Frank nods.
I face Darren again. “Can we go now?”
“Yes, but I’m following you until I can see you’re safely out of the area.”
“Fine by me.”
Letting out an audible sigh, Darren scratches his head. “What are you going to tell the school about Frank being late?”
“I’ll think of something,” I say as I head for the door. Darren follows Frank and me outside and locks the door as soon as we leave. To reach my car under the detached carport to the side of our driveway, I have to pass Darren’s truck. Without being obvious, I peek inside and spot a pistol sitting on the passenger seat where I expect one will be. I silently shake my head and remind myself to speak with him about it later.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he says as we reach my car. I turn back and stare him in the eyes, giving him a look that only he could interpret. Without saying a word, I tell him to stay safe and not do anything stupid.
Sixteen
Darren follows us to the school in his truck and continues to his office, apparently feeling okay enough to let me drop Frank off on my own.
As I pull into the empty drop-off point, a single teacher spots my car approaching. “Oh, crap,” Frank says when we both realize the teacher is Miss Cantin, one of the school’s counselors. I’ve had run-ins with her before over Frank’s grades. Needless to say, she doesn’t like me as a parent.
Miss Cantin is in her late fifties, unmarried, and is dedicated to the education system. Wearing something a professional businesswoman might wear to an office job in the city, she approaches my car without any prompting. A steely look clouds her eyes as she holds her head higher than is required, while maintaining her half-scowl. I almost shudder glancing at her.
“I’ll see you later,” Frank says in a hurry as he exits the passenger seat.
“Text me whose house you’re staying at this afternoon,” I yell as he steps past Miss Cantin without eye contact. She stares him down as if her eyes hold enough power to stop him cold.
I see my opportunity to slip away despite being required to sign Frank in for his lateness, but Miss Cantin strikes with her lightning approach.
“Mrs. Turner,” she says with a refined voice that always seems out of place in such a small middle school. “Is there any particular reason Frank is almost two hours late this morning?”
I let out a sigh as I remind myself not to become angry at the teacher, who is only trying to do her job. I refocus on Miss Cantin. “We had a family emergency, sorry.”
“A family emergency, you say?”
“Someone tried to break into our house this morning.” I decide to go with something close to the truth, hoping it will shut her up. It doesn’t.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Turner, but break-in or not, we expect a phone call to the office when a student is going to be late or away for the day.”
“I understand, it’s just—”
“We can’t have students showing up whenever their parents feel like bringing them to school.”
“It wasn’t like that, Miss Cantin,” I say. “We had the police at our house this morning. I didn’t think at the time that the school needed to be involved in the matter.”
She stares me down, making me feel like I’m back in school and powerless. “Well, then, next time you’ll understand precisely what to do, won’t you?”
“Yes, Miss Cantin, I will.”
The old hag smiles at me, baring her teeth, satisfied with the strips of dignity she’s torn from my carcass. How does a person reach such a point in their life that they need to dress down parents to feel happy about themselves? I let the thought evaporate as Miss Cantin straightens her long dress.
“Is that all?” I ask, waiting for permission to leave. I could just drive off, but the old battle-ax would chase after me.
“No. Do you have a moment to talk inside? I would like to discuss a few things with you.”
I let out a sigh accidentally. “I can spare ten minutes,” I say. I already called work to let them know I am running late due to an emergency. It isn’t a particularly busy time at the university, so my absence won’t be a huge burden.
“I’ll see you inside,” she says, knowing full well that I will need to park my car somewhere else first. The thought probably brought the educator a slight bit of glee at the minor inconvenience she’s caused me.
As the counselor walks back toward the school, I fight off the temptation to drive away.
After finding a spot to park in the visitors’ zone, I head inside to Miss Cantin’s office. I’ve been called in enough times now to know where it is. I first need to sign in at the front desk before I can access the old crow’s lair. I take the opportunity to sign Frank in despite him already have headed off to class.
“Take a seat,” Miss Cantin says, gesturing toward one of the two chairs sitting opposite her. I walk into her cramped office space, seeing countless posters covering the walls with all kinds of school propaganda. I study the warnings of taking drugs, being a bully, cheating on exams, and even the dangers of cell phones. There’s not one positive thing in her office of teenage shame.
I sit carefully in one of the visitor chairs and place my handbag down on the seat next to me. I think about the gun Darren would love for me to carry inside of my oversize bag and start to see the benefits of firearm ownership as I stare back at Miss Cantin.
The counselor gives me a faint smile for a brief second that does not extend up to her eyes. “So, Mrs. Turner, why are we here?”
I give her a scrunched brow as an answer. “You asked me in here.”
“Yes, I did. And why do you think that might be?”
I have no clue, but the curse word out of Frank’s mouth when we arrived to find Miss Cantin greeting us suddenly makes sense. “What’s he done now?”
“It’s not what he has done that is concerning us, Mrs. Turner. It’s what Frank hasn’t done that has forced me to call you into my office, today.”
