Chapter 15

"Mr. Austin, please meet me in the hall." I turned to the class, "Your first assignment today; arrange the portraits of the Presidents in their order of office. President Ford is to remain where he is. General Washington is to be placed two hangers to the left of President Ford ... his left ... not your left. You may consult each other. The moms will supply any needed materials or apparatus."

I followed my father to the hall.

As soon as the door was closed he spun on me and raised his hand to strike. I looked him straight in the eye.

"Go ahead, I hold the watch."

He looked at me and stilled his hand.

"You gave ... no ... ordered me to this task. I was ready to sit with you and mom in friendly discourse, but no, you had to make a circus out of it ... LIKE YOU HAVE DONE SINCE YOU WERE BORN! I read moms diary ... YOU could have stopped them from this ... this ... this ... charade, but you didn't.

"If I were to ask anyone of the moms' they would all tell me that you joked about how much fun this will be. I'll tell you, in deadly earnest, I AM the teacher and you WILL respect me. When we are in that ... classroom ... I am in charge."

I shattered in that moment ... I was thirteen, crying and there was no help for it. My life had changed in a split second. The man on whose lap I sat, who hugged me when I fell, who taught me to swim, ride a bike, walk, climb trees, fish, shoot, protected me through the first thirteen, had become a stranger ... just another man.

"Daddy, it liked to have killed me to strike MY mother ... my beautiful mom, the bearer of my secrets and the giver of my life ... my mentor ... but YOU made me do it! I'll never forgive you."

The door opened behind me. I didn't need to look, I knew who it was. I put out my hand and the paper was placed in my hand. I brought it to my sight.

Fifty lines, 'I will not sass the teacher, as she is quick of temper and may inflict great bodily harm upon my fundament, ' in her own blood. Fifty times.

At the very bottom, mother wrote, 'Miss Austin: I am heartily ashamed of my actions. Please, forgive me.

Mom'.

Not Mrs. Austin ... Mom.

She understood.

I turned to her and got her very wet ... snot even. We howled ... both of us. Mr. Austin's hand went from strike mode to brushing his hair back.

"I'll never understand women as long as I live," he muttered.

We, the both of us, stopped crying long enough to say, "Of course you don't. You're a man."

"Wendy," Mom said, "Let's go have a cup of tea."

"My class?"

"It's going to take forever for them to get the presidents in order. Right now they're arguing about who came first ... Taylor, Tyler, Thompson or Taft. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Ask the idiot with the plan," I said.

"David, are you sure you want her to do this?" We left him standing in the hall.

"Thompson?" I said, "They watch too much TV."

Earl Grey is a great soother of ruffled souls ... buttered scones help, too.

"Mom? Where did the windows come from?"

"In the classroom?"

"Yes..." I pointed at the kitchen wall. "That's the wall, there are no windows."

"Posters ... the windows are real but the trees and houses are posters from photos by D.B. Cooper. It's a series taken out of a real classroom in the old Junior High."

"It looked so familiar."

"It should ... you went to school there last year. They demolished it over the summer."

My eyebrows receded to my hairline, "They tore my old school down?!? Why?"

"Wendy! You hated that building. The state swooped down on the school board and demanded it be demolished. You know ... the biggest reason you're accepted at the high school is because both the seventh and eighth grades will have classes in the east wing. Your sisters start Monday."

"I have to go to school with THEM? And the boys?"

"Just two years, Too. You'll be in college and the new school out by the park will be finished." She stretched her hand.

It distracted me. "Mom, I need to look at your hand."

I did.

"What on earth have you wrapped it in ... it looks ... like a snot rag ... MOM!!"

We ended up at the sink where I scrubbed and poked antibacterial ointment into the cut. Butterfly bandaids held it shut. I set the watch for the parking lot at the hospital and we walked into the ER.

The doctor said, "That's quite the cut ... Catholic School?"

I've been telling every one she's my mother.