See Jane Snap

by Crandell, Bethany

  Suspension?

  My stomach twists, the french fries no longer sitting well.

  “What, um—what did she do?”

  “We can discuss that when you get here.”

  “Right. Okay. I’m on my way.”

  A furious and terrified wail rises in my lungs as I disconnect from the call. I fist my hands, burying my nails deep into my palms to keep from screaming, but the words echo inside my head just the same: Why, Avery? Why are you doing this?

  Ron English is in his late fifties. He has wide-set eyes and one of those smiles that never reveals his teeth. He’s the kind of man who wears T-shirts with the school mascot on them rather than suits and has goofy pictures of himself and his grandkids displayed on his desk. He’s authoritative but not demanding, and carries himself with a kind of quiet confidence that suggests he’s seen, heard, and done it all and that none of it fazes him—like a military vet, sans the hazard pay. Even now, as he recounts Avery’s infractions, he’s not at all rattled. I, on the other hand, am not faring so well.

  I swallow through the boulder-size knot in my throat while blinking against the tears pricking my eyes.

  “. . . as far as pranks go, it was relatively harmless,” Mr. English goes on. “Though a dozen rolls of wet paper towels certainly create a big mess.”

  I nod in agreement. Yes, I have no doubt that a dozen rolls of wet paper towels would create a big mess when balled up and used like grenades to decorate the faculty bathroom.

  A very big mess!

  Dammit, Avery.

  “It doesn’t appear there was any damage to the plumbing,” he goes on. “But if there is, we’ll be asking you and Caden’s parents to pay for the repairs.”

  Freaking Caden Rodgers.

  “Yes, of course.” I sniffle. “We’ll pay for any damage she caused.”

  “The suspension is just for one day,” he continues, “and she’ll be expected to stay up with her classwork so she can hit the ground running again on Wednesday—”

  I continue nodding, my anger and desperation quickly threatening to make an appearance.

  “All right then, all that’s left is to get your signature on this form.” He slides a piece of official-looking paper and a pen across the desk toward me. “It states that we met and discussed the incident and that you’re in agreement with the resulting disciplinary action.”

  I scribble my name on the page, then slide it back to him.

  Oh, yes. I am definitely in agreement with the resulting disciplinary action. I just wish I knew what motivated her to do anything that would earn her a disciplinary action in the first place.

  “I’ll have my assistant email you a copy of the form for your files.” He stands and offers me his hand. “Thanks for coming in today.”

  “Thank you. And, again, I’m so sorry.”

  He sighs over a warm smile. “For what it’s worth, I think Avery is a really good kid; she just seems to be having a hard time right now. Have there been any big changes in her life recently? Anything that might be causing her to act out?”

  I shake my head. “Not that I can think of.”

  “And everything’s okay at home?” He gives his cheek a little tap with his finger. It’s one of those subtle gestures meant to call something to one’s attention without actually telling them what it is—like when you touch your tooth to indicate a piece of lettuce is where it shouldn’t be—but his hint is totally lost on me.

  Confused, I raise my hand to my cheek and feel a little scratch across my skin. From where Wade hit me. Crap. I completely forgot.

  I quickly shake my head. “Oh, no. This is nothing. It’s—no. Everything’s fine at home.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” I say emphatically. I appreciate his concern, but it’s totally unwarranted. Dan may lie to me, but he’d never hit me. He’s not that kind of asshole. “This is nothing to be worried about, I assure you.”

  “Okay.” He easily accepts my response. “I just wanted to be sure. Sometimes kids respond to difficult situations with irrational behavior,” he explains, and I can’t help but nod. Kids aren’t the only ones. “Thanks again for coming in. We look forward to seeing Avery back at school on Wednesday.”

