heart pounds. I head around toward the back of the school to see if any of
the back doors are unlocked.
Here is what I know:
I cried at my conference with Jamie’s teacher and principal last
night and afterwards, I drove home angrily, because I can’t afford a private
school and I don’t want my kid to stand out any more than she already
does by having her tailed by some aid all day so the kids all think she’s a
freak because apparently there’s no specific diagnosis for stupid. When I
arrived at home, Jamie sat at the table eating Fig Newtons with a glass of
milk. She was smiling and singing to herself, making the cookies dance
before she ate them. I loved her so much in that moment; my sweet little
girl who’ll never be smart enough to be anything else. But I wanted to
punish her, because I’d done everything I could to protect her body and
she’d failed me anyway.
I walked over to the table where she sat and I yanked her cookie
out of her hand and slapped it down on the table. She looked up at me,
her big eyes too trusting to be frightened. Somehow, that made me even
angrier. I pulled her up off her chair by her hair and moved her up against
the wall.
“You having a hard time at school, baby?” I leaned down so I was
talking right at her, so close I could have kissed her. “Your teacher says
you’ve been having a hard time.”
It was the first time I ever hit Jamie and I promise, I absolutely
promise it will be the last. I don’t know what came over me, but I couldn’t
stop myself. That sweet sound of my palm against her skin. When I find
her, if I find her, she will have bruises. If I have to have the police help
me, and if she tells them where the bruises came from, I will tell her how
sorry I am and I will cry and if I’m lucky, they’ll let me hold her hands
so she can remember that that’s who I am. I’m her mother and we hold
hands and hold each other when we’re scared.
And maybe she wouldn’t tell them that. Maybe she’d say she fell
down. She might choose not to tell them that I sent her to bed without
dinner, or that I got drunk last night and went to bed in a haze of booze
and that that’s why I couldn’t hear her when she slipped out in the middle
of the night.
I turn around the corner toward the back of the school and glance
over at the playground; monkey bars and plastic steps like statues. In the
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