The end of August came much too quickly, and we were already a few weeks into school. Lucy kept bringing in her reading log half-finished and it was getting harder and harder to let that slide. As much as I wanted to confront Braden about it, I realized that he wasn’t the issue.

Linda was.

After a few additional days of an empty sheet, Lucy slipped me her paper with something scrawled across the top. It was enough to make my heart shatter.

Redn is stupt :(

“How’re the kiddos?” Daphne asked me one morning as we filled our coffee mugs in the staff lounge. The room was larger than it had ever been at any of my college placements, complete with a flat-screen television, huge sofas, and an espresso machine. We even had one of those special vending machines that spit out gourmet salads for lunch. At $12 a pop, I’d stick with my leftovers from the Thai place down the road.

“They’re good,” I replied, breathing in the deep aroma of hazelnut and vanilla wafting from our mugs. “I’m a little concerned about Lucy, though.”

“Because of—” she lowered her voice and wiggled her eyebrows.

“Not exactly. But keep your voice down.” It was already hard enough seeing Braden every morning when he dropped Lucy off. I didn’t need any more suspicions. I poured a generous amount of cream into my coffee, watching the milky swirls turn it from a deep chocolate brown to a golden caramel. It reminded me of the color of Dex’s eyes when the sun hit them. “She’s only turning in her reading log on the nights she’s with her dad. I’m worried about how the separation is affecting her, and I’m worried about the effort that Linda is not putting in.”

“Linda, her mom?” Daphne sipped her espresso.

I nodded. “I mean, this is clearly a parental issue, right? It’s something Linda and Braden need to work through. I don’t want to tell them how to parent their child.”

“But you’re not,” she said. “You’re Lucy’s teacher. You see that she’s not getting her work done. Divorced parents or not, that’s still a problem.”

“Separated,” I clarified. Not that it mattered. But the distinction felt important to me.

Daphne cocked her head to the side. “Ames, you have to look at this from the professional aspect, as a teacher. Would you approach it any differently if this were any other student.”

“No, but that’s not the point.”

“Yes, it is,” she argued, setting her mug down. Daphne placed her hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes. She could be very intimidating when she wanted to be.

Now was definitely one of those times.

“Amelia, you are first and foremost this child’s teacher. That’s what matters. Your job is to make sure she succeeds. You’ve identified how she is not succeeding and other concerns you have about her level of improvement. This is when we intervene with the parents. You know this, it’s what we were taught.”

The clock on the wall ticked closer to the start of the school day. If I could catch Braden before the swarm…

“She doesn’t enjoy reading anymore,” I blurted. “Something has clearly changed, and I need to figure it out.”

Daphne nodded, a smile growing across her face. “That’s the spirit. Call a conference with Braden and Linda. If it’s really the reading ability that she’s struggling with and not so much that she’s not reading with Linda, maybe Cindy can be there.”

I blinked. “Cindy…”

My best friend rolled her eyes. “The reading specialist. Damn girl, do you ever pay attention at our staff meetings?”

The mug went back to my lips to prevent me from answering. Luckily, I didn’t have to, as the bell rang to signal the start of school. We hurried over to our classrooms, with plans to follow up at lunchtime.

***

One ring, two rings, three rings. I tapped my fingers against my desk as I waited for the call to connect on the other end.

Please answer, I silently begged. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.

“Hey, you’ve reached Braden Callahan at Callahan & Sons Construction!” his voicemail answered cheerfully. “Please leave a message with your name, number, and business inquiry and I’ll return your call as soon as I can. Thanks!”

Beep.

A pause. I cleared my throat. “Hi Braden, it’s me. Er, Amelia. Miss Lawrence, Lucy’s teacher.” I pinched the bridge of my nose between two fingers. Well this was starting off great. “Um, I wanted to talk to you about Lucy and her reading log. It seems that lately—”

A click cut off the voicemail and background noise filled the receiver. I held it away from my ear, wrinkling my nose.

“Hello?” a strong masculine voice said on the other end.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“H-hello?” I replied. “Braden?”

“Amelia!” Surprise laced his voice. “Sorry about the noise, let me pick up on my second line.”

“Oh ok, but—” Suddenly he was gone, but so was the background noise. A few seconds later, he returned.

“Much better,” he said breezily. “So, what’s up?”

“Um, I wanted to talk to you about Lucy.” I gave him the brief rundown of what I’d learned, from the empty logs to the expression of hatred for reading that she’d written on the most recent.

“Damn,” Braden said when I was finished. “I had no idea she was having so much trouble.”

I raised my eyebrows. “She’s not showing any difficulties at home?”

“Well it’s not necessarily that…I mean we have a system…” That had certainly caught him off guard. Regardless, I was a teacher and seeing my students succeed was my job.

“We’d really like you to come in for a conference.” I tapped a pencil against my desk and twirled the cord around one finger.

“We? Or you?”

I sat up straighter. “We at the school, Mr. Callahan. Lucy needs this support right now and since you and Linda are her primary, it’s pertinent that you and Linda come in for a meeting.”

Silence filled the other end of the phone.

