CHAPTER NINE

TOBY WAS HAPPY AND CAREFREE THE REST OF THE WEEKEND, AND Monday morning he literally skipped to school. But by the time he got home that afternoon, he was anxious and grumpy. “I can’t do it,” he whined over his math homework.

Sean didn’t look up from the bills that covered the kitchen table. “Yes you can.” He added up the rent and the tutoring bills but didn’t have enough to cover both. Noah would probably be fine with half of what he was owed as long as he got the other half in a couple of weeks. The cable bill was also going to have to wait. He looked up when he heard Toby whimpering. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m stupid,” he said, pulling his hair. “I can’t do word problems.”

“Come on Toby, calm down and read it again.” He was going to need some extra cash this month for Christmas presents. And framing supplies for the Burdot pieces. He could pay the minimum on the credit card for a few months. But there was no way he could put Toby in the after school art class he wanted to take next semester.

Toby rolled his forehead back and forth on the coffee table, a death groan emanating from deep inside him.

“Cut it out and do your work.” He hadn’t meant to yell at Toby, but the drama was over the top.

“I told you I’m stupid,” he yelled back. “I can’t do it!” Toby hurled himself face down on the couch.

Sean pushed away the bills, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Yelling was only making it worse. It always did. “Come on, Tobe. I’m sure we can figure it out.” Actually, he wasn’t sure about that at all. Helping with math always ended badly.

“Sit up,” he said, as he lowered himself to the ground next to Toby. Toby grudgingly sat up, his face red and streaky. Sean held up the worksheet. “Jane has pennies, nickels, and dimes in her purse.” He started to glaze over. He hated word problems. Maybe reading it with more expression would make it less deadly. “She has eight coins altogether,” he said, stressing the eight. “Including more dimes than nickels, more nickels than pennies, and fewer pennies than nickels. What are the two different amounts of money she could have?” Sean’s stomach contracted with that sick feeling he used to get in math class when he didn’t know or care.

“Um, huh. Okay.” He had no idea where to start. This had to be high school math. Or at least middle school.

“So how do you do it?” There was a challenge in Toby’s voice.

Sean stalled, hoping something would come to him. “I have no idea,” he said, finally. While there were many wrong answers he could have given, this was probably the most wrong. He tried to rally. “Let’s try to work it out.”

He picked up Toby’s pencil. “Uh, okay, Jane has how many coins? Eight? Okay. So … if she has the most dimes, which it says, then, um, huh. Should we just start trying out combinations and see what happens?”

Toby’s forehead was back on the table. “I hate math.” He raised his head. His eyes were full of anger. “I hate myself.”

“Come on.” He tried to sound encouraging. “At least we can try.”

Maybe Toby’s bullshit meter was more developed than Sean had given him credit for. “No!” Toby shouted. He picked up the math packet and tore it in half. Sean ducked as Toby hurled the pieces in his direction.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sean yelled before he could stop himself. He’d let Toby get a rise out of him, which was bad. And he’d said hell, which was also bad. Once you said hell in front of a kid this age, you couldn’t take it back, and it would, without fail, be trotted out later, usually in front of company.

But Toby wasn’t even focusing on the slip. “I’m the dumbest kid in my class,” he screamed. “I can’t do it.” He ran into his room and slammed the door hard behind him.

His inclination was to run after Toby. But Toby needed time to cool down, and Sean needed time to form a plan.

He wondered how Ellie would handle the early-onset teenage outburst, but this was virgin territory. He dialed Noah, who picked up on the first ring.

“Hey man, how’s Toby?” Noah asked. “Everything all right?”

Sean described the math problem and the response it had elicited.

“Yeah, it’s too hard for most kids this age,” Noah said, which was a huge relief. “And no, I’m not surprised they assigned it.”

“But I don’t get it. Why would they—”

“Do you want to know how to do it?”

Noah walked Sean through the problem and explained how to help Toby figure it out on his own. As he hung up the phone, he knew West Side Tae Kwon Do would have to wait another month. He would pay Noah’s tutoring bill in full.

