After the Silence

by Rula Sinara

  The rain let up, causing the wipers to squeak. He turned them off so he could hear better.

  “No. Our meeting is still on, but I wanted to give you a heads-up, just in case you need to make arrangements, that Maddie won’t be able to finish the day at school today. She’ll need to go home with you due to an incident. I’ll explain when you get here, since you’re on your way.”

  Great. Just great.

  “Have her pack her stuff,” he said, disconnecting.

  Ben’s face heated. An incident? Now what? When were things going to run smoothly? Even the darned streetlight wasn’t cooperating. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and looked back at Bentley’s.

  The bike was gone.

  *

  “NO, MA’AM. I don’t understand. Not this time.” Ben’s jaw ached. Maddie sat, with her backpack already on, just outside the glass wall panel separating the principal’s office from the main office area. She stared at her feet as she ground the toe of her sneaker into the linoleum. He lowered his voice just in case she could hear through the glass.

  “Was the kid hurt?”

  “Well, no, there was no deep skin break or blood, but still, he was grazed. Throwing a pencil is dangerous. It could have been worse.” Mrs. Chaperson put her hands flat on the desk. “You have to understand, Mr. Corallis, we have to stick to the safety rules. No exceptions.”

  No exceptions was her way of telling him that Maddie, who’d lost her mother and wouldn’t speak, didn’t deserve any special consideration. Unless they classified her as special ed. Not happening. Maddie’s mutism was temporary. It had to be.

  “I don’t expect anyone to make exceptions, ma’am. But I do expect some insight and understanding to be used in the situation. Clearly she was upset about something and reacted, for lack of being able to ‘use her words.’ I agree fully on the zero-tolerance policy regarding safety, but I also have zero tolerance for my child being picked on, and I’d like to know if Ms. Serval noticed anyone provoking her. And I’d also like to know if that child was also given in-school suspension for the next two days for bullying.”

  He’d had no clue what in-school suspension was when she first mentioned it and had to ask. Suspension was something he’d experienced after a sixth-grade brawl when some dude wouldn’t stop chanting “fatty, bratty, no daddy” behind his back on the playground. The situation had been different. He’d never known his dad and his mom was around, just not much because she was working double shifts. But blood had been drawn. This in-school thing was a new twist. A stepping-stone to student Alcatraz. The mental image of Maddie being forced to sit in the office all day to do her work while classmates walking by gawked made his skin crawl. Why were kids so mean? Even the little bags of fun dollar-store items Nina had put together for Maddie’s classmates when she’d turned ten last month hadn’t helped. He’d really hoped that her birthday would be a positive trigger. It wasn’t.

  She’d been provoked. Picked on. She’d only thrown a pencil, for heaven’s sake. Why was the victim being punished here?

  “I can’t discuss the other child,” she continued, “but they’ve been spoken to for touching another student’s property. Bullying is a strong word, and of course I’ll continue to investigate and keep a closer eye on things, I assure you. We take that seriously. But you have to understand, she’s not on in-school suspension for just the pencil incident. It’s because this was her third incident that was significant enough to be brought to my attention. I have here that back in October, she shoved another student in line and they fell down and scraped their knee. According to others in line, Maddie had been called a name. And, on a separate occasion, she wrote a very…unacceptable swear word on a piece of paper and threw it at a student. Three major offenses is the limit. But what’s important here is that these behaviors aren’t overlooked, so that she can get help now before things get worse. She’s acting out, Mr. Corallis. Kids do say mean things at times, but she needs to learn how to cope without violence in the real world. You won’t always be there to defend her.”

  Ben hated the truth in her words. He gnawed at the inside of his cheek. His Maddie was swearing? He tried to remember if he’d ever cussed in the children’s presence. He consciously tried not to, but a guy didn’t spend years in the marines and not pick up some colorful lingo. Just one more way he was being a bad parent.

