“Whoop. I’ll give you your privacy,” I say, walking out and closing the door behind me.
Liam and I stand in the hall, wincing at each other. I put my hand on his arm and speak in a quiet voice. “This is awful. Don’t you just want to tell her not to worry about it?”
He nods. “So badly it hurts. I’d take her out and buy her a pony if it wouldn’t send the wrong message.”
The toilet flushes and a second later the door opens.
Liam raises one eyebrow. “Did you wash your hands?”
She turns back and sobs out the words, “Sorry, Dad.”
Clearing his throat, he says, “The principal said Olive may return to school tomorrow so long as she writes an apology to Mercedes and one for her teacher. Maybe she can get started on that now.”
“Sure,” I nod, holding my hand out to her and starting toward the kitchen. “Why don’t I sit with you while you write it?”
She nods and sniffles. “Yes, please.”
“I’ll be down in the basement,” he says, sighing while he watches her walk.
“Okay,” I say.
Olive slides onto a chair while I go in search of the supplies she needs. When I come back, she has her arms crossed on the table and her head resting on them. I put down a pen and a few white sheets of paper, then rub her back. “Can I get you some water?”
“That would be nice.”
I walk over to the cupboard. “You know, Olive, I got suspended once.”
“You did?” she asks, perking up.
“Mmm-hmm. I was in seventh grade,” I say, turning on the tap and filling the glass. “I had an extremely strict English teacher named Mrs. Butterfield.”
Olive gives me a skeptical look while I walk back to the table.
“For real, that was her name.” I put the glass in Olive’s hand. “Drink up. She never did like me, but I have no idea why. One day, I was talking in class while she was trying to teach, and she’d had enough and kicked me out of class.”
“You got suspended for talking?”
“No, it’s what happened after,” I say, holding up one finger. “And I want you to know I’m not proud of it. When I was walking out the door, she said, ‘And before you come back, you need to drop the attitude.’
“So I said, ‘Before I come back, you need to drop forty pounds of butt fat.’”
Olive slaps both hands over her mouth, her eyes as round as Walt’s Fancy Feast plate.
“Yeah,” I nod. “I said that. Horrible, right?”
“Why?”
“I honestly don’t know why I said that. I didn’t think she’d hear me, but I wasn’t talking quietly enough. In fact, all the kids in the class heard it too,” I add. “Actually, I was kind of shouting, now that I think about it. And suddenly it’s pretty obvious why she never liked me.”
I stare at Olive’s shocked face for a second, a testament to the fact that I have no business being a role model of any sort. “I’m not sure I should have told you any of that. I’m definitely not condoning backtalk or umm … fat shaming. The first one is cheeky and the second one is cruel. I guess what I’m trying to say is that everybody makes mistakes, and yours today feels like a big one, but someday, it won’t feel as big. Does that make sense?”
She nods and sniffs again, then picks up the pencil.
“I’ll shut up now so you can get your work done.”
It takes her nearly an hour and almost all my blank paper to come up with the perfect apology letters. She’s so sincere about it that she gives me hope for the future of humanity. And when she’s done, Olive seems more like herself again while I make us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and slice up an apple. I task her with pouring herself a milk and carrying my coffee over to the table for me, then we sit down together to eat.
“We only have three more sleeps on the boat.” She hasn’t finished chewing the bite of sandwich in her mouth when she comes out with this news, and I can see bits of food clinging to her teeth. Thankfully, she takes a sip of milk before she continues. “Dad’s going to take the boat out of the water this weekend, so we have to spend the winter in our house.”