“Let me give Linda a call and see what we can work out. But just so you know, our schedules are not always compat—”

“This is for your daughter,” I snapped. Then remembering I was still a teacher first and foremost, my feelings for Braden aside, I changed tactics. “I’m sorry, I-I hate to see her struggling so much and I want you both to be aware of the circumstances and how we might be able to help. I’ll be coordinating with our reading specialist so that she can join us on the call.”

“Okay, thank you.” A pause, then, “I really appreciate your help, Amelia. This…I want what’s best for Lucy.”

“I understand that.” We weren’t supposed to have favorites, but Lucy certainly held a special place in my heart. And not just because I was sweet on Braden. “So, um, you’ll call me with some times that’ll work for you and Linda?”

“Yeah. Talk soon.”

We hung up and I went back to the stack of papers on my desk. No sooner had I uncapped my red grading pen that one of the playground aides came into the room with a sniffling, red-eyed Lucy by her side.

“Hi Miss Lawrence,” the aide said. Lucy held tight to her hand. “We had a little trouble with another student on the playground, so Miss Lucy here wanted to come back inside and see you.”

I rolled my chair out from behind the desk and beckoned Lucy to walk forward. She immediately ran to my side, butting her head into my stomach.

“I got her from here, thanks,” I told the aide. Then I turned to Lucy. “What’s going on, Miss Lucy?”

Her lower lip quivered as she spoke. “M-michael was b-be—being mean to me on the playground.” She hiccuped and swiped her sleeve across her face.

I frowned. Michael was another student in our class, but as far as I know he’d never bothered her before. “He was? What did he do?”

Lucy’s fingers grasped at my sleeve. “He—he, he said I can’t read. And that I’m too slow.”

“Well that’s certainly not nice of him to say.”

She bobbed her head up and down. “And, and, and then I told him he was a meanie and that I hated-ed him.”

“Oh, sweetie.” I bit back a chuckle. “Do you remember what we learned about kindness? We have to be nice to people even when they’re mean to us.”

“But…” Her lip quivered again and her eyes filled with tears. “M-michael is right. I c-can’t read.” Tears dripped down her face, surrounding her puffy eyes as her chest heaved up and down.

My throat constricted as I realized just how much self-confidence had greatly depleted in the child that stood before me. She looked so helpless, the disappointment in her blue eyes matching the same look I got from Braden when I told him we couldn’t date.

“Why do you think that?” I found her log on my desk and handed it over. “Is it because of this?”

She nodded, sniffling. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“Aw, sweetie. It’s okay, we all feel like this sometimes. But you know what? The important thing is getting an adult to help so we can begin to enjoy things a bit more.”

Lucy swung her hands by her sides. “Can you help me?” she asked, her voice barely above a hoarse whisper.”

“Of course.” I started to stand up but Lucy ran over to our classroom bookshelves and pulled out a book.

She pointed to the title then looked up at me.

“Give it a try, okay?” I encouraged her with a nod of my head.

Lucy looked down at the words, her eyes growing wide. “C-can’t do it.” Her lower lip trembled again. “T-the w-words…the words…I can’t…it's hard to read.”

“Do they get blurry?” I asked.

“Upside down,” she clarified.

So it was something to do about how the words appeared on the page.

“Let’s go for a walk, okay? I know someone who might be able to help us,” I said, getting to my feet.

Lucy’s eyes brightened and she walked beside me as we made our way down the empty hallway to the open door for Miss Cindy’s office.

“Hi there,” I greeted her quietly. Cindy was sitting at her desk, typing on her computer. She removed the pair of cat eye glasses perched on her nose and placed them on her head. The glasses were attached to a purple bejeweled string that hung around her neck.

Cindy smiled when she saw us, her brown eyes crinkling at the edges. “Well, hello there. How are you today?”

Lucy whimpered and moved closer to my leg.

“This is Lucy, Miss Cindy. We wanted to see if you could help us a little bit.” I crouched down to Lucy. “Miss Cindy helps kids with their reading.”

“Can’t do it,” Lucy whispered.

I glanced up at Cindy for help. She smiled down at us. “Let’s see if I might be able to help,” she said. “Do you want to go pick out a book from my reading center?”

Lucy nodded and ran over to a shelf.

“We’re setting up a conference with mom and dad,” I said in a lowered voice as Lucy perused the little library in the corner of the room.

“She seems like such a sweet kid,” Cindy observed. “Do you know when the reading issues started?”

“Seems like ever since the beginning of the year.”

Lucy back over, holding a book close to her chest. “This one, please.”

Cindy clapped her hands together. “That is one of my favorites, too.” She winked at Lucy who giggled. “Go find a seat and I’ll be right over.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I asked.

Cindy waved off the question. “It’s not a problem at all. I’ll just bring her back to class when we’re all finished up here?”

I nodded. “Thanks, Cindy.” I gave Lucy a thumbs up and a wave before heading back to my room. It was with a heavy heart that I left her behind but Cindy was the best we had to help students with their educational struggles. The sooner we got Lucy this help, the sooner we could make sure she had the resources needed to succeed.