I lean forward, waiting to hear what she is going to say.
“For the last three months, there has been a steady drop off in the quality and promptness of Frank’s homework. Each week, he is handing in work that is mediocre, at best. That is, of course, when he decides to hand in his workbook at all.”
Homework? Is that all the old bat wanted to talk about? For a minute, I thought Frank had started a fire. I resist the urge to get up and leave.
Miss Cantin continues. “Frankly, Mrs. Turner, we are concerned at this gradual decline your son is demonstrating. We have cause to believe that the problem may be coming from some issues your son is having at home.”
“Issues?” I ask, defense cluttering my voice.
“Yes,” Miss Cantin says with her stern, unwavering voice. “We can see Frank is not getting the proper support needed to maintain the level of excellence we expect from our students.”
“Level of excellence? This is a public school, not some private, overpriced academy.”
“Mrs. Turner—”
“What?” I ask, cutting her off.
“Mrs. Turner,” she says louder than before, “I am well aware of this school’s limitations. And believe me, I’ve worked in worse establishments, but the fact that we are a public school doesn’t mean standards should slip.”
I slump back in my chair. Half of me wants to fight her on this and defend Frank, while the rest of me would rather break down and cry for letting my son’s homework go to shambles. I don’t know which option is better, so I just sit there and let Miss Cantin continue her lecture.
Once she is finished pointing out the areas Frank needs to make improvements on, I shuffle forward again and thank her for the concern. “My husband and I will look into this, I promise. Frank’s homework and overall grades will improve from here on out.”
“That’s good to hear,” she replies, “but until this newfound motivation isn’t just talk to shut me up, I will be monitoring the situation closely. I don’t want to see a pro
mising boy like Frank slip through the cracks of our weakening system.”
My mouth drops open to respond, but I stop myself from reacting to her remarks. Instead, I stand, thank the counselor for her time, and leave.
As the school becomes a distant object in my mirror, I rush to work feeling more overwhelmed than I have ever been in my entire life.
Seventeen
My half day at the university passes by like any other. Everyone checks in with me throughout the day to see if everything is okay, since word spread quickly that I had been late due to a family issue. All I said over the phone was that there had been an emergency. Naturally, my coworkers want to find out what that is, so I tell them the first thing that comes to mind.
“Darren’s truck broke down, so he needed me to run him around briefly for a few hours while the mechanics got it working again.”
“So, nothing too dramatic,” Heather says. She is the office gossiper, always needing to know everyone else’s business. I often wondered if it was because she had very little going on in her own life or if it was boredom egging her on.
“Not really. Just the joys of business ownership. Darren can never take a moment off when things go wrong.”
“Well, then, good thing you were there to save his bacon,” Heather says as she removes herself from the corner of my desk, where she was sitting. With a smile, she turns away to head back to her station.
I let out a sigh after she’s gone. I’m not the best liar in the world and hate having to tell the same lot of bullshit to each person as I interact with them throughout the day. I keep reminding myself that it’s safer than getting anyone involved in the real problems we are having at home. The less other people know, the better. I can’t stomach the embarrassment of someone like Heather having a loaded gun’s worth of gossip on me. I don’t want to be the subject of water cooler hyperbole.
Darren checks in with me throughout the day with a few texts. We rarely communicate via text, unlike our son, who sends hundreds of messages per day to his friends, as if they haven’t seen each other in years. I’ll never understand why kids today feel the need to be in constant contact with one another.
I reply to the third text from Darren with much of the same. I also see how he is doing. He gives me the same one-word response I’ve given him all day. Neither one of us wants to get into how we are handling things at the moment.
I wind up for the day ten minutes after the rest of the office has cleared out. As I grab my things to leave, I spot the other Emma muttering to her computer like it might answer her back. She appears distraught about something, so I assume that boyfriend of hers is still giving her trouble. I shake my head at the thought of staying in such a relationship. Darren and I may have drifted apart in recent years, but he’s always been a supportive husband and father. He would never harm Frank or me physically or emotionally.
I attempt to sneak out on my own, despite the promise I made to Darren that I would leave work with the safety of others. I doubt Karlo would bother following me all the way to the city for his cousin. I figure his harassment would be kept local.
“Why does this keep happening?” I hear Emma half-shout as I step past her. I freeze in place and realize that I can’t ignore her.
“Everything okay, dear?” I ask.
I’m met with two eyes ready to burst at the seams with tears. “No,” she says.
I let out a huff of air and sit down at the next desk, placing my bag on the floor. “Maybe you should think about ditching this boyfriend of yours. He seems to be more trouble than he’s worth.”
Emma flutters her head with half a forced grin. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she says.
“But I thought—”
“I lied, sorry. I could tell you were in a rush the other day, so I didn’t want to annoy you with this problem I’m having.”
