"Yes. Not only did I make that mistake, but I also felt I should uncover my past alone. I was so afraid of what I might find. Now I realize that I should have told my husband everything right from the start."
"Between couples, nothing should be a secret," Cynthia said softly, a message Frances knew was as much for Nic as it was for her. "What do you do for a living?"
"We're both police officers," she answered and it was Cynthia's turn to giggle.
"No wonder you're not used to all this emotion," she teased. "You probably have to be pretty straight in your real life."
Frances smiled back, feeling as though she had known these people forever. Then suddenly she could not stifle a yawn and all three of them laughed out loud.
"Here we are, keeping a newly pregnant woman up past nine o'clock," Cynthia admonished as she patted Frances's hand.
"Let's continue this tomorrow, okay? I think you need a good night's sleep and so does that youngster of yours. You've had a huge amount of information thrown at you today. Not to mention the heavy feelings that have been dredged up."
Frances nodded, suddenly feeling the weight of fatigue that the draining of her emotions had placed on her shoulders. "Before I try to sleep, though, what happened to my brother? To Itha?"
Cynthia didn't need to look at any of her research to answer this question. It was something she had obviously thought about since meeting Doro.
"There was one small article in the paper about eight months later. It simply stated that he was released from the hospital into the care of the Children's Aid Society. I was unable to access any further information. You might be able to trace him, though. One other thing they did mention was that his memory never returned."
"So even if I found him, he wouldn't remember me," Frances said slowly, almost to herself.
"Well, we don't know that for sure. He might have regained some memory by now. That's one of the things we should talk about tomorrow. We'll figure out a way to find him."
Cynthia sounded so confident that Frances began to climb the stairs to the guest room with hope, looking forward to a future without bad dreams and perhaps with a brother to call her own.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang and all three of them froze in the hallway.
Chapter 42: Emily
The school was so busy that I barely had time to think about how close our retirement date loomed. May was preoccupied and tense, as though she couldn't wait to hand over the tasks and focus on what was happening with Alain. I didn't blame her, but I was losing my office manager at the worst possible time.
Fortunately, Lynda was sensitive to the situation and spent most of her time in the office, helping finalize the myriad of responsibilities that had to be accomplished in the next three months.
The school budget had to be balanced and settled. Orders for the September start-up had to be placed. We had already met with Superintendent McGraw and given him our rationale for Lynda's replacement, her own future vice principal. Interviews to choose May's replacement had been conducted, and we were in the midst of sending off all staff appraisals. Several submissions, surveys and information required by the Ministry of Education also had to be completed.
In between we had to plan end-of-the-year trips, meetings, in-services, the science fair, public speaking contests, Career Day, the Spring Concert, the Volunteer Tea, the School Council Appreciation Luncheon and help organize the Burchill Community Picnic. Not to mention the Special Education reports that Lynda had to author, present and submit. Thus I was forced to lean on volunteers, both adult and student, more than usual.
Aaron Sanderson became a fixture in the office. Once I confirmed with Kristen George that indeed he was a superior, gifted student who literally passed the academic requirements ahead of time, I began to put his skills to work more than I might have. Part of keeping him close was my continued curiosity and concern about his family situation.
Renae was true to her word and visited the school at least once a week. Meghan was making some progress but mostly with Meredith and a select number of students, rather than in general. Renae organized some games that included Meghan's circle of friends and she reported some success with that approach.
However, it was the tension between Aaron and Renae that began to interest me most as time flew by.
Whenever she came into the office while he was present, which didn't happen often, Renae attacked him verbally.
She volleyed things like, "Should you be looking in that desk drawer, Aaron?" in a sarcastic, condescending tone.
Aside from the fact that Aaron's office duties and authorities were none of her concern, the manner and accusations were completely atypical of Renae. Normally, she would have consulted me. A student helper was looking in May's desk. Was that permitted? But in Aaron's case, she accosted him directly.
For his part, the boy was steadily, unfailingly polite, even sycophantic. To my later regret, I just didn't have nor did I take the time to confront Renae about her feelings toward this student. It happened too seldom and I was just too preoccupied with matters that, at the time, I erroneously thought were more important.
Aaron was never late nor derelict in the tasks I gave him. He counted money accurately. He answered the phones confidently and professionally so May could attend to other matters. Gradually he even began to deal with some of the students who came into the office for one reason or another. It was one of those children who offered me the first clue that things were not as they seemed.
Sent to the office by his teacher, Michelle Henderson, James Gibson was complaining of a stomach ache. May directed him to the health room, where he lay on the sick bed. Soon he was joined by another little boy, who just happened to be Ben Sanderson, also complaining of nausea.
May left the office to deliver some mail to the staff room, with Aaron in charge of the phones. Lynda and I were conferring in mine, struggling over budget numbers that refused to match up. It took some time for us to hear the sobs.
Telling my vice principal that I would go, mostly to get a break from the math, I walked into an empty office.
The crying was coming from the little room next door, separated from the main office by a door that was always left open. This time, it was closed. I pushed on it and felt someone jump away from the other side.
Aaron stood there, looking at me with wide, calm blue eyes.
