Games of the Heart (The 'Burg #4)(113)
“Everything good?” she asked, head tilted slightly to the side, eyes unwavering on him.
“Some of it phenomenal, some of it shit.”
Her lips tipped up and she murmured a soft, “Life.”
“Yeah.”
She took in a breath and said, “I need to talk to you about Rees.”
Mike felt his shoulders get tight.
This was a surprise. He’d figured her visit was about Merry and how her brother was f**king it up, not pulling his finger out and sorting shit with his ex-wife Mia, a woman he still loved, a woman he still wanted and a woman he was f**king around with getting back. If it wasn’t Merry, he figured it was something else, something to do with his job or how he could help her with a kid at school going off the rails.
Rees, absolutely not.
He knew Rees was in Rocky’s class. He also knew Rees was getting straight A’s in that class. So a discussion seemed unnecessary.
Unless it was yet something else he didn’t know about his daughter.
“She okay?” Mike asked.
Rocky nodded then leaned forward but did it with head bent, pulling open the bag on her lap. “The usual thing to do would be wait for a parent teacher conference but I didn’t want this to wait.”
She pulled out a folded lengthwise, thin sheaf of papers and set it on Mike’s desk.
“That’s an assignment,” she declared as the paper flipped open and Mike saw a large, red, circled “A+” at the top.
Seeing the grade, puzzled, his eyes went from the paper to Rocky.
When he caught her gaze, she shared, “I’m delaying returning these reports back to the kids for you to have some time to read that. If you could get it to Layne tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.”
“Clue me in, Rocky,” he invited.
“It’s exceptional, Mike,” she whispered and Mike’s gaze on her grew intense as his chest started to warm.
“Pardon?” he asked.
“It’s exceptional,” she repeated. “And when I say that, in all my years of teaching I have never, not once, seen anything the caliber of your daughter’s work. To say she’s advanced would be an understatement. We’re not talking a freshman doing junior or senior class work. We’re not even talking a freshman in high school is doing college-level work. I’m telling you that her report on Flowers for Algernon could be published.”
Mike blinked and he did it slow.
Rocky kept going. “This isn’t the first time I felt that with one of Rees’s assignments. At first, I hate to admit, I thought she was plagiarizing. This is because I’ve never seen anything like it turned in, not once, not in my career. But I checked it and she isn’t. Then I thought it was a one-time deal. But considering that assignment,” she tipped her head to the paper, “is her fourth exhibiting that level of talent, it’s not a fluke. She’s gifted and when I say that, she was already a maestro at fourteen but with each assignment, the quality becomes richer. And I wish I could say this was because of my excellent teaching skills,” she said on a grin, “but it’s not. For Rees, it’s coming naturally.”
Mike said nothing as he processed this information, the warmth in his chest intensifying and expanding.
Rocky filled the silence.
“It isn’t just her writing that’s exceptional, which it is, Mike. I fall into her reports. She has a unique style that’s remarkable. It isn’t like she’s doing an assignment, answering a question. She’s building worlds around the books she’s reporting on. They move her and she has absolutely no difficulty expressing how they do. But it’s more. She absorbs meanings and subtexts from the novels they’re assigned to read with a maturity that’s astounding. She sees things I don’t see, feels them and then is able to express them in extraordinary ways.”
Rocky’s words washed over him and Mike’s eyes dropped to the paper as he lifted a hand and touched his fingers to his daughter’s work like he’d skim them over the finest piece of crystal.
Rocky kept speaking. “I know on a cop’s salary it wouldn’t be easy considering, uh…your ex-wife probably isn’t in the position to help but with that caliber of work, Mike, Rees Haines has no business at Brownsburg High School.”
Mike’s eyes shot to her and she kept talking.
“She’s that gifted. She needs to be in a school for gifted children. At the very least, she needs to go to writing camps where she can be encouraged to explore her talent, expand it. I’ve spoken to her other teachers and although she struggles with math and science, any course closely connected with the arts, she excels. It’s quiet, not showy and her other teachers and I don’t think she understands her gift, even knows she has it. In fact, we all feel that she’s phoning it in which would mean that if she actually were to make a concerted effort, exemplary work would become something else entirely and all of it good. Her gift needs to be recognized and fed, Mike. And if you like, we can set a meeting where you, she and I can talk about this and I’ll be happy to research schools and possible scholarships. But I encourage you to find a way to help your daughter recognize her talent and further find ways she can be guided to explore it.”
“We’ll set the meeting,” Mike replied immediately. “And I’d appreciate it if you came to it with suggestions of schools which would be a good fit for Reesee.”