Like clockwork, every Sunday at 5 p.m., my stepson Josh came back from his mom’s place. And every single Sunday, he would step through our front door, kick off his shoes, and head straight to his room without a word.
It was like someone flipped a switch on Josh’s personality with us, transforming him from our cheerful, chatty ten-year-old son into a brooding stranger.
And what was worse? He never talked about what happened at his mom’s place. I always wanted to ask him about his mood, but I also didn’t want to push it. As much as Josh had accepted me as his stepmother, I didn’t know how much of a role I had in his life.
“Do you think he’s okay, Patrick?” I asked my husband one evening as we were making dinner.
Josh had just been dropped off, and he was in an exceptionally irritable mood, refusing to talk to both of us.
“Honestly, I think he’s perfectly fine,” Patrick said, slicing through a handful of potatoes. “Linda does like to push him, though. I’m sure she gave him a mouthful about studying and school in general.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said. “But I do the same thing, and he’s fine with it. He may make a joke or say something silly, but his mood is exactly the same. So this is nonsense. But again, I know bio-mom has the trump card over step-mom. So, I’m not going to say anything.”
“Liora,” Patrick sighed. “If you want to talk to him, just go for it. Just walk up to him and ask him whatever you want. But I’ll talk to him after dinner, too.”
I nodded. That was exactly what I wanted. I just wanted Patrick to make sure that Josh was okay. Because it hadn’t always been like this. When Josh first came to live with Patrick and me because we were closer to the school he wanted to go to, he was like a bright light.
He kept telling stories about his day, asking questions about everything, and he tried hard to get to know me, his new stepmother. We even spent hours just baking away in the kitchen while bonding.
But recently, that boy seemed long gone. Now, we had to try really hard to get him out of the hole that he climbed into when he returned from visiting Linda. We’d cook his favorite meals, play games, and even have elaborate movie nights to try to cheer him up.
But nothing worked.
I hoped that Patrick’s conversation with him after dinner was going to make a difference.
“It was fine, Dad,” he said when Patrick asked him about the weekend. “Mom was her usual self, I guess.”
I stood in the kitchen, straining to hear their conversation outside while Patrick started a little fire for s’mores.
“But then why are you so sad? Did something happen? Your mom is great, but I know that she’s a lot to deal with,” Patrick chuckled.
“It’s draining being there, Dad,” Josh confessed. “But I know how important it is for me to keep spending weekends with Mom.”
“It is important,” Patrick agreed. “But at the same time, if it’s becoming too much, we can always change the arrangement to every second week. Okay?”
I could see Josh contemplating the idea, but then his face darkened.
“I’m going to bed,” he said. “Good night!”
Josh came storming into the kitchen through the door, and I thought he was going to run past me. But he stopped and hugged me tightly.
“Good night, Liv,” he said, walking away to his bedroom.
Now, I wanted to stop him and ask him to tell me more. But I didn’t want to try too much. I wanted to respect his privacy. I knew the complicated feelings that came with split families, but this? This was different. It wasn’t just the normal adjustment to living in two homes; something else was eating at my stepson, and in turn, it was tearing me apart not knowing what.
Then last weekend, things took a turn I never expected.
Patrick was out getting my long list of groceries, and I was sitting on the couch, waiting for Josh to come back from his mom’s place. Around 5 p.m., I heard the familiar rumble of his mom’s beat-up sedan pulling into our driveway.
A few months ago, our neighborhood had undergone a phase of petty crime, with unruly teenagers helping themselves to whatever they wanted. Since then, Patrick had installed a new security system that was as fancy as they came.
If there was too much activity on our porch, the feed would automatically show on our television, the door camera capturing everything going on. It was an easy way for us to see what was going on before we made any sudden movements in retaliation.
“It’s going to make us feel safer, Liv,” Patrick said when he installed the system. “There’s also an app that we need to download on our phones; it will do the same thing as it does on the TV.”
I had to admit, it was a pretty cool device.
As I sipped my tea, waiting for Josh to open the door and come in, the feed suddenly changed from my cooking show to the live feed of what was happening on the porch.
There they were, Linda and Josh, standing on the porch.
“Here’s your cookies,” Linda said, handing Josh a container. “I’ll see you next week. And you know what you have to do…”