  “From what I’ve been told,” she continued, “today Maddie brought a trinket or piece of jewelry from home and it was causing a distraction. Her teacher noticed it hidden in her desk, but she didn’t say anything because Maddie seemed to be having a decent day. But later she became preoccupied with fiddling with the thing in her desk and not paying attention. Then when the students were lining up to go to art class, the other student involved saw it and grabbed it from her.”

  Ben pressed his lips together, processing what she’d said. Her mother’s necklace. The one with three child-shaped trinkets adorned with the kids’ respective birthstones. He’d ordered the one for Ryan online and had it sent to her since he couldn’t be there for his birth. He’d given the necklace to Maddie months ago, thinking it would help. That necklace was a special keepsake. What if she’d lost it at school? Or it had gotten stolen?

  “I’ve since returned it to her—she seemed overly stressed by it being confiscated and I knew you were on your way—but, please, have her keep it at home.”

  I do have common sense, thank you.

  “Why not just have her speak to the school counselor about this whole thing?” The counselor was an extremely patient, intelligent person who seemed to truly understand Maddie. He could see the difference in his daughter’s mood on the days she came home with a note letting him know she’d done an activity with Mrs. Eggers.

  “She’s scheduled to meet with her on Monday. This week is short because of Thanksgiving.” She pressed on when he shook his head. “I understand this is difficult for you as a parent, and I truly wish the county budgeted for a full-time counselor at each school, but with the cutbacks…” She raised her hands and dropped them. “It’s the best we can do.”

  Ben stood and nodded, not so much in agreement as in acceptance that he wasn’t getting anywhere. An emotionally fragile fourth grader being handled as if she’d committed aggravated assault. The fear of liability in this day and age. As far as he was concerned, a kid didn’t need to beat another one up to be called a bully. Maddie was being picked on and harassed in other ways. And she couldn’t—wouldn’t—speak up to tell anyone. So she was lashing out in frustration. Could anyone blame her?

  “Also, before you leave, Ms. Serval wanted me to mention that Maddie has also seemed extra tired. Dozing off during independent reading. Is she sleeping well at night? Getting to bed on time?” Mrs. Chaperson asked, standing and coming around the side of her desk.

  Ben’s back and shoulders itched.

  “Of course she is.”

  Except maybe last night, because while Hope had been reading a bedtime story to the boys, Maddie had brought him a deck of cards. He’d given in, despite the hour. If she actually approached him to play something, which wasn’t often, he wasn’t about to say no. What if that game of Fish had turned out to be the key that unlocked her silence?

  Mental note—look up just how many hours of sleep a kid her age is supposed to get.

  Mrs. Chaperson smiled sympathetically.

  “Good. We just like to cover everything.”

  Ben looked out at his daughter. A part of him had to wonder if she’d caught on to the fact that if she acted up she’d get to go home. Yet another part of him, the part that had seen fear and desperation firsthand in the faces of children trapped in an assault zone, or the hardened faces of those in war-torn areas who’d seen too much, that part of him believed that in all her silence, Maddie was crying out for help. Feeling cornered, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then braced his hands on his hips.

  “I’d rather she stayed at home the next few days,” he said, “instead of here
for the suspension. Especially given the short week. She’ll understand it’s a punishment and that throwing anything is unacceptable. You have my word. But I don’t think humiliating her in front of her peers is going to help her situation. In-school suspension is only going to give them something new to tease her about. It’ll make things worse on all levels. I’m sure school policy isn’t intended to cause harm, and I don’t want this to cause potentially irreversible damage, making it take even longer to get her to speak again.” Liability.

  Mrs. Chaperson took a deep breath and watched Maddie for a few seconds. Her voice softened.

  “Okay. We’ll handle it this way this time. But I have to warn you, if there’s a violent incident again, she could be expelled, unless you agree to have her placed in special classes where we’re better equipped to handle her emotional needs. I have to answer to higher authorities and handle complaints from other parents. Special-ed classes would put her with staff who give more individualized attention and work with needs…so that she can get better. Consider it, because suspensions go on a child’s permanent school record.”

  “Noted.” Ben walked out of the office. Maddie immediately stood up and started to follow him out.

