The Perfect Child(53)
“It’s not an excuse.”
“Really? The only reason we’re telling her is so that Janie doesn’t get kicked out of school.”
“That’s not true. We’re telling her so that she has all the information she needs to make an informed decision.” He spoke like he did when he was instructing interns.
“Please, Christopher, come on. We wouldn’t even consider telling her unless there was a reason.”
He shook his head, unmoving.
“Would you tell another student’s mom about Janie?”
“That’s not the point,” he snapped.
“Just answer my question.”
“It’s not what we’re talking about.”
I pulled my hand out of his, irritated by his continual refusal to make Janie accountable for her behavior. “It’s exactly what we’re talking about. Answer the question.”
“No.”
“You know I’m right.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“Oh my God!” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. I sounded hysterical, but I didn’t care. I was so tired of him backing out of difficult discussions because he claimed he didn’t want to fight. “You know what, Christopher? Sometimes you have to fight.”
I stomped off in front of him, leaving him trailing behind on the sidewalk. I knew I looked ridiculous—nine months pregnant, huffing and puffing down the sidewalk, clearly fighting with my husband—but I didn’t care. He didn’t speak to me when we got back to the house. He grabbed his keys and went to pick up Janie from Allison’s. I had calmed down by the time he returned, but I still felt the same way about telling Elodie’s mom because I didn’t want to set a precedent for Janie’s poor behavior being excused because of her background.
Christopher settled Janie in front of the TV and came to talk to me in the kitchen. I was chopping up the vegetables to use in the stir-fry for dinner.
“You feeling better?” he asked.
“You mean am I still mad at you?”
He grinned. “Yes . . .”
I set the knife down and looked him in the eye. “I’m not mad at you anymore, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve changed my mind. Hurting someone else is unacceptable, and Janie needs to know that. The only way she’ll ever get that is if she’s held accountable for her actions. Any other child would be kicked out of school for what she did.”
“And letting her get kicked out of school is helpful how?”
“Look, I don’t want her to get kicked out of school any more than you do. Trust me. It’s the last thing I want right now, but we have to set a precedent for this kind of behavior. All we ever say is that we want her to be treated like a normal child. You can’t have it both ways, Christopher.”
“You don’t know the full story. We haven’t even talked to her. How do we know she was hurting her on purpose?”
I slapped my hand on the counter. “Are you kidding me? She pinched her hard enough to leave bruises. More than one time. She absolutely knew she was hurting her.”
“We don’t know that.”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “I’m not doing it.”
“Fine. I’ll do it. Where’s the number?”
I grabbed the contact information from my purse and handed it to him. He tucked it into his pocket.
“I’ll call her after we talk to Janie,” he said. “I want to make sure we have Janie’s story before I have any more conversations about what she did.”
He waited until after dinner to talk to Janie about the Elodie incident because she was always happiest after she’d eaten. Allison had sent home fresh-baked brownies, and we each had one for dessert.
“We want to talk to you about school,” Christopher said.
“Okay,” Janie said, licking the chocolate frosting off the top of her brownie.
“We had a meeting with Mrs. Tinney today, and she told us that you’ve been hurting Elodie by pinching her. Why are you pinching Elodie?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I already told Mrs. Tinney. I wanted to see what she looked like when she cried.”
“But why? Why would you want to make her cry?” Christopher asked.
Her lower lip trembled, and she looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“It’s not okay to make people cry. You can’t do that,” Christopher said, trying his best to sound stern. “You’re not going to be able to go to school if you keep hurting Elodie. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
He called Elodie’s mom, but it didn’t matter anyway. Two days later, Janie pushed Elodie off the slide, and Elodie broke her arm in two places. The school had no choice but to expel Janie.
THIRTY-TWO
CHRISTOPHER BAUER
I listened as Hannah described all the articles she’d read about getting an only child a pet to help with new-baby jealousy and ease the transition. She was fixated on a story from one of her favorite mommy bloggers, because her daughter was the same age as Janie, and they were only a few months ahead of us on the journey.
“They got her a dog, and it worked wonders for everything she was going through. Isn’t that amazing?” she asked without waiting for me to respond. She’d already told me the story twice, but I let her tell it a third time since she was so excited about it. “Her jealousy disappeared almost right away because she had something special to take care of that was all hers. I think it really might help Janie if we got her a pet. What do you think?” This time she paused and waited for an answer.