Walker invited.
He did, carrying his ever-present laptop. He flipped it open and turned it on. "I talked to the people who read the messages we get at the Hansonfans email address. Ike's been getting hate mail since the accident went public."
"What?" Diana stared at him, her heart sinking in her chest.
"It's okay. I opened his mail by mistake just after, deleted what they had sent, and told them not to send anymore like that. Which meant he wasn't getting any at all." He paused, and took a deep breath. "I didn't even look to see if he'd gotten any the day the rumor came out, when I went with Dad to the hospital."
Walker scowled. "And the press was thick as pea soup," he muttered. "It was like Jakarta, only press instead of fans."
Taylor nodded. "Anyway, I forgot to check, and I'm fairly sure that the messages he got came after I was gone, but still... this is what he found."
The messages Isaac had read were clearly marked. "I haven't read all of the others to see if they all say the same thing, it looks like he took a random sample," Taylor said. Diana and Walker read together, shoulders touching. After reading the first one, Diana reached over and took Walker's hand, squeezing it. How could they write such things? These people knew Isaac!
"It gets worse,"Taylor said.
"Worse?" Diana asked. "How?" Her heart sank further.
"I'm pretty sure he doesn't know about the rest of this," Taylor explained. "But it's all over the web. People never seemed to think much...." He shrugged. "It's an all out flame fest, with Isaac as the target."
"Flame fest?" Walker asked. Diana was glad he'd asked; she didn't have the energy.
"Yeah. It's like when a bunch of people get together and talk about how bad someone is, you know...." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Does that make sense?"
"In other words, it's all negative?" Diana asked.
"Worse than usual. I'm glad he hasn't been online. So, I want to do something." He took a deep breath. "I want to change Hansonline."
"Tay, that's yours to change," Walker said. "Why are you asking our permission?"
He chuckled mirthlessly. "I plan on getting really harsh. There's this site...." He stopped and shook his head. "I just want your support, I guess, because I don't want to give Chris Sabek a heart attack. That also means that the updates on Zac's condition get pushed down, at least for a while."
Diana glanced at Walker. "I think," she said gently, "that you should type it up, get it all prepared, and let us see it. Then contact Chris Sabek."
"That's a good idea," Walker agreed.
Taylor took a deep breath. "All right. I'll be in the study."
"Keep it quiet," Diana blurted.
He looked at her, amusement obvious in his face. "I can't wake him up. Don't worry, Mom." He got up, walked around the table, and kissed her cheek. "It'll work out fine." He took the laptop and left the kitchen. Diana watched him go.
"Will it?" she asked softly. Walker hugged her.
"We have to have faith it will," he whispered.
When she went in to give Isaac - a very groggy, disoriented Isaac - his medication a while later, Taylor sat at the computer, leaned back in the chair, looking pensively at the screen. She lay a hand on his shoulder and he started, looking up.
"Oh. Hi, Mom." He looked back at the screen. "Tell me if this is too harsh. ‘We are fairly certain that he has not had time to get online and find out what the so-called fans are saying. This is extremely lucky. If he had, it may have simply accelerated the events. But that's not the worst of it. It was our friends who caused the most damage. We got into his email only to find condemnation, mostly from Zac's friends, and a few from Taylor's. Not one of his friends wrote in support. No wonder he felt alone. We claim part of the blame, yes, but the person who started the rumor ought to be jailed for slander.
"‘We didn't put up a disclaimer sooner for one very good reason: the afternoon of July 31, the day the rumor came out, Isaac attempted to take his own life. We were rather busy trying to keep him alive.'" He paused and looked up at her. "Well?"
"Good." She thought a minute. "Use examples, Tay. From the email, from a couple of the sites you visited."
He chuckled mirthlessly. "Document everything, right?"
She nodded. "Document everything." She kissed his forehead. "Sounds good. Don't estrange everyone."
"There are some I want to." He scowled. "Mom, there was even a site who said ‘I knew he'd do something like this one day. No one that ugly can live with such cuteness and not be jealous. I guess it got the best of him.' Oh, please!" He stood and started to pace.
