Читать книгу The Trick To Getting A Mom - Amy Frazier, Amy Frazier - Страница 6

WHAT KIND OF FATHER WAS HE if he couldn’t keep one little girl out of trouble?

His gut in a knot, Sean McCabe pushed through the double doors of Pritchard’s Neck Elementary School. Alex, his eight-year-old daughter, had been suspended from school. For fighting.

At the end of the long echoing corridor that smelled of floor wax and chalk dust, Alex sat outside the principal’s office, alone, perched on an enormous bench that made her seem very, very small. Small and adrift on a sea of polished tile.

She looked up, and, even from a distance, Sean could see the shiner, reddish-purple and puffed and already closing one eye.

Instinctively, he rushed to her. “What happened?”

“I finished my work before everybody else,” she replied, her head cocked at a defiant angle. “So I raised my hand to go to the bathroom.”

“And?” Sean prodded, suspicious. Alex had a way of complicating simple tasks.

“And I thought about how Seafaring Cecil—” Seafaring Cecil was Alex and Sean’s favorite travel writer “—says you can adventure anywhere just by drawing a map.”

“So…?” Sean didn’t trust this train of thought. Alex had inherited his wandering soul, and, more and more in her “explorations,” she pushed the limits of what he considered safe for her.

“So I started a map on one of the paper towels from the bathroom with a pencil I found wedged behind a radiator, and I ended up in the fifth-grade-wing.”

This wasn’t the first time Alex had strayed. Or the first shaggy-dog explanation she’d given Sean. It was, however, the first time his daughter faced suspension from school for her adventuring.

He leveled a stern look at her. “Ms. Simmons told me you were fighting.”

With a stubborn one-eyed squint that showed no sign of tears, Alex met and matched his steady gaze. “I hit a fifth grader.” She sounded neither proud nor remorseful. To her it was only unvarnished truth.

He gently grasped her tiny face with his big weathered hand, turned her head to examine the darkening eye. Tried to steady the racing of his heart. “Why, baby? Why?”

“She said I smelled like bait.”

Sean’s gaze dropped to the miniature boots Alex seldom removed—the ones he’d had custom-made to match his own. “Our boots do smell like bait, sweet pea. So what was the real reason you hit her?”

Alex’s self-assurance wavered. Her chin wobbled and her shoulders sagged. “She…said…you must be a crummy dad if I had to go out lobstering to take care of you.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “You’re not a crummy dad. You’re the best.”

“Oh, honey.” He pulled her into his arms.

She was fierce, his daughter, fierce and proud and loyal far beyond her age and size. A chip off the old McCabe block.

“Ahem.” Candace Simmons, the school principal, appeared in the doorway to her office.

Sean stood. “Candace—” He caught himself. “Ms. Simmons.”

“Mr. McCabe.” She looked as if she didn’t relish either the necessary formality or the task at hand. “I’m afraid we have a zero-tolerance policy toward fighting. As I told you on the phone, Alexandra is suspended from school. For two weeks.”

“You said she’d be suspended for one.” He recognized the need for punishment, but two weeks was harsh.

“That was before Alexandra produced this from her boot.” Candace held out a letter opener Sean recognized as a freebie for taking out a loan at the Ocean National Bank. It had a faux scrimshaw whale for a handle. “We also have a zero-tolerance policy toward weapons.”

“Alex?” A headache forming behind his eyebrows, Sean looked at his daughter for an explanation.

“It’s not a weapon, Dad. I carry it in case of snake bite.”

“You know perfectly well there are no poisonous snakes at Pritchard’s Neck Elementary.” Sighing deeply, Candace turned to Sean. “It’s this inability to distinguish reality from fantasy that gets your daughter in trouble.”

“Clearly, she didn’t intend to hurt anyone with the letter opener or she would have used it during the fight.” He believed children should accept responsibility for their actions, but he also knew Alex. “She might fight, but she doesn’t fight dirty.”

“Sean.” Candace spoke softly, but looked him right in the eye. “The rules are there for the safety of the children. Even if I wanted to, I can’t make exceptions where safety is concerned. So…one week for fighting. One week for possession of a potential weapon. Two weeks suspension.”

“But there are only two weeks left of school.”

“Yes. The maturity Alexandra shows in completing her work outside of class will affect our decision to promote her…or not.”

“You’re telling me she might not pass?” Sean felt his blood pressure rise. “Hey, she’s one bright kid.”

“We both know that.” Candace’s pause spoke volumes. “But she’s disruptive. She has tremendous difficulty staying on task. Difficulty, too, interacting with her peers.”

“You know she’s used to being around adults.” Mainly because he was raising Alex in the home he shared with his father and his brother. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Of course not. But Alexandra’s behavior is beginning to hinder her education.” Candace rested her hand gently on Alex’s head. “When you take her to her pediatrician to look at that eye, please, discuss her classroom behavior.”

“What are you suggesting?” Defensive, he slipped his arm around his daughter.

“I’m saying that there are sometimes physical reasons for behavior patterns.” Candace’s expression softened. “It’s just wise to check.”

“You’re talking hyperactivity—drugs to counteract it?”

“You know that, by law, I can’t make a medical diagnosis.”

But she could push him in that direction, he thought, his jaw set. He would not drug his child. His active, inquisitive, normal child.

“In the meantime,” Candace continued, “these are the class assignments for the rest of the year.” She handed Sean a hefty packet. “I’ll personally monitor Alexandra’s suspension but she’ll need adult supervision at all times.”

“Of course.” Taking Alex’s hand, Sean stood, feeling as if they were two against the world.

Under the best of circumstances, Alex required almost constant supervision. Unfortunately, Sean’s circumstances weren’t the best at the moment. In addition to pulling his own traps, he was building a lobster pound with his father and brother, a potential family business they’d laid their life savings on and had hoped to have up and running before school’s end. Until the start of summer day camp, school had been Sean’s only viable child-care option.

This suspension also brought home the hard fact that the time had come to rein in his adventuresome daughter.

Before Jilian had died, Sean had made her a solemn promise to keep their baby safe, but with each passing year the task grew more difficult. Especially with a child like Alex, who never colored inside the lines.