Betrayed

Madeline sat in the parking lot of Cedarbrook Academy. Her thoughts were jumbled, darting in and out. Many questions rushed in, with no answers following. She wanted to scream, but it was no use. No one who mattered would hear her cry, and no one else cared. In the midst of a megacity like Detroit, she felt incredibly alone, to the point of aching. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel, wishing it was possible to stop time and stay in her claimed space of solitude. The honking horn from a car entering the lot ended her fantasy. Reality had a way of shaking her when she was getting too comfortable. She opened the car door and proceeded to handle the business at hand, Mr. Andre.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Mitchell,” the school secretary said as Madeline entered the main office. “You can go right in. Mr. Cruthers and Andre are waiting inside.”

“Andre’s in there too? Why isn’t he waiting out here?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Mitchell, but you can go in.”

Madeline was curious but didn’t press the secretary for more information. The secretary obviously didn’t know or wasn’t saying. Madeline opened the door and found Andre sitting in a chair toward the rear of the room.

“Come in, Mrs. Mitchell,” the headmaster said.

“What’s Andre doing in here?” For previous incidents, he’d been sitting in the main office, waiting for someone to pick him up, which meant her.

“I decided it is best to keep him away from the other students until Andre is able to gain control of his temper.”

“I see,” Madeline said, irritated but not sure who most deserved her ire. She truly wanted to vanish. She envied Dave for having the luxury of choosing what he wanted to do and when. He was content in a meeting at this very second, while she was forced to bail their son out of detention, again. Madeline took a seat. “Come out of that corner, and sit up here with me and Mr. Cruthers,” she said. Madeline didn’t seek the headmaster’s approval. She would have preferred it if Andre had been left in the main office, rather than being forced to sit in some isolated nook like a common criminal. She wasn’t pleased with the headmaster and would let him know, but her disdain for his judgment in no way compared to how outraged she was with Andre.

Her son took his time moving up front. She turned to him.

“Did you hear me?” she said cynically, enunciating her words, having no regard for what the headmaster might think.

Andre picked up his pace and plopped down into the seat next to her.

“Thank you for coming over so quickly,” Mr. Cruthers said.

“No problem,” she said, although it was a huge problem. She had a job to do, and so did Andre. He was supposed to take his behind to school and stay out of trouble. How was that asking too much she wondered? “Why am I here again, Andre?”

“I don’t know,” he said, hunching his shoulders and scooting down in the seat.

“Sit up!” Madeline shouted before catching her tone. “You know why I’m here,” she told her son.

“He was fighting again—”

Madeline interrupted. “Excuse me, Mr. Cruthers. I’d like to hear it from Andre.”

Her son shut his eyelids and relaxed his head on the back of the chair.

“Did you hear me?” Madeline said, coming close to his ear, enunciating again intentionally conveying the fact that she meant business.

“All right, jeez. I was fighting.”

“I don’t know why you asked me when he’s already told you,” Andre muttered.

That was it. “Let’s go,” she said, ready to lift him by his tie and drag his grown behind to the car. Since he had so much lip and wanted to talk back, she’d find a long list of grueling chores for him at home. That should give him something else to do besides getting into trouble.

“Mrs. Mitchell, can I please speak with you alone?”

“Sure,” she responded after whispering a set of instructions to Andre about how he should conduct himself in the main office. Madeline didn’t have patience for his foolishness. He’d better get his act together and quickly if there was any chance of escaping severe consequences. Turning fourteen in a few months, he was getting too old for this, and she was too tired to be running back and forth to school to deal with his schoolyard brawls. When the divorce was finalized he was only twelve. She’d extended extra grace because he was having a difficult time adjusting from the start. Years were passing without him getting better. Her patience was wearing thin. “Wait outside until I’m finished,” she ordered.

When he was out of the room, the headmaster said, “We’ve had many behavioral challenges with Andre in the past two years. However, it has intensified in the past three months. Are there factors at home that might be adversely affecting Andre’s behavior?”

“The only factor I can think of was his father getting remarried this past summer.” Madeline had to think. Up until now, she hadn’t given too much consideration to the outside factors. Mr. Cruthers had her thinking. She realized the children had suffered abandonment issues with Dave’s departure. They each had their bouts with sadness, including her, but the other children were adjusting. Until this second, she’d figured Andre would too.

“Does he interact with his father?”

“He does.” “As I mentioned, his father got remarried last year, and I went from being a stay-at-home mom to going into the office every day.”

“My, that’s quite a few significant changes for Andre that happened in a relatively short time frame.”

And that was not counting the fact that his natural father died four years ago and his mother died several years before his dad. Hearing the scenario recited aloud caused her to pause. Madeline’s heart went out to Andre. If he was already overwhelmed, how were they going to tell him that his father and Sherry were expecting a child together? She guessed Dave had a tough job to do; one Madeline had no intention of doing for him.