Diana watched him, worried. Taylor's voice was finally beginning to stabilize, and only cracked when he was feeling extreme emotion. Even then it happened rarely. He was angry; it had cracked twice. The color in his cheeks was anger, too. "Taylor, honey, calm down."
"I've been trying. I can't let him find this, Mom."
"You can't protect him, Taylor." She'd said the same thing to Isaac a few months ago at a particularly bad bit of anti-Hanson stuff, about Zac. Her heart twisted at the thought.
"I know, I know. But he needs it, right now. This backlash caught us all by surprise, and we don't know how to handle it."
"At least not positively." Diana sat down by Isaac and stroked his red-tinged hair. He'd gotten blood in it, as well as all over the hall floor when he'd collapsed upstairs, and they'd never bothered to clean it. She'd just thrown his shirt away. Her feelings were at war again, like they seemed to have been almost constantly since he'd called her from the hospital. One good thing about this medication; he wasn't awake to aggravate her. He didn't react to her touch, of course. He was pretty heavily drugged.
"That's not handling it, that's escaping it," Taylor muttered, still pacing. "Do they have to keep him so sedated? He doesn't even have a chance to deal with this!"
"They're giving him space," she said automatically. They're giving me space, she thought. Dr. Merris said I'd need it.
"Space." He growled, low in his throat, then with abrupt, clipped movements, he closed the program down. "I'm going for a walk. I'll be back later."
"Be careful." She hadn't meant to sound quite so desperate.
He turned to look at her, and smiled. "I will, Mom." He leaned down and kissed her forehead, and left the room, his step a little lighter.
After a minute, Diana walked back to the kitchen and got some paperwork out of the file cabinet she kept in the corner. She spread it out on the table and forced herself to concentrate on her plans for the coming school year. She'd been praying that everything would work out all right; it was time to act as if it would.
The door opened sometime later. "Taylor?" she called, and set her pencil down to rub her eyes.
"Yeah." He sounded tired. She checked the clock on the microwave and gasped. No wonder she felt so drained. It had been four hours. Heck of a walk for him, too.
"What do you want for dinner?" She didn't want to make dinner.
"Um.... Pizza. Mom, you look exhausted." He leaned against the door frame, tired but calmer.
"So do you. Feel better?"
He sighed. "A little. It just makes me so angry." He laughed. "Only I don't have the energy right now to be angry. Don't you have to give Ike his medicine?"
"Yes. Would you make him a sandwich? He's got to be hungry by now."
"Sure." He walked to the fridge and pulled out sandwich stuff.
"Do you still think this is a good idea?" she asked as he opened the Miracle Whip.
"Yeah. I do. People have to see. I might not be as harsh, but, yeah, I think it is important to tell them. Why? Do you think I shouldn't?"
"I don't have an opinion tonight," she said, gathering the papers up and putting them away. "Ask me again tomorrow morning."
He smiled tiredly at her. "I might do that."
When he finished with the sandwich, they walked down to the den together. Isaac blinked sleepily at them, then struggled to sit up. The confused expression on his face made Diana alternate between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry. He was uncoordinated at times, but this was ridiculous. He stopped struggling as Taylor handed her the plate and pulled him up, sitting behind him to help with balance.
"Here, Isaac." She set the plate in his lap, stepping back. He looked at her, and the distance in his eyes made her step back again. He looked down, hair falling down to hide his face, and ate, fumbling to get the sandwich off the plate. He drank the milk Taylor gave him, finishing it with one of the pills. Awkwardly, he pushed his hair back, then lay down, turning onto his side with his back to the door.
Diana's heart dropped, and she stepped forward, taking Isaac's shoulder. "Isaac. Turn over, please."
He looked up at her, his blood-caked hair falling away from his face, dark eyes cloudy, confused. "Why?" It was the first non-hysterical thing she'd heard him say since she'd gone upstairs and found him collapsed in the hallway, bleeding all over. First came his demands to know if Jessica were okay, then the begging to come home. Both of those instances had stomped all over her nerves. The exhaustion in his voice drove into her brain. Was he tired of life at only seventeen? She swallowed nervously.
