21. Zane
21
ZANE
Z ane parked his truck in front of the school for the third time in the past few weeks, wondering what in the world his sons could have gotten up to now. He hadn’t spent this much time at the elementary school since he was a student here himself.
The decorations on the houses surrounding the school were just as lavish as they had been back then—pine wreaths, lights twinkling through the snow on the bushes and trees, manger scenes, plastic Santas, and even boughs of holly and balls of mistletoe strung over the front doors.
But to Zane it didn’t feel much like Christmas. He felt like all the holiday spirit was overshadowed by the pain he felt over his boys, and if he was honest with himself, over his own broken heart.
What’s wrong with me? I didn’t feel like this when Brandy left, and she was my wife.
But there was just something about Becca that made him believe she was meant for him, even if he couldn’t really explain it. Part of it was in the way she didn’t judge him for being quiet —which ironically made him talk more than he ever had around anyone else.
And it was also in the way she rolled up her sleeves and jumped into anything that needed doing, unafraid to make mistakes. Zane wouldn’t have joined that choir and sung in front of the whole town for all the money in the world. But the way Allie told it, Becca was happy to be at rehearsal, even after the stress of her first day teaching.
And she certainly hadn’t been afraid to start calling meetings and moving kids around during her first week either.
But mostly, it was the way she interacted with Nick and Cal that had truly won his heart. Watching someone spend time with them, with love and without judgement, had shifted something inside him. He was a different man now, and he was finding it impossible to go back to the way things were before, no matter how hard he tried.
He had always told himself that he’d never find a woman who could deal with the chaos of his boys. But it was clear that Becca could handle them just fine, and a whole class of twenty more children as well, all with a smile on her face.
But she got it wrong with the boys’ schooling, he reminded himself. It was all a mirage…
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Lawrence,” Miss Wiggins said with a smile as he entered. “The meeting is up in Miss Hawthorne’s classroom.”
He signed in and then headed down the hallway and up the stairs, bracing himself for the worst and reminding himself that the boys were only in her class together until the holidays. Whatever was wrong, surely they could all hold it together for just a little longer.
“Mr. Lawrence,” Principal Chittenden said, standing as he entered the classroom. “Glad you could make it.”
The principal, Denise Staley, and Becca were all seated at a table at the back of the classroom.
And both of his boys were sitting there with them.
“What’s this about?” Zane asked.
“We’re hoping Miss Hawthorne will enlighten us,” Denise said in a flat voice that was just on the safe side of sarcasm.
“Thank you all for coming,” Becca said. “I realized something as I was thinking about this situation last night. One thing that none of us ever did was get the boys involved and hear what they had to say. And I think that was a mistake.”
“We talked to them, Miss Hawthorne,” the principal reminded her gently.
“Yes,” Becca said. “Exactly. We talked to them.”
Zane blinked at her in amazement. Had she really just challenged her principal? Was she going to get fired for trying to give his boys the benefit of the doubt?
“Nick,” Becca said gently, as the others stared at her in stunned silence. “Can you tell me about your work? I notice that sometimes you turn in excellent work, and other times you hardly work at all.”
Nick swallowed, and glanced at Zane.
Zane nodded to him, hoping that their conversation the other day about him being enough just as he was, would give him the confidence to feel good about speaking honestly to his teacher.
“Sometimes… I just can’t keep up with the questions and the copying,” he said to Becca. “Even if I try.”
“I see,” she said, nodding. “Nick, there’s a math problem on the board. Can you do that for us?”
Zane noticed that Nick already had a piece of paper and a pencil in front of him. He watched his boy look across the sunny classroom at the three-digit addition problem on the board and then frown.
“I-I can’t do that one,” he admitted to Becca, his voice flat.
“How about this one?” she asked, sliding a piece of paper to him that had a problem written on it.
Zane frowned and glanced back up at the board.
It was the same problem. That didn’t make any sense. Was she trying to make him look silly? What was that going to prove?
But Nick smiled and grabbed his pencil, getting to work on the problem quickly and neatly.
“There were a couple of clues here that none of us noticed,” Becca said quietly as Nick worked. “One was that Nick’s grades in math, which often has information on the board, seemed to change quite a bit, but his spelling quizzes, which are dictated, were all perfect.”
Nick finished up the problem and turned around for her to see.
“That’s perfect, Nick,” Becca told him. “Great job.”
“Oh,” Principal Chittenden sighed. “Oh, my.”
She had clearly noticed something that Zane still hadn’t.
“I don’t get it,” Denise said. Making Zane glad he wasn’t the only one. “He was literally looking at his brother’s paper.”
“Nick, is it hard for you to see the board?” Becca asked him.
“Sometimes it’s easy,” Nick told her. “But sometimes it makes my head hurt.”
The pieces began to fall into place for Zane, but it still didn’t explain the cheating.
“When you first moved over to my classroom, you sat in the front row, and you did well on your own,” she said. “But when you were taking the test in Miss Staley’s classroom, you and Cal were in the back of the room like you are now, right?”
He nodded.
“Why were you looking at your brother’s paper?” Becca asked him, her tone serious now.
“I was copying,” Nick admitted, looking ashamed.
“ What were you copying?” Becca asked.
“The problems,” he said, staring down at the table miserably.
“And the answers?” Becca asked him.
“No,” Nick said right away. “Just the problems. I like doing math.”
“That makes sense,” Becca said, nodding. “Because you got one of the problems right that your brother got wrong.”
Nick glanced over at Cal, as if worried how he would take that info.
“Nick is super good at math,” Cal said proudly with a big grin, making Zane’s heart ache with love. “We always work on our homework together.”
“So was it easier to see the problems when they were close to you, Nick?” Becca asked him. “Like on the paper here, and on Cal’s desk right next to yours?”
Nick nodded, looking deeply ashamed.
“But they’ve had vision tests,” Zane heard himself say. “His vision is perfect.”
“Nick, do you remember taking the eye test in kindergarten?” Becca asked.
He nodded.
“When you took your test, did Cal go right before you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“They normally line up alphabetically,” she explained, turning to the principal. “And as we’ve seen, Nick is a very bright child. If he heard his brother give the answers thirty seconds before he was tested, then he already knew what he was supposed to be seeing when it was his turn. It would have had a big impact on the results. And Nick being bright enough to get by in class and at home most of the time is exactly the reason none of us ever noticed.”
You noticed, Zane thought to himself with wonder.
Denise looked slightly scandalized, but Principal Chittenden was nodding right along. Was it possible they had all missed something so simple?
“I think it’s time for another eye test,” Zane heard himself say.