"…What could possibly be wrong?"
The increasingly anxious young woman repeated softly to herself for possibly the fifth time since she had set foot inside the hallways of the elementary school. It still just didn't make a smidgen of sense to her; after all, how far was it into the new school year? Only a month, at the very most, and not once had she heard her charge complain at all about how things were.
Yet here she found herself, about to have a private parent-teacher meeting that had been scheduled during a surprising phone call she had received at home the day before. Not like that was doing any good in clearing up the befuddled daze she was in, for over these past few weeks, she hadn't received one hint of sign that all wasn't well, which was quite bizarre if something indeed was. After all, it wasn't like Mac to hide anything serious from her, much less school trouble. But how could someone so bright and good-natured as him even be having problems in the very first place?
She'd learn the unfortunate truth soon enough, Frances "Frankie" Foster acknowledged with a heavy sigh as she came to a halt at what she was sure was the right room. Trying to ignore the slight knot her stomach had managed to contort itself into, Frankie took a deep breath, then knocked gently.
"Come in!" a friendly voice immediately beckoned. The redhead promptly entered the classroom as bid, and flashed a weak but polite smile at the middle-aged woman seated at her desk amidst a heap of tests she was grading.
"Hello." Frankie greeted as she sauntered in, grabbed a chair, and sat down. Once she had made herself as comfortable as she could though, it was only then that she realized that the teacher was just gawking bemusedly at the caretaker as if she had four heads and webbed feet.
"Um…hello?" the teacher finally murmured with a confused grimace. "And…I'm sorry, you are…"
"Oops!" Frankie yelped and went a little flush before she burst out apologizing, "I'm sorry! My bad, I didn't introduce myself, did I? Sorry! I'm Frankie…er…Frances Foster… Mac's Foster's big sister. I'm here for the meeting, remember? You are Mrs. Acuri, right?"
Much to her profound surprise, her clarification didn't appear to help one tiny bit, and the poor woman looked just as excruciatingly bewildered as ever as she tried to plant on a wan grin.
"Oh…oh, right…" she mumbled, clearly uncomfortable with the situation at hand for some reason Frankie couldn't understand at all. "Uh…Frances….just like you're mother, right?"
"…Huh?" the young woman grunted as she became swamped in dizzying puzzlement. Meanwhile, Mrs. Acuri continued to keep her weak smile on as she tried to handle what she thought was a rather unusual situation.
"I'm not saying I don't appreciate you coming, miss, it's just that…well…" she paused and fidgeted with a pen for a couple moments as she tried to figure out how to best put this without causing any embarrassment for the redhead. "See, whenever a parent-teacher meeting is scheduled, it's more customary for the parent to show up, and…I mean, if your mother had something more pressing to tend to, I guess this can work, but-"
"Excuse me?" Frankie demanded until finally she managed to understand the enormous misconception they were dealing with here. "Oh! Oh, wait, no! No, no, no, no! No, wait, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! You made a mistake, see, because I take care of Mac-"
"And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the fact you're willing to help out your family so much, I'm just saying-" the other woman tried to explain.
"No!" Frankie groaned in exasperation. "I mean I'm the only one taking care of Mac! Mrs. Acuri, there is no other older Frances Foster! I'm his guardian, and I was the one who you talked to on the phone yesterday!"
Again, at first all she received was that same glassy-eyed stare of utter incomprehension.
"Wait…so that was you I…I…" the teacher stammered for a few moments before she went as red as a ripe tomato. "Oh! Oh, goodness, and I was wondering why you sounded so much like your…oh, Lord, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, Miss Foster, I-"
Merely relieved that the confusion appeared to be cleared up, Frankie just planted on a small grin and replied calmly, "No, it's all right, you just-"
"No, no, no!" the guilt-ridden woman grumbled. "I mean…oh this is just so embarrassing! It's bad enough that you've probably been striving so hard to look after the child since your parents left, or…well, I won't pry and further, but…."
"…Say what now?" Frankie asked, pop-eyed in disbelief as Mrs. Acuri resumed her lament.
"…And here you have a fool like me making everything just that much harder by…my goodness, I've never felt so humiliated in-"
"Oh, no!" the redhead cried in despair. "No, no, wait-"
"Please, Miss Foster, that's quite kind of you, but I know very well I made a mistake-"
"You still are!" Frankie struggled furiously to make clear. "No, no, it's not like there was a mom and dad who abandoned us or anything."
"Wait, what?" the woman exclaimed bewilderedly.
"Nothing like that happened! As long as we've been a family, it's only been just me, and Mac. Well…his imaginary friend, also, and mine too, but that's everything. It's just been us, all right?" Frankie asked, while praying desperately everything had been cleared up.
Once more, the teacher at first simply gazed back with a blank look one would expect to find on a mule deer trapped in someone's headlights just second before a speeding car plowed it over. However, as the truth finally seeped in, yet again the woman promptly lit up the room with a blush ever more vibrant than the one she had been wearing before.
"Oh…oh!" she cried in dismay. "So you mean that it's just…oh dear, oh dear! And here I was, thinking that…my word, I frankly don't understand why I didn't see it earlier, I…I just…I was wrong before, now I've never felt so embarrassed in my entire life-"
"No, please." Frankie begged despairingly as she buried her face in her hands. "It's all right. Please, just tell me what-"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm just so sorry!" the bombardment of apologies started raining down thickly. "Miss Foster, I just can't-"
"Then don't." the frustrated redhead interrupted. "For the last time, it's fine, okay? My age throws a lot of people off, it's not like this hasn't happened before-"
"But that doesn't make it any less of a nuisance, doesn't it?" the teacher heaved a sigh and shook her head. "I'm so sorry, Miss Foster, I…well, if it helps out even just the slightest…you don't have to use that ruse around me."
