The Secret Next Door, page 9
“But I’m very concerned.” Mrs. Sinclair lowered her voice and addressed Alyson directly. “His behaviors are getting in the way of his learning and keeping him from making the progress he could be.”
Alyson’s brow wrinkled, and the tips of her fingers touched the letter sound page. “But you said he had made good progress.”
Mrs. Sinclair nodded her head, but her eyes opened a fraction wider. “Yes, and the growth is encouraging, but he is still very behind the other children.”
“What do you mean? Where should he be?” Andrew’s drawing on the wall outside the class now seemed particularly telling.
Mrs. Sinclair took a deep breath, both her hands flattened onto the table, her fingers spread wide. “Of course, all the children are at differing levels and abilities. And most of the others had the benefit of preschool…for several years even before starting kindergarten, so many of them were reading higher-level text before they even started.”
Alyson felt the blood drain from her face. “They’re reading? Books?”
Mrs. Sinclair nodded, her mouth a flat line of sympathy. “Yes, but I don’t want you to think they’re all reading three-hundred-page chapter books. It’s really only a handful at that level. Many of the students are still in the early readers, working on the kinder sight word lists and decoding. My worry is that, with Andrew, we’re still spending much of our time on just the individual letter sounds. Never mind the blending and sight word foundation he’ll need to start tackling even the early readers. I feel that his behavior is slowing the academic progress down even further, causing him to fall further and further behind his peers. Which, I think, is increasing the negative behavior. He knows he’s not performing at the same pace as the other kids. It upsets him, thus more behavior issues, and less academic progress.” Mrs. Sinclair shook her head. “We’re in the middle of a vicious cycle.”
Alyson felt a knot forming in her throat, a hot ball of fear and helplessness. She didn’t know what to say. As she shook her head, her eyes welled up and blurred the pages before her. Was this her fault? Should she have sent him to preschool, worked with him on his letters? A tear broke loose, rolled down her cheek, off her chin, and landed with a wet splat on the blue inked page.
“I know it’s difficult to hear,” Mrs. Sinclair said as she reached for the box of tissues on her left and placed them before Alyson without missing a beat. “I’ve been teaching for thirty years, and these discussions are never easy. You might consider speaking with your pediatrician. Generally, when there’s this level of concern about focus and impulsive behaviors, they will give you an evaluation to fill out and another one for us here at the school.”
Alyson remembered her son’s words from two weeks ago. The anger she felt about what he had said, how the other kids were treating him, how this woman was treating him, returned. She swallowed back her tears and straightened her back. “Because you think he has ADHD.” Her tone was now clipped and defensive.
Mrs. Sinclair, sensing the shift, sat back an inch in her chair and squared her shoulders. Her empathetic expression was replaced with a calm but chilly one. “Of course, I’m not a doctor—”
“No, you’re not. You’re a kindergarten teacher who has led my child to believe that there is something wrong with him.” Alyson pointed to the single desk beside them as evidence. “You’ve excluded him, allowed the other children to exclude him, and publicly labeled him with ADHD, and now the other kids say that to him.”
Mrs. Sinclair, her face now a blank and unreadable mask of professionalism, gathered the pages on the table and replaced them into the purple folder. “If the other students are excluding him, then I will address it with the class as a whole. But you should know, the other students may be avoiding Andrew because, when he becomes emotionally escalated or doesn’t get his way, he will often scream in their faces. He has also, on several occasions, hit other students. I assure you, I have never publicly labeled Andrew in any way. Still, it can be difficult to control what other parents say based on what their own children tell them about what happens in class.”
Andrew hit other kids? Alyson felt like she’d been slapped. “What? Why wasn’t I made aware—”
“I have made many attempts to call home. Unfortunately, it’s always immediately picked up by a generic voicemail. You may want to verify that the number the front office has on file is correct. Additionally, I’ve sent six emails, as well as sent copies home of the Think Sheets Andrew has had to fill out for you to sign. But I’ve never received any of those back, so I’m uncertain if they’ve made it to you.”
Alyson shook her head.
Mrs. Sinclair picked up a pen and a pad of sticky notes beside her and handed them to Alyson. “If you could please write down a viable phone number and email address where you can be reached, I will forward all my previous email attempts to you. I will also be sure to use that contact information from now on.”
Alyson took the pen and quickly scribbled her information. When she finished, the red apple kitchen timer rang out between them, signaling the end of the conference.
Mrs. Sinclair placed both her hands on the table and pushed herself up from her chair. “Thank you for coming in this evening, Mrs. Tinsdale.” She extended her hand across the table, and when Alyson took it, Mrs. Sinclair gave her a single limp shake before she quickly dropped her hand. “I’m sorry your husband was unable to join us. The data in the folder is for you to keep. I will be in touch.”
Dismissed, and not knowing what else to say, Alyson gathered the folder, took Andrew’s hand, and turned to leave without even saying goodbye. As they left the class, another family waited patiently at the door to enter.
“Hi, Andrew,” the little girl said as they passed.
“Hi, Deepali,” he said back.