Sean took his time pouring orange juice into a SpongeBob cup then knocked on Toby’s door. No answer. He opened it a crack. Toby’s head was buried under the pillow. “Can I come in?”

Sean put the cup on the night table and sat on the edge of the bed. “Hey,” he said. “You all right?”

Toby took the pillow off his head. “Everyone can do word problems except me.”

“I bet that’s not true, Tobe. That was a hard problem,” he said. “I talked to Noah and I think we can handle it now.”

Toby looked skeptical.

“And I can talk to Jess about it. Ask why she’s assigning such hard math. Okay?”

Toby nodded and eyed the SpongeBob cup suspiciously. “Pulp?”

Sean shook his head. Thank God he’d bought the right juice this time.

By the time Toby had downed the juice, the storm was a mere memory. They worked through the problem, which took about thirty seconds, Sean read him a chapter from Prince Caspian and tucked him in before eight o’clock. Then he emailed Jess. Now that there was a head teacher, he figured he might as well use her.

He set up a meeting for two‐thirty the next day while Toby would be in science.

Being back at Bradley the next afternoon gave him a bad case of déjà vu. As he climbed the stairs, he remembered the soft thud of his foot making contact with Calvin’s torso. The memory set off a wave of nausea that forced him to sit for a minute. He thought about the tubes running into Calvin’s arm and nose and about the machines that beeped when his heart beat. Was Calvin better? Was he worse? Shineman had told parents not to call, to give the Drakes some space, some privacy. But she’d also said she’d send an email with an update, which she hadn’t. The silence was ominous and ate at him the longer it went on.

Someone trotted down the stairs toward him, then stopped abruptly. “Hey!” Walt Renard said, jolting Sean from the depressing reverie. “What’s going on?”

“Just taking a moment.”

“Mind if I join you? I just came from a maddening meeting. I need to decompress a little or I might blow.” When he’d plopped himself a few steps above where Sean was sitting, he looked around. “There a reason for the moment?”

“It’s where I found Calvin.”

“Shit,” he said, staring at the spot where Calvin had been. “Allergies,” he said, wistfully, and trailed off. “Unbelievable.”

“I still don’t get how Calvin could have been so allergic—so suddenly.”

“My upstairs neighbor’s daughter is so allergic to strawberries,” Walt said, “that a knife that had been used for strawberry jam a month before—and washed many times since—sent her into a life-threatening episode. The family is at the ER at least three times a year.”

“It’s so unfair,” Sean said.

“It’s terrifying,” Walt said. Kids squealed on the other side of the fire doors. “You going to be okay?”

“Me? Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He stood and checked his phone. “I’m late though.”

Walt started down the stairs. “I’m counting on you for basketball one of these days. Don’t disappoint me.”

“You got it,” Sean called down after him.

When he got to Toby’s classroom, the wild-haired computer teacher who did all of The Bradley School’s tech stuff was giving Jess a Smart Board tutorial. Sean couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but Toby had him every year for computer class. “Have a seat,” Jess said when she saw Sean. He’d been hoping for a slightly warmer greeting. “We’re just finishing up.”

He sat as instructed. The computer geek was perched too close to Jess, nodding eagerly when she pushed the right button.

“Great!” he said. “You must have had a Smart Board where you taught before.”

“I had a blackboard.”

“Oh,” the guy said. Adoring was the only word to describe the way he was looking at her. “How about if I come by sometime and show you some tricky stuff you can do on here? Advanced stuff.”

“Sure,” Jess said, tentatively. “Okay.”

“I mean, like I pull all-nighters sometimes,” the guy went on eagerly. “So anytime really works for me.”

Jess was looking at him as if he were slightly crazy. Which he may have been.

Sean cleared his throat. “Do you think you’ll be much longer?”

“I think we’re done,” Jess said to the computer teacher, with a smile that softened the blow somewhat.

“Oh. Okay,” he said, the disappointment tugging at his face. “I’ll check back tomorrow.”

“Looks like you have an admirer,” Sean said, when he was out of earshot.

“I’m hoping he’s just excited about the technology.” She pulled up a chair. “Are you here about the extra credit?”

