13. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
T wo weeks.
That was how long the honeymoon period had lasted.
Or, at least, how long Joe had gotten to enjoy it.
He sat in one of the awkwardly sized chairs—every member of staff swore they were designed specifically so they weren’t comfortable for children or adults—on the other side of the principal’s desk and tried to remember what a normal expression felt like.
It didn’t feel like he was pulling it off, but Vera’s expression of sympathy hadn’t turned into alarm, so maybe he was doing better than he thought.
“Did one of the parents complain?” he asked stiffly.
Vera had the good grace to look nearly as uncomfortable as he was with this meeting. She already knew the answer, but she looked back down at her paperwork anyhow. Plump, well-manicured hands shuffled through the pages briefly, and then she gave the stack an awkward pat.
“No,” she said. “The parents all love you, even the assholes think you’re a good teacher.”
Joe’s mouth twitched without his input. He had to swallow to get his jaw to release enough for him to say.
“That’s because I am.”
“Yes,” Vera agreed, the word spat on the exhale.
Then she stopped and pressed her lips together as she rested both hands on the desk, one lightly laid over the other.
“But, founded or not, the complaint has been made, and we have to follow it up. I understand this can seem unfair—what you do in your private life should be your business—but if the complainant escalates this to the district, we need to be able to show them we followed procedure. This is to protect you and the school.”
The worst part?
She was right. If the district got involved and found out they’d not followed the proper disciplinary checklist, it would be worse for everyone. It shouldn’t be that way. There should be some sort of protection against vexatious complaints other than ‘hope we can placate them’, but as it stood…
He might be biased, though, since he was pretty sure he knew the source of the complaint. They weren’t going to give in or get what they wanted, so this would drag on.
“Do what you need to do,” he said in a clipped voice as he stood up. He glanced at the time. “I should get to class, unless I’m suspended?”
Vera held up both hands in a placatory gesture.
“We’re not there yet,” she reassured him. “It’s just one complaint.”
And just one ‘yet’. Joe had a feeling he shouldn’t hold his breath. He grabbed his satchel from the back of the chair.
“As long as the school has my back,” he said and left before he had to register how Vera reacted to the jibe.
****
Joe pulled into the drive, took a deep breath, and leaned forward to rest his head on the steering wheel. It had been a long day, and Cody was strapped into the backseat, telling himself the same knock-knock joke for the 30th time.
Knock knock.
‘oo’s there?
You!
His material might need a bit of work, but his delivery worked on 50% of his audience as he cracked himself up. Again.
Joe rolled his head to the left and then to the right. Maybe the hard plastic curve of the steering wheel could work like a deep tissue massage.
Before he could find out, the lion-dog-thing sailed over his shoulder and splatted against the windscreen. It left a greasy print on the glass, and Joe had to bite his lower lip to hold back a frustrated explosion at the actual infant.
Fuck and sake were two of the words that battered at the inside of his skull.
It wasn’t like Cody would know what he meant, Joe cut himself that much slack as he rubbed the back of his wrist over his eye, but that wasn’t much of an excuse. The scratchy, formless anger in his chest didn’t even have anything to do with his son, or the tossed toy. It just wanted a scapegoat.
Joe took a deep breath, pushed himself upright, and grabbed the disconcertingly wet and warm rag of a toy from the dash.
“Knock knock,” he said as he turned to waggle the toy between the seats.
He waited expectantly for the expected response, but Cody just stared at him.
Happy enough, but clearly totally unaware that was his line…
because in his world it wasn’t. OK. Joe put on a mildly different voice and added. “Who’s there?!”
Cody gasped in suspense and waved his hands as he waited for the next bit.
Joe reached through and wiggled the lion-dog at him. “You!”
Cody laughed so hard it gave him hiccups and made grabby hands at the toy. He clutched it tightly when Joe handed it to him and stuck one already well-gummed ear in his mouth.
“How about we go inside,” Joe offered them both. “And have some ice cream and tinned peaches?”
From their reactions, it looked like the lion-dog could take or leave the offer, but Cody was all in with a hiccup-interrupted ‘yay’. That was two for, one against. Peaches carried the day.
Joe got him out of the car and up to the front door. He let go of Cody’s hand as he fished for his keys in his pocket. It was for a moment . That was still long enough for Cody to suddenly bolt away from him and his heart to stop.
