A Dangerous Punishment

She pulled down the sleeve of her sweater to cover bruises she didn’t want the principal to see. The plush leather chair at the desk before her—a gleaming cherry block holding a stack of leather-bound books about bullying, a glass lily-shaped paperweight, a Newton’s cradle, and a gold nameplate that said, “Winona Smitherman, Principal,” as if anyone who ended up here wouldn’t know her position—bore down upon her like a funnel cloud. Despite the cushions beneath its burgundy burlap upholstery, the chair on which she sat felt as if made of granite. Beside her, in a duplicate, Brennen traced invisible patterns in the beige Berber carpet and swung his feet like a child of four, rather than fourteen. He hadn’t said a word since she’d joined him here.

           When Smitherman had called and told her what had happened, she’d felt as if smacked by, rather than the fists to which she’d grown accustomed, a semi truck. Brennen had always been a good kid, keeping his head down, doing his work, never getting into trouble, until now. And a girl, of all people? A girl whom, as far as Christine knew, he barely knew? He had to know the danger this would put them in. Why had he had to pick the single worst place and time to lose his temper?

Buzzing. A fly entered the room, circled, and landed on the paperweight. Brennen lurched forward, swatting at it. The fly veered away, and his hand slammed, instead, the paperweight, shattering it. The jagged shards channeled the sunlight streaming through the slats in the blinds into golden laser beams.

           “Oh my God, Brennen, are you okay?”

           “I’m fine,” he said, pulling his hand away and caressing it.

           “We should have the nurse—“

           “No, it’s fine.” He leaned forward and, with his uninjured hand, pulled back and released the ball on one end of the Newton’s cradle. It struck the one adjacent. The ball at the other end flew back and hit the one beside it. And on, and on. Click…click…click…click…

           Smitherman entered. As she closed the door, her eyes fell on the broken glass.

           “I’m so sorry,” Christine said, heart trilling. “I’d be happy to buy you a—“

           “It was from my ex-husband. Don’t worry about it.” She made her way to her chair, her short, chunky heels thudding on the carpet, and sat down. Folding her hands on the desk, showcasing short, unpolished nails, she said, “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Aldrich.”

           As if she’d had another livable choice.

           Smitherman continued, “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

           Christine shuddered; if her fifteen-year marriage had taught her anything, it was that good news seldom mattered when bad news also headed one’s way. Still, she held out hope—hope of Brennen receiving a punishment she could hide from Dalton—because anything else would doom her. It would be worse than when her father had found out that she’d gotten a B on a math test; when, a few months later, she’d folded his jeans the wrong way when putting them back in his dresser; when, as a teen, she’d returned two minutes after her curfew. Worse than when Dalton had found a spot on the dish with which she’d served him; when she’d forgotten to dust the banister; when she’d arranged the ebony dragon figurines from his studies in China on the mantle in the wrong order; when, driving him to Home Depot, she’d hit a pothole.

           “Good news is,” said Smitherman, “Talia Fielding’s chosen not to press charges, and, given your son’s otherwise clean record, I’ve decided to go easy on him.”

           That should’ve brought some relief, but didn’t.

            “Bad news is,” Smitherman continued, “I still have to take action. Two weeks out-of-school suspension.”

           The guillotine blade plunged through Christine’s neck. How could she keep Brennen home for two weeks without Dalton knowing? She opened her mouth to argue, to beg, but her voice withered like a sun-deprived flower.

The principal turned to Brennen. “I know how frustrated you must feel, Brennen, but violence isn’t gonna do you any favors in the long run. I’ve given you a break this time, but, if it happens again, I’ll have no choice but expulsion. Understand?”

           Christine nodded. “Yes. Yes, thank you, Ms. Smitherman. And we’re so sorry.”

           “Just don’t let it happen again.”

She and Brennen rose. Brennen led her out of the office, out of the school, into the parking lot. The sun had ducked behind clouds pregnant with all-too-appropriate rain, gusts sharpening the air and rocking her thirty-year-old Toyota as she and Brennen climbed in. She stuck the key in the ignition but didn’t turn on the car, instead pulling a breath into canvas-stiff lungs, preparing for yet another confrontation. “What’s going on, Bren?”

           Brennen turned his head, looking out the window, at cars and asphalt and, beyond, oaks with stumps like elephants’ hooves studding the horizon. When he turned back to her, his face had gone the color of a clown’s lips, his eyes fragmented by tears. He looked, in that moment, more like the little boy who’d given her a card saying, “Hapy Muther’s Day,” above crayoned stick figures than the young man he’d become. “I’m sorry.”

           Her heart twisted; she wanted to fling her arms around him and tell him that it would be okay, she’d make everything okay. But she knew that he needed was promises she couldn’t keep about as much as he needed a hernia.

           He’d moved his gaze to the floor, the toes of his ten-dollar Wal-Mart sneakers wiggling, hands shoved beneath his thighs. “I’m an idiot,” he said. His eyes hardened. “But it isn’t just me. Seeing what he does to you…It gets to you, you know? Gets in your head.”

           Knives stabbed her gut. She reached out, placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Bren. We’ve just gotta figure out what we’re gonna do about your father. I was thinking, maybe, I can drop you at the library before I go to work, and you can walk home after school lets out in the afternoon…”

           “No, I’m not doing that.”

           She flinched. “Why not?”

           He shook his head. “Look what he did to me. I…I can’t keep doing this. Either I tell him, or we go.” He looked at her at last, his eyes holding no less pain but, also, determination.

She gripped the wheel in sweaty palms, every cell trembling. She pictured Dalton’s eyes shooting fire when she told him. His fists, powered by fury she hadn’t seen as yet, flying. Herself balled on the floor, tears streaking her cheeks, begging for mercy she knew she’d never receive.

Brennen had made her choice for her—a choice terrifying, but somehow, also, freeing.

           She turned the key in the ignition. The car coughed to life. With luck, they’d have enough time before Dalton returned from work.