HEART OF THE MATTER

“God ma, you gotta help me,” Miriam Dingle expressed in an agitated voice.”

Faye Klatner had dozed off in her favorite overstuffed, flower-patterned chair with the din of the TV ever more faintly ringing in her ears.  However, the less than dulcet tones of her daughter awakened her with a start.

“She’s driving me crazy.”

“Is it Danny Fisher again,” Faye wondered?

“The poor kid’s clearly the worm in the apple and I just got a notice from school that Robin and some of her friends keep picking on him. They won’t stop.”

“Have you tried talking to her?”

“Ma, have you tried talking to a fourteen year old?”

Faye nodded. “You were once fourtenn.”

“I got a letter from the principal, yesterday, saying that if she and Danny’s other tormentors won’t leave him alone, she’ll be suspended for a week,” Miriam said, frustratingly.

“Well why do they pick on this kid?”

“I don’t know, ma. He’s different. He looks different; he dresses different; he walks nerdy. I don’t know. Why does anyone get picked on?”

Faye thought for a moment.  “Where’s Robin now?”

“In her room.  She hasn’t come out in hours.”

“Maybe I better go talk to her,” Faye said quietly.  Where’s Pop?”

 “It’s poker night, remember?” 

Faye thought for a moment. “I think it’s time I told Robin the story I told you when you were her age.”

“What’s that gonna do,” Miriam asked?

“Maybe nothing; maybe something.”

Faye slowly climbed the stairs and walked toward Robin’s room. She knocked on her door but there was no response. She repeated the behavior and received the same results. She gently opened her granddaughter’s door, finding her sprawled out on her bed listening to her MP3 player. Faye approached the bed and sat down on the far edge of it.

Upon seeing her grandmother, Robin jerked her startled body around, staring at Faye. She placed her hand on her granddaughter’s back and softly began to massage it.