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“Daddy,” she exclaimed, running to him, and John stepped out of his seat to scoop her onto his lap. His face changed then, from serious and doubtful to lighthearted and happy. The face was of a father happy to see his child.
“Hey, munchkin.” He smiled. “Sorry to pull you out of class. I know we're having a lot of fun there.”
Harper’s nose wrinkled. “It was math. I don’t like math.”
“You and me both,” he replied, “Listen, Harper, I…I don’t think Sam is happy. She’s not smiling like she used to, and I cannot remember the last time I heard her laugh. Do you think so, too? Do you think she’s unhappy?”
The happiness Harper had displayed just a moment ago vanished, and she nodded somberly to her father. “She’s been crying, too.”
John’s eyes flickered to me but went back to his daughter. “I know, sweetheart. And I think it happened after she fought with her friend Tyler, but she won’t tell me why. Do you know why she is so sad?”
“I…I dunno…” Harper bit her lip. “She asked me to keep it a secret.”
“That’s okay,” John replied. “I like secrets. Maybe we can share this one, just you, me, and Sam, okay?”
It took a moment, but Harper nodded. “…she said Tyler told her that she didn’t have a mom, so she couldn’t say anything about his aunt.”
The pieces began to fall, but I knew it was not all. I knew it was not a silver bullet cure. There were many subtexts to a girl feeling insulted about her mother. There was resentment, pain, feeling like an outcast, unsure of herself, or unable to rationalize the changes in her body.
What more was she feeling?
“That’s good,” John replied. “Thank you for telling me. Did she say anything more?”
“She said she didn’t like how other girls looked at her,” Harper replied. “She said they said she is a boy in girl’s clothes.”
Oh, God, this was worse than I thought.
I made to ask, but John’s eyes shot to me, and I realized that Harper had not remembered I was in the room with them. Which was why she was spilling her sister’s secrets—so I clamped my lips shut.
“Does Sam have any friends, munchkin?” John replied. “Any girl friends?”
I prayed that the answer was yes—but fate must have had it out for me because Harper shook her head no.
The blows kept coming. Sam was resentful that her mother was gone. She had no friends, and I suspected she had a crush on the same Tyler she had punched. Sam was an outcast, and boy, did I know how that felt.
John hugged Harper and kissed the top of her head while pain creased his brows. It vanished when he pulled away and then held out his pinkie finger. “Pinkie promise? I promise to keep her secret.”
Harper circled his fingers with her tiny one, and she smiled. “Promise, Daddy.”
“Thanks, baby girl,” he smiled. “Okay, you can go back to class now.”
She perked up. “Can we have pizza for dinner, Daddy?”
“Well, I don’t know what Ella made for dinner already. You know she is very fussy about her food and us wasting it, but we’ll figure something out,” John promised.
I gently led the girl back to her class after Harper hopped off his lap, only to realize it was over. With no more math and a promise of pizza, Harper was decidedly happy. I headed back to the office, wondering about this Ella lady. Was she John’s girlfriend?
A twist of something—that was decidedly not jealousy—wrung tight in my lower belly, but I shoved it away and ignored it. I closed the door behind me as I joined John and sat.
He rubbed his face. “Is…is it as bad as I think it is?”
“It is,” I replied, barely keeping the‘it's worse.’“Sam is facing many challenges, but they can be overcome. She might feel like an outcast, but she can overcome them—” My mind slipped back to the times in grade school when I was the underdog, how the girls would tease me about my humble clothes and how I would come in late smelling like cows and grass. My eyes sharpened. “—we can overcome them.”
John’s gaze fixed on mine. “How would you know that?”
“Because I was the black sheep way out in Fredericksburg, farming peaches and milking cows,” I replied, keeping my tone calm. “I know what it is like to be overlooked and dismissed while trying to keep my head high. Even the boy I liked didn’t see past my overalls and overbite until junior year when I began to fill out.”
When he spoke again, his voice was strangled. “Are you insinuating that Sam likes a boy?”
