39. Thirty-nine
Thirty-nine
Isettle in a kid-sized seat across from Ms. Mitchell, the boys on either side of me, faces covered in temporary tattoos, as her too-pungent perfume wafts across her desk toward us. Behind us, Lyra sneezes—no doubt from the scent—crammed into a miniature desk of her own.
“As you can imagine, this is not acceptable.” Ms. Mitchell gestures to the boys, thick pink fingernails like arrows pointing at each of them.
“Right, well, they are temporary . . .”
“Every student!” she shouts, all of us jumping.
“That’s a lot of tattoos,” I say, looking down at each of them, making them soften. “Where’d you get that kind of cash?”
When Hank snorts a laugh, Ms. Mitchell sucks in an appalled breath. “You think this is funny?” she demands. “That’s part of the problem. You have boys with no regard for rules—for discipline! Just because they have a big-shot father doesn’t mean they can get away with this. Bad apples, both of them, with nobody to show them—”
“Enough!” I snap, eyes leeched onto hers. “Lyra,” I say without looking away from the witch across the desk. “Take the boys in the hall and wait please.”
The boys jerk to a stand, the three of them all but running toward the door. When they are out, I wait for hushed voices to move down the hall before I speak again.
“Do you have kids, Ms. Mitchell?”
She cocks her head, busying herself with the hem of the sleeve of her shirt. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”
“Ah,” I say, pausing. “Kids are hard. Twins are harder. Great—an adventure—but God it’s a pain. Two of everything. The good and the bad. Two hugs, two diapers. Two smiles, two screaming hungry mouths. Blah, blah, blah.” I blow out an overly exaggerated breath. “I couldn’t nurse them, not the way I could with Lyra. It was too hard. My body hurt. And my nipples !” I drop my head back with a booming laugh as her eyes widen. “Those puppies scabbed right over they were so raw. Scabbed right to my shirt.” I cup my hands around my chest and squeeze to emphasize my point. The look of horror plastered across her face pleases me way more than it should. “So I went to my pediatrician with two-week-old babies in two clunky car seats. I was crying, they were screaming. I said, ‘ I’m struggling to nurse, I think they need formula.’ And do you know what he said to me?” I pause, but not long enough for her to answer. “He said, ‘June, if you give these kids formula, they will have a lower IQ than everyone else in their grade level. They won’t perform as well.’ I was the oldest mom in that pediatrician’s office that day, and God—I had never felt more like a failure in my life.” I think of me, oversized T-shirt, bags under my eyes, hair unbrushed. Then I think of the library moms, the guilt I felt every time they nursed in front of me, reminding me of everything I wasn’t. “I told him I’d try harder, but on the way home, all of us screaming, I stopped at the grocery store to get formula because I was about to lose my ever-loving mind if I didn’t do something.”
Ms. Mitchell opens her mouth to speak, but I talk over her. Again.
“Every time something goes wrong, I think of that conversation. Every time I see a woman nurse my chest tightens with guilt—even all these years later. Every note you send home, every red card they get, every condescending text message. I think, ‘My boys aren’t listening—are causing so much destruction—because I fed them sub-par formula as babies.’ I become that scared mom in a pediatrician’s office all over again. Desperate to be good enough but being told I’m not.”
Again, she tries to speak, again I cut her off. This time, I stand from my small chair, hands on the edge of her desk, towering over her, my copper braid falling over my shoulder. She leans back. “But here’s what I’m wondering. If they are so damaged by my inadequacy, why the hell are they able to find a way to put tattoos on the face of every child in a classroom with someone as intelligent as you in charge?” I click my tongue, small smile tugging at my lips. “Seems pretty damn smart to me. Genius, even.”
“Ms. Cannon,” she replies in a huff, mouth coming to a pucker. “If you are implying that—”
“It’s Mrs. Cannon,” I correct. A jolt of confidence firing up my spine. “And I’m telling you, learn to control your classroom and maybe my bad apples won’t be able to ink up the faces of the entire four-year-old population of Ledger. Or maybe the board needs to hear how little their teachers think of the students in this district.”
Her eye twitches as my words linger between us. With a grin, I tap my knuckles on her desk, turning to leave. At the slightly cracked door, one hand on the handle already, I look back at her. “And, Ms. Mitchell?” She lifts her chin. “Camp Cannon has done more for this town than you ever will. Keep his name out of your damn mouth.”
One, two, three beats of my heart later, she says: “Understood.”
I slip out of the room, the door closing with a click .
In the hall, I freeze.
And then, like an athlete winning the gold at the Olympics, I have a pantomimed freak out. Trembling with adrenaline, my hands shoot into the air, legs run in place, and face does a full-blown silent scream over what I just did.
I defended my kids’ honor and told off a teacher. Like a badass. Like Scotty would have done.
A door closes at the end of the hall, making me still, straighten, and come back to the adult body I live in.
Wait.
The hall is empty.
The door to the next classroom swings open and Lyra and the boys come barreling out, shouting and punching fists in the air.
“Way to go, Mom!” Lyra yells, smacking my hand in the air.
“You told her, Mama!” Ty shouts as he hugs my leg while Hank screams, “We ain’t bad apples!” with his hands in angry fists over his head.
I stare at them. Judging by their shouts, hugs, and terrible dance moves, not only did they hear me, they’re proud.
A loud laugh pours out of my mouth and bounces down the hall. I pull my shoulders back, brushing invisible dust off of them. “Oh, that? That was nothing.”
“Seriously, Mom, the look on her face!” Lyra says, nearly doubling over with a laugh. “I wish we had a camera!”
As we climb a short staircase of four steps, she repeats the whole conversation and makes the boys howl with her voices.
For the first time in a very long time, maybe ever, I am two things at once: me and a mom. Like I’m not lost or hidden or covered up, I’m just there . . . waiting to be given space to breathe. Like the bad days and the second guessing and the formula-filled bottles didn’t ruin everything. Them.
“Hey,” I say, buckling the boys into the back of the van as Lyra drops in the front seat. “How did you guys get into that classroom next door? Or even know to go in there to listen? That should have been locked.”
“Dad,” Hank says, eating a stale Goldfish from the cupholder of his booster seat.
“Dad?” My eyes meet Lyra’s in the rearview mirror.
She shrugs, reaching under her seat. “He said Ms. Mitchell sent him a message, too, but when he heard you in there he figured you had it handled.”
“Did he hear everything?” I ask as I get into the driver’s seat.
“You mean the part where you told her to keep his name out of her mouth?” She cocks an eyebrow, sliding an envelope from beneath the seat. “Oh, yeah he did.” She grins, looking down at the folder in her hands. “What’s this?” She passes it to me, and I squint, thinking.
Mave.
The envelope she gave me last time we visited.
“Nothing.” I take it from her, slipping it back into my purse. “Just old papers from Nan. Must have fallen out.”
“Where now, Mama?”
I blow a gush of air through my lips with sputtering puffs. Debating.
“Wanna go see your dad and how the complex looks?”