The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [84]
“Did you tell him I want to come in?” she asks, hurrying after him up the granite steps. It is open house at Franklin High and they're late.
“He still doesn't want visitors.” He holds open the wide oak door. “Just family.” He means himself and Stephen. She tries not to feel hurt. Maybe she's just grasping at straws, but things have seemed better lately. She's been trying hard to keep her eye on the big picture instead of looking for slights all the time.
The minute they're inside, the PA system announces the start of the first period. Nora checks the schedules. They'll go to Drew's class, then, second period, to Chloe's.
“Hello, parents!” Chloe greets them with breezy relief as they come around the corner. Like Chloe, the hall monitors tonight are all student council members. She has been waiting anxiously for them, Nora can tell. These last few days she's noticed a growing uneasiness between Chloe and her father. His efforts to please her only seem to distress her. Nora can't quite put her finger on it, but Chloe is extremely sensitive whenever he's home and, for one so preoccupied with her own existence, noticeably watchful. When Chloe left tonight Ken still wasn't home from the rehab hospital. Chloe was concerned he wouldn't make it back from Boston in time. Of course he will, Nora assured her. Has he ever missed anything of yours, she asked, and Chloe didn't answer. Her silence said it all, the vulnerability her daughter was feeling for the first time in her secure and happy existence: because, throughout his affair, his other life, he had always managed to be where he was needed, to show up. Being an attentive and dutiful father isn't any kind of guarantee. He can do all the right things and still tear the family apart. The realization that things aren't always what they seem is a hard enough part of growing up, but deeply painful for so trusting and sunny-natured a child as Chloe.
He's trying, Nora keeps wanting to tell her daughter, but to say it would suggest so much more than she has energy for right now. Better that he just keeps proving himself, by being who he is. In last weekend's snowstorm he brought his car, then Nora's, to the cheerleaders' car wash, which ended $370 short of their goal for new uniforms. Here, Ken said, writing out a check to make up the difference. No, Chloe said. She didn't want him to do that. But Ken insisted. Until last night the mud room walls were stacked high with donations of canned goods, which Ken and Chloe loaded into the car and delivered to the St. Francis Harvest Pantry, because Chloe is chairman of the student council's food drive. He's proud that she volunteers once a week at the city's Boys and Girls Club where she and two of her friends give cheer-leading lessons. The drama club is probably Chloe's favorite activity. She has been in every annual school play since freshman year. This spring they're putting on Our Town, and Chloe got the part she wanted, Emily. While most of Nora's high school activities were strategically chosen to impress college admissions directors, Chloe genuinely loves being part of the school community. Her grades might be lackluster but not her spirit. And in this, like so much else, she is her father's daughter.
Drew's first class is history. Mr. Carteil is giving a brief overview of his curriculum and expectations. Ken and Nora slip into back-row seats. A few parents raise their hands: Why is the class average so low? they ask. Why doesn't Mr. Carteil scale those tests everyone does poorly on? And why so many papers, four in a term, when no other freshman teacher assigns that many? “Because I'm trying to educate your children, not mollycoddle them,” the old teacher wearily replies. The bell rings. End of period. Parents file out, grumbling.
“Consumers,” Ken whispers to Nora, as they wait their turn with the teacher. “And they're not getting their tax money's worth.”
“Right,” she says uneasily, scanning the stream of familiar faces moving along the corridor to second period classes.