What Mr. Mattero Did

by Priscilla Cummings

  It embarrassed me—it made me angry—that Dad did not go back to school. He isn’t making half the money he made as a teacher. Mom is even talking about getting a second job. But the worst thing was how Dad wasn’t the same anymore, not even at home. Something inside of him died. I couldn’t even ask my father about the annual canoe trip. Three whole days with just Dad? I wasn’t sure what we’d talk about.

  Mom has said all along we shouldn’t tell Song about all this until the end of summer because she would feel bad the whole time she was away at camp in Maine, where she’d been hired as a counselor. A lot of people, not just my sister, have no idea what happened to Dad. What happened to us. If you don’t read the local newspaper or have kids at Oakdale, how would you know? We kept it quiet to save Dad the embarrassment, but even that makes me angry, because it’s like Dad was forced to live a secret life for a crime he didn’t commit!

  It seemed so unfair that those girls—Jenna, Suzanne, and Claire—were never publicly shamed the way my dad was. They remained “unidentified” in the local newspaper because they’re “minors.”

  It didn’t stop either . . . we went to my brother’s end-of-the-year sports banquet at the high school, and while we were standing in line, waiting to get a soda, one of Cade’s coaches came over to Dad and shook his hand. “It’s good to see you, Fred,” he said, clapping Dad on the shoulder. “I hope things are going well.” But he didn’t stay to chitchat for long, and when he walked away, I saw him glance back over his shoulder. I wondered what he was thinking because I’d overheard Mom and Dad talking one night about how they feared people were still suspicious. Three girls? Telling the same story? Sticking to it for so long? There had to be something going on there.

  This is what we can’t change. We can’t change the way people think, the way people look at us. And don’t say it doesn’t matter because it does matter. That’s the most frustrating thing. It’s what those lies left us. Our legacy, Mom has said. I tried writing a poem about it once, but I only got as far as the title. So the title just sits there, at the top of an empty sheet of lined paper in my journal—”The Legacy of a Lie”—waiting for me to delicately pick the words from my aching, bruised heart.

  A month went by, and summer came. Dad finally agreed to talk with a family counselor. And after all the phone calls from Mrs. Dandridge and that letter from Claire, I promised Mom I would reconsider going back to the barns. I missed the horses, yes, but mostly, I missed the kids.

  Cade left for football camp in North Carolina. But when Song came home to unload all her boxes from college and start packing for her camp job, I sat on her bed and told her what had happened. I didn’t do it to hurt her. I didn’t do it to make her feel guilty and cry. I did it because I figured she was part of the family. I did it because I needed her. And I needed her to know.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, throwing up her arms. “All this time? Come on! What’s with you guys?” She was pretty upset we’d kept her in the dark. After stomping around her room and throwing a couple things around, she sat on the bed with me.

  “I’ll bet it makes you think twice about becoming a teacher,” I said, smoothing out a section of her bedspread in front of me.

  We were sitting cross-legged, facing each other, and although I didn’t lift my eyes, I could tell my sister had folded her arms and was looking at me. “Think twice about it?” she repeated my question. “Maybe. But it doesn’t make me want to give up the idea of teaching.”

  I looked up at her, surprised.

  Song took my hands. “I think that’s part of the challenge, Mel. Kids making mistakes and helping them figure things out.”

  I may have rolled my eyes, I’m not sure.

  “Look, I know how much this hurt,” Song went on. “It kills me to think about it. But it’s all about forgiveness. You and Mom and Dad—Cade, too—you all need to let go of what happened or it’ll eat up all the space in your hearts. There won’t be room for anything else.”

  I thought about what my sister said. I thought about it a lot. I don’t know how she got so smart, but I think she’s right. In the end, it’s all about us, finding it in ourselves to forgive those three girls for what they did. It’s all about us, forgiving the people at school—and everywhere else—who still don’t understand. It’s all about me, forgiving my best friend, Annie, and her parents for being afraid. And maybe toughest of all, it’s all about me forgiving Dad for getting drunk that night and respecting his decision not to return to teaching.

  One thing about Song: she doesn’t just say something and walk away. She needled all of us until she left. She got me and Annie together and took us to a movie and for ice cream, and I came home knowing Annie and I could still be friends, even if the friendship was a little different. Then Song fixed dinner for our family one night—black beans and rice and fruit salad because she’s a vegetarian now—and she actually made my parents laugh.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Song whispered into my ear before she drove off with a friend to Maine to begin work.

  So I’m trying. I gave Dad a new box of clarinet reeds for Father’s Day. And I asked him, “Do you think maybe we could schedule that canoe trip?”

  He grinned, and I thought his eyes got shiny. “Let’s do it in July before the water gets too low,” he said.

  I keep thinking that it’s a little like my mother struggling to yank out all that Virginia creeper in the garden. The weed is so stubborn that Mom has to pull with everything she has—and sometimes, when it finally lets go, she falls backward. But she’s kept at it and, little by little, her efforts have made a difference. There’s still a lot left. But now, in all the places where the weed’s been pulled, the ivy is thriving.

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to acknowledge and warmly thank the following

  people: Christina Koch and Jennifer Lee of the Anne Arundel

  County Department of Social Services; Detective Dan Long,

  Anne Arundel County Police Child-Abuse Unit; Diane Finch,

  Head of Guidance, Anne Arundel County Public Schools;

  Catherine Shultz, Phyllis Crossen-Richardson, Maryland

  Therapeutic Riding, and Indian Creek Middle School,

  especially Anne Chambers (head) and teachers Greg Bush

  and Brad Woodward.