6. Ben
SIX
BEN
A Brave Young Boy
For the second time in a very short while, Junior’s school called me.
Concern flooded me. How else had I failed my boy?
We’d talked a bit about nightmares, and I’d allowed him to crash with me a few nights.
I’d only just gotten him into the after-school program his teacher had recommended, and while he definitely enjoyed it, it wasn’t like there’d been much progress.
Not that I knew what that progress was supposed to look like.
“Hello?” I asked, uncertain if I needed to defend myself or if I did indeed suck as a father.
“Good afternoon, is this Mr. Poynter?”
“This is.”
“Ah, perfect. I don’t think we’ve actually talked before, but I’m the principal of your son’s school. You might have heard him call me Salinas? A lot of kids drop the mister.”
Wait, the principal was calling me?
“Yeah, I think he’s mentioned that once or twice.”
“My reputation precedes me then. I’m a bit short on time, so I’ll hop right to why I’m calling. There was a medical incident at the school today, and while everyone is all right, I am notifying parents to let them know they might need to discuss the incident with their children.”
A medical incident. “What was it?”
“While we can’t release the exact details for privacy sake, his teacher had to be picked up by an ambulance.”
My stomach twisted the same way it did during my nightmares. “Miss Fischbacher?”
“Yes. But again, I want to stress, everything is okay. We do have permission to share that she’s being treated at the hospital and will be A-okay with a little rest and recovery.”
“T-that’s good, I suppose.”
But it didn’t feel good. The woman’s soft, delicate face and her warm smile floated in my mind. Thinking of her in pain made my hackles rise in a way I wasn’t used to.
“Absolutely. We’re giving Miss Fischbacher all the support she needs. The reason I wanted to call you, rather than have our school counselor do it, was because I wanted to tell you how incredibly brave your son was.”
“Junior?”
“He expressed that he would prefer to be called Benny this year”—Wait, he had?
Since when?—“but yes. He must have noticed something was off, because he insisted that his teacher sit down, and when she couldn’t make it to a chair in time, he tried to catch her.
Naturally, she was a bit too big for him to stop her from falling, but he did keep her head from hitting the ground.
“He also got her water, talked to her the whole time, and made sure someone got an adult. Really exemplary behavior. We’re incredibly proud of him.”
“That’s my boy,” I murmured, but already my mind was spinning with a deluge of too much all at once.
Burning pride that my son was already so adept at taking care of others.
Although he was far too young to know his designation, I was almost certain he was going to be an alpha like me.
And unlike me, when he had a real pack one day, he would do right by them.
“Exceptional, really. You don’t have to agree to anything right now, but considering Benny’s background, we wondered if he might like a few sessions with a therapist?
Our counselor has a business associate who is working on a book about trauma in developing minds and wants to work at our school for a semester. ”
“Oh, uh, thank you. Really. But he’s in a sort of, uh, a program for that now, and I don’t want to overload him.”
“That’s perfectly fine. Just wanted to let you know that we’re all here to support you, and you really are raising an exceptional young man.”
He was just a principal, a man I was pretty sure I hadn’t met before, but his words were a balm over the gaping wound that so often felt like it was going to split my chest in two. It didn’t sew it shut, but it made jagged teeth along the edges a bit less… biting.
“I’m trying my best.”
“You’re succeeding. I can’t imagine the road you’re on, but I want you to know, you’re not in it alone.”
A wonderful sentiment, and I did appreciate it, but part of it did ring hollow. After all, he was a human. I was a wolf shifter. There was an inherent divide between us.
But still, a nice thought.
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind. And what hospital did you say Miss Fischbacher was at?”
“I actually don’t know off the top of my head, but I’ll have my secretary email it to you. I trust we have your email on file?”
I nodded. While everything that had happened since the massacre was overwhelming, I had made sure to change all of Junior’s emergency contact information as soon as the school year started.
Originally, I’d thought of keeping him out of public schooling—it had been Vermillia’s idea for our son to have a more rounded education than he would have gotten being homeschooled with the pack, then have him decide if he wanted to continue that once he reached high school.
But after some deep soul-searching, I realized I wasn’t capable of providing him with the quality attention and education that he needed, so I’d enrolled him for first grade.
Then I remembered we were on the phone, and the principal couldn’t see me nod, so I hastily answered the affirmative, and we said our goodbyes. I stood there for a moment, digesting the information.
Poor Miss Fischbacher. I hoped it was something small, like perhaps a particularly strong period, but man, if an ambulance was called…
She would definitely be on my mind.
Looking at the clock on my phone, I realized it was only an hour until I needed to pick Junior up.
While I was surprised they hadn’t sent the kids home early, I was grateful for the extra time because it meant I could get a few treats because he’d been so damn brave.
