Chapter 17: Jennifer Chancelor, Wednesday Evening

After school, I picked up Bonnie and we went to the hospital to check on Mum. She comes home tomorrow morning so that’ll be good. Dad was sitting there as well, and they were watching a farming show on TV. We get a lot of farming shows on TV in this part of the country. Dad switched off the TV when we came in and we spent time catching up with each other.

Dad told us how Mum’s outbursts when she screamed nonsense at us were a brain thing called IED that was probably related to the cyst that grew in her head. He told us the doctors think they should fade away over the next few weeks and then not happen anymore after that.

Mum sat there when he was talking and didn’t say anything. I looked at her and said, “I’m glad that you’ll get better.”

She nodded and said, “Me too, honey. Me too.”

We hung around for a while and then went home. Dad was pretty quiet – he seemed to be thinking about some stuff, so mainly Bonnie and I were talking.

I put together a rice and tuna salad which we all had for an early dinner, then we had to go for Bonnie’s teacher conference. Dad threw me the keys and said, “You drive, I’ll sit in the back so that Bonnie can sit up next to you.”

So we did that and drove to school, which took all of 5 minutes. As we got out of the car, I stood in front of Dad and said, “Hey, are you ready for this?” He was looking distracted.

He said, “Huh?” And then he said, “Oh, right, yes, sorry. I’m ready.”

We started walking into the school and Dad said, “I never really like these teacher conferences. I have bad memories of Mrs Finkel. She always smelled of peppermint. At a teacher conference she told my parents that I might be gay and that I had a crush on Frederick Nagel.”

I blinked in surprise. “Wow, what teacher would say that?”

Dad shrugged. “Apparently Mrs Finkel would.”

“And did you?” I asked. “Did you have a crush on Frederick Nagel?”

“Well, no. But I did want to be his friend. He had a really cool comic collection.”

That made me laugh.

“Maybe I could pretend to be Russian,” said Dad. “Then you could translate everything Miss Little says for me and I can grunt and mutter back to you in Russian.”

“Dad!” protested Bonnie and rolled her eyes.

“Miss Little has already met you several times,” I said, “and she knows you speak perfectly good English. Besides, neither of us speak a word of Russian so how’s that supposed to work?”

“Brevka,” said Dad in a fake-Russian accent. “Dassayovitch.”

“What does that mean?” I asked

He shrugged. “Haven’t got a clue. But it sure sounded ... ouch.” He stopped talking and rubbed his arm where Bonnie had pinched him.

“Behave!” I said sternly and glared at Dad.

He grinned at me cheekily, but he stopped clowning around.

We sat in the entrance hall of the primary school and waited for our appointment time. Dad went back to being quiet. I looked around at the walls which were covered with drawings and paintings and artworks made by gluing random objects together. There were things dangling from the ceiling by string as well, mostly cardboard boxes decorated to look like aeroplanes or dragons or various animals. It looked pretty much the same as when I’d been a student in this section of the building. The actual artwork had changed but the atmosphere was the same.

While we waited, Bonnie wandered off to talk to a couple of her friends and I ended up chatting to a girl only a couple of years older than me. Leda was here for her sister too, except she was the proper guardian for her sister rather than just a temporary mum like me. I felt bad for Leda, having to take on all that responsibility but she waved it off. She said sometimes these things were necessary and it wasn’t so bad, really.

We got called in for our interview and Miss Little stood up from her chair to greet us. She doesn’t fit her name, by the way, she’s medium height and a little bit plump. Miss Little is probably only a few years older than me. She’s energetic and friendly and she recognised both Dad and me from times we’d spoken previously. A few proper sized chairs had been set up in the front of the room which was good because the rest of the chairs in the classroom are designed for little people.

Miss Little asked us about Mum and we told her things were looking good and that she was coming home tomorrow. Then Miss Little turned to Bonnie and said, “Okay Bonnie, now you get to show us your folio.”

Bonnie went to a rack of baskets at the side of the room and pulled out a basket with her name on it. Out of that, she picked up a big folder with plastic pockets stuffed full of worksheets and drawings and all sorts of things. For the next few minutes Bonnie talked about the work she’d been doing in class and pointed out things she’d done and so forth. A lot of it we knew about already because we’d helped her with her homework, but it was still interesting.

Then Bonnie showed us her folio from Year 4. Miss Little spent a bit of time comparing writing tasks and maths sheets and so on from the previous year to this year to show how much Bonnie had improved. I managed to ask a few intelligent questions but mostly we just let the show-and-tell unfold. Then Miss Little talked about the focus for the next few months and what she wanted Bonnie to be working towards next.

Finally, Miss Little looked at Bonnie and said, “Okay, Bonnie, it’s time for you to wait outside.”

Bonnie stood up and started walking towards the door, but Dad put his arm out and caught her, dragging her into his side. “Hold on, sweetheart. Miss Little, do you have anything to say that can’t be said in front of Bonnie?” Miss Little shook her head.

“Good, neither do we.” Dad hung onto Bonnie and she leaned against him while he stayed sitting in his chair. “So, has our little one been behaving herself?”

“Yes, yes, there’s no problems at all with her behaviour. She’s had a few problems focussing this week, but that’s to be expected given the circumstances. Apart from that, she’s been fine.”

Dad squeezed Bonnie into him and then eased off a bit.

“What about socially?” I asked. “Has she been having any problems there?”

Miss Little smiled. “This group is really good together. They all get on well and there’s no real social issues at all in the class. I like to mix up the table groupings so each week they sit in a new group. It doesn’t seem to matter who they sit with, they’re all soon chirping away like they’ve been best of friends forever.”

