She felt as though she had simply found herself there. As though she had napped unexpectedly and then woke up in a new place. She knew she must have walked down to the school, but she had no memory of having done so.
What felt most troubling was the subject of why she had decided to come.
On its simplest level it was quite plain. It bothered her that they hadn’t seen to it that the boy could read. And it was a kind of aggravating feeling that did not wish to be ignored. It reminded Marilyn of a scratchy tag on a new blouse. It was nearly impossible to hold your attention elsewhere, and there was no way to stay calm in the face of it.
But under that . . . underneath it there was something, and she had lost it, as she lost so many things these days. There was a reason she had initially wanted to come here but then decided against it. But the more she reached for the spot where it should have lived, the more empty that spot became. It had come to feel like a soft black hole, able to absorb and destroy more of her thoughts if she allowed it to do so.
Meanwhile, standing at the edge of a playground felt emotionally uncomfortable, because she had been tormented by her peer group on playgrounds as a child. And she couldn’t help marveling—though not in a good way—at the fact that she could remember that ancient past, but not what might have stopped her from making this trip.
Tired of the mental tug-of-war, she sighed, made her way to the visitors entrance, and pulled open the door.
There was a yellow line on the floor inside, an arrow with a very long tail, that was clearly marked “office.”
She followed it, and stepped inside.
A woman of about forty stood behind a desk, reading a book and drinking a mug of coffee. Her hair was stringy and limp, and she looked positively exhausted. Marilyn was curious as to whether she had lost sleep the previous night, or if this was simply the way you looked when you worked around all these children day in and day out. But of course there was no way to know. It was certainly not a question a polite person could ask.
“What can I help you with?” the woman said, without ever looking up from her book.
“I’d like to speak with the principal.”
“Regarding . . . ?”
“One of your students.”
“I figured that. I was hoping we could narrow it down to which one.”
Marilyn felt a deep jolt of panic in her chest. Because she had forgotten his name again. But then she remembered that she had prepared for this. It was not that she remembered it in her head so much as she felt it in her fingers. She had brought the book, in case she forgot the boy’s name.
She glanced down at its ancient, oddly comforting cover.
“Stewart Little,” she said.
The woman looked up then, and her face brightened. But in a quirky way. As if the name amused and bemused her at exactly the same time.
“Ah, yes,” she said. “Our Stewie.” And her eyes drifted down to her book again.
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Oh, we love Stewie. Don’t get me wrong. How could anybody not love Stewie? He’s just so . . . loveable.”
“Yes,” Marilyn said, realizing the truth of the thing as the conversation moved along. “Yes, he is oddly loveable.”
“Odd and loveable,” the woman said. “That’s our Stewie.” Then she looked up again. Suddenly. Guiltily. As if only just realizing her mistake. “I didn’t mean any offense by that. I didn’t mean odd like . . .”
“No offense taken. I think it goes without saying that he’s a bit odd, but in a way that’s charming for some reason. Now . . . may I see the principal?”
“Let me see if she’s busy.”
The woman stepped away from the desk and rapped lightly on a closed office door. When a muffled word came from the other side, she opened the door a crack and stuck her head in. More muffled words were exchanged.
Then the woman motioned for Marilyn to come ahead in.
Marilyn stepped inside the principal’s office, and the woman closed the door gently behind her.
Marilyn stood a moment, adjusting. Adjusting her eyes to the relative dimness, but also adjusting to the differences in the energy of the woman and the room.
The principal sat behind her desk, her hands clasped and folded on its top. She was not half involved in a book or a cup of coffee. She drilled her attention into Marilyn like a hawk watching a mouse scurry across a field. She looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties, but Marilyn had begun to have more and more trouble judging ages. Everyone just looked young to her.
The woman’s hair was dark—likely dyed—and cut bluntly just below her ears, which Marilyn thought a silly and unbecoming style. She was wearing a dress that fit too snugly on her solid frame, and a waist-length jacket.
That’s wrong, Marilyn thought. The more stuffed into one’s clothes one appeared, the longer one’s jacket should be.
Then she realized she was being judgy, and that it’s best not to be if one can help it.
The principal motioned for her to sit, and she did.
Marilyn had worn a dress from her business days, making her look and feel quite professional. She folded her hands in her lap, on her linen skirt, feeling proud that it still fit her after all these years.
A little burst of lightning seemed to go off in her brain, reminding her that there had been some reason not to do this. But it remained beyond her reach.
“You’re here to talk about Stewie Little,” the principal said.
It knocked Marilyn away from trying to remember.
“I am.”
“Good. I’m glad to see someone take an interest. We want very much to talk about his schoolwork with someone, but we can never get anyone in here. Not that I blame his sister, mind you. Poor young woman. Why, she was barely an adult herself when she found herself the guardian of two helpless young boys. I’m sure just supporting them all has been an adventure. But of course a child needs more than just financial support.”
“Yes, of course,” Marilyn said.
Meanwhile her thoughts ran elsewhere. She had come down here to be angry at the people in charge of the boy’s school, because they were uncaring, and falling down on their jobs. But her anger had already begun to seep away, abandoning her. And anger is such a safe tool, she thought. She felt it like an inflated raft that one would cling to in the deep end of a pool. She had no idea how to handle this meeting once it was gone.
“And you are . . . ?” the principal asked. She had a pen poised over a small yellow tablet, prepared to write it down.
It set off another thread of lightning in Marilyn’s brain. A little jolt. This was one of the reasons. One of the obvious aspects that had kept her from coming before today. And now it was too late.
There was something else as well, but it stayed out of her reach.
“Marilyn Higgenbotham,” she said.
Because it was the name she gave to everybody these days. She hoped that the fact that it wasn’t her real name would offer some protection.
The principal wrote it down, which made Marilyn uneasy.
“And what is your relationship to the child?”
Marilyn’s head filled with a confusing jumble of thoughts. Her son was an attorney, and she remembered how he had talked about a case that involved “standing.” The legal definition of the word. Whether or not the person bringing the case had legal standing to do so. Marilyn needed to have some relationship to the child to come to his school and take his educators to task. And she hadn’t thought of it. And she knew that the fact that she hadn’t thought of it was a problem—the same type of problem as having to carry the E. B. White book because she would inevitably forget the boy’s name.
“I’m his grandmother,” she said. And instantly regretted saying it.
The principal looked up quickly, and met her eyes.
“But Stewie’s grandmother is . . .”
“Everybody has two grandmothers. At least as long as they both live.”
“Yes, of course. I’m so sorry. You’re his other grandmother. I’m surprised we haven’t met you before. Do you live around here?”
“Not until recently.”