"I was just about to call you, Mrs. Taylor," he said, his voice low and deferential. "James here has been causing quite a problem, along with my brother. I'm not sure either of them are really ill."
I looked over at both small boys, sitting side by side on the black leather bed. The blanket and sheet that normally covered it was balled up in the corner. James was almost doubled over, his dark head touching his knees, his shoulders shaking. Ben sat completely upright, hands in his lap, tears tracking down his freckled cheeks without a sound.
Although Aaron appeared thoughtful and concerned, there was something stiff and cold in his demeanour. The fact that his little brother stared with such fear and loathing at the older boy made me want to deal with this alone.
"Well, thanks, Aaron, I'll take over now. You are needed at Mrs. Reneaux's desk."
There was a very mild hesitation. For a moment I thought I saw a flicker of the aggression that I had glimpsed on the bridge, but it quickly dissipated and he moved toward May's desk.
"Of course, Mrs. Taylor," he said over his shoulder.
I shut the door again and pulled up a chair to face the two little boys. Placing my hand gently on James's shoulder, I told him it was okay now.
"Is it your stomach, James? Does it hurt really badly?"
The boy sat up and looked at me. His eyes were red and full of tears. His little face was pinched and pale.
"Yes," he whispered.
"Were the two of you causing problems?"
Ben spoke up. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Taylor. We were noisy."
James was barely able to talk, his voice shuddering and interrupted by
sobs.
"We were just talking. He was so mean. He punched my stomach and made it worse."
"Who did?"
Ben quickly answered. "Nobody. He's just saying that to get my brother in trouble."
I ignored him. "You're telling me that Aaron punched you in the stomach, James?"
The small boy nodded his head up and down, unable this time to get the words out. I could see that he was not only hurting physically, but that he was devastated and terrified. Someone from the office, a big boy who was supposed to be helping him, had hurt him instead. His trust and security had been shaken.
"Benjaman, please tell me the truth. Aaron must have done something to upset James so much. I know James and he's not the kind of boy to be in tears for nothing."
Ben was silent, refusing to raise his head.
James looked up at me. His big brown eyes lit up with gratitude, though he had not yet gotten the distress under control.
I inserted myself between the two boys and gathered him in my arms, rocking him until his crying subsided. Tissue in hand, he began to dry the tears and to breathe normally.
I inquired about where he hurt and then I took him to the washroom in the health room. I asked him if it was okay for him to pull up his shirt so we could both check for bruises. He agreed immediately and pulled his T-shirt up, showing pale bare skin.
Although there was no bruising or marks at all, he said that his tummy still ached and he felt sick. I put my hand to his forehead. He was a little warm and flushed, but that could be the result of so much emotion.
"Do you want me to call your mom and ask her to come and get you?"
I had my arm around him, speaking with him softly, so Ben could not hear.
"No," James answered. "She's got a big, big meeting today. When I had a sore tummy this morning, she said I would have to go to school anyway."
I smiled gently at him. I knew James's mom was single. She had recently acquired a new, more lucrative job entailing greater responsibilities. As long as he didn't get worse, I wanted to support her efforts.
"Okay, we'll let you stay here for now."
I picked up a bottle of water from the shelf.
"Here, sip this slowly and let's see if your tummy feels better soon."
James returned to the bed, but I noticed that he stayed farther away from Ben. I leaned toward the other little boy once more.
"Benjaman, before I speak with Aaron, can you tell me anything more about what happened?"
James's voice was quite loud now when he answered for Ben this time.
"Please don't talk to Aaron," he pleaded. "He'll just beat me up when you're not looking."
"Aaron doesn't beat kids up, James," I said. "We don't allow that here."
"Yes, he does," James insisted. "He does it when no one is looking."
Benjaman continued to hang his head.
"Ben?"
"No, no, no, don't say anything, James," he whispered.
"All right, listen to me, both of you. I won't let anything happen to you. If Aaron or anyone else is bullying you, I have to know right away. I won't allow people to be unsafe at school. Remember? We always say, 'Be a buddy, not a bully at Burchill,' right? And the rule is, you must tell."
Benjaman looked up, but continued to shake his head.
James was calm now. "Mrs. Taylor, Aaron is mean to kids. He's mean to Ben and all his brothers and sisters too. Ben's too scared to tell you."
I remembered James's forthright answer to my question about his art. He was a smart, honest little boy. And obviously very brave.
"I will talk to Aaron," I said. "And promise me, James, Benjaman. If he hurts you or threatens you, you will tell me immediately."
Bullying was one of the issues that I had dealt with very strictly over my tenure as principal. Although I knew that statistically about thirty percent of my students were probably either victims or perpetrators of aggression toward one another, I had worked very hard to persuade the children to tell. We held regular pep rallies and I made presentations in the classrooms every year with an emphasis on being 'buddies not bullies.'
The senior students were recruited to act as advisors and mentors, thus deflecting their desire to exert control. A trend of 'when I get older, I'll tease the little kids the way I was teased' was converted to teaching and mentoring instead. I was proud of the results and disturbed to hear that Aaron might be an unreported bully.