Alyson felt the eyes of the parents on her, watching for some sign of a typical social exchange between adults whose kids were in the same class. She gave them a brief smile and averted her eyes, never even slowing her rapid exit. Alyson wanted to get her son out of this room, out of this school, as fast as possible.
“Can we go to the bookfair?” Andrew asked.
She pretended not to hear him.
“Mom?” Andrew pulled on her hand and tried to stop moving his feet, using his body as an anchor to slow her down. “You said!” he shouted as she tried to pull him past the entrance to the library where the bookfair was on display.
Unable to keep him moving, she stopped, took both his hands in hers, and crouched down to face him. “Not now,” she hissed. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” she lied.
Andrew’s face crumpled in anger. “You promised!” he screamed, his voice echoing down the hall. He yanked both his hands from her grasp as he dropped to the floor, then scrambled to his feet and bolted into the library.
Several other parents nearby gave her sideways glances. A few had sympathetic knowing looks. But none said a word as they surreptitiously waited to see what she would do next.
For several seconds, she stared into the bookfair. Feeling completely mortified and also silently telling herself that temper tantrums were normal, every one of these parents had been in her shoes. Probably.
She considered her options:
Chase after him, pick him up, drag him out kicking and screaming.
Act as if nothing had happened. Follow him inside and buy him something he didn’t deserve.
Or walk away. Stand up, turn toward the front entrance, and head for her parked car. Open the door, sit in the driver’s seat, and wait for her five-year-old son to realize she wasn’t coming this time.
“Hey, there you are.”
Alyson turned away from the library entrance and looked into her husband’s face.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, sounding fairly sincere. “Traffic was terrible… Can we still talk to his teacher?”
Alyson stared at Justin, simultaneously relieved and annoyed. “I already went to the conference.” She handed him the purple folder and Andrew’s mangled family project from her purse. “He’s behind academically, has behavior problems, and just threw a fit and ran away from me into the bookfair.” Alyson took her keys from her purse. “I’m going home now.”
“Wait, what?” Justin asked, his expression clouding as he looked between the papers in his hands and her face.
“I’m going home,” she repeated. “I’ll meet you and Andrew there when you’re done at the bookfair.”
And without another word of explanation, she walked up the still busy hallway and out the school’s front door.
Chapter Thirteen
Bonnie stood outside Elijah’s bedroom door. Her hand flat against the paneled wood, she imagined him lying on his side, curled beneath his comforter, eyes closed in sleep. His cheeks, round and soft, the palest blush of color hinting at the warmth she would feel when she placed her hand against his face.
Losing the strength to keep it up, her head dropped forward. Her hand slid down the wood as her legs gave way and left her slumped on the floor, her face pressed to the door. The grief, it never left her. Like a tide, it rose, swelled, abated—but it never stopped. It had no bottom, no end, and when it washed over her, its icy swells were black as ink. It filled her, overwhelmed and consumed her. Bonnie was drowning in a riptide of grief and had no will to swim.
Her son was dead.
It didn’t matter how many hours she spent here, remembering him, imagining him on the other side of this door—he wasn’t there. He would never be there again.
The reality was too much to bear. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She had no wish to believe it. How could it be true that her Elijah was dead?
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t right.
Please, God, please, she thought over and over and over. Morning, noon, night—Please, God, please.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing changed. He wasn’t here. Elijah was gone forever. However much she begged, she would never see him smile, hear his voice, or hold him in her arms again.
Exhausted, confused, Bonnie lay down outside his door, closed her eyes, and, for the hundredth time today, wished herself dead as well.
Chapter Fourteen
It had been a month since Elijah Sloan’s body was found, and the police still had no leads. Several parents had posted on the Enclave Facebook page that they weren’t going to allow their kids to go trick-or-treating tonight. Others planned on driving to neighborhoods farther away. A few parents reasoned that, since they would be with their children, they weren’t going to allow the perpetrator “to win by making us hide in our house and live in fear.” Which prompted an avalanche of argument from both sides: The Timid vs. The Brash.
Alyson read every comment on the Halloween post, her own feelings pulled first one way, then the other. She was afraid, terrified actually, of the fact that whoever had killed Elijah Sloan was still out there. But she had moved to this neighborhood, and was currently yoked to a mortgage beyond their financial means, for the specific reason that she wanted her son to grow up in a safe neighborhood. A neighborhood where she felt confident Andrew could ring doorbells and be greeted by fellow parents—dressed as witches and Obi-Wan Kenobis—smiling and doling out handfuls of mini Kit Kats and Snickers.
Not snatched off the sidewalk and dragged off to some basement prison.
Alyson fastened the Velcro tabs on the back of Andrew’s Spider-Man costume. She silently worried about the gap of exposed skin running along his spine, where the cheap red polyester fabric didn’t fully come together. She had tried to get him to at least wear a T-shirt, maybe his thin thermal leggings? But he refused to wear anything but his Spider-Man underwear under the flimsy costume.
As soon as the last Velcro tab was secured, Andrew snatched up his plastic jack-o-lantern bucket and sprinted away from her. Before she could get up and out his bedroom door, his small, red-socked feet were alternating down the carpeted stairs.
