Warning: contains implied/referenced child abuse
1981
Frank walked into an ambush just inside his front door. Coming in from the bright sunlight outside, he didn't see them in the gloom of the hallway until it was too late.
Two small bodies barrelled into him.
"Daddy! Daddy! Look, Daddy, I got a yellow star today!" That was Erin, pigtailed and lisping from a glaring lack of front teeth.
"How was your day, Daddy, hello!" Joey, ever the gentleman, although not always entirely sure of the order things ought to be in.
Frank scooped them up, one on each arm, thankful that they were still small enough for him to easily do that.
"Hey, Erin, hey, Joey. My, look at that, a whole gold star!"
"Sister Theresa gave it to me because I got all my sums right!"
"You did? Smart girl. I'm proud of you."
Erin beamed, as he carried them further into the house.
Mary was the couch in the sitting room, with a book she'd clearly been reading to the kids, before they'd abandoned her in their wild rush for the front door. Erin was wriggling to get down, which was just as well since Frank needed an arm to hug his wife.
"Hey, honey."
"Hey, honey."
They grinned at each other, enjoying their private and admittedly rather lame joke.
"Where's our third little terror?" Frank asked, casting an eye around the room. Danny usually took the lead in the ambush, and Frank had noticed his absence with a slight feeling of trepidation. There was usually only one reason for his eldest son to not be keen to see him after work.
Mary grimaced.
"Upstairs."
"Trouble at school?"
"I guess so, he brought a note. Joey, honey, why don't you go and play with Erin for while? I see she's taken the toy cars out."
Joe pouted, but allowed Frank to put him down.
"I wanna play with Daddy."
"I'll play with you a bit later, son. Alright? Run along now."
Reassured by the promise, Joey did.
Frank turned to Mary.
"Do you know what the note's about?"
"No, I haven't had a chance to really look at it. But I looked like a punishment slip to me, from what I could see."
Frank frowned, feeling worse by the minute. Spanking one of his kids hadn't really been on his to-do list for the evening.
"Didn't he show it to you?"
"I asked, but he didn't want to. Frank, goodness, don't look like that. I asked him about it, he said politely that he'd rather wait until you got home and looked ready to burst into tears at any minute and I didn't have the heart to push him. There's something weird about the whole thing, to be honest. He's brought notes home before, but he's never reacted like this. He seemed really upset."
Frank mulled this over for a bit. Danny was only in second grade, but he'd brought his fair share of notes home. And while he'd definitely been reluctant to hand over the notes on those occasions, and had been fairly upset after Frank had dealt out the necessary consequences, Frank didn't remember him being overly upset before anything had happened.
"I better talk to him then, don't I?"
Mary nodded.
"Just...don't be too strict? Something's up, I know it."
Frank drew her into his arms, kissing her hairline gently.
"Don't worry, darling. I'll get to the bottom of this."
Even if Mary hadn't warned him, Frank would probably have known that something was up the minute he stepped into Danny's room.
He knocked and entered, after a small voice had invited him to do so.
Danny was lying face-down on his bed, his shoulder's hunched, his eyes suspiciously red. He gave Frank one look, then buried his head in his arms and burst into heart-wrenching sobs.
For a moment, Frank was at a loss for words.
Danny was nothing if not a plucky kid. To see him crying like that was a sure sign that something was seriously wrong, and Frank reacted instinctively. He sat down on the bed beside Danny and put a hand on his back, starting to rub. The small shoulders shook violently beneath his hand, the quiet sobbing tearing at Frank's heart.
"It's alright, kiddo, whatever's got you so upset, I promise you it will be alright."
Danny turned a tearstained face up to him, shaking his head.
"No, it w-won't!"
The last word turned into a wail again, but this time Frank didn't allow the kid to burrow back into his pillow. He scooped him up from the bed, ignoring the feeble struggle, and drew Danny onto his lap, hugging him tight.
"Shh, calm down now. Is it the note you brought home from school that's making you so upset?"
A wet nose rubbed against his neck as Danny nodded.
"Okay. Why? What's in the note?"
"I don't wanna tell you!"
"Why?"
"It's bad and you'll be angry."
Frank considered for a moment, worried by the idea that his kid was so fearful of him being angry that it could get him into this state. But why now? It wasn't as if Danny hadn't been in the same kind of trouble before. And Frank knew, and he tried very hard at it, that he'd never lost his temper with any of his kids.
He peeled Danny away from his shoulder, so that he could look him in the eye.
"Are you afraid of me, son?"
Danny shook his head.
"No, Daddy."
"You know I love you, right? No matter what you've done, or what's happened at school, I love you very much and I will always love you very much. Okay?"
Tears pooled in Danny's eyes again, but he nodded. Frank hugged him once more, rubbing the back of his head.
"Okay. Now, why don't you get the note and we'll deal with this?"
