Page 21 of Windward Hearts

“Lasagna,” Cadence said, then smiled again as Izzy did a little fist pump in celebration. “But before we eat, there’s something that your dad and I want to talk to you about.”

Izzy was a smart kid; she immediately knew that this wasn’t a conversation she was going to enjoy. Face set in a mulish frown, she looked between her parents.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“It’s nothing bad; nobody is in trouble or mad or anything,” Tyler said, sinking down to sit on the floor beside his daughter. “But your mom and I noticed that you had a tough time with two tests this week, and we just wanted to make sure that everything is okay at school.”

Izzy’s gaze darted between her parents, and Cadence could practically see the moment when her kid decided to lie.

“Everything is fine,” she said.

“Babe,” Cadence said, dropping to the floor with Tyler. “If there’s something going on that you think we’ll be mad about, you can tell us. We promise not to get mad, okay? We just want to know if something is upsetting you.”

Izzy made her eyes go wide in an expression of exaggerated innocence that wasn’t all that convincing.

“Nothing is wrong,” she said. “School is fine.”

“Well, what did you learn about today?” Tyler prodded.

Izzy shrugged, going from her puppy dog eyes to avoiding their gazes in an instant.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Stuff.”

Cadence and Tyler exchanged a glance, and now she could see that her husband was worried too.

“Is someone being mean to you?” Cadence asked, horror stories about bullying flashing through her head. Izzy’s teacher was very attentive and responsible, so Cadence thought she would have noticed something, but kids could be clever and sneaky if they wanted to be.

Fortunately, Izzy looked genuinely baffled by this question. “No?” she said, like she couldn’t believe she was even being asked. “I mean, the other day Amira said that she didn’t like Lucy’s bracelet, and Lucy was mad for, like, the whole day, and it was super annoying because Amira thought I should be mad at Lucy, and Lucy thought I should be mad at Amira, but I told them I wasn’t going to be mad at either of them because I don’t even care about bracelets. But then they made up, so that’s fine,” Izzy concluded with a shrug.

That story was too detailed to be anything but true, and Izzy had delivered it with a sort of unconcerned exasperation. That at least made Cadence feel better about her daughter’s social life at school, although she was still left with lots of other things to worry about.

“Is the material seeming harder all of a sudden?” she asked. “Or is something distracting you?”

Now, Izzy’s exasperation was clearly directed at her.

“Mooom,” she said in such a long, whining tone that Cadence had an unfortunate vision about what life might be like when Izzy was a teenager, full of hormones and attitude. “I told you. It’s fine.”

“Let’s try to use a nice tone, shall we, kiddo?” Tyler corrected lightly. “Your mom and I are just looking out for you. It seems like you’re not your usual self, and it’s making us a little worried.”

“This is my regular self!” Izzy insisted with a huff that danced right at the edge of true distress.

Cadence and Tyler exchanged another look and, with it, a silent conversation. They clearly weren’t getting any information from their daughter now. But they also agreed that there was something amiss with Izzy.

“Okay, honey,” Cadence said after a minute. “We’ll let you play a little bit more before dinner. But you know that if there ever is anything bothering you, you can tell us, right?”

“Anything, sweetie,” Tyler reiterated. “Any time. We are always, always here.”

“Yeah, I know,” Izzy said, with a sort of duh undertone to her voice.

Well. Cadence wouldn’t say that she was thrilled with the attitude or with the fact that her daughter was clearly keeping something a secret, but she did take some reassurance from the fact that Izzy took her parents’ support as a given.

“Okay,” Cadence repeated, pushing to her feet. “We’ll call you down for dinner in a little while.”

“Okay, Mommy,” Izzy said, shoving her craft back in its box before turning to play with her stuffed animals, toys that didn’t get that much attention these days. This was as good a sign as any that Izzy was feeling vulnerable, that she wanted to be babied a little.

But she didn’t seem to want to be babied by her parents, at least judging from the way that she shifted away from them, already returning to her toys.

Cadence and Tyler left the room and headed back downstairs, remaining quiet until they’d reached the kitchen, which was far enough away from Izzy’s room that there was no chance of her being able to hear them.