Galen picked Ryan up from school. It was the third time either he or Kate had been called to the principal's office in the past two weeks. This time it had been for fighting. The last time it was for acting up in class. They were at a loss over this new behavior and had been advised to have Ryan speak with a child psychiatrist.
Sitting over their dinner of spaghetti and meatballs Galen tried drawing Ryan out with no success. Ryan had turned from an idolizing, chubby faced kid, to a surly belligerent pre-teen almost overnight. He needed help and only knew one place to turn for it.
"Hi Ewan, it's Galen."
Raija looked at the message left by the receptionist and wondered if she should call. It had been six months since her trip to Las Vegas for Ewan and Aisha's wedding.
"MicroTek enterprises, Galen Dunne speaking."
Raija smiled as she listened to his deep voice accentuated by his Texas twang.
"Galen, this is Raija. Returning your call."
Galen had thought that he would be much more nervous than he was. He was glad to hear her voice, but more so because of the favor he needed.
"Ah, thanks for calling me back. Listen, I need your professional assistance. You work with troubled kids and well; we've got a troubled kid on our hands." He mentally kicked himself as he knew that he should have at least asked her how she was doing.
Raija put away lingering thoughts of Galen in her bed. As Galen told her about the recent problems with Ryan she picked up on his love for the child.
"Galen, I'm not a psychologist or a social worker. What I do with kids is different."
"I know, it's just that you spend time talking to them, finding out what they want and I thought."
"Okay, listen, I can meet with Ryan anytime this week or at some point this weekend."
"Great. When and where."
Raija gave Galen directions to her office and a time to meet in two days. When she hung up the phone she called Aisha.
"Hey girl. I just got a call from Galen."
"Ewan mentioned that he called looking for your number. What's going on?"
"He and Kate are having problems with Ryan, they've asked me to talk to him and see if I can help him."
"Are you going to?"
"Of course, when have I ever been able to turn down a child?"
"Yeah, I know, but."
"Yeah."
What went unsaid was that once Raija met with Ryan, there couldn't be anything between Galen and Raija. She couldn't break Ryan's trust. Raija wasn't sure if Galen knew or cared, but she did.
Bright and early Saturday morning Raija headed for her office. On the way she stopped to pick up pastries, juice and coffee.
Raija had been in the office for ten minutes when she heard a knock at the door. She opened the door and found a petite redheaded woman and a red-haired young boy who strongly favored the woman. Standing directly behind them was Galen.
"Hi there. Come in."
The Dunne family entered the reception area warily. "I'm Raija Montemayor and you must be Ryan." She spoke directly to Ryan who giggled. She raised her eyebrows at him in question.
"What kind of name is Montemayor?"
"I'm Latina and my last name is Peruvian, just like your last name is Irish."
"But you look black."
At that last comment his parents looked mortified and started apologizing to her.
Raija stopped them. "It's okay." Again looking directly at Ryan she said, "I'm black and Latina. You didn't know that there were black people all over the world?"
Ryan looked at her in surprise. "No, all the Hispanic kids at school are brown."
She winked at him, "well hang out with me for a while kid and you'll learn a lot you didn't know."
She showed Ryan to her office and closed the door. She turned to his parents and asked, "So you've told Ryan why he's here?"
Kate spoke up first, "yes, we told him that you work with kids who may be struggling and that you just want to help him."
Galen was quiet and when she received no response from him, she turned back to Kate. "I plan on spending about thirty minutes with Ryan today, just talking. You do both understand that this isn't a quick fix. He probably won't want to do much talking today. Are you guys planning on staying around?"
Kate answered again, "If you don't mind, we thought that we'd just sit out here, unless you think differently."
"Tell you what, there's a new café on the corner, they serve a great breakfast. Why don't the two of you go on down and we'll walk down and meet you when we're done."
Leaving them in the reception area, she walked into her office.
Galen sat staring out the glass front of the café. Raija had been right, the café served great food.
"Galen, did you hear me?"
In honesty he hadn't. He was busy wondering what Ryan was telling Raija. "Sorry Kate, what were you saying?"
She frowned at him, "How do you know her?" Galen thought there was a hint of jealousy in her voice, which, considering their marriage, was ridiculous. He'd known over the years about various relationships that she'd had. They'd never amounted to much and he'd never cared as long as it didn't impact Ryan.
"She's the cousin of Ewan's wife Aisha. I met her at their wedding and called Ewan to get her information."
Kate considered Galen for a second. She knew that he'd never stepped outside the bounds of their marriage and she wasn't sure why. As far as she was concerned, sex was sex and didn't need to lead to anything more.
Twenty minutes later Galen spied Ryan and Raija walking down the sidewalk. Ryan was staring down at the ground as he walked while Raija talked non-stop.
Stepping into the café Raija looked around. Finding his parents she waved goodbye to Ryan and walked out.
Galen ran out of the café after her.
"What's going on? What did he say?"
She smiled at Galen. "We talked in general, about what he likes to do, school, the usual getting to know you stuff." She sighed deeply, "I told you this wasn't an instant solution or process. If anything serious or threatening to Ryan is going on, I'll let you and Kate know, otherwise, I'm here to help Ryan, not you and your wife. Ryan has the appointment card for next week."
With that, she walked away.
Every Saturday for a month, she met with Ryan. Sometimes Kate dropped him off, sometimes his father but never since the first time did they both come with him.
During their fifth meeting they made some headway.
"So Ryan, have you talked to your parents yet."
"Nope."
"Why not?"