Although it sometimes felt like I was always five steps behind what my son needed, I knew I was at least a little on the right track.
That was how I ended up in the pickup line with a new, large dinosaur plushie, a Slurpee with every flavor but Coke in it, and a cheesy, oversized printout of a movie ticket.
It had been funny explaining that to the guy at the FedEx office, but if it had gotten a chuckle out of him, it would get a cheeky laugh out of Junior.
“Make sure you give your brother a big smile,” I said to Veronica in her baby seat.
Although she was facing the back, I had a shatter-safe mirror suction-cupped to the window so I could see her expression.
And she was always so expressive. Sometimes I could just look at her laugh or even dubiously study a grasshopper on the windowsill, and it was easy to forget all of the horrific things that had happened to make her my daughter.
“’Otay!” she said. She wasn’t the most verbal child. I took her to a therapist once a month, who mostly gave me different exercises to do with her, but mostly my job was to talk with her often and clearly. None of that babytalk stuff.
“Thank you, sweetie. And tonight, while Junior and I are at the movies, Natalie said she wants to watch the ballerina movie with you.”
“Bawwrina!”
“Exactly. She’s very excited to have girl time with you.”
“Yum.”
“Yup! Very yum!”
Although I wasn’t supposed to babytalk, I couldn’t resist mimicking my daughter’s verbal quirk of saying ‘yum’ to anything she liked.
Her dress? Yum. Her favorite movie? Yum.
Her favorite toy? Yum. That dog on the street?
Yum. It was silly, but it tickled me pink in a world that was so often all gray around the edges.
Our scintillating conversation came to a pause as we reached the area where kids were allowed to approach the car. Junior started racing towards me, a broad smile on his face. I wouldn’t have even known that anything had gone wrong if the principal hadn’t called me.
“Hey there, buddy,” I said as I waved to one of the monitors.
“Hey, Daddy! Hi, Veronica! You’re not with Natalie?”
“Natalie is taking a break for a bit while the three of us go to dinner, and then she’s gonna watch your little sister while you and I go to a movie.”
“A movie?” He buckled his seatbelt and finally noticed the dinosaur.
“Oh! Is this an ankylosaurus?”
I had to laugh at that. Even shifter kids tended to go through a dinosaur phase. “You’ll have to tell me, buddy. I just remember that you love the flat hedgehog-lookin’ guy.”
“Yeah, he’s really armored and cool. Thanks, Dad! What’s all this for?”
“Well,” I said slowly as I pulled away. I was a bit concerned that he hadn’t already told me, but to be fair, I’d distracted him as soon as he got into the car. “I heard you had kind of a wild day at school today.”
“You heard about that?”
“I did, bud. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Uh, I dunno. They said Miss Fischbacher is going to be okay. That’s what’s important, right?”
“It is. And we don’t have to talk about it, but I would like to, if that’s okay with you.”
“I… okay. I think I’m okay to talk about it.”
“Thanks, buddy.” I paused as I focused on the four-way stop at the intersection that split between the high school, middle school, and elementary school, then continued once we were on the straightaway. “So, the principal said you tried to tell your teacher to sit down. What made you do that?”
“She smelled weird.”
“She smelled weird?”
“Yeah, like… I dunno. Wrong. Wrongly?”
“Wrong is correct. And can you describe what you mean?”
“I… um…” He paused. I glanced in the rearview mirror. From the look on his face, he was really thinking his words over. “Not like bad. Just wrong. Bitter, I guess? A little bit like when you burn the bacon.”
I chuckled at that. “Hey, I’ve only done that a few times.”
“True. But it was memorable. ”
“You may have a point.” I didn’t really say anything about it, but to me, what Benny was describing sounded an awful lot like shifter scenting. Not exactly alarming considering he was a shifter, but he was far too young for those senses to kick in.
The way our kind worked, we were essentially human until we went through shifter puberty anywhere from the ages of fourteen to eighteen.
Sure, there were occasionally early and late bloomers, but Junior was far too young for that.
I needed to reach out to another wolf shifter, maybe another pack’s elder, just to be sure.
“So, you smelled something was wrong, then you helped catch her?”
“Yeah. She’s really light, actually. For an adult, ya know.”
I thought back to how she’d looked at that meeting, and how I had thought she was one of the fair-folk. She was a bit of a small thing, wasn’t she? Not that it mattered, really. She was clearly quite capable in her job and loved the kids.
“I can imagine.” I paused yet again, thinking. “Hey, Junior, how would you like to visit her at the hospital tomorrow? Check in on her.”
“Could we? I’d like that a lot!”
“Yeah, buddy, we definitely can. Maybe we’ll get her some treats to brighten her day.”
“Oh! Her favorite candy is dark chocolate!”
I grinned, tickled by the pride in my son’s voice at his insider knowledge. “Good to know. Definitely good to know.”