  “Mr. Corallis, if you don’t mind signing her out here,” the school secretary called. She held a pen for him. He took a step back and signed. The only thing he was grateful for today was that they were being careful about who walked off with his kid.

  He left with Maddie at his heels and held the main door open for her, seeing her chin quiver as she hurried past him. She hadn’t shown any such sign of weakness inside. Not a tear. His little girl was stoic. A minimarine. Unwilling to concede that she was the only one at fault. Maybe a little stubborn there, too.

  He caught up to her, wrapping his hand on her arm to slow her down. “Hang on a sec, squirt.”

  She yanked her arm away and marched toward his SUV. Ben rubbed his palm against his forehead, then let his hand fall to his side.

  Please. Help me get through to her, Zoe. Help me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dear Diary,

  Sometimes I wish I could just die and go be with Mommy. No one bothered me when she was here.

  “IS THERE ANYTHING I can do to help?” Hope asked, stepping into the Harpers’ kitchen after changing into the dry sweats Nina had lent her while they ran her things in the dryer. The sweats were baggy on her, but definitely warmer than wet clothes. The rain had started up again before she’d reached the house, and Nina had insisted that Hope would catch pneumonia if she didn’t get dry. Eric had been banished from the house for not insisting on driving Hope earlier instead of lending her a bike. He was serving out his sentence unclogging the leaves that had piled up at the drain by the basement door so that rainwater wouldn’t back into the house.

  “You can get the kids to finish their food so I can finish cooking,” Nina said, waving Hope toward a set of stools at the kitchen island while she continued to clean vegetables at the sink. Chad sat on one of the stools making mounds with his broccoli and shoving dinosaur-shaped nuggets around them with a toddler fork. He was leaning to one side, propping his cheek on his other hand, and had looked up with big eyes when Hope walked in. At a right angle to the last stool, Ryan sat strapped in a high chair, playing with a red, white and black mirrored toy-and-gadget center suctioned to his tray. An unopened jar of baby food and a tiny rubber-coated spoon sat on the counter just out of his reach.

  “My two favorite men,” Hope said, sitting on the stool in between the boys. An oven alarm buzzed. Nina dried her hands and pulled a tray out of the oven, then set it on the kitchen island. The aroma had Hope forgetting that she’d already stuffed herself with a burger and fries. She was going to return to Kenya a good twenty pounds heavier if she wasn’t careful.

  “I’m not a man,” Chad said. He straightened up but continued to poke at his food. Ryan squealed and kicked the side of the island from under his high chair tray.

  “You could have fooled me,” Hope said. “You’re not eating baby food and formula like Ryan, for one thing.” Chad stuck his tongue out at Ryan.

  “Hey, that’s not nice,” Hope said, patting his leg. “My grandma used to tell me that if I stuck my tongue out, a bird flying by would think it was a worm and snatch it.”

  His tongue disappeared, but then he narrowed his eyes.

  “There aren’t any birds in here.”

  He had her there.

  “But,” Nina said as she set goodies on a napkin, “it’s hard to chew without having all the parts of your mouth where they’re supposed to be. Don’t stick your tongue out unless you don’t have teeth to hold it in, like a baby.” She tipped her head at Ryan.

  Nina set a napkin in front of Hope. It was decorated with a little boy in a black hat with a buckle on it and girl in a white bonnet. Hope frowned.

  “Pilgrims,” Nina said. “If it’s your first time in America, then you’ve never experienced our Thanksgiving holiday.”

  Hope shook her head. “No. But I’ve heard of it,” she said.

  Hope knew that the holidays were going to be tough on the entire family. Nina looked exhausted. Hope bit her lip. She should never have agreed to leave the kids with their grandparents today, or to come over at all. Having the children around… Five plates of various cookies and pies crowding the countertops… Clearly Nina was distracting herself to soften the pain of never being able to spend the holidays with her daughter again. Hope didn’t want to say anything in front of the boys, though.

  Nina placed a square piece of chocolate cake on the pilgrim boy’s face.

  “Try one of these, Hope. Tell me what you think. Ah!” she added with an admonishing shake of her finger at Chad, who was going in for a stealthy grab. “You don’t get any if you don’t eat your food.”

