A Child's Wish

“Bo Reynolds is always trying to scare up trouble about something.” Even Meredith, who rarely saw the paper, had heard of him. “Everyone knows you have to take him with a grain of salt.”

“I’ve had more than forty calls already this morning,” Mark said, still by the window and facing her now, arms behind his back.

She had a feeling they were being forcibly held there for her protection. He’d sooner have his hands around her throat. She stood up.

“From whom?” she asked, pretending a calm she couldn’t even remember how to feel.

“Parents who wanted to make sure their third-grader was not in the same class as Tommy Barnett.”

Sweat oozed out her pores. “How many of them were?”

“One.”

Out of four third-grade classes, roughly 120 students, with forty calls, only one had been from her group?

“My parents know me and trust me.” Other than the obvious exception.

Mark dropp

ed his arms, sighed. “I suspect you’re right,” he said with some hesitation. He leaned on his desk with his palms down, bringing his face closer to hers, his eyes deadly serious.

“It has to stop, Meredith.”

She said nothing.

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“Not one more time,” he warned. “Please.”

Meredith withstood his scrutiny even when that hard glint returned to his eyes. He stood up and said, “I don’t want to have to fire you.”

“I know.” But he would if he had to. Still, the threat wasn’t going to stop her feelings, wasn’t going to stop the knowing. And she wasn’t going to stand by and silently watch children suffer, if she thought she could help them.

Of course, if she wasn’t around, she’d be useless to them.

She was just going to have to get a whole lot better at figuring out how to act on those situations that “occurred” to her without her being told about them.

“Can I go back to my class now?” she asked. “Mrs. Brewer is here for music this morning and we’re second on her list.”

“Yes.” Mark waved a hand at her. “Go.”

She didn’t wait for any niceties, didn’t intend to say another word. But at the door she turned.

“Mark?”

“Yeah?”

“Who was the one?”

She wasn’t surprised when all she received in reply was a frustrated stare.

TOMMY BARNETT DIDN’T show up late for school on Monday. He didn’t show up at all. But his mother did, late in the afternoon, avoiding Mark’s gaze as she withdrew her son from Lincoln Elementary School.

“I’m sorry,” she told Mark, sitting in his office, filling out papers on a clipboard she rested on her lap. The obviously expensive gray pantsuit she was wearing, the jewelry, makeup and well-tended hair didn’t seem to give her any confidence at all.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mark told her. “I completely understand.” He sat behind his desk, an authority figure who lacked the power to change a situation that had arisen under his care. Or even to explain it. “We’re the ones who are sorry,” he continued. “We let Tommy down—and we let you and his father down, as well.”