Child of My Right Hand by Eric Goodman

years, Tipton schools have had to replace 40 percent of their teachers. It’s not right.” Jack looked at them one by one. Such fine young women. “And you can help.”
    ***
    Monday afternoon, when Jack returned from work, music boomed up the stairs so loudly it nearly blew him out the door. Oh no, he thought, recognizing the melody before the nuns began: How do you solve a problem like Maria? Jack hurried to the deck, where he found Genna and Sam, saving their hearing.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œNo hello?”
    â€œHello.” Jack kissed her quickly, the kind of kiss couples share after twenty years. “What’s wrong?”
    â€œWhy must something be wrong?”
    â€œ The Sound of Music , max volume, and you haven’t made him turn it down.”
    â€œHe’s failing math and French.”
    â€œIs that all?”
    Genna laughed, Jack thought, a bit hysterically. Damn, but parenting was humbling. Simon was often failing after the first six weeks. He didn’t want help, he didn’t need help; he wanted his parents out of his goddamn business, that was the only help he needed. So each year they backed off until the first report card.
    â€œNo,” Genna admitted, “that’s not all. Rich moved to his mother’s house and changed schools. Simon’s heartbroken.”
    â€œIn the middle of the school year?”
    Genna shrugged. Rich’s people, Jack thought, were just the shabby sort to do it. He’d driven the boy home Friday night and felt his humiliation as they turned into the trailer park.
    â€œI told Simon we’d talk about his grades after you got home.”
    â€œOh great,” Jack said. “Lizzie still at soccer?”
    Genna nodded. “She got all A’s, one B.”
    They shared a guilty smile. No time to focus on the child doing well. They reentered the house, descending through a silo of sound. Mother Superior howled, “..ford every stream, fol-low every rain-bow…”
    Outside Simon’s room, the music was so loud Jack’s diaphragm quaked.
    â€œUntil…You…Find…Your…DREAM!”
    When the song ended, Simon heard the pounding and opened up. His eyes were red. At least three days of dirty clothes littered the floor, or maybe they were just rejected outfit options from that morning.
    â€œWe have to talk,” Jack began.
    â€œI don’t want to.”
    â€œI’m turning the music off.” Genna stepped lightly between them and fumbled for the power as Julie Andrews broke into that cheerful fantasy of Austrian childcare. In piping voices pumped to six-million decibels, the Von Trapp children answered, “Do, re, mi.”
    Then the sound went off, and Simon threw himself on his bed.
    A year, even six months earlier, Jack would have pushed the clothes into an angry pile and announced the room looked like a goddamn pigsty. Instead, he began, “Mom told me about your grades.”
    Simon looked at Jack as if he were a giant bug.
    â€œFirst thing, you’re grounded until you pull your grades up. No phone or television during the week.”
    â€œThat’s not fair.”
    Jack hated that particular expression, which no doubt magnified its appeal for Simon. “What’s fair got to do with two F’s?”
    â€œI don’t care what you say.”
    â€œWhat?” Jack could already feel the tendon bulging on his neck.
    â€œMaybe one or the other,” Genna offered. “No television and no phone school nights until we check and see your homework’s finished.”
    He looked so sad, Jack thought. “You always have this problem in the beginning of the year. We know you can do the work.”
    â€œNo, I can’t. I don’t understand anything in French or math. Who the hell wants to take pre-calculus anyway?”
    â€œWe can work together on the math,” Jack said. “Like we used to.”
    Simon looked at Genna and