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~oOo~
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Deciding they neededa splurge, Siena drove to their favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican place. It wasn’t expensive at all, but in their budget even McDonald’s was a splurge.
By the time Siena was parked in the restaurant lot, Geneva’s mood had improved—not totally, her classmates’ fresh cruelty still weighed on her, but she was composed and verbal again. That cruelty weighed heavily on Siena, too. Powerless rage was the worst kind. She wanted to make those kids pay—not just teach them a lesson but cause them pain. She wanted them tosuffer. Not so they’d never do it again, but because of what they’d already done. But what could she do?
Geneva had seen the lovely graffiti at the end of the day. She hadn’t reported it, hadn’t said a word, simply collected her things, closed her locker, and slumped toward the door that led to the junior high on the combined campus, trying not to notice anyone around her.
Now that Siena wasn’t making her go back, she didn’t care if she reported it, but Siena didn’t care to report it. She’d done that already and hadn’t made anything better. With Geneva out of school, she was sure nothing would be done—except, perhaps, as a consequence for defacing school property. Becausethat, principals always cared about.
Whatever. The school was in the rearview now. Siena couldn’t begin to imagine how she’d successfully homeschool her sister, but they were going to figure it out.
She and Geneva sat together with their carne asada quesadillas with guac, sour cream, and pico de gallo, unlimited chips and salsa, and big red plastic glasses of Coke, and they both looked up information about homeschooling in Nevada. Siena was focused on the immediate concerns: how to pull Geneva from school without her getting marked as truant. She’d done a little bit of research before, when Geneva had started bringing it up, so she knew there was paperwork. She had to turn it in to the school itself. Well, they’d probably ask why, and she’d let them have the answer then. With both barrels.
Figuratively.
Probably.
In addition to the usual bureaucratic form, though, she had to submit an education plan. That scared her a lot. She wasn’t a teacher. What if she turned something in and they didn’t think it was good enough? Would they reject Geneva for homeschooling?
And what about her being home on her own? She knew lots of fourteen-year-olds were allowed to be home alone. And Nevada didn’t have a law that set a minimum age for being home alone, so it wasn’t like she’d go to jail or anything. Hell, she herself had been left on her own from the age of about eight. But she’d been mature for her age and naturally suspicious of strangers even before she’d had reason to be.
Geneva was ... Geneva. She’d always beenyoungfor her age. Too willing to believe what was said to her, too willing to accept offers of kindness on their face. Too willing to believe people were good. And sometimes just too wrapped up in her thoughts to remember things like pots on the stove or if the front door was closed.
Now Siena understood that those weren’t just quirks but part of a diagnosis. The spectrum. Autism. Knowing that did absolutely nothing to ease her mind about what would have to happen if Geneva wasn’t in school. Siena had to work, and she couldn’t afford a full-time sitter. Therefore, Geneva would have to mind herself.
They were going to need to set very rigid rules about what Geneva could and couldn’t do while Siena was at work. If she could afford it, she’d put cameras in every room of the damn house, so she could keep watch from her phone. But that had to be incredibly expensive, and she’d just fretted over the $16.85 their meal had cost.
“There are lots of homeschooling sites,” Geneva said, breaking into Siena’s haze of worry. “They show what kids need to study at different grades, and they have lessons and readings and practice tests for the standardized tests. Look.”
She set her phone on the table and pushed it over. Siena set her own aside and took a look. Geneva had shown her a curriculum list for high-school math: algebra, geometry, algebra II, pre-calculus, trigonometry. Siena had taken all those courses and done well in them. In the time before the Obama years.
“I told you you don’t have to go back and I meant it, but I have to be honest: this scares me, Geneva. I want you to get a good education. I want you to be able to go to college if you want. Arealcollege. I don’t remember most of this stuff, and I’m not a teacher. If you have trouble, there’s a limit to how much help I can be, and if a tutor is expensive ...”
“It’s okay,” Geneva cut in. “I hardly ever need the teacher to explain things to me, and if I do, I can find it online. There are lessons on YouTube, and that’s free.”
It was true that basically everything was on YouTube somewhere, but that was as bad as it was good. There was some extremely crazy shit there. But Geneva was already on YouTube a couple hours every day, so it didn’t make much sense for Siena to get the vapors over it now. Besides, she used it all the time herself to learn things. Just last night, she’d learned that Brazilian jiu-jitsu was good training for self-defense—and also that Cooper would have to get up close and personal to train her.
Not liking the warm quivers that thought set off in her belly, she set it aside and pushed Geneva’s phone back to her. “Okay. This is our project now. We need to get the paperwork done as quick as possible, and turn in all your stuff from school, and figure how to get everything you need and ... I don’t know. There’s a lot.”
Including an education plan. God, she was so out of her depth.
But then Geneva grinned. A real, full, happy grin the likes of which Siena hadn’t seen on her face in weeks.
“I like to see you smile again.”
Pointing it out made it falter and shrink, but it didn’t disappear. Geneva took a sip of her Coke, then said, “Thank you for not making me go back. I know you’re scared, but I promise I’ll do all my lessons and not do anything bad when you’re at work.”
“I’m not scared you won’t study, hon, and I know you won’t do anything bad. I’m scared you’ll get hurt.”
“I won’t do anything dangerous, either.”
Siena smiled reassuringly, but she wasn’t reassured herself. Danger often barged in uninvited.
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