That would explain everything. If it was extra credit Toby wouldn’t have had to do the problem. “I hadn’t realized it was extra credit,” he said. “No wonder it was so hard.”

“What was so hard?”

“The math problem. Jane and the pennies.”

“Oh. No, that wasn’t extra credit.” Jess waved her hands in the air as if to delete everything they’d said so far. “Let’s start again. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Sean described Toby’s meltdown. Jess nodded seriously. “I was worried about that.”

“You were worried about Toby?”

“No, no,” she shook her head. “Just in general.”

“So why’d you assign it?”

“Last year my third grade ran a bake sale during lunch period. That’s how I taught them about money. But Bradley wanted me to teach conceptually.”

“But if the kids are going to freak out because they can’t do it, what’s the point?”

She opened a file and spread out the homework packets. “Fifteen out of the eighteen kids got the problem right.”

“Or their parents did.”

Her sigh was barely audible. “I’ll work it through with Toby,” she said. “It’s hard at first, but he’ll get it, don’t worry.”

He sat, trying not to worry. “That wasn’t actually why I came in,” he started. “I mean, it’s not the only reason I wanted to talk to you.”

Now that he was here, he wondered where to begin. Jess knew something was going on—she’d heard Toby’s Thanksgiving essay. He wanted her to know the whole thing. “In September his mother left.” It sounded terrible when he said it. She probably thought he was a shitty husband, a shitty guy. “She was having some … she was depressed, I guess. Toby and his mom were close, so, well, it’s been a big adjustment. He’s having a hard year.”

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “That’s got to be hard for everyone. It would explain why he’d be having self-esteem issues, though. It could be why he was so down on himself not being able to do that math homework.” She put her hand to her chest. “I’m glad you told me. I’ll think of some ways to help him in the classroom. If you have any ideas, let me know.”

“Thanks,” he said, oozing gratitude. “I appreciate it.” To her left he saw a sign that read: The Show: Music, Dance, Art. “Sounds interesting,” he said.

Jess pointed to it with Vanna-White hands. “That is the extra credit.”

“An extra credit show?” Toby had brought home puzzles and problems over the years, but this was new.

“Almost every parent has called or come in asking for extra credit for their child,” she said. “I don’t get it, honestly. My fiancé thinks it’s because I gave back some gifts.” He looked at her ring finger. The diamond was so small he wondered why the guy had even bothered. Sean had been living on a freelancer’s salary, but he’d managed to get Ellie a nice ring. A ring you could see without a magnifying glass.

“That’s off the record,” she said.

“That parents were trying to bribe you?”

“Your words, not mine.”

“So what did you give back?”

She waved away the question. “Nothing, it’s not important.” When she blushed her whole face—and the scoop of chest not covered by her top—turned red.

“Tell me.”

She looked toward the door, to see if anyone was around. “Promise you won’t say anything?”

“Promise.”

“Season tickets to the Knicks, a Prada purse,” she said, then took a black velvet box out of her desk drawer. “And these.” She pushed it toward him. “I’m giving them back today.” He snapped open the box. Inside was a pair of diamond earrings. Each one was ten times bigger than her ring. “Holy shit,” he said. “I mean, they’re nice. Really … nice.”

He’d heard some of the parents did stuff like this.

“I don’t get it,” Jess said. “Who gives a third‐grade teacher diamonds from Tiffany’s?”

“Now I feel bad I didn’t bring you anything.”

She laughed. Her whole face lit up when she did. “I’ll let it go this time.” She put the diamonds back in the drawer. “Forget I showed you those.”

“Showed me what?”

Jess smiled again. “Good.”

Just then, Bev Shineman let herself into the classroom.

“Hope you don’t mind my crashing,” she said. He couldn’t remember minding anything more.

“Oh.” It was pretty clear Jess was as surprised as he was.

Shineman pulled a chair next to his. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

It was creepy that Shineman was always right there, waiting to pounce.

“We were just finishing up, actually.” Jess held out her hand formally to Sean. He shook it. “Thanks for coming in.”

“I’ll walk down with you,” Shineman said. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

He checked his watch.