He made a grab for the back of Cody’s dungarees and missed.
The keys slipped out of his hand and jangled as they hit the front path.
Habit made Joe stop to get them, and then his brain screamed at him: ‘What’s more important, you idiot?
’ He bolted after Cody. If he’d needed to, he could have, he was almost certain, caught him before anything bad happened.
As it was, Benjy’s grandfather blocked the gate before Cody could get out of the garden.
Shit.
That didn’t feel good enough. Joe resorted to Benjy’s favorite swear that he’d just gotten him to stop using.
Double shit.
“I should have brought my camera,” Fiona said, her voice pitched to carry to an audience of no one. “If this is how you take care of your own children, God knows what you do with our grandson.”
The panic wedged in the back of Joe’s throat wanted to agree with her. He ignored it as he walked forward and reached his arms out for Cody. A mute gesture of expectation that Cody’s grandfather, Ron, pointedly ignored as he settled the kid more firmly on his hip.
“Joe,” he said, his voice cool but polite enough.
The rejoinder of ‘Rod’ itched on the back of Joe’s tongue. It didn’t sound witty, but he knew his sister’s in-laws well enough to know it would get right under their skin. That probably wouldn’t help any chance of them being reasonable, though, so he bit his tongue.
“Mr. Gunn.” Despite how seething he was on the inside—they couldn’t just make a complaint, they had to come to rub it in?—his voice sounded even and almost pleasant. “What brings you here today?”
It was Fiona who got in first. “The fact that it’s about time you admit that neither of you is a fit guardian for our grandson?”
Ron looked exasperated at being talked over. There had probably been a plan. Before he retired, Ron had been a civil engineer, and he liked plans. Tess used to joke about the admin involved in planning any family excursions with them.
“My sister, Benjy’s mother, would disagree,” Joe said.
Ron finally handed Cody back to Joe.
“Maybe that’s because our daughter-in-law isn’t a fit guardian either,” Ron said. He lifted a finger to cut off Joe before he could say anything. “She might love him, but that’s not the point. A drug addict shouldn’t be in charge of deciding what happens to my dead son’s child.
The reminder—still—visibly took Fiona’s breath away.
Her face pinched with the pain, and she reached up to rub at her breastbone with her knuckles, as if she could get to the pain that way.
Joe didn’t want to feel sympathetic with her, but he couldn’t help it.
Luckily, he had the distraction of Cody squirming to get away as he demanded ‘down’.
Right now, a minute was about his limit for any patience with being restrained.
It helped stop Joe from softening too much.
“Tess isn’t a drug addict,” Joe snapped. “And can we get to the point? I promised my son a snack.”
It wasn’t a jab. Really. Fiona still looked like someone had stabbed her. Meanwhile, reminded of his treat, Cody redoubled his efforts to get free. When it didn’t work, his face screwed up, and he started to sob inconsolably.
“Well, maybe you should worry more about your son,” she snapped in a brittle, angry voice. “And let Benjy’s family take care of him.”
“Tess is my sister,” Joe reminded her. “I am his family.”
“Apparently not,” Ron said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope to hand to Joe. “Or she would have given the facility permission to contact you, not us.”
Cody was still mid-tantrum. His sobs drilled through Joe’s ears as he snatched the letter. He fumbled the folded sheet of paper inside out and cast his eye over it. His stomach dropped.
It wasn’t good news. For her. For him.
For Benjy.
If he let himself think about it in any more detail than that, he’d spiral. So he didn’t. It was just…not good news. He could deal with that.
Joe started to say something, but caught himself. It was important not to give them anything they could use against him.
“You shouldn’t have access to this information,” he said. “This is in violation of all sorts of—”
“Apparently, we’re on record as being ‘in the loop’,” Ron said. “If you don’t like that, take it up with your sister. As you can see, drink isn’t the girl’s only problem.”
“She’s 34,” Joe snapped. “And this isn’t anything to do with her relationship with Benjy. So…”
Cody finally threw his hefty toddler body about enough that Joe had to set him down. As his sneakered feet touched the path, Cody folded at the knees like his legs were made of rubber, plopping down on his butt and going redder in the face as he screamed.
“What relationship?” Fiona snapped at him. “She palmed her own child off before my son had even gotten cold, and we’re supposed to care what she wants? Your family already got my son killed—”