Chapter 1

Marc strolled through the halls of the school, admiring the clean and elegant decorations. It hadn't changed since he had been a student there, years before. It was a small school that hosted students from lower elementary all the way through the end of high school. They also charged parents like him out of the ass.

Not that he really minded though. Since his wife had left two years before, he wasn't exactly sure how to handle a child himself—even if she was well behaved. He figured a private school could help teach her some of the things that he might miss with her, and in a way that he hated to admit—help take her off of his hands at times.

He finally found the right room and glanced in through the window in the door. He could see older students mingling inside; some of them were working intently on their projects, while others simply sat there talking. He noticed the uniforms were lax on the older students—or maybe it was just the class.

He always made sure that Ariel looked her best on the way to school, so that no one had anything to say about him being a single dad raising her alone. Marc popped his head into the room then, frowning. He still couldn't pinpoint where the teacher was.

The two years before, the art instructor had been Mrs. Lowling; and yet the day before, he gotten an e-mail from a Mr. Snowden as the art instructor. Maybe he had missed something in that regard, but Marc was also curious. It was a few weeks too early for parent-teacher conferences, so he'd shown up  just before the end of the school day to stop in.

One of the students finally noticed Marc in the classroom and gave him a wide-eyed stare for a moment before hollering, "Brendan!"

Someone popped up almost instantly from the other side of the room. "What's wrong?" A younger looking man asked immediately, his eyes narrowing down suspiciously on the student that had said his name. That was when he saw Marc then too, and his face twisted in confusion.

Panic struck him then for a moment as he dove to hide something behind a cabinet then before finally, totally inconspicuously of course, trotting up towards Marc. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Ariel's father, Marc," Marc introduced himself briefly with a raised eyebrow. He'd liked Mrs. Lowling. She was an art teacher, but her classroom certainly didn't look like a hurricane, and this Mr. Snowden looked like he could be a student himself. Hell, he even let the students call him by first name. His hair was dark and swept over his face, but undercut on either side, and he wore a stylish long sleeved turtle neck.

"Oh." Mr. Snowden frowned, still looking confused. "Oh!" He remembered it then. "I e-mailed you, but you could have just e-mailed me back..."

"Well you said you wanted to talk to me," Marc pointed out.

Mr. Snowden nodded and took off towards the front of the classroom. Marc just figured he should follow along. The man's desk was covered in tubes of paint, including a painting that looked like it was in the works. He was pulling out and pushing in his drawers though, looking for something. "One of Ariel's pieces... a few weeks ago..." apparently he couldn't talk properly while he was looking for something. "Ah, here." He pulled it out haphazardly and handed it to Marc.

Marc looked down at it. Ariel liked art, and for a six year old she was already better than her peers. Marc tried not to react towards the rendered face of his ex-wife—it wasn't exact, and still looked like it was done by a child, but he recognized some of her features anywhere. "Is there something wrong with it?" He asked coolly as he tried to hide his unease with it. He thought parents were only called in about artwork when it was inappropriate.

"Oh, no. Just there's this gallery show coming up in about a month. I'm supposed to pick a kid from each class and display a piece of their work—I just need you to sign the consent form for it. I was just going to have you fax or e-mail it back to me, but since you're here..." Mr. Snowden started going through the abyss of his desk again, this time pulling out a paper that had seen better days. "Here. Read over if you want, and sign. It just says that you give permission for her name and age to be posted by the work, and for the public to view it, and that it's on display."

Marc nodded along and signed at the bottom. No one read those things anyways. "So what happened to Mrs. Lowling?"

"Huh? Oh, the former teacher. There were some health complications that I can't talk about, so they hired me on pretty last minute," Mr. Snowden explained.

"And have you ever taught before?" Marc couldn't help but ask. Half of the students weren't even working.

"I majored in art education and printmaking," Mr. Snowden said. "I did some student teaching beforehand."

Which was maybe just a fancy way of not only showing how young he was, but also the fact he'd avoided the question of having taught before—which meant he hadn't.

"Well this class seems rather...unruly," Mark took another look around.

Mr. Snowden tilted his head off to the side. "Well, I give them assignments, tools to complete it with, and a deadline. However these are young adults, and its up to them to use their time wisely. They decide if they pass or fail this class."

Well that was a rather serious answer that Marc hadn't been expecting—he had been waiting to hear something like 'art is free' or 'they're creatively working in their own way'.

"How is Ariel doing in her class?" Marc questioned.

"She's doing well. She's quiet and keeps to herself, draws or paints a lot of things of her mother." Mr. Snowden gestured towards the piece that Marc was still holding onto. "I think things have maybe been a little tough on her."

Marc found himself tensing up then. "She told you?" She had hardly been talking to anyone about it. Marc had almost been considering some sort of therapy to help her through it—he was in much the same position, if not worse, and wasn't even sure he was handling it well either.

"She did," Mr. Snowden answered carefully. "I think when she does art about her mother, it makes her feel like they're still close."

Marc just stared at him then. So maybe this Mr. Snowden was a little weird, but Marc was pleasantly surprised as well. The school bell rang then, and the classroom broke out into a rush of trying to get out. "I should go meet Ariel out front," Marc finally said, though he wasn't sure he wanted to leave yet. He was curious about how many kids were failing this class.

Mr. Snowden nodded in understanding. "Well, thanks for coming in. If you're worrying about her, I can send you an e-mail every once and a while."

Marc held out his hand for a handshake. Mr. Snowden shook it with a wide smile. "And you can call me Brendan."

