Sunken Graves by Alan Lee (life books to read txt) 📗

“No sweat, I’ll get it later.”

Byron had put on twenty-five pounds since college, despite joining and bailing on three gyms. She knew this. He knew this. Talking about ice cream would result in a fight, so she forced her mouth to smile.

“Sounds perfect,” she said.

“We’ll watch Breaking Bad after?”

“Can’t wait.”

“First.” He stood and drained his ice tea. “I’m feeling creative. Gonna go bang out a couple hours on the website.”

Hathaway wrinkled her nose at the dishes.

Byron clomped down the stairs, and a minute later she got a belated, “Thanks for dinner. You did great!”

“Mmm,” she said.

The ice in his glass clinked, melting. She took one of the uneaten vegetables off his plate, a slice of cucumber, thought different, and dropped it onto hers.

“Alexa, stop,” she said and the speaker silenced. So did the room.

In the quiet, Hathaway’s mind thought over what he said, you did great. That was the same thing Peter Lynch told everyone at school.

You’re doing great, Ms. Hathaway, he told her. And I love the skirt. When are you going to take me out, Ms. Hathaway? You don’t have to be lonely.

She drank some wine and her thoughts drifted to Daniel Jennings. The history teacher down the hall. He was new and unsure of himself, trying to fit in. He didn’t fit in, though, and that was a good thing, the former soldier who kept the muscle. His confidence was shot, and Hathaway blushed thinking about his efforts to be the perfect gentleman, to keep his gaze on her face. Not on her mouth, not on her body, just her eyes.

She’d seen him in a t-shirt once. He was tattooed on the shoulder, ink visible below his tight sleeve. It was hard to define what a man was, but she knew one when she saw one.

Lynch and Jennings, two warriors—one boisterous and arrogant, the other quiet—and already they disliked one another, potentially on a collision course. A battle in which the monster had all the ammunition.

She took the laptop out of her bag and surfed to the school’s email server to check her inbox. Mr. Jennings had emailed her after-hours in September, asking a question about PowerSchool. Ever since, she made sure to give her inbox a scan in the evening.

Just in case.

Nothing tonight. Oh well.

She finished the wine and set down her glass. Went to change into something warm. Their bedroom looked ridiculous. Her side perfect, Byron’s a tornado wreck. Their compromise was, he kept the bathroom tidy. In the bathroom she insisted he act his age.

He tried. He managed to pick his things off the floor, though civility around the sink was beyond him. A lopsided arrangement she tried to ignore.

Daisy Hathaway was learning something about compromise. She’d done it often since college and the truth was catching up—if she kept compromising too long, there’d be nothing left of her.

7

After school on Wednesday, Daniel Jennings waited outside the office of his supervisor, Ms. Pierce, Director of the Upper School.

Jennings was jazzed, full of energy. Benji had come to his classroom again for lunch and he’d watched the boy work, wondering when the last time was he’d been struck in the face to test his manhood, and Jennings decided then to act. Even if he wasn’t in a place to deal with Lynch, he’d force the administration to take action. Like hell would he sit around and pretend it wasn’t happening.

Pierce returned from supervising the parking lot and did a little jump, finding him at her door.

“Mr. Jennings, what can I do for you?”

Jennings opened the door to her office and went in. Pierce followed, showing some anxiety.

He closed the door and said, “I think Peter Lynch beats his children.”

“Oh really.”

“Is that the rumor you indicated Monday?”

Pierce pulled the lanyard over her head and let it drop onto her cluttered desk, overrun with paperwork. Manila folders were stacked like a sandbar and they’d keep her in the office until seven that evening.

“What evidence do you have, Mr. Jennings?”

“At my conference with Lynch, he nearly lost it. Like you said he would. He came close to hitting me because I wouldn’t budge with the grade book. I read about Lynch online and he has a history with violence. Plus I have it on good authority that he beats Junior and Benji to toughen them.”

“Who is your authority? A fellow teacher?”

He shook his head. “I won’t say.”

“Then you have nothing to report, Mr. Jennings. We can’t go to the police or social services with that.”

“Benji said his father has hit him. That’s direct testimony.”

Pierce was lowering into her chair but she stood again. “You asked Benjamin if his father abuses him?”

“In a roundabout way.”

“And he said yes?”

“He said his father hits him when he deserves it, same as other dads.”

Pierce relaxed. “That’s called discipline.”

“That’s abuse, Ms. Pierce.”

“Do you know how many parents spank their children? A lot, even if they won’t admit it.”

“A phonebook to the face is different.”

“Sit down, Mr. Jennings. Please.” She waited until he did and she put on administrative armor and used her strongest voice, of a woman twenty years older. “I think your concern is admirable. You’re the exact kind of man we want at the Academy for the next thirty years. But I want you to consider something. You’re brand new. It’s November in your first semester and you’re already chasing shadows. Do you know how many rumors you’re going to hear on a monthly basis? You keep this up and you won’t make it two years.”

“We can’t ignore child abuse.”

“If the abuse exists. This is a marathon, Mr. Jennings, not a sprint. You’re a finite resource. Do you know Cedrick Moss, in the seventh grade? Probably not, you teach tenth and eleventh. His mother’s dying. Inoperable brain tumor, nothing we can do. There’s a boy who could use your support. What about Joshua Rose, you teach him. He’s the only boy, I think truly the only boy in the tenth grade without a smartphone and he’s in agony