Vocabulary Lessons
Chapter eighteen
áINE
Walking into Mr. Wrye's classroom, I'm almost as shocked as I was coming out of the kitchen to find Kieran watching a kids movie with the girls.
The sight of Sadie leaning against the couch near where he sat, Joy leaning against one his legs and Neeve the other made my heart feel like it was expanding in my chest. The hope of that very scene, or something very close to it, is the reason I tried to date.
I wanted my daughters to have a family like the one I had growing up, with loving and involved parents. I have so many good memories from my childhood with my dad and my heart hurt knowing my older girls had too few of those, and Joy none at all.
That little tableau sparked hope that this forced marriage could become something more than a means to an end. It could be something good.
For me and my girls.
The shock I'm feeling right now is not nearly as pleasant.
There are only twenty-three children in Neeve's class total.
Right now, excluding Lily, because she's here in support of my daughter, not because she's part of the problem, there are eleven children.
If you take my daughter and her best friend out of the equation, that's more than half of the class who have been calling Neeve names.
Nausea roils in my stomach.
And she never even told me it was happening.
Mr. Wrye gives me a sour smile. "Mrs. Gallagher."
That's all. Just my name. No hello or good afternoon.
"Mr. Wrye." I return the favor, only instead of a sour smile, I frown, doing nothing to hide the anger and disgust I feel with his handling of the situation in my tone.
"I presume this is Kieran Lleshi." Mr. Wrye pauses, pressing his lips together in disapproval. "Your partner."
Neeve's hand slides into mine and my daughter presses against my side.
Kieran's hand settles on my shoulder. "That's right."
Two men I don't recognize, but who give off the same vibe Kieran does, slide into the room and take up positions on either side of the door.
One of them says, "All clear, boss."
Kieran nods.
A low murmur of whispers spreads throughout the classroom.
"Excuse me, but who are these men?" Mr. Wrye demands from me.
Like I know. Even if I can guess, I won't.
Kieran doesn't make me. "My security."
"As if that man needs security," one of the moms says.
One of the other mom's hushes her. "Shh. He works for the Shaughnessys."
Silence descends over the room.
"They cannot stay," Mr. Wrye informs us officiously. "This meeting is for students of St. Patrick's and their parents or guardians only. You being here is stretching the bounds of our policy as it is. Your security will have to wait in the hall."
Kieran gives a short jerk of his head and his men leave the room as silently as they entered it, one of them even closing the door behind them.
Mr. Wrye gives me a superior smile, his eyes glowing with his petty victory. I'm not the one who invited the men into the room. That was Kieran and I'm pretty sure whatever point he meant to make with them has been made.
The door opens again and Mr. Wrye opens his mouth to say something but snaps it shut again when the person who walks inside is the principal, Mrs. Powel.
She puts her hand out to me. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Gallagher. Thank you for ensuring this matter was brought to our attention." She nods at Kieran. "Mr. Lleshi, your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated."
"Mrs. Powell, I do not understand what all this…" Mr. Wrye waves his hand toward the students and their parents crowding the classroom. "Is in aid of."
With less than a handful of them being dads, there are at least as many adults as children – telling me that some of the kids have both their parents here.
I know some of the parents pretty well, since our kids have been at the same school since first grade, but Lily's dad is the only one who smiles at me.
I give a mental shrug. None of these people matter. Only my daughter does. And seeing how widespread the problem is, I have to wonder if keeping her at St. Patrick's is what's best for her.
"What is this in aid of?" I ask Mr. Wrye, my tone colder than a New York winter.
"It is in aid of addressing a problem you should have brought to me the moment you became aware of it.
If you had…" I give my own wave toward the rest of the room.
"The bullying my daughter has been subjected to would not have spread to half the class. "
There are a couple of murmurs and one loud gasp, as if at least one of these parents had no idea what this mandatory meeting was supposed to be about.
"The children involved apologized and Neeve said she forgave them like a good Christian should." Mr. Wrye frowns down at my daughter, like she's the problem.
"Sit down," Kieran barks at the teacher.
Mr. Wrye isn't the only one who jumps at the mobster's commanding tone. Several of the parents take seats at empty children's desks, like they think Kieran was talking to them.
But when Mr. Wrye goes to sit behind his desk, Kieran shakes his head. "There." He points toward the classroom desks.
Mr. Wrye rears back, clearly affronted. "I don't think—"
"Sit down, Richard," Mrs. Powell says in a tone I would listen to if I was a teacher at her school.
Mr. Wrye sits.
Mrs. Powell says, "I'll just stand in the back of the room. In case anyone has questions for me when you are finished."
The words convey both her support of Kieran's game plan, whatever it is, and an unwillingness to entertain questions from the parents until he has executed it.
Maybe I should have spent the drive over here asking what that might be, instead of enjoying listening to him and Neeve dissecting the movie they watched.
Kieran squeezes my shoulder and gives his barely there smile to Neeve. "Why don't you two join Lily and her dad?"
It's more than his usual taciturn communication. Heck, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd just said, "Sit down," like he did to Mr. Wrye.
He's trying to make Neeve comfortable though and I'm more than willing to follow his lead in that. Honestly, without knowing what he's about to do, I'm just as happy to get out of the line of fire.
For now.
That doesn't mean I hesitate to make eye contact with every parent I pass as I walk toward two empty desks beside Lily and Ryan Kennedy. Some parents stare back belligerently. Others look ashamed. And one woman, probably the one who gasped, looks confused.
Kieran steps up to the whiteboard and writes the word BASTARD, in all caps. Under that he writes: both a noun and an adjective.