Danny clung for a moment more, but then he pushed himself off Frank's lap and went to the door, where his backpack still laid discarded. He went reluctantly, but he went. He retrieved a handful of papers from the top of his bag – a small pink slip and a few larger papers. The top one looked like a test, Frank saw, when he came closer.
Danny offered it to him without a word. When Frank took it, he sat down on the bed next to him and hunched his shoulders.
The pink slip indicated that Daniel Fitzgerald Reagan had failed a spelling test, for the third time in two weeks, and had received three smacks with a ruler for it. Sister Evangelina, his second grade teacher, had signed. Next to her signature there was a neat line where Frank was supposed to sign as well.
Frank cast a cursory glance over the paper beneath it, merely intending to get an idea of what kind of words Danny was struggling with. And looked again, incredulous.
The writing was almost completely illegible. The few words that Frank could make out were spelled correctly, he thought, but they were written so crookedly that he could completely understand the red crosses next to them.
But it was not Danny's handwriting. Frank knew his own damned kid's handwriting, and this definitely wasn't it.
He flipped through to the other two tests, his mind spinning. Then he turned to Danny, who was still staring dejectedly at his sneakered feet.
"Daniel. Would you explain to me what is going on?"
Danny swallowed, looking up at him.
"I-I failed those three spelling tests? And Sister Evangelina punished me."
"These can't be your tests. It isn't your handwriting."
Danny frowned, looking confused.
"It is? I mean, they are my tests, Daddy. I wrote them."
"Daniel. I know what your handwriting looks like. You don't write like that."
"But, Daddy, I do! That's not how I used to write, so maybe you're remembering that. But this is how I have to write now."
"You wrote like this deliberately?"
Danny seemed even more confused, his lower lip starting to wobble. Frank, to be honest, felt just as confused as his kid looked. Why on earth would the kid suddenly start writing like a doctor with a broken thumb? It made no sense. Especially since, from what Frank could remember, he really wasn't that bad at spelling. It was the strange writing that was costing him marks, not a lack of knowledge or application.
"I-I, mean, I guess so? Not really, because I can't help writing like that."
"Why?"
Danny shrugged, looking down at his feet again.
"My writing hand's just dumb, I guess."
"It never used to be dumb. You wrote just fine when Mommy taught you, and when you were in first grade."
"But that wasn't my writing hand, Daddy. That was my bad hand, and Sister Evangelina says I'm not allowed to write with my bad hand. Only with my writing hand."
"Your bad hand? What do..."
Frank stopped, as comprehension suddenly dawned on him. Comprehension, and a vaguely surprised sort of anger that took a lot of self-control to keep out of his voice.
"Your left hand, Danny?" He reached out and touched the small hand gently. "Does Sister Evangelina not allow you to write with it?"
A bright tear formed at the tip of Danny's nose.
"No, Daddy. You don't write with your bad hand; you only write with your writing hand. I try so hard, Daddy, I promise I try so hard, but I just can't make it listen to me. I know the words, but I can't make them come out right, and Sister Evangelina ties my bad hand to my chair so I can't write with it when she's not looking. I'm so sorry, Daddy."
He started crying again and Frank put an arm around him, kissing the top of his spikey head. Willing himself to calm down, because his child needed him right now, and he could be angry at the abusive old hag later.
"Danny, son, listen to me. Sister Evangelina is wrong. You're allowed to write with any hand you like, and it's very wrong of Sister to force you to do something that isn't right for you. You have nothing to be sorry for, okay? I'm not angry at you, and you're definitely not getting punished for this."
Danny stopped mid-sob in surprise, looking up at Frank with reluctantly hopeful eyes.
"I'm-I'm not in trouble?"
"No, Danny, and you shouldn't ever have been in trouble for this. Sister Evangelina should be the one in trouble, if she doesn't know that some people write with their right hands and other people write with their left hands."
"She said that only bad people and crazy people write with their left hands. And she smacked me really hard a couple of times when I wrote with my left hand."
"She did?" Frank said non-committedly. "Well, maybe someone ought to smack her."
Danny giggled, a small smile gracing his face for the first time that afternoon. But then he sobered again.
"But I still failed those tests, Daddy."
"Would you have failed if you could have written with your left hand?"
Danny nodded emphatically.
"They were easy words, Daddy! I knew all of them really well."
"Well, then you're not in trouble. It wasn't your fault."
Frank found himself with an armful of exuberant kid, hanging onto his neck like a tiny vice.
"Thank you, Daddy! I was so worried, and now everything is happy again."
Frank hugged him back, planting a firm kiss on the side of his head. Part of him wished that he could somehow have prevented this, spared his baby all the worry and the pain and the confusion. But for now, just holding him was enough.
That, and planning exactly what he was going to tell the school in the morning. He'd probably have to get in line behind his wife, but a guy could dream.
It is noted in the administrative records of St. Brendan's Catholic School that Sister Evangelina, second grade teacher, was dismissed on 15 October 1981 (effective immediately) following a complaint of abuse.
Thank you for reading!