Curtis walked into the house, shut the door harder than usual, and yelled for his daughter. “Curtina, get down here, now.” He waited only a few seconds, and when he didn’t hear any walking upstairs, he yelled louder than the first time. “Curtina!”
Finally she made her way into the kitchen, looking afraid and guilty.
Charlotte walked in behind her. “What’s going on?”
“Why don’t you ask your daughter?”
“Curtina, what is your dad talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
Curtis frowned. “I got a call from your English teacher,” he said, and then looked at Charlotte. “She tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”
“Oh, I don’t know how I missed that. I’ll have to check my voice mail.”
“Well, your daughter here hasn’t turned in two of her assignments. Even though she knows that we’ve talked to her about her grades.”
“I’m only missing one assignment, not two,” Curtina said.
“So are you calling your teacher a liar?”
“No, but she’s not telling the truth, either.”
Curtis folded his arms. “Okay, wait a minute. Are you trying to be funny?”
“No.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. Both of those papers had better be turned in by tomorrow morning. You also have a reading assignment for tonight, so be prepared to tell me anything I ask you about the first two chapters in To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Curtina’s eyes widened, and she was obviously shocked that her teacher had also told him about her homework for this evening.
“And another thing,” Curtis said. “Go upstairs, get your phone, and bring it back down here.”
Curtina huffed loudly. “Why?”
“Because I said so, and because you don’t appreciate special privileges. Now go get it.”
Curtina looked at Charlotte with begging eyes. “Mom, please talk to Daddy.”
“I will, but just go get your phone and bring it downstairs for now.”
Curtina left the kitchen.
“What was that all about?” Curtis asked Charlotte.
“Well, she’s been doing so well, maybe we can give her one more chance. But only if she turns in all three assignments tomorrow.”
“But as it is, she’s been suspended, and she’s doing terribly in her classes. So I think we’ve given her all the chances she needs.”
“I know, but with the exception of today, she’s really been trying to do better.”
“I agree, but I don’t like this getting-calls-from-the-school thing.”
“I don’t either, and if she messes up again, then we will take her phone for good.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said, but only because he did want to keep an eye on what Curtina was texting about.
Curtina came back into the kitchen and gave Curtis her phone, but she looked at Charlotte while she was doing it. “Mom, did you talk to him?”
“I did.”
Curtis laughed, but he certainly didn’t think anything was funny. “So you’re going to talk about me in third person like I’m not even standing here? Who is him?”
“I’m sorry, Daddy, but please don’t take my phone. I’ll turn in my homework from now on. I promise.”
“We’ll see,” he said, “and I suggest you get upstairs so you can get to work.”
Curtina looked at both her parents with pitiful eyes, but that had stopped working on Curtis a long time ago. So when she realized that her father still wasn’t giving her phone back to her, she left again.
“This can’t continue,” he told Charlotte, “and if she doesn’t get better, she might be the first of our children to be sent away to a boarding school. A few years back, one of the elders at the church sent his daughter to a school for all girls, and I think it was faith-based, too.”
“You don’t think it’s come to that, do you?” Charlotte asked.
“Maybe.”
“You’re really serious?”
“I am. I’ll do whatever I have to if it means getting her the discipline and education she needs.”
Charlotte walked around the island, and Curtis could tell she didn’t like the sound of what he was saying. But he also wondered why she was placing a K-cup in the Keurig machine and filling the reservoir with water at five p.m., when normally she never drank coffee after noon. He’d brought this same point to her attention on Saturday, so he couldn’t understand what the sudden change was about. But then it dawned on him. Was Charlotte drinking again? Was that the reason she had missed church three weeks in a row and was no longer complaining about the amount of time he was spending with Trina? Did she now want him to go to Chicago so she would be free to drink as much as she wanted? And was that the reason she’d missed the phone call from Curtina’s English teacher? Had she been out at some restaurant drinking? Curtis sure hoped not, because he didn’t need these kinds of problems right now. He had enough to worry about already. His sister and his daughter especially. So there was absolutely no room for alcohol issues. None whatsoever.