"Because we want to be able to tell if you try again."
"Oh." He didn't move, and her feelings went to war again. She knew it had to be hard for him to even move, especially after witnessing his less than coordinated attempt to sit up just a minute ago. But she would take no disobedience!
"Isaac, now." It came out much harder than she'd planned, and she caught a glimpse of Taylor's shocked expression.
Isaac took a deep breath and turned over, curling up, his forehead nearly touching his knees. He hadn't done that in a long time. Then she realized what she'd just done. Isaac had begged her, restrained in the hospital, and had begged Walker, to be allowed to come home. Part of that had been a promise to never do anything like that again. She had never heard him beg, never in his seventeen years. She'd hoped to forget it. Well, she had, and she'd just told him that she didn't believe him. She left the room abruptly, but not fast enough to miss the hitch in Isaac's breathing that was as close as he ever seemed to get to crying. She pulled the door closed so he wouldn't hear her cry.
"Mom?" Taylor had followed her. He knew; Walker said he'd been in the room when Isaac had talked to him. Well, begged him to be allowed to come home.
She turned to look at him, and found she couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm doing it all wrong," she whispered.
"What?" He sounded confused.
She shook her head, more to deny her own guilt than anything. "I'll go get dinner."
"Mom, you are in no condition to get anything done." He guided her gently into the TV room and sat her down on the couch. She watched him search through the videos, mumbling to himself, and finally decide on one. It started, and she almost smiled. He'd chosen "Charade", one of her favorites. "You relax," he said over the beginning music. "I'll take care of dinner."
She nodded, glad someone else was in charge. Lost in one of her favorite scenes, she distantly heard him talking to Jean, but dismissed it. A few minutes later, he joined her, looking quite satisfied with himself.
"Did I hear you talking to your aunt?" she asked.
"Yes. She's been trying to help for a while; she told me all about it. Isn't that what families are for?" he asked, hugging her. "She's organizing, Mom. She won't be bringing everything on her own. Now." He stopped the movie, and then looked at her. "You are absolved of all motherly duties tonight."
"But..."
"No. Don't." He grinned and pulled her to her feet. "I have Dad on my side." He flipped the TV off and walked her upstairs. In her bedroom, she discovered that he did, indeed, have her husband on his side. Walker stood waiting at the end of the bed, and took her arm as they entered. Taylor closed the door as he left.
"You need some sleep," Walker told her, slipping his arm around her. She leaned against him with a sigh. The thought of protesting crossed her mind and she kicked it out.
"I think I'll take you up on that," she said.
"Good choice." He kissed her cheek and sat her down on the bed. She lay down, reveling in the feeling, and fell asleep.
She woke the next morning with a vague memory of someone, likely Walker, trying to wake her for dinner. It made her smile. She got up, dressed, and went down to fix breakfast. The oatmeal was nearly done when Taylor appeared, a paper in his hand. "Good morning!" he said cheerfully.
"What are you doing up?" She checked the clock in surprise. Yes, it was way too early for him to be up and that chipper. Something was up.
"Doped Ike," he grimaced, "and finished what I wanted to put on the web page." He handed her the paper. "I'll watch that."
"Has your father seen this?" she asked, handing him the wooden spoon.
"Nope. You were the first one I ran into."
"Oh." She sat down at the table and began to read.
'I'm sure you've all heard by now what has gone on with us, but for those of you who haven't, here's the latest from T Town:
'No, Isaac did not try to kill Zac. It was an accident, just like something you hear about on the freeway everyday. That rumor caused a lot of trouble. Luckily, Isaac did not get online at all once that rumor came out, or events might have been different, and likely not for the better. I have never been so ashamed to call someone my fan who could say of my brother: "I knew he'd do something like this one day. No one that ugly can live with such cuteness and not be jealous. I guess it just got the best of him." I read a lot of sites that said just that, and some who said worse.'
"Taylor, are you sure you want to put this as you saying it?"
"They'll know it's not all three of us, and by the end they'll know it's just me. But if you think it's a bad idea, I can try to change it."
