“Make sure you give your brother a big smile,” I said to Veronica in her baby seat. Although she was facing the back,I had a shatter-safe mirror suction-cupped to the window so I could see her expression. And she was alwayssoexpressive. Sometimes I could just look at her laugh or even dubiously study a grasshopper on the windowsill, and it was easy to forget all of the horrific things that had happened to make her my daughter.
“’Otay!” she said. She wasn’t the most verbal child. I took her to a therapist once a month, who mostly gave me different exercises to do with her, but mostly my job was to talk with her often and clearly. None of that babytalk stuff.
“Thank you, sweetie. And tonight, while Junior and I are at the movies, Natalie said she wants to watch the ballerina movie with you.”
“Bawwrina!”
“Exactly. She’s very excited to have girl time with you.”
“Yum.”
“Yup! Very yum!”
Although I wasn’t supposed to babytalk, I couldn’t resist mimicking my daughter’s verbal quirk of saying ‘yum’ to anything she liked. Her dress? Yum. Her favorite movie? Yum. Her favorite toy? Yum. That dog on the street? Yum. It was silly, but it tickled me pink in a world that was so often all gray around the edges.
Our scintillating conversation came to a pause as we reached the area where kids were allowed to approach the car. Junior started racing towards me, a broad smile on his face. I wouldn’t have even known that anything had gone wrong if the principal hadn’t called me.
“Hey there, buddy,” I said as I waved to one of the monitors.
“Hey, Daddy! Hi, Veronica! You’re not with Natalie?”
“Natalie is taking a break for a bit while the three of us go to dinner, and then she’s gonna watch your little sister while you and I go to a movie.”
“A movie?” He buckled his seatbelt and finally noticed the dinosaur.
“Oh! Is this an ankylosaurus?”
I had to laugh at that. Even shifter kids tended to go through a dinosaur phase. “You’ll have to tell me, buddy. I just remember that you love the flat hedgehog-lookin’ guy.”
“Yeah, he’s really armored and cool. Thanks, Dad! What’s all this for?”
“Well,” I said slowly as I pulled away. I was a bit concerned that he hadn’t already told me, but to be fair, I’d distracted him as soon as he got into the car. “I heard you had kind of a wild day at school today.”
“You heard about that?”
“I did, bud. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Uh, I dunno. They said Miss Fischbacher is going to be okay. That’s what’s important, right?”
“It is. And we don’t have to talk about it, but I would like to, if that’s okay with you.”
“I… okay. I think I’m okay to talk about it.”
“Thanks, buddy.” I paused as I focused on the four-way stop at the intersection that split between the high school, middle school, and elementary school, then continued once we were on the straightaway. “So, the principal said you tried to tell your teacher to sit down. What made you do that?”
“She smelled weird.”
“Shesmelledweird?”
“Yeah, like… I dunno. Wrong. Wrongly?”
“Wrong is correct. And can you describe what you mean?”
“I… um…” He paused. I glanced in the rearview mirror. From the look on his face, he was really thinking his words over. “Not like bad. Just wrong. Bitter, I guess? A little bit like when you burn the bacon.”
I chuckled at that. “Hey, I’ve only done that a few times.”
“True. But it wasmemorable.”