I think about my flow of lies today and nod with a smile. “It’s okay. I understand. Sometimes it’s easier just to tell people something simple to throw them as far away from the truth as possible.”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding her head with focused eyebrows. “Exactly.”
A moment of silence passes between us. “So, what’s actually troubling you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
The other Emma closes her eyes for a moment as if to concentrate. When she opens them again, a torrent of words flow out of her mouth.
“I didn’t want to tell anyone about this and cause a bunch of trouble so early on in my time here, but I keep getting threatening emails sent to my work account. Each day they are becoming worse and worse. Most of them don’t seem to make sense. I tried blocking the emails, but the person just sends through another message with a new email account, mocking my efforts to make them stop. It’s gotten to the point that I can’t stand the thought of turning this computer on.”
I sit forward, a bit stunned by Emma’s ability to talk so fast. “Wow,” is all I can say in response at first. “That is not ideal. We need to report this to the university and the police, right away. Do you think you know who is sending you the emails?”
She shakes her head. “There’s no one I can think of. I don’t have enemies or people who hate me. I’m always nice to everyone I meet. I even donate to charities.”
“Whoa, slow down, dear. This is probably some random sicko with nothing better to do. Would you mind showing me one of the messages?”
She takes a breath, apparently not wanting to look at the emails unless necessary. She wiggles her mouse and activates her screen again, since it had gone blank to save power.
“I’ve saved them all to a local folder in case the system crashes.”
“Good thinking,” I say as I silently wish I had managed to save the photo sent to my phone this morning. The thought half breaks my concentration, until Emma turns her screen toward me. I stand and move toward her desk to duck down to study the email she’s brought up.
After taking a moment to examine her screen, I read the message and reread it as the pit of my stomach twists itself tighter than I ever thought feasible.
“No,” I let out as I stare at the words haunting me:
You won’t get away with what you did to our family.
“Show me another one,” I demand. Emma brings up the next message with shaky hands.
You will pay for the damage that has been done.
“Next,” I demand, my voice rising as my panic mounts. Emma clicks.
Your time will come. I will take back what you stole from me.
The emails continue. All are less than a line long and threatening in a non-specific way.
You will know what it means to suffer.
You will know what true pain is.
You are going to wish you were dead.
My mouth hangs open, and I can’t read another word of it.
“It’s so messed up,” Emma says to me. “Why would someone send this to me? I haven’t done anything to anyone.”
I find myself drifting away from her and the computer as I locate the edge of the next desk and half fall on its top. Emma spins around and sees my face. Her eyes almost pop out of her head at the sight of me. “What is it?” she asks.
“Those emails,” I mutter, “were meant for me.”
Eighteen
After.
Doctor Shaw stares at me with her usual level of concern and caring. No other person in this place manages to do that. I almost believe she cares about my well-being.
“How did you know the emails were meant for you?”
“It was obvious,” I say. “The idiot who emailed them had accidentally sent the threats to the wrong Emma at the university. The more I read those messages, the clearer my theory became that they were supposed to go to my inbox and not to that sweet, young girl’s.”
“You felt sorry for her?”
“Yes, why wouldn’t I?”
Shaw clears her throat. “Typically, when faced with immediate danger, we tend to only think of ourselves or our close family. Y
ou took a moment out of your own desperate time to think about the impact thrown upon this young girl because of threats intended for you.”
“Maybe it was just maternal instincts or something,” I say, waving her off.
“Maybe.” The doctor scrawls away in her notebook.
“Whatever it meant didn’t matter in the end. Those words were directed at my family and were a warning of things to come. I should have taken those messages to the cops straightaway.”
“Why didn’t you?” Shaw asks.
The question rattles around in my head on repeat every day. Why did I wait? Part of me figured fear was a large component. The more I think about it, the more I realize it was my desire to deal with issues on my own terms. Calling 9-1-1 as I had first done seemed weak and pathetic. The thought of someone wanting to harm my family angered me beyond control.
“Emma?” Doctor Shaw asks, reiterating her question.
“Sorry. I guess I don’t know what possessed me. It seems rather stupid given how things turned out. Maybe my life wouldn’t have come to this. Maybe I wouldn’t be here.”
Doctor Shaw starts to babble some lines I’ve heard a million times before—the usual anti-suicide catchphrases I could fill out ten motivational posters with. I pretend to listen and begin to fade out of the session.
Shaw releases me back into my ward and tells me to get some rest. My brother is coming for another visit in the morning.
“Is that okay with you, Emma?”
I don’t answer. The thought of seeing James again makes me nervous, but I also want to see a familiar face.
“Emma?”
“Sorry,” I say to focus. “I still can’t believe he cleaned himself up so well.”
Shaw nods with pursed lips. “Seeing him successful and happy, how does it make you feel?”
“Good,” I say. “James had been suffering. We used to be so close. Seeing him not blaming the world for his life genuinely warmed my heart.”
Don't Let Me Die: A gripping psychological thriller Page 7