It was too late to be early, too late even to be on time, so, since she was going to be late and add to their list of reasons to discount her, Siena took a minute and indulged in some deep breathing to try to calm down.
As part of her preparation to have all her lady parts ripped out and off, her doctor had insisted she have a few sessions with a therapist, to deal with the emotional toll of having the BRCA1 mutation in the first place, and losing most of the biologically female parts of her body in an attempt to stave off its threat. That therapist had been big on Eastern spiritualism, so there was a lot of talk about meditation and yoga and ‘centering her chi.’
Predictably, Siena sucked at all that. Her brain was a colony of feral cats under the best of circumstances, and a little ‘mindfulness’ wasn’t going to corral that mess. She dealt with the emotional toll of her family curse the way she dealt with everything: she put her head down, squared her shoulders and fucking dealt with it.
Still, the deep breathing stuff did tend to calm the shakes and give her a chance to pull her presentation of herself together. Still yowling, hissy cats on the inside, but pretty normal and restrained on the outside.
In that fragile calm, Siena went into Geneva’s school like the last warrior standing on her side of a battlefield.
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~oOo~
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The conference tablewas round, but Siena still felt like she was facing a tribunal. She’d managed to stay calm through the meeting—to which she was last to arrive, of course—but that tenuous calm was at the breaking point.
“I know Geneva’s rights. I know youhave togive her the accommodations her doctors say she needs. It’s yourdutyas a public school.”
“Yes,” Mr. Frankel, the school principal, said, and even in that single syllable, Siena heard a ten-book saga of frustration and condescension. “We have a duty to give each student the best educational experience we can. We’re meeting here today because we all have that goal for Geneva, and we’ve drafted a plan.”
“Yourplanisolates her, like she’s a leper.”
Because most of Geneva’s issues were social, and the doctor’s recommendations could mainly be summarized as ‘let her engage with new people and group situations at her own pace,’ the school’s plan basically removed her from any interactions at all. They wanted her to eat lunch in the office, they were going to waive her PE requirements, give her a solo service learning project, let her use the teacher’s bathroom, let her work alone in the library during assemblies. They’d worked out a car pool schedule with her teachers so she didn’t have to ride the bus when Siena couldn’t drive her or pick her up.
Geneva would probably love all that, but could it be good for her? Removing her from all interactions wasn’t letting her engage at her own pace, it was blocking her from engaging with people at all.
Most people sucked, sure. Siena would be perfectly happy to live in a world in which only they two existed and nobody could ever be shitty to them again. But they didn’t live in that world; Geneva needed to learn how to live in this one. Siena couldn’t protect her forever. It was possible she wouldn’t be able to protect her for long. Removing her parts made her extremely shitty odds of getting cancer markedly less shitty but didn’t remove the risk entirely or even bring it down to the risk women who didn’t have the mutation faced.
Trying to keep her cool, Siena added, “Geneva needs to be supported as she learns how to live in the world, not locked away like a madwoman in an attic.”
Mr. Jones, Geneva’s science teacher, and favorite teacher, leaned forward with a sympathetic smile. “I understand your concern. I share it. But right now, Geneva’s world of high school isn’t one she should have to learn to live in. The world after high school will be gentler. I think we can prepare her for that by being people she can turn to to feel safe. We’re not isolating her, we’re protecting her.”
“Ms. Morgan,” the principal cut in, still sounding like the officious jerk he was, “I think you might be missing something important about this plan for Geneva.”
“What’s that?”
“The people sitting here with us now, her teachers, are willing to go far beyond their responsibilities for her. They’re giving up prep times so she can sit with them in their classrooms. They’ve worked out a schedule to bring her to school in the morning and return her home in the evening when you can’t. We don’t have the resources for more ‘formal’ or ‘official’ arrangements, but her teachers want to help her.”
“She’s such a lovely young lady,” Mrs. Melendez, Geneva’s Spanish teacher, offered. “Just an absolute delight. And so smart! But so sad sometimes, too. We’ve seen how difficult things are for her, and we’re all happy to help. But please, do understand we’re doing everything we can.”
Siena hadn’t, in fact, taken the beat required to understand what that ‘rotating car pool’ thing meant. All her teachers were willing to schlep over to the shitty part of town to pick Geneva up for school, so she could avoid the crucible of the bus ride and Siena didn’t need to cut her work hours to drive her every day.
She sagged back in her seat, thoroughly disarmed. “That’s ... that is really very nice, how you’re willing to help her. Thank you.”
“We’re not your adversaries, Ms. Morgan,” Dr. Granger said. “We’re all a team together, working to help Geneva succeed in all aspects of high school. The goal is to give her time to find her way back into the social arena, to gain some trust and confidence so she can make a friend, and take small steps forward. Right now, we all think she’d be happier on her own as much as possible. Do you disagree?”
“No,” Siena answered right away. “She prefers her own company even at home. I’m just worried that she won’t learn how to be in company in the world, and how that could limit her as an adult.”
“That’s a valid worry, of course,” Dr. Granger said. “But there’s room in the world for introverts. In today’s world, being alone doesn’t have to mean being isolated.”
Mr. Frankel made a performance of looking at his watch. “We’re just before seven o’clock and need to wrap this up. Let’s say we go with this plan to finish out the school year and see where we are after that. If we need to make some adjustments, we can discuss it before tenth grade.”
The way he’d phrased it, and the look on his face, did not welcome further challenge, and Siena was done challenging anyway. For now. For a host of reasons, she’d come into this meeting prepared for war, she’d picked a few battles, but eventually she’d understood that they were on the same side. They were trying.
So was she. Everybody wanted to help Geneva. Maybe they’d been a little slow, and the big problem was still the bullies ...
Actually, they hadn’t talked about that. They were still focused on changing Geneva, not the assholes making her life miserable.