aimee

The teacher asked her a question, but she had trouble focusing. All she could think about, still, was her father and how he got every night, late, what he became when he drank. Her name is Aimee and she attends the best school in the city, Catholic and college prep. She hasn’t told anyone about her father. How could she? What would people think of her? They couldn’t possibly understand. And what would everyone say to her brother and sister? And her mom? And of what would they accuse her? Complicity? Stupidity? No, she had to figure out a way out of this, herself. It was the only way. “Aimee,” the teacher said, her voice rising a bit, or at least inflecting. “Aimee.” More strident, now. “Yes,” Aimee says. “I’m sorry.” “I think you need to come after school. We need to talk.” Aimee nods, because that’s good. She doesn’t want to go home. And she likes Mrs. Munoz. A lot. She even figures that she might tell Mrs. Munoz about it all. She’s fooling herself, of course. She will go, after school, but she won’t say a thing and she will go home and do her homework and eat dinner and go to bed and wait for the moment, the one she detests, and even that word isn’t strong enough. But, she will be a “good girl,” for all of them. Again.