“We mostly have,” said Bonnie. “Apart from Mona, she started in the middle of last year. Oh, and Athena started at the beginning of this year. Apart from Mona and Athena, the rest of us have been together since prep.”

“I’ve been really impressed with the way the girls have looked after Athena since she joined us. Athena has some ongoing issues, but the girls have been wonderful with her.”

Bonnie shrugged. “We’ve always looked after Sally since the beginning. Of course, we’d look after Athena too. It’s not like it’s her fault or anything.”

I looked at Bonnie. “Is this the girl with the problem with her legs that you told us about?”

“Yeah, that’s her. But her legs are only part of her problem. Mona thinks she has Post Trauma ... um ... Post Traumatism ... something. Anyway, Athena sees Mr Puretti, so Mona can’t talk to her dad about her at all because of her being a patient and everything.”

I looked at Bonnie. “Maybe Athena wouldn’t want you telling everybody about how she’s a patient of Dr Puretti.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. But Athena told us. One time when Mr Puretti came to the school to pick up Mona, she saw him, and she said, ‘Hey, that’s my doctor.’ Not even Mona knew until Athena said that.”

Bonnie suddenly stopped and looked at us, “I guess Mr Puretti is our doctor now, too. Isn’t he? That’s so cool.”

That was pretty much the end of our conference. We said our thankyous to Miss Little and left the room.

As we walked through the main building, Bonnie took our hands and steered us towards a little alcove. It was a little shrine to remember girls who’d died, with photos and little mementos scattered around each photo.

Bonnie pointed to one photo. “This is Annabelle Richardson, she’s the girl who drowned in the fountain in Memorial Park last year. She was a year younger than me. I remember she used to sing all the time.”

Then she pointed at the photo of an aboriginal girl. “This is Layla Hendricks. She died in a car smash two years ago. She was in Year 5 when it happened so that makes her two years older than me. Her sister Patsy is in my grade. She still gets sad about Layla. The others were further ago. I don’t remember them, but their names are written under the photos.”

I pointed at one of the other photos. “That was Zee Brooks. She was in my year but not in my grade. She went swimming at a beach up on the Gold Coast and got caught up in a rip. I remember how devastated we all were.”

We took a moment to stand there and remember the girls who’d died. Then we went home. As we were getting into the car, we saw Dr Puretti and his wife getting out of the car with Gianna and Mona. I guess they had their appointments later than ours.

When we got home, Dad got us together in the kitchen and we sat down at the table.

“Okay,” said Dad. “I think we need to have a meeting before Mum comes home tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s a good idea.”

“Before we do that,” said Dad. “I want to say that Bonnie, you did a fabulous job at the conference tonight. I’m really proud of the way you spoke, explaining the work you’ve been doing and so forth. I could see that you’ve really been working hard at school and that’s important. Keep it up, sweetheart. It will all pay off in the long run.”

“Thanks Dad,” said Bonnie. She was blushing a bit, but I could see she was pleased with the compliment.

“Now, apparently I haven’t been doing such a good job at being a husband and father.”

“Don’t say that, Dad. You’re great,” said Bonnie.

“Thanks, sweetheart, it’s nice of you to say that. But I had a long talk with Dr Puretti, and it turns out that this issue with Estelle has been mostly my fault.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “You aren’t responsible for the way she’s been behaving.”

“Actually, I kind of am,” he said. “I stood back and left her to run the family and she wanted me to do that. If I’d asserted myself a bit more, then maybe she wouldn’t have got so stressed trying to do it all herself.”

“Oh,” I said. “I think I get what you’re saying.”

“I need to take more responsibility for what happens in the family from now on and you two can help me do that.”

“How can we help?” asked Bonnie, about half a second before I did.

“When Estelle gets home tomorrow, we’re going to keep going with what we started last Friday.”

“Really?” said Bonnie and I at exactly the same time. We grinned at each other and I said, “snap.”

Dad nodded. “Yes, really. Estelle is willing to do it. So am I. It’s just down to you two.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m on board. But why? I thought after Mum had her operation and everything...”

“It seems that giving Estelle some time to break out of a few bad habits is a good thing. Also, I need to build up my assertiveness. Dr Puretti suggested I would have a better chance of doing that with you, Jen, as my stand in ‘wife’ rather than with Estelle as my actual wife.”

“Mr Puretti talked to me about me rebuilding my relationship with Mum,” said Bonnie. “I’ve been trying to do that. I don’t want to be mean to her.”

“Nobody’s asking you to be mean to her,” said Dad. “As a matter of fact, it might be easier for you and Estelle to reconnect if she’s being your little sister than if she’s trying to re-establish herself as your mother and trying to tell you what to do, but at the same time trying to do it differently from the way she was doing it.”

“How long do you think this will keep going?” I asked.

“Until it stops,” said Dad. Then he shrugged. “Probably a couple of weeks. Dr Puretti thought it would take about that long to establish new behaviour patterns.”

“So I get to go on being your wife for two more weeks?” I asked. I wasn’t at all unhappy with that plan.

“That’s right. A wife to me, and a mother to Bonnie and Estelle. More importantly, I’m asking you to help me – give me a prod if I start backsliding. And Estelle is happy for you to help her as well by giving her a prod if some of those bad habits come out. And maybe you could act like you think a mother should act towards Bonnie and Estelle. She’s thinking very hard right now about what sort of mother she wants to be, and you could be a role model for her.”

“What about me?” asked Bonnie. “Am I helping too?”

“Of course, you are,” said Dad. “You can help Jen remind us if we don’t do what we’re supposed to do. But you’ll have two other really important jobs.”