"No, just concerned. Chris may not like it, though." She went back to reading.
'But that wasn't the worst, mostly because Isaac never saw it. Some of you, some of our so-called friends, wrote some nasty stuff in email messages. One girl wrote him "you're in my prayers, too, that you'll get the painful death you deserve." Someone else wrote "it's not bad enough that you boss him around, now you're trying to kill him?" Those are just two examples of what he saw. After the rumor and trying to deal with the guilt common in accidents like Isaac had, the email messages were the last straw.'
'Some people have criticized us for taking so long in releasing a disclaimer. Well, here's why. The day that rumor came out, July 31st, a member of the family found Isaac bleeding his life out in the upstairs bathroom.'
Diana gasped and choked. "That's... realistic."
"Yep." He sounded far too chipper for the gruesome details she knew he'd just written, but when she looked up at him, his expression was grim. She went back to reading.
'Great birthday present for Jessica.'
"Tay, leave out the comment about Jessie's birthday."
"She'll be disappointed."
"I know. But leave it out."
He sighed. "Okay."
"Thank you for not saying she was the one who found him. That's the last thing we need."
'That afternoon was spent keeping him alive. He regained consciousness on the first of August, and was released from the hospital on the second.'
"That's good, Tay."
"I'm adding pictures. Got one of his wrist when Dad cleaned it last night, and maybe another, I don't know. He looks bad, Mom."
"I know, honey, I know." She got up and finished making breakfast. He escaped before she could ask him to set the table. Walker came down a few minutes later with a sleepy Zoe, who murmured protests into his shoulder.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked gently, trading Zoe for the bowls she handed him.
"Wonderfully, thank you." She leaned over and kissed him.
"Eew, gross!" came the comment from the door, and they broke apart, laughing at Jessica and Avery's expressions.
"One day, you'll have kids who do the same thing," Diana grinned, and gave Zoe back to Walker to dish up the girls' breakfast. It was a typical morning in the Hanson household, except the oldest lay drugged in the den, and the third lay in a coma in the hospital. Diana sighed, pausing a minute, then straightened. Well, she had these home and conscious. "Taylor finished his project," she told Walker.
"I know. He showed it to me. I think he's e-mailing Chris about it now. He said you told him to take out the reference to Jessica's birthday, too."
"Aww, Mom!" Jessica protested.
"Jessica, you know why," Walker said.
She sighed. "It's my brothers' band, the rest of the family is not to be involved," she recited. Diana resigned herself to Jessica pouting all morning, but even that couldn't break her mood.
As they sat down, Taylor arrived with Mackenzie. "Chris says it's fine, so I'm gonna set it up this morning."
"Picture, too?" Diana asked.
"No. He told me to take it out." He looked disappointed. "But he had a good point."
"Keep us informed, will you please?" Diana asked. "I'd like to know if there is any response."
"Sure, Mom."
A few days later, as she finished cleaning up lunch, she heard the doorbell ring, and Taylor opened the door. "Ashleigh! You're back! How was the coast?"
"Good." Her son's best friend's voice was a welcome sound. "I hear you had some problems." The voices went past the door. "Hi, Diana!" he called cheerfully, ducking in the doorway long enough to wave to her.
"Hi, Ashleigh. Welcome back."
"Problems. You have no idea," Taylor said, and Ashleigh disappeared with a jerk. "Not unless you checked out Hansonline."
"Nope. Just heard something about Ike and Zac that my Mom was laughing about. Then she said it wasn't funny at all, if people believed it."
The voices faded. Diana went back to the dishes, glad that Taylor had someone to vent to, finally. She'd heard him yelling in the den a couple of times, and once it had been while she was on the phone. That meant he'd been yelling at Isaac, who couldn't respond. And speaking of Isaac.... She grabbed a glass of water and his medicine and walked towards the den. Just outside, she could hear soft, frustrated-sounding grunts from inside. The scene that greeted her nearly made her laugh.
Isaac was twisted up in the blankets, futilely trying to free himself, and in some cases making it worse. Swallowing her laughter, she set the glass down. "Isaac, hold still," she said, and gently untwisted him. "There you go."
