“I see. Understood. All right, then. Was there something specific you wanted to discuss?”
“There is, yes,” she said, grasping again for the safety of that pool float. “I want to know why you haven’t taught him to read.”
That hung in the air for a moment like something wounded. Like that split second between the moment you hurt yourself and the moment the blood begins to flow, and you really get a look at what you’ve done.
“Mrs. Higgenbotham,” the principal began. Her voice had taken on a grave, overly professional tone. “I want you to know that we offer the same level and quality of instruction to all of our students. But it’s not always received in the same way. How can it be? Every child is an individual.”
“Are you saying Stewart is unintelligent? Because I don’t think he is.”
“No! Not at all. Nothing of the sort. When Stewie first came to us, we knew how bright he was immediately. And he loved school. He was so involved in his learning, and so proud of his schoolwork.”
“And then what happened? Because it doesn’t seem that way now.”
“And then his grandmother—his other grandmother, who lived with the family—she began to deteriorate. She had Alzheimer’s, but maybe you know all this. I’m not sure how close the two sides of the family are. Stewie adored her, so it was traumatic for him. We see this all the time, I’m sorry to say. I’ve been in education for decades, and I’ve seen it over and over. You have a very bright, involved student, doing very well in class, and then their family life falls apart in some way. There’s trauma at home. And at that juncture we just . . . lose them. In a very real way we just lose that student. I’m sure you’re familiar with the old saying ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.’ I don’t mean it to sound callous. I know your grandson is not an animal. All I’m trying to say is that we’ve been delivering the same education all along. All through Stewie’s school life. But then there came a time when he stopped accepting what we had to offer. Trauma does strange things to the human psyche. I don’t know if it’s that he can’t concentrate well enough to do his work, or if he simply lost track of a reason why he should care. Depression does that to the mind. Makes it hard to care.”
“You don’t have to lecture me on depression,” Marilyn said. “I know it as well as anyone.”
“I’m sorry. Genuinely. I didn’t mean to lecture you at all. I just wanted to describe what I see in your grandson’s case. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“No,” Marilyn said. And sighed. In her mind, the inflatable pool float drifted toward the horizon. Sucked out to sea, miles beyond her reach. There would be no safe, comfortable anger to protect her. That was over and done, and she knew it. “You didn’t, really. Just . . . well, what do we do about the situation?”
“My first thought is that you’re here now. You didn’t use to live close by, you say. Now you do. That has to be a help to him.”
“Perhaps so,” she said.
But it was making her unhappy. She had come here to tell these people that Stewie was their job. And that they were falling down on that job. Failing him. Now she realized she would walk away having been assigned that job herself.
It was a decidedly sinking feeling.
She shifted uneasily in her chair, and the principal seemed to notice the book on her lap. Maybe she had inadvertently covered it with a hand or arm, and had just moved it away. Or maybe the woman simply looked at the book for the first time.
“Oh, you have his namesake book.”
“Yes. I was hoping to get him to read it. But it seems to be beyond him, which is discouraging.”
“Of course. But keep trying with him. It can only help.”
“I agreed to read it to him. And then I said we could go over it word by word and see what words he knows and what ones he doesn’t.”
“Excellent!” The principal clapped her hands together, startling Marilyn. “That could make such a difference. I feel very optimistic now.”
Clearly a great weight had been lifted off the principal’s shoulders. Marilyn had lifted it away. And it had been dropped squarely onto her own.
They both stood, an agreement that the meeting was ending.
No good deed goes unpunished, she thought as she stepped into the outer office.
Somehow it had fallen to her not only to teach the boy to read, but to heal his traumatic life. And all she had wanted was to buy a few cartons of unusually fresh eggs.
Chapter Fifteen
Crashing
Stewie
When Marilyn opened her front door, she didn’t say hello to Stewie, nor he to her. She just stepped out of his way and he walked in without comment.
He wasn’t sure why she was being unusually quiet. He knew why he was. He was trying to avoid saying, “Why did you come to my school?”
Stewie lived his life on the basic tenet that, compared to an adult, he had no rights whatsoever. An eleven-year-old simply didn’t say whatever he wanted to a grown-up. Especially a not particularly welcoming grown-up. Still, every time the thought came into his head, his question seemed so obvious, so . . . justified, that he felt anyone should have the right to ask it of anyone.
And yet to open his mouth and speak those words to her felt unthinkable.
He walked past Izzy, who was watching loud cartoons, but she didn’t look up at him.
Nobody in this house seems all that happy to see me, he thought.
He walked into the kitchen and Marilyn followed.
“You brought your book,” she said. Her voice sounded the way people sound in the morning when they’ve just wakened up and haven’t used it for hours.
“Yes, ma’am.” An awkward pause fell. “I said I would.”
“And then you did.”
“I always try to do what I said I would.”
“That’s a good quality in a person.”
“I know that.”
He sat at her kitchen table, his hands folded together over the book.
“I’m going to make myself a cup of tea,” she said. “Do you want any?”
“No thank you, ma’am.”
“Do you want anything?”
“No thank you. I’m fine.”
Izzy stuck her head into the kitchen and frowned at him. “I wanted to play something,” she said.
“I thought you would want to watch your cartoons.”
“What made you think that?”
“Last time you just wanted to watch TV. Plus, when I came in just now, you were watching something.”
“Not something good,” Izzy said, her voice taking on that whiny quality on the final word.
“Well, it’s going to have to be later,” Stewie said. “Marilyn and I are going to work on reading this book.”
“You suck,” she said.
Then she stuck out her tongue at him and disappeared.
He shifted around in his chair, trying to let the insult move through him with the least possible amount of damage. He glanced up at Marilyn, who was lighting a paper match from a small matchbook.
“She’s hard to get along with,” Stewie said.
“Ha!” Marilyn said. “Tell me about it!”
Then she held the match to the stove burner to light it.
The stove was a modern enough variety, but Stewie had noticed how the burners wouldn’t light on their own. Probably just the pilot flames had gone out, he figured. Stewie knew how to relight gas pilots, but he didn’t figure he would in this case. He was more comfortable with the idea that those burners would only come on if the lady was entirely sure she wanted them to.
She was faced away from him at the stove. Not really doing anything. The kettle was on, and could heat by itself, but she was only staring at the wall behind the stove, as far as he could see.
The question barged into his head again. Why did you come to my school?
Almost as though his thoughts were on display for her to see, she spoke.
“I have a confession to make,” she said.
“I’m not sure about that word.”
“It means I need to admit something I did.”
“Oh. Okay. Go ahead, then.”
“I went down to your school.”
And now, thankfully, the figurative door into that difficult question was open. And he could ask it.
“Why did you do that?”