Page 4 of Slayer Mom
He handed me a brochure for another ancient-looking building with a list of its teachers, the majority PhD’s this and that. I tucked it into my purse absently and walked with him to the door. He was escorting me out with all the finesse of a practiced expert.
I stopped and turned with a frown. “Where are they? I’d like to speak with them, if you don’t mind.”
“Now? They’re in classes.”
“Which you want to throw them out of. Would you let me know what classes they’re in, or would you like to send someone to bring them to me?”
He studied me, gauging how determined I was. With a shrug, he smiled almost warmly. “Why don’t you wait on the football field bleachers? I’ll have them out to you in ten minutes.”
I nodded and left the office, heart pounding like I’d narrowly escaped doom. I hadn’t done incredibly well in school, not that the schools I’d gone to were anything like this.
I found my way to the football field and then watched Lock and Wat running towards me down from the building with all the energy and enthusiasm a twelve-year-old and a fourteen-year-old ever have. They looked happy. Wat didn’t look resentful and angry, just delighted to get unexpectedly called out of class for a mini-holiday. Lock looked more concerned, of course.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” he asked while Wat threw himself into my arms, almost knocking me over.
“Woah, be gentle with your old lady,” I said, wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he’d been trying to practice fire safety, but things got out of control.
“You are so old,” he said, pulling back to grin atme. “Are you taking us out of school for the whole day?”
I licked my lips and sat back down, patting the bench next to me. “I understand that you had an adventure during the school’s fire safety demonstration.”
His smile vanished, and instead his eyes went hard, defensive, impossible to read. “Dad already talked to me about it.”
I raised my chin. Yes, he had taken care of it without bothering me. “And now you’re talking to me. Tell me what happened.”
His mouth tightened. “Lukas had it coming to him.”
I waited for more, but he was closed off, angry.
Lock elbowed him. “He knows that he shouldn’t have done anything, however much Lukas deserved it.”
“What did Lukas say?”
Wat actually growled. “You don’t need to know. Just keep being happy that you’re oblivious to everything.”
The coldness and hardness pierced my heart. I struggled not to show my hurt. I was the mother in this situation. Maybe Wat was becoming manipulative. “I’m not happy if my children are struggling, and I don’t know anything about it.”
Lock said, “Mom, don’t worry about it. Lukas always says dirt about people. He can’t help it; he was born stupid. It’s Wat’s reaction that’s the problem. He wasn’t born stupid.” He elbowed his brother again.
Wat scowled at him then exhaled and gave me a sweet smile. “I need to learn to control my reactions better. We start at the boarding school on Monday, right?”
My heart beat faster and I struggled to swallow down sudden tears. “You heard about that?”
Wat shrugged. “Dad went there. It’s a good school. It’ll be better than this place.”
“But it’s a boarding school. You won’t come home. You won’t do martial arts, or soccer, or trombone lessons from Mr. Fanucci. You’ll be gone for weeks at a time.”
Wat studied me for a long time. “Do you think that I should stay home my whole life so you can smother me with your love?”
Ouch. It literally hurt my chest for those words to come out of my youngest son’s mouth.
Lock grabbed my hand. “Wat doesn’t mean it like that. You’ve given us so much love, we’re ready to go out and face some adventures on our own. I know it won’t be like Harry Potter or anything, but the school does sound awesome. They have martial arts and fencing, as well as a world-class band and orchestra. We want to go, not because we want to leave you, but because it’s the right next step in our lives.”
“You sound five hundred years old,” Wat muttered.
Lock elbowed him again. “We’ll still be home for holidays. We’ll call you every night. I promise.”
He leaned over and gave me a hug, like he wasn’t too old for a mother, but he’d just told me that he was.