“This won’t take long,” she said, and started to walk. “I’ve been observing Toby and some other children in the classroom. He seems to be focused at certain points of the day and very unfocused at others, especially during music, PE, and transitions between classes.” She popped a breath mint in her mouth.

Toby had been coming home on music days complaining that the teacher made him sit out while the other kids played the recorder. “I’m worried that every time his teachers reprimand him—and they have been reprimanding him recently—it’s going to negatively impact his confidence.” Impact was not a verb, Sean thought, and should not be used as one. Math had never been his strong suit, but he’d always been oddly attached to grammar.

“It seems pretty obvious to me,” he said, “that making Toby sit out in music is not the way to get him motivated.”

But Shineman wasn’t done. “At the beginning of the day he starts playing with his friends right away instead of hanging up his jacket and checking in like he’s supposed to. And he forgets things. He’s forgotten his spelling book twice this week.”

This woman was out of her mind. “He cannot be the only kid forgetting to sign in.” Signing in! Who cared? “And he can’t be the only kid who’s excited to see his friends in the morning. At least I hope not.” Why was this being billed as a major catastrophe? And were other parents getting the same lecture? “This can’t be that unusual for a kid his age.” He tried not to sound defensive. “Boys, especially.”

“That may be true in the larger population, but here, we need to get all the children on the same page,” she said. “Many of our children are very capable of these basics.”

“You’re a shri—a psychologist,” he said. “Why are you refusing to acknowledge that an eight-year-old boy might be upset that his mother is MIA? That his best friend might die? Why do I have to convince you?”

She cleared her throat. “My concern is that we don’t overlook something more serious because we’re distracted by a coincidental occurrence.”

They stood in front of the library. “Okay, so I’ll make sure he brings his spelling book. I’ll remind him to sign in.”

“I know you’ve rejected this option in the past, Sean,” she said. A vague Long Island accent slipped out when she said his name. Shawan. “But medication might work wonders with Toby. Even a tiny bit of it. If he can break out of this cycle—and it is a dangerous cycle—he could get some confidence in school. Positive feedback from teachers will make Toby want to get more of it. We’ve seen it a million times. In the end he’ll stop goofing around. If that’s the problem.”

She made it sound so neat and clean. So easy. But what she didn’t seem to get was that his kid was not one of those hyper brats who bounced off the walls. He wasn’t an ADD kid. “I just don’t get why you think Toby needs to be on Ritalin.”

“Of course we couldn’t tell you to put him on medication.” Shineman was now backpedaling. “We’re not even allowed by law to mention that. Just think about an outside evaluation. It can never hurt.”

“I took him to Dr. Hess, remember? He did three days of testing. I’m not putting Toby through that again. It was a waste of time.”

“Dr. Hess tests for different learning styles, academic and emotional strengths and weaknesses. And it was inconclusive. Not a waste of time.” She gave him a smug smile as if she’d won that round. Which she hadn’t. “I’m recommending you see a psychiatrist to determine whether Toby has any type of Attention Deficit. I’m happy to recommend someone if you like.”

“He does not have Attention Deficit. Trust me.”

She put her hand on his arm in a motherly gesture. “Maybe it’s not a neurological disorder. Maybe it’s some other fixable problem.” This comment was obviously supposed to make Sean feel relieved, but instead it gave him heartburn.

She removed her granny glasses dramatically for effect. He noticed now that her eyes were bloodshot and the pouches under her eyes had been covered with skin-colored spackle. “And Sean, just so you know, third grade is a bitch. Kids start to notice who’s ahead and who’s behind. I’ll be honest—they can be cruel. If we can save Toby that kind of humiliation, I’m all for it. Aren’t you?”

NICOLE LEANED BACK ON SEAN’S COUCH, HANDS BEHIND HER HEAD. “So, wanna hear about my date?” she slurred. The bottle of tequila, full when the kids had gone to bed, was now half empty.

“You had a date?” As far as he knew, she hadn’t had a date since she got pregnant with Kat.

“I have dates.”

“Really?” He poured a shot.

“You don’t have to act so surprised, okay?”

