“Oh, that…” Gloria waved a dismissive hand, a half-eaten sandwich still in it. “She came by. I told her not to bother her grandmother while I was resting.
She went downstairs to that older lady on the first floor. She’ll survive.” So Maddie had been sent off to Mrs. Walters.
Strangers had casually pushed her child out of her own home. So they could eat her food and stretch out on her couch. Tyler came running out of Maddie’s room yelling.
He was wearing a T-shirt that said “Boss.” “Dad, when are we having cake? You promised!”
Eleanor went into the kitchen and sat down heavily at the table. Mike followed, scratching the back of his head. “El, why are you so tense?
Mom came to help. She says this place is kind of a mess. Honestly, housekeeping isn’t really your strong suit.
She wanted to straighten things out, take a look at how we’re living.” “Take a look?” Eleanor slowly raised her eyes to him. “Well, yeah. And listen, don’t get upset.
Mom’s got a point. We talked things over. There’s something we need to discuss about Maddie.”
“What exactly about Maddie?” Mike took a deep breath, like a man about to jump into cold water. He could feel the full support of his mother’s armored division behind him, and it made him bold to the point of stupidity.
“You are seriously telling me to send my daughter away to boarding school because she annoys your precious son?” Eleanor said those words five minutes later, after Mike—fumbling, gesturing, and talking in circles—finally laid out his brilliant plan. The plan was this.
Tyler desperately needed his own space to study, though his grades were barely passing. Maddie’s room was ideal because it had the best natural light. And Maddie, according to them, was loud, spoiled, and selfish.
There was a perfectly good boarding school about an hour away. Gloria had already looked into it. Not too expensive, either. They’d “make something of her” there, and Mike and Eleanor could pick her up on school breaks.
And really, it would strengthen their marriage, because Maddie was “an anchor from the past” dragging everything down. Mike stood there waiting for applause. He honestly believed his logic was airtight.
“She gets in Tyler’s way,” he added with weighty seriousness. “He’s a boy. He needs room. She’s a girl—some discipline would do her good.” Eleanor looked at her husband carefully.
She saw every enlarged pore on his nose. She saw the cheap gold-plated chain around his neck. She saw the soft, self-satisfied look of a man who had never truly been responsible for anything.
“So. Boarding school?” she repeated quietly. “Private academy,” Mike corrected. “Sounds better. So what do you think?..”
