Piles. Piles upon piles upon stacks of papers and pictures and schoolwork. The Mosalnar School of Nature and Development made sure every piece of artwork its students made was displayed and then sent home at the end of every quarter in a nice big compostable cardboard box. And Raydon Calliope had put them in storage at the back of his office, still perfectly sealed with the glue handprints the girls sealed them with.
He didn’t look at anything.
Why should he? None of this work would be important for their pre-k portfolios.
There was so much of it Larenna needed to take breaks sifting through it; but small whiskey sips could only get you so far. She had begged for artwork from the girls to put up, to take places with her. And seeing it all in a neat and sealed pile made her finish her drink and grab another.
What would she tell Clementine? What could she tell her?
Sorry darling, your psycho ex-husband kept you in the dark about both your daughters entire education up until now. Whoopsy-daisy.
The worst of it though, was all the letters Larenna found addressed to Clementine from the girls teacher. Syrath Vladislav had been trying to get in contact with her for ages.
Larenna sat with her through some of it but she soon slipped out; she couldn’t take it.
Mrs. Clementine Calliope,
I am Professor Syrath Vladislav; Aemma and Juliette are going to be joining my classroom and me and my assistant teacher Igor are very excited to welcome your family to our classroom.
I was hoping to reach out to you through letter; Your husband has informed me you are very busy with your work and that he would handle all school affairs. However, I think it is important that both parents be as involved as they can and I wanted to get a chance to connect with you about the girls and their needs and likes.Here is a list of all the family events we will be having at the school this first quarter. I hope you will be able to attend.
Mrs. Clementine Calliope,
I hope you had a restful time with the girls over winter break. I was sorry to see you missed the holiday show so I have included a video recording of it with some extra pictures of the girls at the end. I have also included their feet polar bear stamps and the snow globe fragment picture they’ve made. The girls have grown so much over these last two quarters, I hope to watch them grow some more. Also thank you for your kind gift of Gumbo. It was amazing. Do you need the thermos back? I would be more than happy to drop it off or send it with the girls.
Mrs. Clementine Calliope,
Thank you for helping the girls with their Aphrodite festival poems; my heart has not been the same since they started saying ‘blue’. The girls talk about you often, Aemma especially. We are conducting a project for Mothers Day where we make a stuffed doll with a recording of their mothers voice. It would function as a comfort object as we are working on self soothing. If you could please send me a recording for each of them it would make such a difference in their transition.
I hope you enjoyed your family trip to Fantasy Hawaii. Juliette would not stop saying ‘Hawaii’ all week. Now that the school year is coming to a close I was hoping we could have a meeting to review the girls progress. Your husband was very clear about his distaste at the thought of meeting so I understand if you share his sentiments, but if you don’t please come see me after their graduation in the class. I need to ask you something important.
