Fifteen
When I went to school, I hated it. It was boring. Easy. Never thought I’d see the day when I wished I could go.
School is not an institution that exists in Vito Rossi’s frame of reference. Not unless it’s the school of hard knocks. I’ve learned that all too well.
Something eases inside me when I see Aspen skip through the front entrance with her mother.
They don’t see me. I’m hidden away, licking my wounds both literally and figuratively.
But when I see Aspen looking around, searching for me, I uncurl my aching body and prepare to climb down from my favorite hidey hole way up in the eaves of the double-height entryway.
I hear all sorts of interesting things from up here.
Especially when there are visitors who are instructed to wait, and whisper together, not realizing how the structure of the room amplifies sound like a giant megaphone. I bet nobody knows it except me.
“Finish your homework like a good girl,” Helene tells her daughter.
Aspen looks forlorn. “But Mamma, I don’t understand it.”
Helene sighs. “Try your best. I have to see Mr. Salvatore this evening. I don’t know how long I’ll be. Rosa will feed you.”
I don’t think she likes visiting Salvatore Rossi; her expression is different to when she visits his sister, her good friend Therese. But I suppose, like many of us, she doesn’t have a choice. That’s something I’ve learned over and over during the two years I’ve been here.
Jumping the gap between the upper floor balustrade and the crenelated recess, which hides the eaves from the downstairs view, I run down the steps to meet Aspen. I can tell at once she’s unhappy.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, leading her over to the heavy curtains which form another handy gap between the deep bay window, where we can sit unnoticed.
“I have stupid biology homework about inherited genes. I have to make a table about predicting eye color, and I don’t know how.”
Suddenly, I’m enthralled. “Do you have a textbook to explain it?”
She nods and hands it over, open at the selected page. “I read it, but it doesn’t make sense.”
I pore over the book and likely would have for longer if Aspen hadn’t gotten bored and kicked my foot with her own to remind me she’s here.
“Okay,” I say, grabbing her sketch book and finding a clean page between her myriad of drawings.
I rough out a quick diagram of parent and child eye colors, explaining dominant and recessive genes as I go along.
“Huh, that’s not so hard,” she says, her wide smile making my tummy flutter. “Mamma’s having a baby,” she whispers like it’s a big secret.
I tip my head to the side and look at her. “I thought your dad was dead?”
She nods and leans in close. “Maybe we can work out who the baby’s papa is from their eye color.”
The idea is intriguing. “Well, depending on what color eyes the baby has, we could work out who it’s not. Two parents with blue eyes probably won’t have a baby with brown eyes.”
“How do you know all this when you don’t go to school?” she asks, a little furrow in the middle of her brows.
I point to the textbook. “It’s all explained in here. This stuff is really interesting.”
She tips her head to one side. “You can keep it if you like,” she says, suddenly shy.
My heart leaps to say yes before good sense kicks in. “But you need it.”
Aspen shrugs. “I’ll tell them I lost it and get a new one.”
And that’s how my ‘informal’ education started. Helping her with her homework and moving on to Aspen checking out library books for me, so she doesn’t get in trouble for ‘losing’ her textbooks.