  My limbs are shaking as I make my way out of the office. Anna, Mr. English’s secretary, whom I know from PTA meetings, offers me a smile that I’m sure is meant to be kind and supportive but right now feels judgmental. I drop my head and make my way out into the hall, where Avery is waiting for me. She’s sitting on one end of a long wooden bench—head hanging low, arms folded tight across her chest—and on the other end is a dark-haired boy who’s mirroring her posture. This must be Caden.

  Anger swells in my chest, forcing my teeth to slam together. “Let’s go,” I growl.

  I hear the soles of her worn-out sneakers smacking the floor behind me, but I’m not about to slow my stride so we can walk together. I’m too mad to be that close to her right now. I’m not sure what I’d say, anyway. Probably something I’d regret. The silent treatment is definitely a better choice until I can clear my head a bit.

  “Mom?” she calls out, but I continue to ignore her, pushing my way through the front door and storming down the front steps and into the parking lot. Fighting the flurry of four-letter words tickling my tongue, I climb into the car, wrap my hands tight around the steering wheel, and inhale a hot breath through my nose—

  “Aren’t you even going to ask me what happened?”

  “What happened?” I whip my head toward her, enraged by her bold question. “Are you kidding me?” She blanches, startled by my aggression. “I know what happened, Avery. You vandalized the teachers’ bathroom!”

  “No, we didn’t!” she cries. “It was just a prank. It was just paper towels!”

  “Just a prank? Do you have any idea how much damage paper towels can do?” I scream back at her, not unaware of the irony of my question. “You could have ruined all the plumbing. It could cost thousands and thousands of dollars to repair that!”

  “Well, I didn’t know that!” she screams back at me. “All we wanted to do was play a prank. We weren’t trying to break anything.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re lucky you didn’t! But prank or not, that was a stupid thing to do. What were you thinking?”

  “We were thinking it would be funny!” she counters with way too much attitude.

  I jerk back. “Funny? Okay. We’ll see how funny it is tomorrow, when you’re stuck in your bedroom all day with no TV, no phone, no iPad—”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. Stare out the window? Count your toes? I don’t really give a shit—”

  The swear catches both of us by surprise, stinging my ears and prompting her eyes to snap wide. I rarely swear around Avery, and certainly never at her. My throat swells tight, breath shallowing in regret. In rage.

  “You don’t give a shit about anything anymore,” she snips.

  “Excuse me? I don’t give a shit about anything? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She levels me with a wicked look but doesn’t answer the question.

  “Tell me,” I press. “What do you mean, I don’t give a shit about anything anymore? You think I don’t care about you ditching class, or spray-painting dugouts, or huffing fake cigarettes with some stupid boy?”

  Her jaw twitches in obvious restraint before she rips her gaze away from me, grumbling, “Forget I said anything.”

  My instincts are to do exactly as she says because I can tell we’re venturing into uncharted territory right now. Territory I’m not sure I’m ready to explore. But a little voice inside me—a voice that annoyingly sounds a lot like Officer Bates—is urging me to press on.

  “No. I’m not going to forget it. Tell me what you meant.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Avery, tell me,” I demand, pressing my hand against her thigh. “I want to know.”

  She stays statue still for a long beat before she t
urns back to me, her big blue eyes glistening with tears.

  My heart wrenches, my anger quickly giving way to concern.

  “Honey, what? What is it?”

  Gaze locked tight on mine, her sweet little chin starts to quiver, and she says, “Don’t you even care that Daddy’s cheating on you?”

  Her question sucker punches me square in the gut.

  “What? Honey, no. It’s . . . your dad . . . he’s not . . .” The lie dangles from my tongue like a worm on the hook—just waiting for her to take a nibble—but the desperation in her eyes won’t allow me to cast the line any further, because she already knows the truth.

  Dear god.

  She knows the truth.

  My ribs collapse against my lungs, smothering all the breath in my body.

  She knows.

  She knows!

  I scrub a nervous hand across my forehead, my vision now blurring with tears. I drop my head, though I can still feel her gaze locked in on me, waiting for an answer. Waiting for me to tell her that she’s right. That her dad—the man she holds up on the highest pedestal—is a cheater and a liar.

