Page 34 of Molly
“Okay…”
“The military would contact him about six months in advance of a PCS.” She flicked her attention to my face and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, I forget people not in the military world don’t get all the acronyms. PCS stands for permanent change of station. Anyway, they’d contact Dad about six months out usually and get the process rolling. The first time we moved, Mom and Dad filled me in on the details right away, but I didn’t handle the change very well.”
“What happened?”
Rosy splotches mottled her porcelain cheeks. “I cried for six months straight. They were beside themselves trying to find ways to help me adjust.”
As a father, I wasn’t sure who had most of my sympathy in this story: Molly or her parents. “Relocating can be hard.”
Her head bobbed in agreement. “To save themselves the pre-theatrics, as they called it, they decided they just wouldn’t inform me ahead of time the next time we moved. I came home from school to find two big moving trucks in our driveway and men hauling boxes of our stuff out.”
“That’s...” I couldn’t come up with an accurate word.
She shrugged. “They had their reasons. Everyone does when they lie, right? Even lies of omission. But I’ll never forget the punch-in-the-gut feeling every single time it happened.” Her blue-green eyes met mine, her glasses doing nothing to dilute the power of her gaze. “I never want to be the originator of that feeling by withholding the truth from someone.”
A jolt shot down my spine—the same connection I’d felt with her the day before. If I asked her, would she say she felt it too?
I cleared my throat and took a step back. When Princess Sparkle Cupcake became real, that’s when I’d start dating again. Hadn’t I said that to Drew? I couldn’t allow the attraction I felt for Molly to jeopardize Chloe’s care. That wasn’t something a good father would do. I’d just have to get her out of my head.
Where was a good medical journal when I needed one? Nothing cooled the blood faster than reading about communicable diseases.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned my focus back to our conversation about honesty. There seemed to be holes in the execution part of her ideology. Especially given her desired occupation. “How will your philosophy work when you become a teacher? I mean, there really aren’t that many absolute truths, are there? Even science, which is based on facts and research, is molded by the perspectives of different theories. Not to mention the subject of history in elementary school tends to give students rose-colored glasses to look back through.”
She tapped her chin. “Are you asking if I’ll direct a Thanksgiving play with my students that continues the falsehood that the holiday somehow celebrates the cooperation of Pilgrims and Native Americans when there is no historical foundation for such a production?”
“No buckle shoes and feather headdresses?” I gasped in mock horror.
She elbowed me. “If my students were to put on a holiday production in November, I don’t see why the leading roles couldn’t be of Sarah Hale and Abraham Lincoln. Instead of starving Puritans, there’d be the campaign of uniting a war-torn country on the back of nationalism.”
I crossed my eyes. “How very festive.”
“And not in the least a semi-mythical fabrication.” She grinned at me before waving again at Chloe. “You do have a point, though. History is full of people and people make mistakes. Sometimes heinous ones. Thomas Jefferson, for example, is hailed for his authorship of the Declaration of Independence but he also entered into a sexual relationship with a fifteen-year-old slave and kept the children of their union as slaves as well.”
I winced. “Would you teach young children that?”
She didn’t answer for a long time. So long, in fact, that I’d begun to think she wouldn’t answer at all.
“White-washing history is a big problem, and I think we short-change children when we not only ignore the injustices of the past but glorify some of them as well. How much better would it be if we, as adults, took those moments to impress upon young minds conscience, equality, and sensitivity to how some people groups treated others and how theyshouldhave been treated? Sometimes we forget that certain events in history still influence and shape lives of marginalized individuals today. Japanese Internment camps, forced sterilization of Native American women, and the suppression of the right to vote by Jim Crow laws are just a few examples of injustices that darkened our country a generation past.”
She paused again. “But would I expose all the dirty details of historical figures? Especially to the youngest learners? No. Despite what some people believe, Idohave some common sense.
“But I wouldn’t build those historical figures up quite as heroically as some curricula do either. And, if a student happened to read a biography on a person and discovered some of his or her seedy decisions, I’d be there to help explain and enlighten in any way that I could.”
I tried to picture what it would be like to talk to Chloe about some of the things Molly brought up. Showing Chloe drawings about people chained together on slave ships would scar her tender heart. While I didn’t want to lie to my daughter, I did want to protect her from some of the crueler things of the world, both in the present and the past.
Since she was only four, I had a few years yet to think about how I’d broach tough subjects, but maybe I should consider starting small early on so she’d have a wider perspective as she grew and could have a sensitive spirit for others like Molly said.
I studied Molly from the corner of my eye. While a psychologist might have a field day with her compulsory need to always tell the truth, I rather admired the quality. It couldn’t be easy, especially when faced with certain consequences. Made her rather brave, really. And, yes, while the root of her unwavering honesty lay with a childhood trauma, she seemed to have found a way to cope that made her a better person for it.
“Should we go see the Truffula tree now?” I asked, mentally stepping back. I’d wanted to know the reasons behind her ideology, but I hadn’t anticipated her answer making me like her more. “I promised a Dr. Seuss field trip, and what would be better than a physical representation of his favorite book?”
She hiked a brow at me. “You know Truffula trees aren’t real, don’t you?”
“I know no such thing.” Chloe called for me to watch her go down the slide again, and I waved her over as soon as her feet touched the ground. “Let’s show Miss Molly Dr. Seuss’s inspiration for addressing environmental and industrial issues through cartoon and rhyme.”
Chloe brushed her hair out of her face. “The Lorax?”
Molly seemed surprised so I explained. “I take her to the Geisel Library every year in March for Dr. Seuss’s birthday. The kids can’t see the original manuscripts or the drawings of his that the library has on collection, but they do up a nice exhibit. I don’t think there’s a Seuss book Chloe isn’t familiar with.”