There's more than one gasp this time and some angry muttering, but Kieran appears oblivious to it all as he turns back to face the rest of us.
"Before we discuss consequences, some of you need a vocabulary lesson," he says ominously.
When a man like Kieran says the word consequences, you listen. Even if you don't know he's a shot caller in the mob. I learned that term today while shopping with my best friend and peppering her with questions about her role in the crime syndicate.
According to her, Kieran isn't just her boss, he's a captain in the mob.
"Now, see here!" Mr. Wrye stands up. "There's no call for that kind of language."
Kieran glares him back into his seat. "There are several meanings for the word. Only one of them is considered profanity. Perhaps you need this vocabulary lesson as badly as your students."
What follows is exactly what Kieran promised. A vocabulary lesson on the meaning of the word bastard. Kieran writes a one or two word definition for each of the meanings, starting with the adjectives, and asks the parents to use it correctly in a sentence.
"Mrs. Duffy's shoes are bastard Jimmy Choos," Ryan Kennedy says, his expression so innocent, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
Several childish and adult laughs are stifled after that one.
After Kieran writes the word illegitimate on the board, he says, "Can anyone tell me what illegitimate means?"
"It means someone's parents weren't married when they were born," one of the dads says with a look of disbelieving censure for his daughter.
Clearly, he didn't realize his little princess was calling my daughter a bastard at school.
But if any parent came into this room wondering what the meeting was about, there is no question now.
"Correct," Kieran says and then he looks around the room, letting his gaze settle on every single kid for a second. "It does not mean a child whose father died."
Neeve's posture straightens and I want to cry. My baby was dealing with rotten feelings of insecurity that her classmates had been only too willing to contribute to.
"My mother and biological father were not married when I was born," Kieran says, his eyes intent on my daughter. "That makes me a bastard. It does not make me less of a human being."
My shy, introverted, hates-to-be-the-center-of-attention daughter, leaps from her seat and runs forward to give Kieran a hug.
He drops to one knee so he can hug her back. They whisper to each other before she comes back to sit beside Lily.
Kieran stands, his expression forbidding. "We have one last definition of bastard. The profane one."
Mr. Wrye opens his mouth like he's going to object again, but then seems to think better of it and presses his lips together in a disapproving line.
Saying the words aloud as he writes them, Kieran puts vicious, despicable, disliked in the spot he'd left blank directly under the word BASTARD on the white board. Then he turns back to face the room.
"I might think someone calling my daughter names is a little bastard, but that doesn't mean I don't think his parents were married when he was born." He looks directly at Jamie O'Grady, the younger brother of one of the boys who attacked Sadie.
Jamie dips his head and Mrs. O'Grady blanches.
"I might think a teacher who doesn't bother to correct his student's understanding of a word being used to bully one of their classmates—"
"Much less follow school protocol regarding discipline in such a situation," I can't help adding, interrupting Kieran.
Who nods at me before looking directly at Mr. Wrye as he moves to stand close to him.
"I might think such a man is a bastard, but that doesn't mean I think he's illegitimate. It means he's gotten on my bad side." Kieran raps his knuckles on the desk in front of Mr. Wrye.
The teacher jerks in his seat, his eyes widening in alarm.
Kieran nods and moves back to the front of the room. "Now, let's discuss consequences."
"Wait a minute, I don't even know if my daughter was involved in the bullying," Mrs. Duffy protests loudly.
"Don't you?" Kieran asks.
"Elizabeth shoved Neeve during PE and called her a dirty bastard," Lily pipes up, ire lacing her little girl voice. "Lots of other kids saw it."
And not one of them had spoken up. Except Lily.
Mr. Wrye clears his throat. "Elizabeth admitted to me that she called Neeve names."
"And you did not follow protocol regarding physical force being used by one child on another?" Mrs. Powell asks with censure.
"I handled it," Mr. Wrye replies defensively. "Not everything has to be escalated to administrative discipline."
"If you handled it, we wouldn't be here right now, would we?" I demand.
"My daddy told me Neeve was a bastard 'cuz she didn't have no daddy of her own," Elizabeth suddenly bursts out, her cheeks red. "I didn't know it didn't mean that."
Does she think not knowing the actual meaning of the term will get her off the hook for bullying?
"Hush," Mrs. Duffy says. "I don't believe you did anything wrong."
The words are the right ones to soothe her daughter, but they are given in a harsh tone that brooks no disobedience.
So, all this was part of Kenneth Shaughnessy's plan to use me as some kind of patsy and Mrs. Duffy doesn’t want her daughter revealing that she was egged on by her own father.
"On that we disagree." Mrs. Powell takes Kieran's place at the front of the room and outlines the school's proposed disciplinary actions as well as recourse for the parents if they want to appeal her decision.
When she is done, she says, "Are there any questions?"
I expect an eruption of loud voices from the other parents, but none of them raises their hand or speaks. Not even Elizabeth Duffy's mom.
I say, "I appreciate the school administration standing firmly behind St. Patrick's anti-bullying policies. However, I think the children involved should take personal responsibility and apologize to Neeve."
"I already had the children involved apologize," Mr. Wrye says indignantly.
"First, their apology couldn't have been informed or sincere if they did not know they were misusing the word in question," I tell him cooly. "Second, according to Neeve, you had three children apologize and yet there are eleven here who all called her by that term at least once."
And not one of them is going to get away with it, if I have anything to say about it.
Mr. Wrye scowls, but remains silent as Mrs. Powell nods approvingly. "As you know, taking personal responsibility is important to the ethos here at St. Patrick's, Mrs. Gallagher."
When a mobster forces the issue, it is.