To my readers: Years will pass in this chapter. One thing I will give away, Eva and Jon will always remain faithful to each other. Never worry about anything like cheating or swapping with this couple. They're not built for it. Might there be temptation? I don't know yet. Let's find out.
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Eva and I were very subdued the next morning at home. Not only were we exhausted from the lack of sleep, but we were trying to figure out who the hell on our staff could betray our students this way. That was our prime concern. Not our reputations. Not the school itself, though that was second. Our students always came first, our 'other' family. And even if it was just one young woman who was assaulted, all our students were victims. If they were made to feel unsafe in any way, they were victims of this predator.
While we got breakfast on the table for Connor and Rachel, we talked quietly, speculating about who it could be. Eva shared a couple of names and then I did the same. But they were shots in the dark. In truth, we couldn't believe anyone who worked there could do such a terrible thing. We'd come to trust every member of the staff, from the janitors and groundskeepers to the teachers and office workers and our three assistant principals. It was almost inconceivable to us that we had a monster working with us, working with a smile every day.
We had a quick talk with Connor, since he was then in the 7th grade, in our school, and he knew the teachers. We warned him that there were going to be rumors about one teacher during the day, some of the things said would be true and others would be false. We also reinforced with him that whoever was in trouble for whatever reason, they should be given at least the benefit of the doubt, that until someone was convicted or pled guilty to a crime, they were considered innocent. That didn't mean we had to keep letting them work at school. It was a mental tightrope we had to teach him to walk.
We went to work as usual, and already there was a buzz going around the school, among the students and among the staff. Speculation was rampant about who did what. Word was already out about Jackie Allen. She was going to have a very tough time coming back, even after Eva and I spoke to the rest of the students. She probably would have to change schools, which was upsetting to think about.
Then by 8:15, when homerooms started for 15 minutes before classes started at 8:30, we knew who was being looked at, the only staff member not in school that morning: Thomas Horan, a talented, popular math teacher. No sign of him, no call to say he'd be out sick that day. Mrs. Cole tried calling his house and there was no answer, not from his wife, who we knew stayed home raising their children. If he was out sick, we would have gotten a call. We had our answer.
Eva and I sat in her office and it felt like a funereal atmosphere. We discussed how we needed to react to this awful problem, to reassure our students and parents and even our staff. The police needed to be thorough without starting a witch hunt. We needed to start having meetings as soon as possible with all groups. And that included an emergency meeting with the board.
First were the students. We held a number of small assemblies the first two days to let students know we felt we let them down and we wanted to do better. We didn't name any names, but we addressed the issues and tried to kill the crazier of the rumors that were going around. And we passed around our home number so any student who needed to talk to us in confidence over any issue. It would probably be abused or misused by some, but we decided we needed to be as available as possible then.
Then we had a staff meeting where we let them know that despite the possible actions of one person, the rest of them had our full confidence and support and we encouraged them to let us know about any potential problems they were aware of. We promised no coverups and that after the wellbeing of the students, they were the next priority.
Then the toughest meetings. We had to meet with our board that Thursday night, two weeks earlier than previously planned, then we scheduled an open house style meeting with any parents that wanted to attend on Saturday. Before we went to the board meeting, we got word that Horan was arrested and formally charged with three counts of statutory rape. So that made it possible to talk openly about who was responsible. He had been hired ten years before, under the principal before Lenny. We weren't responsible for his being on the staff. But we felt responsible for anything he did while we were in charge.
We called Jackie's house before the meeting to see how she was doing. Thankfully, she sounded better than when we saw her on Monday, and we were also relieved to hear she wasn't pregnant. Then she asked when she could come back to school.
Eva told her "Jackie, you're welcome whenever you're ready. We'd love to have you back. But maybe you should talk to your parents about how they feel about you coming back and perhaps you should talk to a therapist. We want you back, but we care most about your health, physical and mental."
We made an appointment to meet the family Saturday morning before the open house.
The board meeting was the most contentious we had with them during our entire tenure with the school. Obviously, the nine members, all alumni and a few who had kids in the school, were extremely unhappy. They couldn't blame us for having him on staff, and we had hired a company to do background checks on all future hires, something that should have been done a long time before. God knows they investigated the hell out of us before we were hired. But for the most part we took their hard statements. It was inevitable the press would hear about this and it would be terrible for the school to have a sex scandal like this out in public. Eva and I had a solution.
I got up towards the end of the meeting, pulling two letters from my jacket pocket. "We think it would be the best thing for the students and for the school if we resigned our positions, effective as soon you can appoint our replacements. While we didn't hire Mr. Horan, we believe we need to do this for the good of the school and the students." Eva got up and we went to leave the room before Katherine Waterson, called for us to stop.
"Eva, Jon...don't assume we're automatically accepting these letters. Give us a few days. We'll give you a final answer on Sunday afternoon. Meet us here at 2, please." We agreed and went home, our hearts heavy.
When we got home, the home we realized we'd likely soon have to vacate, we sat in the library, our favorite room, and we cried. It seemed very unlikely they'd reject our resignations under the circumstances. Someone had to be sacrificed to the wolves. We had no idea where we'd go or what we'd do. Thankfully, we had time to figure it out; due to smart investments, we were worth over a million dollars by then. But we had kids to provide a stable environment for and we had Connor's Bar Mitzvah in five months. We had to stay locally until then; it was too late to get a new temple that could give us the same date and a new catering hall for the reception. Invitations were printed already. Friends and family made plans to come to town for the weekend. It wasn't fair to him to screw up something he worked so hard on for three years.
Friday evening I spoke to Cammy and told her what had been going on all week, and she nearly blew her head off. "Are you crazy, Jon? You and Eva? You've talked to the police, to the board of directors and you're planning to talk to the girls family and then all the parents without your lawyer? You've got to be kidding me!"
"Cammy, we just want to get past this. We feel responsible, there might be other girls out there he abused, and we're doing this so the school and the kids can move on."