Although both little boys nodded, it was obvious from James's enthusiasm that he meant it and from Benjaman's half-hearted response that he did not.
I thought about Aaron carefully before I decided to approach him. So far in the office, he had not displayed any temper, aggression, or cruelty. In fact, he was eerily calm. Robotic, nauseatingly sweet, polite and obedient.
But I had already seen the flash of his true nature—both in my office and on that bridge. If he spoke to small children the way he approached me that day, I could understand their fear, for I had felt it myself. I thought of Meghan and then of Cate and wondered about James's assertion that Aaron hurt all of his brothers and sisters.
I sent Ben back to his classroom, as he appeared to have recovered from whatever stomach ailment propelled him here. I tucked James under the blanket and he promptly fell asleep.
When I opened the door to the main office, May had returned and Aaron was nowhere to be seen. She looked up at me quizzically.
"Where's Aaron?" I asked.
"I sent him to deliver the newsletters to the classrooms. Did you want to see him?"
I nodded. "I do, but…I think I'll go walking and find him myself. Keep an eye on James, will you? He might have a fever, but he says his mom's not home. If he isn't better soon, we should try to get in touch with her anyway."
Normally, May would have offered an opinion, but in her present preoccupied state, she simply nodded and returned to her computer work.
I popped my head in to Lynda, telling her I needed to follow up on the incident in the health room. I asked if she was okay with the budget numbers. She gave a 'thumbs up', so I headed out into the hallway.
Burchill Public School was originally designed in the shape of an L. A connecting portapak, added to accommodate the growth in population, transformed the L formation into a square horseshoe. The office was set into the crux of the two original hallways, so I started down the shortest one toward the primary area, where the locked basement door still made me shiver.
There was no sign of Aaron.
I checked Ben's class. The rest of the students gathered around their teacher on the carpet, listening to a story, while the little Sanderson boy sat at his desk, his head tucked into folded arms. I exchanged a look with his teacher, Marilynn Oliver, which translated, 'Just leave him to work it out alone for now.' My heart ached for the boy, but I knew he needed to be introspective for a while. One good thing, I thought: at least we were seeing some emotion.
Next door, Meghan Sanderson was working head to head with Sydney D'Aubigne on what looked like a serious piece of art. Meredith Cole smiled at me as I passed by, but the two little girls did not look up.
I kept going, down the hall and around the corner, past the office once more, the gym, the staff room, the volunteers' room and along the largest corridor of classrooms.
The students and their teachers were in various states of learning. Groups chatted around tables. Individuals furiously scribbled at their desks. A bunch exercised in the gym. One class sang while someone accompanied them on the recorder. Several groups were spread out in the hall and throughout their room working on science projects.
Smiling, saying hello, stopping to talk a little, I made my way slowly toward the portapak. The intermediate classes resided here.
As I rounded the corner, I saw Aaron at the door of Kristen George's classroom. He appeared to be about to knock.
When I said, fairly loudly, "Aaron!" he turned and smiled at me, looking very adult, calm, pleasant.
"Mrs. Taylor!" he answered back,
as though I were a neighbour who had unexpectedly dropped by for tea.
"I need to speak with you, Aaron," I said, folding my arms in front of me in the classic uncompromising style.
He simply nodded, the smile still plastered on his face, stepping closer to me. Once again I was struck by how much taller he seemed when he wasn't affecting his innocuous stoop. He halted just short of invading my space, his ingenuous blue eyes focused on mine, looking like an innocent little boy who had no idea why I would be unpleasant toward him.
"I want the truth about what happened with James." I kept my voice steady and cold. "He says nothing happened. I don't believe him. His stomach hurt and he was terrified. When I asked him how you'd dealt with him, he pleaded with me not to ask you, that it was fine. There was nothing wrong. Your brother Ben reacted in exactly the same way. That tells me there was something amiss, Aaron."
The boy maintained his eye contact. His body was still, relaxed, confident. "I really don't know why you would think that, Mrs. Taylor. I didn't do anything wrong. I know you have taught us to be buddies, not bullies."
There was something in the tone that he used, some sense of mimicry, which told me he had been listening at the door. He knew I was lying. I knew that he was. We were therefore on equal footing as far as he was concerned.
"Sometimes when children attempt to resolve a complicated problem, they inadvertently employ language or even force that they shouldn't use," I said, deliberately adopting an adult-to-adult manner. "Perhaps that's what happened in this case. Perhaps you meant well, but maybe there was something in the method you used that scared the younger ones. If you can describe how you handled the problem, I can figure out where you might have gone wrong."
There was a subtle shift in his eyes, just a fraction of movement and a glint that showed me I had touched a nerve. Aaron Sanderson did not like to be told he was mistaken.
"I certainly apologize if I did anything wrong," he replied, recovering very quickly and adopting my speech pattern. "This is what happened. James and my brother Benjaman were supposed to be sitting or lying quietly in the health room. I heard them laughing and carrying on, so I went in and scolded them. James talked back to me, so I did poke him, very gently, in the stomach, saying that this didn't seem to be preventing him from causing a disturbance."
The Emily Taylor Mystery Bundle Page 55