He lay still for a minute, eyes closed, face impassive. She was glad she hadn't laughed, then. He was well aware how gawky and stupid he looked sometimes, and having someone laugh at him only made it worse, especially now. His eyes opened suddenly. "I want a shower," he said. She couldn't hide her surprise, looking down into vaguely bitter brown eyes.
"All right. Let me get you something to change into." She ran upstairs, bursting in on Taylor and Ashleigh in the middle of one of Taylor's rants. She paid no attention to his words, scrounging for something she remembered Isaac had worn. A pair of sweats surfaced, then a t-shirt. Finding a pair of boxers to fit him, she ran back down to the den.
Isaac was sitting up, elbows braced on his knees, face in his hands. She touched his shoulder. "Ready?"
He looked up at her, then with some effort got to his feet. He staggered at his first step, and she took his arm, steadying him. "Careful," she said, and they walked into the bathroom. She stepped away from him, setting the change of clothes down on the sink. When she looked back at him, he was gazing at her, leaning on the shower door.
"Won't this put the schedule off?" His voice was thick, the lack of curiosity glaring.
"That's not important," she said evenly. "Be careful, okay?"
He nodded and turned away, peeling the shirt over his head. She gently closed the door as she left and stood there, leaning against the door until long after the water had started to run, trying to compose herself.
In the kitchen she met Taylor and Ashleigh scrounging for food, and Taylor looked much happier. "Mom," he said, turning from what had to be the oddest sandwich she'd ever seen. Peanut butter, pickles, bananas and... onions?
"What?"
"How's Ike?"
"He wanted a shower, so I guess he's doing better." She looked at him. "Are you really going to eat that?"
He grinned and took a bite in answer. She shuddered.
"People actually thought Ike tried to kill Zac?" Ashleigh asked, and bit into his own, much more normal PB&J sandwich.
"From what Taylor says, yes. And the email Isaac got seemed to indicate the same thing." She shook her head. "I don't understand. Most of those people know Isaac. Why would they make those kind of accusations?" She sank down at the table and folded her hands.
"I don't know. Maybe they live by the media, like the people who don't know you do." Ashleigh took another bite, thinking. "Or, now you know who the real friends are."
"Great," Taylor mumbled. "That's most of the people I hang out with. And almost all of Zac's friends."
"Oh." Ashleigh looked stumped. "Yeah."
A thud against the wall brought Diana out of her seat and into the hall. Isaac leaned against the wall across from the bathroom, practically hugging it to stay on his feet. "I hate this," he muttered savagely.
Diana took his arm to help him into the den, glad to see he looked better. His damp, once-again-blond hair lay in waves about his face, curling more than he usually allowed. He'd shaved, too, and she wondered how he'd managed not to cut his face up. He returned her gaze for a minute, then pushed himself away from the wall and paused, standing on his own. He shook her off and she stepped back, following him as he walked slowly into the den. She stopped in the doorway, watching as he sank down on the bed.
"How are you feeling?" she asked gently.
He took a deep breath and looked up at her. "There are so many drugs in me, I can't even tell you how I'm feeling." A pang went through her, and she wondered if that had been what Dr. Merris and Dr. Sunshine had meant. They'd both told her to keep him sedated until he asked her to stop. Well, he hadn't exactly asked....
"Would you like to not take anymore?"
His eyes met hers, dull. "Don't I have to?"
"No. Both Dr. Sunshine and Dr. Merris said to give it to you until you didn't want it. Unless your prescription ran out first."
He looked down again, his hair falling forward to hide his face. She stepped into the room and sat next to him.
"What do you want?"
"I just want to sleep, on my own." He didn't look at her.
"All right." She got up and retrieved the water glass she'd left on the desk. "Here's some water." She brushed some hair back from his face. "I'll set it here. Be careful, okay? Don't hurt yourself." She set the glass on the table. "I'll be in the kitchen."
"Mom." His voice stopped her in the doorway, and she turned. "Why won't Dad speak to me?"
