Mummy Said Goodbye

“Please. Come and sit down.” She led the way to her desk. When she sat behind it, he followed suit in a creaky old armchair of that yellowed oak being retired from all public institutions.

She looked nervous, but her eyes met his. “We’ve met before.”

“I remember.”

“I was very sorry to hear about Julie’s disappearance.” She said it carefully. Had rehearsed it, he guessed. “I liked her.”

He nodded again, keeping his face expressionless.

“This must have been a very difficult year and a half for you.”

Craig had lost patience with pretence. “Is there a point to this?”

Her expression told him he’d been rude. “I was going to add that it must have been a difficult time for Brett as well.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. Yes. Of course it has been. As you said, he’s angry.”

“And sad,” she prompted, as if he’d forgotten something important.

Craig grimaced. “That goes without saying. Does he miss his mom? Of course he does. But that’s not at the root of his problems. It’s the whispers, the friends who turned their backs, the cops coming over and over again to interview his father.” He heard how harsh his voice had become. “It’s the fact that we might as well live in a zoo, with people peering into our cage with morbid interest and fear.” He made himself stop. “Does that give you some insight into Brett, Ms. McKinnon?”

She gaped, and Craig realized that he had been leaning toward her, trying with body language to strengthen his description of a life he hoped would horrify her. Would truly let her understand his son.

Letting out a long breath, he leaned back. The chair groaned. Silence swelled.

Her tongue touched her lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I didn’t realize…”

“Why should you? Unless you hurried your son to the other side of the street because you saw Brett coming.”

There was a fearlessness in her eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. And something else—shame.

“No,” she said, still in that low, husky voice. “I wouldn’t have done that. But I should have encouraged Malcolm to stay in touch with Brett. I let Brett slip from my radar. For that…I really am sorry.”

To his astonishment, he believed her. All he could do was nod. His throat seemed to have closed. He met kindness so damn rarely.

Clearing his throat, he nodded at the folder and spiral binder she had squared on the desk blotter in front of her. “Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on.”

Blinking, she looked down, then gave her head a small shake. “Yes. Of course.” She bit her lip, then lifted her head to meet his eyes again. “From the first day, Brett’s been…sullen. He stays to himself. He has no friends that I can see.”

“He never did make friends as easily as my younger, Abby. But he had a couple of good friends. One moved away right before…” His jaws tightened. “The other kid pretty much turned his back on Brett. I don’t know if it was by choice, or on his parents’ orders. Or if Brett’s turmoil drove him away.”

“Oh, no,” she murmured. When he said nothing more, Ms. McKinnon seemed to gather herself. “He…attacked another boy one day this week.”

“He was in fights a few times last year.”

“Yes. But this seemed different from the usual elementary school fights. Mrs. Hayes didn’t say anything in her notes about Brett to make me think she’d been alarmed by the incidents last year, beyond the fact that they’re a symptom. But this time…” Her eyes were unfocused as she frowned, apparently searching for words. “He…erupted. I could see such rage on his face. I think, if I hadn’t been here, he’d have really hurt the other boy.”

“But you broke it up.”

“Well, of course!” She glanced down at the spiral binder that lay between her hands, planted palm-down on the desk. “I’ve had concerns from the first day, but I wouldn’t have called you yet, I would have let Brett settle in and seen how it went, except for this.”

Her touch ginger, as if the garden-variety spiral notebook held directions for building a nuclear bomb, she lifted it, turned it around and held it out to him.

Uncomprehending, he took the notebook.

“In my class, everyone has to write a journal. They make entries every day. I do warn them that I’ll be glancing through their journals, mostly just to be sure they’re writing. Sometimes I read more than other times, particularly if I’m concerned about a student. Sometimes they write quite a bit about their home lives.”

What in hell?

Craig looked down at it, strangely reluctant to open the cover. Something had shaken a woman who’d been teaching sixth grade for a number of years. He’d have thought she would have seen—and read—it all by now.

With an abrupt movement, he flipped open the notebook and saw his son’s nearly illegible scrawl filling the page.

Lots of people deserve to die. Not my mom—she’s not dead anyway—but lots of other people. That cop. I want to go, like, burn a cross on his grave. Or something. So people know he’s a son of a bitch.

Actually, “son of a bitch” was preceded by some horrific obscenities. Words Craig hadn’t realized his son knew, far less used.

Heart drumming, he continued to decipher the scrawl.

Like Ryan Durney. I wanted to kill him! I still want to kill him!!! Maybe I will. He says I’m like my dad. He thinks I’m a murderer, so maybe I’ll be one. I’ll just punch him and keep punching…

Feeling sick, Craig read to the bitter end. The appalling stream of consciousness broke off midsentence. Apparently journal-writing time had ended. Hands shaking, he closed the notebook and sat with his head down.

Oh God, oh God. How could this rage, this rot have been filling his son’s head without him knowing?

Craig had read about the stunning tragedies at schools like Columbine without understanding how it could have happened without the parents seeing that their children had turned into monsters.

Now…now he knew.

Eyes burning, he looked up. “I had no idea.”

Voice soft, Robin McKinnon said, “I assumed you didn’t.”

“He says I’m ‘like my dad,’” Craig quoted. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Does Brett think…” His throat closed.

With clear compassion, his son’s teacher said, “I don’t know. He did defend you to me, but…what a child says isn’t always what he believes, deep in his heart.”

Pushing the spiral notebook away with revulsion, Craig asked, “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“Not…quite. Hints of it.” She nibbled on her lip. “These kids have all seen slasher movies, you know. Really grisly stuff. So imagining themselves in that world, if you will, isn’t the stretch for them it might have been for us when we were kids.”

He nodded numbly, wanting to believe that Brett didn’t mean any of this, but unable to.

“This, though…” She, too, gazed at Brett’s journal. “It shocked me.”

Craig shook his head. “He must have known you’d read it.”

“Yes, and that’s what gives me hope. I think he must want an adult to know what he’s thinking and feeling.”