  I pinch my eyes shut, agonized by the rawness of this moment. I knew it would happen at some point, but I never imagined it like this. Somehow, I thought I’d be prepared. That I’d be calm and rational and able to deliver the devastating news with a sense of stability and reassurance. The way a mother should deliver this kind of news. Instead I’m a terrified mess, sitting here in the school parking lot without a clue how to respond to her, a cup of french fries growing cold between us.

  I swallow against the ache building in my throat and, while slowly reopening my eyes, admit that what she’s saying is true. “Yes, honey. Of course I care.”

  “Then why aren’t you doing anything?” she pleads, her precious voice quaking with emotion. “Why don’t you tell him to stop?”

  Though naive, her question is still legitimate, and pierces my soul like a dagger. I knuckle back a tear and say, “It’s . . . it’s not that easy. It’s very complicated—”

  “How is that complicated? You just tell him not to do it.”

  Humility swells inside me, prompting me to drop my head again.

  If only it were that easy . . .

  “Do you know who she is?”

  She.

  Oh, Avery . . .

  I turn toward her. The betrayal in her eyes, so reminiscent of my own, nearly breaks me.

  “How did you even find out about this?” I ask, intentionally evading her question.

  “I heard him talking to her on the phone in the garage.” She sniffs while scrubbing away a tear with the heel of her palm. “He told her he loved her, and he couldn’t wait to see her.” She hangs her head. “I knew it wasn’t you because you were in the kitchen making dinner. He didn’t know I was there.”

  My heart wrenches at her obvious pain, while a fresh surge of anger starts seeping through my veins.

  Damn you, Dan!

  Look what you’re doing to her!

  Look what you’ve done to our daughter!

  “So, do you?” she goes on. “Do you know who she is?”

  The mom of one of Avery’s closest friends recently got divorced and remarried the dad of another close friend (a scandal that kept the PTA humming for more than a few months), so it makes sense that she’d be hyperfocused on the players involved. I shake my head while gently swiping back a strand of tear-soaked hair from her cheek. “No, honey. I don’t know who it is.”

  I hate the idea of lying to her, but revealing Dan’s truth to Avery isn’t my job; that’s all on him.

  “How long have you known?” I ask.

  “Awhile,” she says over another sniffle. “Since you guys got back from your trip to Denver.”

  I fist my free hand at my side, tortured by her response.

  She’s known almost as long as I have.

  This poor, sweet child has been suffering as long as me. No wonder she’s been acting out in school. It’s a miracle she didn’t earn a suspension weeks ago.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” I say, offering up a broken smile. “It’s not fair that you had to know that whole time—that you didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. I imagine that’s been pretty scary, huh?”

  She drops her head.

  “And maybe makes you a little mad?”

  “Yeah,” she whispers.

  I drag my hand down the length of her hair to her back so I can rub it like I did when she was little. “Do you sometimes feel like you need to get some of the mad out by doing kind of crazy things?”

  She glances up. The nervous look on her face assures me of what I suspected: the apple—er, orange—doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  “It’s okay,” I say with an understanding nod.

  Fresh tears pool in her eyes, and she repositions herself so she’s facing me head-on. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she sputters. “I don’t mean to do all this bad stuff; I just—I get so mad, and I don’t know what else to do—”

  She throws herself across the center console and into my arms, burrowing her face in my chest like she did as a baby. I wrap my arms tight around her narrow frame, crying, as I pull her closer to me, desperately wishing I could take away her pain. That I could give her back the life she deserves, but I can’t do that. All I can say is, “I know, baby. I know you didn’t mean to do it. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We’ll find a different way for you to work through all that mad and hurt. It’s going to be okay . . .”

  We sit like that for a few minutes—crying and holding each other—before she says, “Does Auntie J know?”

