Page 3 of John Wilder Gets Schooled
The guy who opened the door was young, I guessed, but he didn’t look perky and sunshiney. He looked as disapproving as Mrs. Moore had when I’d turned up on her front porch a little while ago.
“Uh, hey,” I said. “This is Gracie. We’re late.”
Like he didn’t already know that.
The guy was a little shorter than me and had dark hair and glasses. He was maybe around my age, which meant he couldn’t have been teaching for very long. Behind him in his brightly decorated classroom, a bunch of little kids sat crisscross applesauce on the floor, craning their heads to see what was going on. There was an empty chair in front of them, and the guy had a picture book under his arm.
We’d interrupted story time.
The guy’s disapproving look vanished as he leaned down toward Gracie. “Hi, Gracie. I’m Mr. Smith. Welcome to kindergarten. Why don’t you put your backpack in the empty cubby over there and take your snacks out so we can see if anything needs to go in the refrigerator?”
For the first time, Gracie faltered. She looked up at me, eyes wide and her bottom lip wobbling. “I don’t have any snacks.”
Mr. Smith’s disapproving look was back as he met my gaze.
“Uh,” I said. “Sorry.”
I should have checked if Mrs. Moore had packed snacks. She was supposed to have Gracie ready with everything she needed for her first day. Not that I’d mention that to her, since she’d find a way to make it my fault. And while I knew it wasn’t, it was still my responsibility to have checked.
“Daddy!” Gracie whispered again in a too-loud voice. “I don’t have snacks!”
“I know, sweet pea,” I said. “It’s okay. I’m gonna go get some and bring them back if, um, if that’s okay with Mr. Smith?”
I’d already interrupted his day once, right? Why not a second time?
By his expression, he’d made the same calculation, and he wasn’t happy about it. But he showed me a tight smile I was sure was for Gracie’s benefit instead of mine and said, “Sure. That’s not a problem.”
His mouth said it wasn’t, but his eyes told a different story.
“Go on in and put your backpack in a cubby, then sit down on the floor,” Mr. Smith said. “We’re reading a story.”
Gracie nodded, then took a deep breath and darted inside the classroom.
“I’ll come straight back,” I said, eager to escape.
Mr. Smith nodded like he wasn’t sure whether or not to believe me and then closed the classroom door gently but firmly in my face.
Cassidy calledwhen I was halfway home.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m on my way to class, but I wanted to see how the drop-off went.”
“Great,” I lied. “No tears or nothing. But you know Gracie. She’s brave as hell.”
“Yeah.” Cassidy’s voice wavered a little.
“She gets it from her mom,” I teased. “How’s college going?”
“It’s good,” she said with a little too much force. Then she relented. “It’s scary. I’m like five years older than everyone else, but I feel twice as dumb.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. You got this.”
“Yeah,” she said on a long breath. “I really miss Gracie.”
“She misses you too,” I said. “But we’ll see you soon enough.”
We talked for a few minutes longer until Cassidy had to get going and I was almost home. I left the truck parked at a bad angle in the driveway. The front yard had been shaded once by the old red maple, but now the grass was a little wilted and bleached by the direct sunlight. Danny had replaced the maple with a sapling, but it’d be years before it cast any shade at all.
Next door the For Sale sign was leaning precariously again, but I didn’t have time to go fix it up. There had been a few people checking the place out over the last few weeks, and sometimes cars drove slowly down the street and stopped for a while. I didn’t know if they were evaluating the neighborhood or casing the place. If they were casing it, more fool them because there wasnothing left to steal. We’d helped Harlan’s daughter clear it out when Harlan had gone to live at Sunny Fields.