Frankie's head jerked up out of her palms as she gawked slack-jawed in total perplexity. "Huh? Wait, ruse?"
The other woman smiled weakly and patted her hand reassuringly. "Yes, yes, it's perfectly all right, I understand it now. Just you two? 'Big sister?' No need to fret or anything, I understand what you're trying to do for your son completely-"
"My…m-my son?" the young woman sputtered incredulously as she quickly realized with horror that the ordeal was quite far from over. "Wait, I think you're confused here-"
"No, I really mean it!" The teacher persisted kindly. " Don't worry, I don't think any less of you for trying to save Mac from any embarrassment, it's all right! In fact, if anything I truly respect you more for…wait, how old are you?"
"Twenty-three," Frankie answered. "But-"
"My word!" the teacher exclaimed in sincere amazement. "Only fourteen years old, yet you were mature enough to raise your baby by yourself? Miss Foster, that's nothing short of incredible, to say the very least-"
"No! No!" Frankie whined as she gestured frantically for the woman to stop. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Oh my God, you're not…you're not thinking that I actually got knocked up as a -"
"I told you, Miss Foster, I don't view you poorly because of the choice that you made! There's no need to hide behind the 'big sister' façade, it's perfectly all right! As you've probably been doing all your life, you're only doing what you think is best for your child, and-"
"I'm not Mac's biological mother!" Frankie involuntarily yelled as her patience finally snapped like a twig someone had placed an anvil atop of. Before the badly startled teacher could respond at all to the frustrated outcry, the redhead was already digging furiously through her purse. She had hoped with all her might it actually wouldn't come down to this, but…
"Here!" Frankie snapped as she fished out a ragged photocopy of an adoption certificate that looked like it had seen far too much use. "See? See? It says right here that I, Frances Bridgett Foster, officially adopted Mac not too long ago, all right?"
"What? Wait, you mean to say-"
"Yes!" the young woman almost screeched, at wits end. "Is that so hard to believe? That I willingly went ahead with this? I'm not here because a woman you thought existed couldn't make it, I didn't start raising him by myself because we were abandoned together by anyone, and I didn't spend nine months carrying him around in my belly! I adopted him, and I'm sorry, but I am in no mood to go into any further details, all right? Now please, can you just tell me what's wrong with Mac?"
"Oh! Oh…." The teacher exclaimed in surprise as she glanced over the form and tried to absorb the revelation all at once. Quickly understanding by the snarl affixed on the redhead's face that now wasn't the time at all to pry any further for details, she promptly went straight ahead to business. She cleared her throat, placed her hands atop her lap, stared Frankie right in the eye, and finally answered, "Nothing."
For the next half-minute, it was so dead quiet one could hear a feather drop as the dumbstruck Frankie gawked silently with emerald eyes as large as platters before she repeated, "….Nothing?"
"Well…yes, nothing at all." The teacher affirmed with a wan grin. "Mac's doing just fine; even better. He's probably the brightest of all my students this year; he's very, very hardworking, and I must admit, he's extremely well-behaved, too."
"…What?" Frankie grunted, unable to believe her ears.
"Yes, yes. I only called because I just wanted to let you know the good news, and congratulate you on the excellent job you must be doing at home." She continued, and her smile widened by a good few inches before she inquired excitedly, "Isn't that great to hear?"
Frankie continued to just stare blankly, as if she had magically transformed into a wax statue. Finally though, while she struggling to quell the rage brewing inside her, she managed to plant a fake smile on and reply through tightly gritted teeth, "Great…j-just…just peachy…"
"Hey, Frankie!" the little boy greeted cheerily as he raced raced out of the living room and into the foyer to meet his guardian. "Where were you? You weren't home when Goo and I got here from school, and-"
Without a word, Frankie shut the front door behind her, removed her sweater, and rolled it up, much to Mac's great puzzlement. "Uh…Frankie, dear? What are you-"
"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPH!" the young woman promptly buried her head into the balled-up garment and let loose with a long muffled scream of deep, excruciating frustration that apparently she had been holding in for quite some time.
As the redhead vented her anger, her terribly startled charge fidgeted nervously for a moment, then warily began to inch towards her, inquiring fretfully, "Frankie, what is it? What's wrong? Is everything all-"
"I wasn't a teenage hussy!" Frankie groaned as she removed her sweater from her mouth and gazed imploringly into the child's eyes. "I wasn't! When are they going to get it?"
With this, she rolled her eyes, moaned exasperatedly, then promptly resorted to what Mac quickly recognized as the "stress-ball routine", an odd little ritual she now went through when feeling particularly riled up. Not saying a word, Frankie scooped him up into her arms and made a beeline for the staircase. As soon as she had sat down upon a random step, she just silently hugged the boy tightly out of the hopes that his company would help calm her down while she just quietly fumed in the meantime.
After a few moments of gazing confusedly up at her while Frankie just angrily gazed straight ahead into empty space, Mac looked like he was about to inquire as to what was bothering her. Instead though, he just went silent as could be as he tried to make himself comfortable for the presumably long wait until she relaxed.
Some questions were probably best left unanswered.
The End