"I didn't realize he hadn't," she finally managed through the lump in her throat. "I'll ask him."
"No!" The force of his refusal knocked him back, and he barely caught himself, wincing. "No. It's not important." He lay down, pulling a blanket over him.
Diana tried to answer him for a long time, long after she was sure he'd fallen asleep, but no words would come. She finally closed the door and walked back down the hall, past the kitchen and the cheerful voices inside, and to the living room. She sank down on the floor among the scattered music sheets, picks, broken strings and drum sticks, between Taylor's keyboard and Zac's drum set. Her eyes fell on a piece of paper with notes and guitar chords written on it, and she just stared at it, sitting on the floor, tears running down her cheeks.
"Diana?" Walker's concerned voice broke through her trance, and she looked up, seeing Jessica, Avery, and Mackenzie behind him, all looking scared.
"Oh. Is it time for dinner?" She was exhausted again. How long had Walker been home? She wiped her face and got to her feet.
"Yes. Come eat." Walker slipped an arm around her and led her into the kitchen. "Your family out did themselves."
Diana sank into her chair. "I'm going to have to write a zillion thank you notes."
A crash from the study made them all jump, and Diana actually smiled. "Taylor, go see if Isaac wants to join us for dinner," she said. Taylor stared at her with wide eyes, then left the table so quickly he knocked his chair over. Walker stood it up again, a quizzical look on his face. She shrugged. "He didn't want his medication. They told me it was okay to stop it, then." She barely registered Avery's furious expression before Taylor returned.
"He's coming," he reported, slipping into his seat. Just behind him appeared Isaac, still sleepy but looking more and more alert. He sat down in his own seat, without looking up.
"What happened?" Diana asked.
"I tried to get a drink, and fell out of the bed," he said softly. The laughter and chatter that followed made dinner feel almost normal.
That evening, Diana gathered her courage and faced her husband. "Remember when you told me Isaac wouldn't notice if I weren't there?" she asked.
"Yes."
"He noticed. He asked me today why you didn't talk to him."
Walker looked steadily at her. "I will, tomorrow."
"Don't tell him I told you. He asked me not to."
Walker nodded, and smiled. "Sounds like him."
If dinner that night were normal, the next few days weren't. She spent two out of every three days at the hospital, reading to Zac some of the books he had been assigned for summer reading. When she was home, however, in the evenings and the other one in the three days, she began to notice how often Avery would stalk out of a room almost as soon as Isaac walked in. The only exceptions were meals. She saw him try to stop her, one evening, and noticed then that he didn't have the brace on his wrist. Avery said something to him so quietly that Diana couldn't hear her, and he let her go. Before he could go on into the room, she stopped him.
"What was that all about?" she asked. He didn't look at her.
"Nothing."
She sighed; he'd become secretive, too. "Your wrist is better?"
He looked at her now, expression blank, then looked down as she touched his right arm. "Oh, yeah, it's fine." He gently pulled away from her, then stopped. "Is there something I can do?" he asked. "I've read everything you want me to this summer. Can I get started on school now?" He grimaced. "Math, even?"
Diana stared at him, then shook her head. "Of course. I'll get organized tonight, and get you started in the morning. Will that be okay?"
He nodded. "Sure, Mom. Thanks."
The next day, he studied in the kitchen all day. She heard from Walker that he spent the next day there, too, then moved into the den. But when she came home at night, he was always around, almost hovering, and she never seemed to have to ask anyone else for help. After a few days of this, when he nearly drove her crazy, she realized that this was part of his "bargain"; he'd promised to help, to not make her yell for him. It was down right eerie, and when she talked to Walker, she found that he was the same when she wasn't home. They'd both tried to explain to Isaac that he had not had to make that bargain, but he just nodded and continued to hover. It was almost as if they had acquired a butler; he was the one who answered the door, handling unwanted people with an ease he didn't used to have.
She found she missed the music. Taylor played every evening, at least, and the days she was home he played more, either on his keyboard or on the spinet in the living room. She heard him ask Isaac to join him more than once. Isaac's answer was too soft for her to hear, but Taylor always played alone. His frustration sometimes came out in banged notes and once in a mild temper tantrum; she could hear him stalking around the living room, muttering to himself. It made her smile.
