Seasons Under Heaven by Beverly LaHaye, Terri Blackstock

it right here on the kitchen floor?”
    “Well, no, but—”
    “To your room, Mark.”
    He moaned and jerked the backpack up. She heard a car pulling into the garage and looked out the door. Rick and Annie were obviously embroiled in some kind of argument. She sighed. She had wondered about the wisdom of letting them ride to and from school together when they barely tolerated each other at home. On the other hand, she wasn’t willing to let Annie ride home with Mario Andretti wanna-bes with more tickets than miles under their belts.
    Rick got out and slammed the car door.
    “You’re such a jerk!” Annie shrieked as she got out and slammed hers harder.
    “Make her get off my case, Mom!” Rick said. “I’m sick of it!”
    They both tornadoed into the house. “Okay, what’s going on?” Cathy demanded.
    “He’s just such a jerk,” Annie repeated, slapping her long brown hair off of her shoulder. “I asked him to take one of my friends home, and he said no, right to her face. It was so embarrassing.”
    For two teens who were so at odds, their choreography remained identical. Simultaneously, they dropped their backpacks at the door and headed for the refrigerator. “It’s not my job to run your friends all over town,” Rick said, shouldering her out of his way.
    Annie elbowed him like a Roller Derby queen.
    “She doesn’t live ‘all over town.’ Just a mile down the mountain. It was on the way. It wouldn’t have hurt you a bit.”
    “When you get your car, you can drive it anywhere you want. I’m not a taxi service for you and your friends.”
    “Well, it doesn’t look like I’m getting one since you’re Mom’s golden boy and I’m the middle child. I’m the one who always does without.”
    “Maybe if your attitude changed she’d get you—”
    “Hey!” Cathy shouted. “ Hey! ” On the second yell, they both swung around, as if united in their resentment of her intrusion.
    Cathy picked up the two-ton backpacks. “Put them in your rooms,” she ordered.
    “What are you doing home, anyway?” Rick asked, as if she had no business here.
    “I wanted to talk to you,” she said. “Now take these backpacks out of here!”
    They both grabbed them, and Rick muttered, “Great. Can’t get a minute’s peace around here, what with Annie screaming in one ear and you yelling in the other. I hate this place!”
    Though a more fragile mother might have been hurt, Cathy took it with a grain of salt. Rick did have a flare for the dramatic, and since he spoke with equal affection of school, his job, and his father’s house, she didn’t take it personally. She simply determined not to let his anger distract her from her course.
    All afternoon she had worked herself into a lather thinking about that condom in her pocket. Now she couldn’t decide whether to confront Rick in front of the other two, or to follow him into his room. She decided to follow him.
    He didn’t realize she was behind him until he dropped the backpack on the pile of dirty laundry on his bedroom floor. He turned around and saw her in the doorway. “Are you following me?” he accused.
    “Yes, I’m following you.” She came into the room and closed the door behind her, vowing not to ask the origin of the rancid smell wafting on the air. “We’ve got to talk.”
    He kicked some of his clothes out of the way and dropped onto his bed. “I work hard at school all day, get chewed out all the way home, and now this.”
    She thought of reassuring him that “this” wouldn’t be so bad, but then she felt that foil square in her pocket again, and decidedthat it would be even worse than he thought. She felt her knees shaking and decided she had to sit down, so she knocked the clothes from a chair into a new pile on the floor, and sat. “Rick, I found something when I was doing the laundry.”
    “Oh yeah?” he asked, unworried. “Did I leave money in my pockets again?”
    She fixed her eyes on him, wondering if he was playing