she’s fair. It’s not like I dislike the woman, but it sure would be nice to have a partner sometimes, someone to tag team with so I don’t have to take every blow.
When I’ve collected all three of them, I crouch down. “So you guys want to tell me what Ms. Josson wants to talk about?”
I get silence. Their reluctance to spill the beans can’t be good.
“It was my fault,” Carmen finally blurts.
“What do you mean?” I ask, pulling her close when I see she’s close to tears.
“Claire kept making fun of my glasses.”
“Yeah,” Daniela scoffs. “Claire wouldn’t shut up about Carmen’s glasses, so I helped her.”
I almost laugh at my little gangster-in-the-making, but I can’t because I’m supposed to be the adult. “Helped her how, Daniela?”
“She’s just a big cry baby,” she evades.
My eyebrows rise. “Helped her how?”
“I only gave her a little shove, nothing serious. But she went crying to the teacher.”
“It’s true, Papá,” Rosa adds solemnly. “Claire deserved it.”
It’s unbelievable how much I love them. “Okay, I’m glad you’re sticking together, but you know what Ms. Josson’s going to tell me, right?”
Their gazes scatter, suddenly finding the pavement under our feet extremely interesting. “We’ve talked about this. The school has a zero-tolerance policy. You don’t want Daniela to have to go to a different school, do you?”
“No!” they squawk together, shocked by the idea.
“Then you guys have to find a way to use words instead of pushing or hitting, okay? I know it’s hard, but that’s what we’ve got to do. ?Sale?” Agreed?
“Sale,” they repeat in unison.
Getting to my feet, I take Carmen and Rosa’s hands, wishing I had another one for Daniela. Then after that ridiculous thought, another more practical one hits me. “Carmen, why aren’t you wearing your glasses?” Unlike Daniela, who only needs them to read the board, Carmen needs to be wearing hers all the time.
“Oh, uh, I forgot them at home,” she says so quietly that I almost don’t hear her.
Frowning down at her, I wonder how many times she’s ‘forgotten’ them in the last few weeks. I suppress a sigh. First things first. Ms. Josson gives it to me straight and I listen politely and keep my mouth shut until it’s time to reassure her that this kind of thing won’t happen again.
The rest of the day doesn’t go particularly well either. Homework time, during which I’m usually at work, is stressful. Daniela seems baffled by the concept of subtraction and doesn’t take kindly to my attempts to explain it to her, which leaves me frustrated. The mounting tension lessens when Carmen takes over the explanation. That is until I realize that Daniela is just getting Carmen to do the work for her. When I start to lose my temper and insist she do it herself, there’s a total meltdown with noisy tears and sobs.
Then later, Mari and Desiree get into it over a missing sweater, and I lose my shit again, telling them both to grow up. But worst of all are my grandmother’s eyes which follow me around, heavy with what feels like suspicion and disappointment.
Then, to add insult to injury, none of it is enough to keep her from my thoughts. Ellie’s always there, lurking, lying in wait for me to lower my defenses and jump to the forefront. The ambush comes when the house is quiet and I’m supposed to be sleeping. Instead, I’m staring up at the dark living room ceiling, hating that resentment isn’t fueling me anymore.
Without that fuel, there’s only a sick feeling in my gut telling me that maybe she was right about a lot of what she laid on me. That I was more of a douche than I realized, especially when it finally comes to me that we did have plans that night. She was going to make me dinner and I’d been so caught up in my own shit that it hadn’t even crossed my mind, not when I was at Jorgie’s place and not when I was out getting wasted with my friends. If only I hadn’t been so careless and self-absorbed, I could have avoided putting that wrecked expression on her face with a simple phone call or even a fucking text message.
The sick feeling only grows when I get a call on Tuesday afternoon from Pamela at the office, telling me that a nice girl came to drop off an envelope for me. At first I’m stumped. When I question her further, she tells me conspiratorially that