Evan: So you’re blaming our daughter for having her nose broken? Unbelievable—
Ms. Chambers (interrupting): I’m not saying that.
Laura: We feel sorry for Jayyden. But our first priority is keeping our own daughter safe. How can it be that, as principal, your first priority is not guaranteeing the safety of the children at this school?
Ms. Chambers: I can do my best to create a supportive and accountable environment, but I cannot guarantee the safety of any child. I wish I could. [Laughs.]
Evan: Well, you can guarantee that our daughter will not be bullied by Jayyden by removing him from the school and sending him somewhere for troubled children.
Ms. Chambers: I cannot make Jayyden leave this school. Nor is there anywhere I can legally send him. This is a public school, and he has just as much of a right to be here as Maeve does.
Evan: Well, then we’re taking Maeve out.
Ms. Chambers: We’ll be sorry to see your family go—and we hope you change your minds.
In short, she offered nothing—and we will not, alas, be changing our minds. Maeve will miss all her friends at Betts, just as we will miss being part of the Betts community. But we feel we have no other choice but to remove her from the school. We’ve appealed to the board of education this week for a safety transfer to another elementary school in the district.
Thank you for your support and understanding,
Laura Collier and Evan Shaw
(parents of Maeve Collier-Shaw)
Karen’s first emotion, before she realized what the e-mail actually amounted to—namely, a kiss-off to the parent body of Betts—was hurt. In Laura’s attempt to piece together what happened, why had she not reached out to Karen? Had Laura developed a stealth friendship with one of the other mothers in the class? Karen’s second emotion was embarrassment and discomfort on behalf of Jayyden and his family. Then she recalled that there was no e-mail contact info on the class list for Jayyden, so it was unlikely that Aunt Carla or any of Jayyden’s cousins would ever see Laura’s letter. Karen’s third thought was that Ruby would be upset when she heard Maeve was leaving Betts.
But the reality—which was only now beginning to dawn on Karen—was that she was just as upset as her daughter was likely to be, if not more so, by Maeve’s departure. It was not the loss of Maeve, per se, but the loss of her representative status. By Karen’s calculations, Ruby would now be one of only three Caucasian girls in the class—possibly four, depending on whether you counted the Cuban girl, Sofia. Maeve had also been Room 303’s only blonde—a superficial detail, of course. And yet, somehow, it mattered. Somehow, the existence of that golden hair in that kaleidoscopic setting held the promise of a more beautiful and more unified world.
Hoping there might still be time to talk Maeve’s parents out of their decision, Karen quickly crafted a response, the goal of which was to strike a seemingly supportive tone that simultaneously challenged Laura’s assumptions and transferred Karen’s shame at her own census-taking onto the other woman. It read as follows:
L, I cannot believe what you have all been through! What a nightmare. Poor you. And poor Maeve. I hope she makes a speedy recovery…As for school stuff, I totally understand where you’re coming from. You must have been beyond freaked when you got that call from school yesterday morning—I know I would have been. But I have to admit I’m sad at the prospect of losing you guys and wonder if it’s too late to talk you out of it. I ask selfishly, of course. But R is going to miss M so much—and Matt and I will miss you guys too!
I also think you are going to find there are problem kids at every school—no matter the student body’s color or creed—and that the diversity at Betts is not easily replicated. Plus, in a country with almost no gun-control laws, it’s true that no one person can actually guarantee the safety of anyone else. Maybe that was all Principal Chambers meant in her tone-deaf way? At the same time, I understand you need to do what’s best for your family. And I totally respect that. I just thought I’d put my two cents in. I’m also more than happy to chat about any of this any time you want to, though no pressure.
In any case, when Maeve is up to it, let’s definitely schedule another playdate for the girls…
xx Karen
It took Karen a full hour to compose the e-mail. In an earlier draft, she’d ended with Let’s schedule a playdate when Maeve is back in fighting shape. But she’d been concerned that Laura would think she was implying that Maeve was the one who’d started up with Jayyden. The e-mail left Karen’s computer at quarter to ten that evening. There was no immediate reply.
There was no response from Laura the next morning either, or the next afternoon, which Karen found surprising. To her knowledge, Laura was a compulsive texter and e-mailer and rarely if ever went off the grid.
That same afternoon, there was a staff outing to one of Hungry Kids’ contracted food pantries that included a photo op with the deputy mayor. Karen smiled for the cameras, shook hands with various low-level politicians, and made small talk with the pantry employees and volunteers. But her head was elsewhere—namely, on the Collier-Shaw clan. And it stayed there throughout the evening too. She couldn’t entirely explain why Maeve’s disappearance from Betts bothered her as much as it did, but something about it felt like a repudiation of Karen’s own choices.
What’s more, at the dinner table that evening, Ruby reported that, while Maeve still wasn’t back, there was a new student in her class—a girl from Egypt named Fatima. A few days ago, Karen might have found this an interesting and potentially enriching development for Ruby and for Room 303. Now, Karen calculated in her head that, with Maeve gone and Fatima having just arrived, the percentage of Caucasian students in the class had suddenly fallen below the critical 20 percent mark.