"Taylor," she said, after watching him kick at the small paraphernalia that always collected on the floor in the living room. He looked up at her, then sighed.
"Yeah?"
"Has there been any kind of reaction to your change on Hansonline?"
He brightened. "Yeah. Some. A lot of pages put up apologies. Some just laughed in my face, so to say, but the e-mails are better. The people working with Hansonfans say that the whole tenor of the emails to Ike has become much more positive."
Diana nodded. "Good." She went over to him and gave him a hug. "Thanks." She turned and left the room to go back to getting ready for everyone else's school year. Taylor began to play again, and she settled in, content for now. She was brainstorming ideas for field trips when Isaac appeared in the doorway. "Mom, Uncle Stephen is here." She hadn't even heard the doorbell.
"Great, send him in." Isaac ushered him in. "Hi, Stephen!" She stood and hugged him, offering him a seat.
"Do you want something to drink?" Isaac asked.
"No, thanks, Ike. Diana, how are you holding up?"
Diana could have sworn Isaac gave a little bow before leaving. "Oh, well enough. Walker's at the hospital today; he made me agree to a split. I go for two days, he goes for one." She scowled briefly, then smiled again. "I'm not as run down, and the kids are happier, so I guess it's good."
"How is Zachary?"
"His condition hasn't changed." She half noticed the music stopping abruptly. "The doctor is a little more hopeful, and we have everyone..."
"Mom!" Taylor's urgent yell interrupted her, and she ran into the hall. She found Isaac sitting against the wall, his left hand gripping Taylor's arm tightly. Taylor knelt in front of him, and his blue eyes were wild with worry when he looked up at her.
"What? Are you okay?"
Isaac cleared his throat. "Fine. Sorry. I fell." Taylor opened his mouth. "Help me up, will you?" Isaac interrupted. Taylor stood and pulled him to his feet.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Stephen asked, reaching out to steady him. Diana started; she hadn't expected him to follow her into the hallway.
"Yes, thanks." Isaac let Taylor go, shook off the hands holding him, and walked slowly into the den. Taylor sighed and went upstairs, shaking his head when she asked what was wrong. He looked angry.
"Something happened," Stephen said.
"Yes, and no one's better at keeping secrets than those... two, if they have a mind to," she said. "Although I suspect with a little prodding Taylor will give. He's not happy about it."
Isaac raised an eyebrow. "Did he?"
"No. You told me, later."
"What was it?" Avery demanded.
"When I was in the hospital, I had.... a seizure of some kind." He shrugged. "The CAT scan revealed nothing, and they eventually came to the conclusion it was psychological. That was the first one I had at home. And the night mares came back."
"They did?"
"Yeah. I never left my room, though, and I made Tay promise not to tell."
"So, what did I say?" Avery asked. She was beginning to remember parts of this as they told it, but some things were still missing.
Isaac looked at her. "I don't remember exactly. I've tried to forget, and I guess I've succeeded. It was meant to hurt, though, and it did." He shrugged. "It didn't seem to matter what I did, either. I even tried bribing you by doing your chores." His eyes sparkled. "You didn't have any to do for a while." He checked his watch, then grinned at Diana. "I guess Taylor and Michelle came and got Jordan?"
"Yes, how did you know?" Diana asked.
"You aren't in.... what did you call it, Avie?"
"Ultra-mother-mode," Avery grinned. "My friend Denice calls it first-grandchild-mode."
"What? When did you hear this?" Diana asked, glaring at Isaac.
"Didn't you ever wonder where I went?" Avery asked.
"I kidnaped her twice," Isaac grinned. "She even went to a contract meeting."
"Boring," Avery groaned. "What happened next?"
"Do you remember spending time at Grandmas, you, Jess, Mac, and Zoe?" Diana asked.
"Oh, yeah. This is why?" She looked at her mother in some surprise.
"Yes, and this is what happened while you were gone," Isaac said.
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