  I shake my head. “No, honey. Nobody else knows. And they can’t, okay? We need to keep this just between us for now.”

  She nods. “I won’t say anything.”

  Considering she’s known for almost three months and is just now telling me, I don’t doubt her sincerity.

  “Are you going to get divorced?”

  I wince, detesting the sound of those words coming from her lips.

  “I don’t know, babe. We haven’t figured out what we’re going to do yet. But whatever happens, we still love you just the same. You remember that, okay?” I stroke her feverish cheek, hoping it offers some sense of security. “You are the best, most important person in the world to me, and your dad, and no matter if we’re married or not, that’s never going to change, you understand?”

  Leaning into my palm, she closes her eyes and, over a shuddery breath, says, “Don’t tell him I know, okay?”

  “Oh, sweetie.” I pull back from her, shaking my head. “We need to tell him—”

  “I know we do. I just . . .” She sighs, a heavier-sounding sigh than any twelve-year-old should ever have to release. “Can we just wait a little while? I’ve got a game on Saturday, and we’re supposed to do banana splits and watch the Bulls on Sunday afternoon . . .”

  I’m nodding in concession before the words even form on my tongue.

  She wants to hang on to her safe and stable life—or at least the life she thought it was—for as long as she can.

  I certainly can’t blame her for that.

  Avery’s at the kitchen table doing homework while I’m wiping down the counters. Given this afternoon’s developments, I decided that she should skip soccer practice and her piano lesson so we could go out for ice cream. Double scoops certainly didn’t solve our problems, but they definitely eased them, for a while anyway.

  At first glance, the house appears calm and restful. Soft music wafting through the speakers, the aroma of the frozen pizza we baked for dinner still tickling our noses. But if you take a closer look, you’ll pick up on the heaviness in the air—the unease that comes from facing Dan for the first time, now that we’re the ones sharing a secret.

  “He’s here,” Avery croaks, her youthful ears tuning into the sound of the front door.

  I inhale a deep breath. “Okay. Don’t worry.”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

&n
bsp; “Nothing,” I say. “I told you we could wait a little while before we told him you knew.”

  “No, I mean about my suspension.”

  My shoulders sag. With all the “cheating father” discussion, I completely forgot about the stupid suspension. I sigh. “I’m going to have to tell him.”

  “Mom, no!” She pushes herself to standing, a desperate look on her face. “Please, don’t say anything.”

  “Honey, he’s still your dad. He needs to know what’s going on at school. Besides, he’s going to know something’s up when you’re home all day tomorrow.”

  “But he’ll get mad at me. He’ll take away the Bulls game.”

  Given her dreadful day, and her obvious distress now, I’d really like to comply, but . . . she did earn herself a suspension from school, and if some residual punishments follow, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

  “Mom, please—”

  “Jane?” Dan suddenly calls from inside the house, interrupting Avery’s plea.

  She casts me a wary glance while I call back to him, “Yeah?”

  “Can I talk to you for a minute, please!”

  Even though he uses the word please, there’s nothing remotely polite about his request.

  “Be right there!” I call back to him.

  “Mom . . .” Avery offers me one last pleading glance as I toss the dish towel into the sink and make my way to the laundry room, where Dan is waiting for me, jaw set, a steely look in his eyes.

  “What the hell happened today?” he grouses, his tone intentionally low.

  “What—uh, what do you mean?” My car isn’t bugged, is it? There’s no way he could have heard our conversation—

  “With the fundraisers,” he clarifies. “Jackie Harriman stopped by my office this afternoon and told me you weren’t on the conference call. Why weren’t you on the call?”

  The fundraising conference call.

  I exhale a relieved breath.

  “Something came up with a friend of mine from the Chicago class,” I start to say. “She needed my help—”

  “You can’t just blow those meetings off, Jane,” he interrupts me, brows cinching angrily above his eyes. “Especially now, with everything that’s going on with the gala. More than ever, you have to participate.”