by Noe Dearden
Aunt Sheena was upset. She had found out Charlotte skipped her afternoon classes, and was none too pleased about it.
The car rides they shared together were always slightly uncomfortable, because they rarely had anything substantial to say to each other, but at least Emi was usually there to fill the silence with her incessant chatter. That day, Emi had taken the bus home, and Charlotte had no choice but to endure Aunt Sheena’s interrogation on her own.
“How could you skip out of school?” Aunt Sheena demanded.
Charlotte knew she had no good defense for her behavior. Instead of speaking, she looked out the passenger side window at the scenery flashing by. They had reached the periphery of Honolulu’s bustling city streets and were driving along the Pali highway toward home. The precipitous mountain ledge, verdant from recent rains, towered to her left, and a wild hillside thick with foliage shaded her view on the right.
“Where did you go when you were supposed to be in class?” Aunt Sheena had her eyes on the road, but was driving a little faster than usual.
“Nowhere. I was on campus.”
“Then explain why Mr. Glaser claims to have seen you and two boys standing on the road outside school this afternoon?”
Charlotte traced her finger through the condensation on the window glass. “I was only off campus for about three seconds.”
“I’m having a hard time believing that. Who were those boys?”
“Asher and Kennedy.”
“Yes, but who are they? How do you know them? Are they friends of yours?”
“I hardly know them. I just ran into them.”
“But why would you skip art? I thought you liked art. Mr. Kerrigan says you’re one of the best in the class.”
Charlotte wished she could erase herself from this situation. Just be expunged from the car temporarily until everything passed over.
Eventually, they reached the flat suburban mundanity of their neighborhood in Kailua, with its red-roofed strip malls and manicured lawns. Aunt Sheena backed the car into the garage and slammed the door a little harder than necessary.
“This conversation isn’t over.” She said it like a threat.
Uncle Eddie greeted his wife and niece with usual good cheer, but seemed to instantly sense the tension in the air.
“What’s going on?” he asked his wife warily as she dumped her purse onto the kitchen counter.
“Charlotte cut class. Art and math. And she was caught off campus with a couple of boys.”
“You skipped art class?” Uncle Eddie said, sounding more worried than upset. “I thought you liked art class.”
“I do,” Charlotte said. “But I wasn’t feeling well.”
“You should’ve gone to the nurse’s office, not bummed around off campus with…what were their names? I’m going to report them to the deans tomorrow morning,” Aunt Sheena said.
Charlotte was growing impatient. “I don’t even want to be at Staley.”
“How can you say that?” Aunt Sheena asked, as if Charlotte’s assessment of the school was a personal affront. “Staley is a wonderful school, much better than the alternatives, especially here in Hawaii where the public school system is such a train wreck.”
“I’m not blaming Staley,” Charlotte said. “It’s me. I’m not smart enough.”
Uncle Eddie shook his head. “You shouldn’t say that. Have some faith in yourself.”
Flanked between her aunt and uncle, Charlotte knew that anything she said would be shot down instantly. They thought they had all the answers, and they never listened.
Aunt Sheena fiddled nervously with her wristwatch. “What are we going to do with you, Charlotte? Don’t you realize there are consequences for your actions?”
“My grades get docked. I get it,” Charlotte said tonelessly.
“Really? Do you really you get it?” Aunt Sheena asked.
Uncle Eddie leaned against the kitchen counter and massaged his forehead. “Charlotte, I don’t know how your mom handled these situations, but you have to understand that this is new for us as parents. Emi never had these problems. She never skipped class. We’re a little lost here.”
“My mom never cared if I skipped class,” Charlotte said.
“Well, we care,” Aunt Sheena said. “I think it’s time we set up an appointment with the school counselor.”
“Because I missed two classes?” Charlotte said. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”
“I don’t want this situation escalating into something bigger.”
“Fine. May I be excused now?” Charlotte asked.
Uncle Eddie and Aunt Sheena exchanged a look, like they weren’t sure what the answer to that question should be.
“I’m seriously thinking of not letting you go to the school’s big luau tomorrow afternoon,” Aunt Sheena said after some consideration.
“Whatever.” Charlotte had seen the announcement for the Annual Luau in the school bulletin, but she hadn’t wanted to go anyway. She had no interest in school events.
“Sheena, we have the fundraiser dinner tomorrow night,” Uncle Eddie said in an undertone. “I’m not sure we should let Charlotte stay at home by herself.”
“I promise not to throw any rave parties,” Charlotte said sarcastically.
Aunt Sheena looked weary. “Your uncle’s right. It’s better for you to go to the luau. In the meantime, why don’t you start your homework? We’ll have dinner ready in an hour.”
Charlotte dutifully went upstairs to her bedroom, but she didn’t start her homework. Instead, she put on one of the CDs Mr. Kerrigan had loaned her and fell back onto her bed.
Her room was surprisingly cold. The walls were full of sad, blue darkness except for the occasional knife-edge of light slashing through the windows. She hadn’t slept well the night before and her body was heavy with exhaustion. Before long, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Through her slumber, Charlotte heard the door knock, and she opened her eyes. It was completely dark now. She could smell garlic and butter wafting from downstairs, and heard Emi’s voice chattering over the sound of a blender.