“Hold the handrail!” she called, and rushed toward the stairs herself. Bracing herself, she watched him leap the last three steps and land in a crouch on the wood floor below.
Justin walked toward the front door with a bowl of candy in his hands. He smiled at Andrew and laughed. “You ready?”
Andrew held out his arms in front of him, his middle and ring fingers folded into his palms as he posed and shot a pretend web at his dad like Spider-Man.
Justin’s hand covered his chest like he’d been shot. “Ah, you got me, Spider-Man!”
“Daaaad,” Andrew complained. “It’s not a gun.”
“Oh, right.” Justin smiled and tousled Andrew’s hair. “I forgot.”
Alyson walked down the last few stairs. “You need your shoes,” she reminded him and handed over the tiny Spider-Man tennis shoes.
Andrew dropped to the floor, shoved both his feet into the shoes without undoing the straps, and sprang back up with his trick-or-treat bucket in hand. “Gracie said the houses on her street pass out the big bars. I want to go there first.”
Alyson closed her eyes in a moment of exasperation as she quickly unpacked her son’s sentence. Gracie Sloan must be back at school, and Andrew must have spoken with her. Alyson wondered what exactly Elijah Sloan’s five-year-old little sister knew about his death. And what information, exactly, she might have shared with the other kids in her class, including Andrew.
“I need my coat first,” Alyson said and turned to the closet. “And so do you,” she whispered under her breath.
Andrew threw his head back and collapsed in a fit of frustration onto the floor. “Mooommm, all the good candy is almost gone! Gracie said you have to be first to get the big candy bars!”
“It’s not even dark yet,” Justin said as he gazed out the long, thin windows that flanked each side of their front door. “And we haven’t had a single kid yet. You’ll for sure be first,” he said and reached a hand down to Andrew, who seemed to really be considering the logic of his dad’s assessment.
Alyson slipped into the arms of her coat and decided she’d just carry Andrew’s for now. No sense bothering to have the fight until it was absolutely necessary. She’d wait and see if the cold helped change her son’s stubborn mind. “You’ll pass out the candy?” she asked while keeping her eyes focused on her coat’s zipper.
“Yes,” Justin said, his tone clipped. “I said I would, didn’t I.”
Alyson nodded. “Okay then,” she said, and walked to the door. “See you later,” she added, everything about her unsure of how to be with this man whom she’d been married to for seven years. Suddenly it felt like living with a stranger—or a bad roommate. She felt fairly sure that the reason Justin had offered to pass out the candy while she took Andrew trick-or-treating was that he had every intention of retreating down to his subterranean compound.
Andrew rushed past her and out the front door. Alyson took a breath and looked into her husband’s eyes. All the questions she had rolled up inside her. What is wrong? With you, with me…with us? How big is this wrong? And what do you do down there? How bad is it? Is it life-changing? Marriage-ending?
All the questions she was too afraid to ask—too afraid to have answered.
“Bye” was all she said.
Justin raised his hand and turned away.
She crossed their small porch and the two carved jack-o-lanterns she and Andrew had butchered in the backyard. It was only twilight, and the warm glow of the small tea lights was just beginning to show through the wide, toothy grin on hers and the small gash of a mouth on Andrew’s. He waited impatiently at the bottom of the porch stairs, bouncing on the balls of his feet to get started.
“Mom, hurry.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
Andrew’s intended destination: The Highlands development. Gracie Sloan’s neighborhood, where the custom homes were enormous, and they passed out whole chocolate bars, was two blocks away. It was clear by the way he skipped fifteen feet in front of her and never once even paused to consider stopping at any of the Enclave starter homes on their own street, that her son was on a mission. It only took her a few seconds to realize that no other kids were trick-or-treating on their street either.
It was early, not even dark yet. But as they reached the end of their street and turned right onto the main road that circled through the neighborhood, she still hadn’t seen one other child. The awareness ignited a small flame under her ever-present anxiety—it was their first year in The Enclave. Were there some unspoken Halloween social norms they were breaking here?
She took Andrew’s hand as they crossed the street and slipped her phone out of her coat pocket. She should have texted Gabby earlier.
Hey there, are your kids trick-or-treating tonight?
She waited for the response, but there was no slowing Andrew down. As they rounded the corner into the Highlands development, Gabby still hadn’t replied—but Alyson did see other kids.
All younger, like Andrew, out with their parents early, but the sight of them was enough to ease her anxiety. They weren’t the only ones. Obviously, Gracie Sloan hadn’t steered Andrew wrong; her street was the best street when it came to the candy—and it seemed like a lot of kids knew to hit up the largest homes first.
As Andrew ran up the brick path to the first house on the corner, Alyson’s phone buzzed in her hand. It was Gabby’s text response.
God yes. Michael Myers could be standing on our porch with a knife, and my kids would run right toward him.
Ha! Are you already out?
No. Kids are still getting ready, and Dennis is on trick-or-treat duty this year. I’m passing out candy and having a glass of wine as soon as they’re all out the door—hopefully soon! Want to come over?
I wish. Out with Andrew, and Justin is at home.
Well, come over when he’s done if you’re up for it. My die-hards stay out till people stop answering the door.