He tried briefly and unpleasantly to imagine Nicole having sex. He downed the tequila and waited for the burning to stop.

“You can be such a jackass,” Nicole said. “All right forget it. So what else you got?”

This was Nicole’s way of asking how his day had been. He imagined the assistant district attorneys sitting around asking each other what they got. She was used to answers like extortion, rape, murder.

“The school shrink is riding me to get Toby evaluated. She thinks he has ADD.”

She squinted her eyes and tried to focus on Sean. “I am officially fucked up,” Nicole said. “I thought you just said Toby has ADD.”

“I have to get him out of that school,” he said. “You were right, it’s not worth it.” He’d called six other schools that afternoon—schools he couldn’t afford, that Maureen and Dick wouldn’t pay for—to discover it was already too late to apply for next year. “Maybe I should put him in school with Kat. He’d love that.”

“If you repeat what I’m about to say, I swear I’ll disown you as a brother.” She rubbed lime on the webbing between her thumb and pointer finger and shook on salt. “Public school in this city is a train wreck. It’s free. And as I’ve learned the hard way, you get what you pay for. Kat’s school is only slightly more educational than day care.”

Sean stared at his sister. Her endless arguments about the evils of private school education were just for show.

“If he can survive Bradley,” Nicole said reasonably, licking her hand and taking another shot, “you’ve got to keep him there. I know kids can do it without the fancy school. But your kid got into the fancy school. It’s free—for you, anyway. You can’t flush that down the toilet.”

“What about the Thanksgiving war? That was all bullshit?” It was so typical of his sister. Arguing for argument’s sake. She was such a lawyer.

“Kat’s been to the principal’s office five times,” Nicole said. “Behavior issues. Fucking school.”

“No way.” Sean poured a shot even though he’d decided he was done a few shots ago. From what he’d seen, Kat didn’t bat an eyelash without Nicole’s approval. She’d always been a pleaser.

“It took me a while to figure it out,” Nicole said. “Bored. She’s bored. She’s trying to keep herself entertained.”

“I thought the curriculum was enriched,” he said. He was unraveling the arguments Nicole had masterfully made in favor of public school. “Gifted. And talented.”

“They’ve been doing multiplication tables in her class all year. Kat knew those going into third grade. They’re reading Junie B. Jones, for Christ sake. She’s reading Trumpet of the Swans at home.” Nicole snorted. “They have gym once a week. Once. And they only have art if a parent volunteers to teach it.” She looked at him with a so there expression. “At this point, she’s just showing up. She’s getting in trouble.” Nicole hesitated before dropping the bombshell. “Sometimes she pees in her pants.”

Sean’s jaw went slack.

“Don’t fucking tell anyone. Or I’ll kill you.”

Sean crossed his heart, like he’d done when he promised not to tell that Nicole had taken twenty dollars from their dad’s wallet to buy weed for the high school prom.

“Can you get her out of there?” He thought Toby had it bad. Kat must be miserable.

“I’ve applied to private schools for the last three years.”

She was a master at conversation-stopping bits of information.

“The worst part is she’s gotten in every year and the fuckers won’t give me financial aid.”

“Shit, Nicole.” Now he felt like an ass. “You make a crappy salary. All these schools have money for financial aid.”

“Oh, I make the cut for need. But just my luck I’m a white lawyer with a white child. Now, if I were a struggling performance artist living in the far Bronx with a half-Puerto-Rican child, they’d be all over me. Apparently I’m not diverse enough.” She shook it off with a wave of a salty hand. “Toby’s going to get through this,” Nicole said. “This is a glitch. He’s going to shine, that kid.”

He wanted that to be true. And having Nicole say it made him believe it might be. “Kat, too,” he said.

Nicole smiled weakly. “Get him tested. Maybe if a professional tells the school he’s suffering from Mother Deficit Disorder—not some neurological disaster—that will calm them down. Rule it out.”

“I’m not telling Ellie.” Tellingellie slurred into one word.

“Screw her.” Nicole lay back on the couch and closed her eyes. “You don’t need to tell her shit.” Within seconds she was snoring.