She flipped on the lamp and opened the door a crack. Mr. Kerrigan stood at the other side, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Hey, Charlotte,” he said. “Were you asleep?”
She shook her head.
“Why don’t you come downstairs so we can chat?”
She leaned casually against the doorframe. “Let me guess, my aunt and uncle asked you to talk to me.”
“They’re a little worried that you skipped some school.”
“So you’re on their side, huh?”
“We’re all on your side,” Mr. Kerrigan said. “That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Charlotte stepped back. “I’m not ready to come down. But you can come in.” She sat back on the bed and let him take the desk chair. He didn’t sit immediately.
“Who’s this?” he asked, picking up the cloth doll sitting on her bookshelf.
“Her name’s Tamika,” Charlotte said. “My mom made her.”
“Your mother made this?” Mr. Kerrigan said, looking closer. “It’s beautiful. The stitch work is so precise.”
“My mom’s very good with her hands. She sewed lots of outfits for her too, but we lost them when we moved a couple years ago. I guess I’m too old for dolls anyway.”
“It’s a nice memory, though,” Mr. Kerrigan said, setting Tamika back down on the shelf.
Charlotte leaned back onto her elbows. “Let me guess what you’re here to say. No skipping school. No dropping out. Education is too important. Blah blah blah.”
“Yep, that pretty much covers it,” Mr. Kerrigan said, moving toward the door. “Glad we had this little chat. Let’s go downstairs.”
Charlotte laughed despite herself. “Seriously, I don’t need you to tell me those things. I know them already.”
“I know you know them,” Mr. Kerrigan said. He pulled out the desk chair and straddled it backwards. �
�That’s why it’s confusing that you skipped class today.”
“I didn’t feel like going. I was sick.”
“So why didn’t you come and tell that to me or your aunt or…well, pretty much any adult?” he asked. “We teachers don’t bite, you know.”
“I guess I don’t understand why everyone needs to know where I am 24-seven,” she said. “I’m used to having freedom to do what I want.”
“That’s a good insight.” He pressed his palms together and weighed his words. “I think we have to acknowledge that you’re going through a form of culture shock by coming here. You have a whole new family and a whole new school to adjust to. And it doesn’t help that we don’t really know where you’ve come from. You never tell us about your past.”
Charlotte looked down at her chipped nail polish. “You say ‘we’ and I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“I was speaking on behalf of your aunt and uncle, and all the other teachers at Staley who care about you.”
“But how can you speak for those people?” Charlotte asked, unconvinced. “They don’t talk to me the way you talk to me. They don’t care they way you do.”
“They do care,” Mr. Kerrigan insisted. “They just have a different way of showing it.”
“Yeah, by treating me like a child who’s a nuisance to everyone,” Charlotte said. “It’s insulting.”
“I’m sorry to hear you feel that way.”
Charlotte groaned. “See, it’s when you say things like that – like, ‘I’m sorry to hear you feel that way’ – that’s when you sound like everyone else.”
He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. “I don’t understand.”
“When you say ‘I’m sorry to hear you feel that way,’ it’s like you have to apologize for the way I feel. Like I’m not supposed to have feelings. Like feelings are something to be sorry about.”
He frowned. “That’s not what I meant. I was trying to empathize with your situation.”
She hesitated. “What does empathize mean?”
“It means trying to feel what another person is feeling. Imagining what they’re going through.”
She thought about this. “Okay,” she said. “Maybe you can imagine what I’m going through, but not other people. They can’t understand.”
His frown deepened. “Why would I know how you’re feeling better than most people?”
“Because even though you put on a happy front all the time, I know it’s only pretend. There’s no way you could be happy. Not after what you did.”
He looked at her intensely, almost spellbound. “What do you mean?”
“You killed your daughter,” Charlotte said, looking back down at her fingernails. “Emi told me.”
He froze, not even blinking. “And that makes me more able to empathize with your situation?” he asked in a measured voice.
“Yes,” she said. “It does. Because you’ve suffered.”
“And you’ve suffered, too?”
She shrugged, suddenly shy. “Are you mad that I know about your daughter?”
“No,” he said, pulling back and crossing his knee. “But it alarms me that you can relate to that tragedy.”
“Do you hate yourself for what you did?” Charlotte asked.
He looked abstractedly away from her. “Yes.” He heaved a sigh. “It hurts. But I try to own my suffering as much as possible, and be worthy of it.”
There was something about Mr. Kerrigan’s words that seemed very important.
“How do you be worthy of suffering?” she asked.
“By being conscious of it, and not running away from the truth.” He leaned forward too, put both hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “Charlotte, every day, you have to ask yourself, ‘Do I believe in the importance of being human? Are my struggles worth all this pain?’ And every time – every day – you have to face all the bad things that have happened in the world and all the bad things that have yet to happen, and say yes, it’s important. In the end, that’s what living comes down to. Saying yes, and thrashing around in the dark, and waking up the next morning to say yes all over again. Yes and yes and yes, every single time."