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Alex’s country home. The horses, even the garden and the groves, were instrumental in my new lesson plans. After my proven track record of using surroundings to teach Jonathan, and how that resulted in higher test scores and better behavior patterns, the judge thought Jonathan’s exposure to his grandparents’ property and heritage would do the boy good, especially since no oth er environment had been successful.
    It also removed him from all his bad influences in Los Angeles, which was the most pressing concern at the moment.
    In the end the judge approved a tentative teaching schedule that would be reviewed in ninety days.
    As it turned out, this was the easy victory. Reaching Jonathan proved much more challenging.
    He was scheduled to spend eight hours a day at Alex’s home, four days a week, but he spent the first week sitting in that window, ear buds in, phone in hand, his back to me as he ignored me entirely. He was determined to sabotage his mother’s plan, perhaps to ensure she would lose permanent custody. After that first week, when Elise, Alex and I met to discuss Jonathan’s progress (or lack thereof,) Alex suggested that Jonathan spend a week solid at the house with us instead.
    She shook her head. “I fought too hard to get custody,” she said. “After all those years apart, he’s only been with me a few months. It will only confuse him to stay here, and I don’t want to risk what I’m trying to build.”
    “Maybe it would help to remove himself from both of his parents, just on a temporary basis,” I suggested. “This way he won’t have to keep taking sides.” Elise glared at me, but I went on. “He loves Max more than anyone. Maybe if we give him some responsibility for his cousin, it’ll help restore his self-esteem and give him a standard of maturity to rise to.”
    After another disastrous week, Elise finally relented. She couldn’t risk his ongoing defiance proving that she couldn’t control him. So she agreed that Jonathan would stay with us four days a week, leaving the weekend open to split time between his parents. For his part, Alex offered to teach Jonathan his business as a horse trainer, which was really the only spark of interest Jonathan showed while staying at the house. He spent more time down at the stables than he did in our library classroom. I gave him assignments to study the different breeds and training methods, but he refused to do any of his classwork. He preferred to hang out with Millicent and Max, his two favorite people in the house by far.
    In fact, Millicent had been the only adult to reach him as we all struggled to find a groove. She was no-nonsense and he responded to that, even though she was in no way an authoritarian over him. I figured that was her biggest appeal. He had to work for her approval, and he rose to that occasion. After he moved his things in for the week, he shadowed Millicent to spent time with Max.
    I could tell he was envious that his young cousin had such a close relationship with his grandmother. Millicent knew it too, which is why she treated Jonathan with the very same regard as Max.
    Jonathan stayed in Max’s room after Alex moved in an old bunk bed from storage. I could tell from the markings on the wood that this bed had special family history. There was a crudely drawn “A” and “D” etched into the bedpost, and I tried to picture what life must have been like for the embattled brothers when they were little boys. Had Alex regarded Drew with the same hero worship I saw on Max’s face whenever he looked at Jonathan? Had Drew adopted a caretaker attitude for his younger sibling, like Jonathan had with his cousin, looking after him like it was a sacred duty?
    I suspected it was so every time I looked into Alex’s face while he watched the kids interact. There was a hurt little boy deep inside him, too. Even Millicent knew it was true, and she ran interference between everyone as best she could.
    “How do you boys feel