***

Marc hated parent-teacher night. Most of the parents that went didn't even really need to go—they showed up to hear the teachers gush about how perfect their child was and how well they were doing. Marc wasn't exactly sure why he went either—at the same time, these were the people that saw his daughter eight hours a day for five days of the week. Maybe they knew something about handling kids that he didn't.

Since she was only in second grade, the parent attendance was actually light. Most of the parents belonged to older students and just took up space in the halls apparently. He had to guide Ariel carefully through it all since she was too young to stay home while he wasn't there with her. The desks for Ariel's class were small and perfect for her as she slid in, and Marc remembered he was expected to sit somehow, someway.

He went for the folded chairs around the parameter of the class and kept close to both Ariel and the door. Marc listened as Ariel's teacher told them the basics of how class was going—though he tuned most of it out, because what could really be important about second grade?

She said something about reading and writing skills, and then for some reason shot him a nasty look. Marc frowned at her in confusion. He wasn't sure what that had been about. He wasn't even sure about the context of what she'd been saying.

She finished the basic group introduction and allowed the parents to look around and come up to talk to her. Marc approached her carefully, hovering around as one overly-attentive mother asked every question that she could think of on the planet.

Marc finally got his turn. "Mrs. Masden, do you have any concerns about Ariel?" he asked subtly.

"She's falling behind with her reading and writing," Mrs. Masden began pointedly. "I don't think she's getting enough practice at home."

Oh. "Do I need to read with her?" Marc asked. Maybe they needed to go to a bookstore or something.

"Even just reading aloud to her, with her following the words, can help. Ask her to start writing notes around the house or something," Mrs. Masden suggested. "And general help with her homework. It hasn't been getting done."

Marc nodded before briefly shooting a look towards Ariel as she wandered the classroom, probably wondering why all these adults found her regular class supplies so interesting. Marc went over to her and knelt down. "You have been getting homework?" He hadn't even known about it.

"Just math," Ariel answered thoughtfully before continuing. "And reading. Oh, and some... maps and things."

Marc huffed. "You never told me you had homework. Your teacher is mad at me because it hasn't been getting done." He didn't even think that second graders could have homework.

Ariel shrugged and looked off to the side, not answering him. Marc knew in Ariel's mind it wasn't his job. A bell toned out over the school and Marc fled the classroom with Ariel as they continued to the elective classes.

The art room was surprisingly busy, but then Marc remembered having met the teacher. He twitched in amusement as he could hear a lone raised voice from inside the class. "But how can he be failing art? It's art!" Some parent couldn't understand.

"I've given him projects, deadlines, and time to work on everything. He hasn't turned anything in to me," Mr. Snowden—Brendan—answered easily.

"I'll catch up, mom," a quite voice chimed in quickly. "Can we just go?"

Marc peeked inside as everyone else waited to fill the class. The issue was with one of the older high school students, and their parents. "There's not a lot he can do. It's three percent off for every three days that it's late, and some of them are long past saving. I can maybe come up with some extra credit to raise his grade, but he has to keep up with the rest of his assignments," Brendan continued placidly.

Marc was just surprised that an art class got graded so strictly. The mother huffed something about an e-mail or phone call to follow before storming out with her son in tow. With the last of the high school parents gone, the elementary class parents got their turn then, and Marc listened to some of what he already knew.

Brendan talked about the gallery coming up, which led to some competitive parents asking why their child hadn't been selected. Brendan flat out ignored it and moved on, touching on the different art skills he went over in the classes and the influences he used. It sounded a lot more structured than a second grade art class needed to be, but apparently it was the one class Ariel was doing well in.

Marc shot her a slightly accusing look as she scribbled on a desk—covered in white paper for exactly that purpose, much to Brendan's pre-planning.

No one really stuck around for Brendan's class to ask questions; they didn't really care about an elective. Brendan awkwardly fixed things on his desk as the people left, but Marc went up with a smile. "So how many are failing your class?" he asked.

"Only ten, actually. Out of the three hundred upper-class students, I mean." Brendan answered. "Most of the other students sit around talking for the entire project, until the last two days. Then they pull it out of—" Brendan paused, catching himself first. "thin air," he decided on safely. "And I don't care as long as it gets done. At least with the older kids. Younger kids don't have quite that much freedom." He gestured towards Ariel.

"Well turns out she's not doing so well in things other than art," Marc grumbled, watching the door to see if there was another group conference coming in. "There's homework I've only just found out about."

Brendan snickered but quickly covered it up. "Well no one likes to do homework."

But Marc knew it wasn't really like that. Home was just... awkward; it felt wrong to be there, like something was missing. And Ariel at least felt that in some way too—that's why being at home together mostly comprised of him working anyways, and her silently playing up in her play room. But he wasn't going to share that much with some teacher.

"If you sit her down and tell her it's time to work on homework, and she can't do anything else until it's done, that should help," Brendan suggested. "Otherwise like any other kid she isn't going to want to do it herself."

Marc nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'll try that." He paused. "Do you think sending her to a counselor is a recommended thing?" He hated having to ask someone that was a stranger to him... but then, Brendan must have some idea about these things.

Brendan was quiet for a minute. "Try to work things out yourself. Find something that she likes to open up to... like art. Get her some art supplies for home, maybe, if she doesn't have any. It's a good way to vent if she doesn't want to talk. If you think she's still having a hard time, counseling involving both of you could be good... but don't just send her to talk to someone by herself—go with her."

That all sounded so much better than Marc would have thought—even feeling slightly stupid for not having bought her decent art supplies before. She had a few cases of basic colored pencils, but... "Thanks," he muttered.

"You have my e-mail if you need anything else," Brendan added with a flashing smile.