  Hope made bug eyes at Chad, then took a bite.

  “Oh, my gosh. I think you just ruined me for any other food on earth. What is this? It’s heavenly.”

  “Peanut-butter-fudge brownie. Jack’s favorite. Great bribe power, too. It’s like truth serum. It always got him to talk.” The corners of Nina’s mouth turned down. Obviously her brownies weren’t enough to get Maddie to talk.

  Nina straightened her shoulders and quickly recovered. “But somehow it hasn’t worked to make someone eat their broccoli and chicken nuggets,” she said, looking right at Chad.

  Chad abandoned his fork, stared at the dessert and then looked at Hope as if he’d fallen in love. This one could kill with cuteness. She set the rest of her brownie down, only because shoving the entire thing in her mouth wouldn’t have set a good example. She gave Chad an exaggerated look of surprise.

  “Oh, but that’s not broccoli.”

  “It’s not?” Chad scrunched one cheek up and wrinkled his nose. “It smells like it to me.”

  “I don’t know how you can smell anything but those brownies, but I assure you—” she reached over and picked up a piece of broccoli, propping it on its end “—this is a dinosaur tree.”

  Chad’s lips spread into the most adorable smile, and he opened his eyes wide, sucking in a noisy breath of fake surprise.

  “A dinosaur tree?”

  “Yes, and this mean dinosaur—” she picked up a chicken nugget and pretended the dinosaur was eating the broccoli “—is going to eat the tree. Yum! ‘Save me, save me!’” She made the tree run toward Chad, who opened his mouth and snatched a big bite of it. “Ouch!”

  Chad started giggling. The game went on until he’d stuffed the last bite of triceratops in his mouth and uncovered the purple dino picture on his plate.

  He growled ferociously, followed by a fit of laughter that had Hope joining in. The air in the room shifted even before she heard Ben’s voice.

  “Chad. Don’t laugh like that when you’re eating. You could choke.”

  Ben stood in the doorway to the kitchen, hands on his hips and jaw clenched like a T. rex. Nina sighed, whipped off her apron and scooted around him to hang it on a hook
in the pantry. Chad’s laughter fizzled out, and he solemnly took a sip of milk from his plastic cup. He eyed the rest of Hope’s brownie and glanced at her, but didn’t dare take it. Not in front of his father anyway. Ryan cooed and babbled, slapping his tray, happy to see his dad.

  “That’s okay. I know the Heimlich,” Hope said, flashing her best smile and trying to salvage Chad’s fun. She split the brownie on her napkin, popping half in her mouth and giving half to a thrilled Chad. Ben’s face was motionless.

  “I’m kidding,” Hope said, covering her lips with her fingertips to make sure every crumb stayed in. His eyes followed the motion.

  “He’s fine, Ben,” Nina admonished. “She got him to eat his entire plate. Down to the dancing purple dinosaur. When has that happened?”

  Ben’s shoulders sank a few millimeters.

  “That dancing purple dinosaur is enough to give grown men nightmares,” he muttered, walking past the counter and picking Chad off the stool. So the man did have a sense of humor lurking somewhere in there. She watched as he took his son over to the sink and washed his mouth and hands, then set him down. Chad ran off.

  Hope waited for him to step away from the sink area, then carried the dino plate and matching cup over and washed her hands.

  “Have a brownie,” Nina said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, sit down.”

  “I need to get the kids home. Maddie’s curled up in a ball in your armchair,” he said, motioning with his thumb through the kitchen doorway.

  “Oh, let me see if I can at least get her to eat a snack,” Nina said. “Besides, I was about to feed Ryan his jar. I just needed to finish with the oven. And if you want I can help her get her homework done before you go home. Take a break while you have reinforcements around.”

  “I don’t mind feeding Ryan,” Hope said, drying her hands and heading for the stool next to the high chair. “I was just getting Chad to eat first,” she said, then looked pointedly at Ben. “I’ll be careful. I won’t make Ryan laugh.”