If you looked up the word gifted in the dictionary, there is a half-chance you would find his picture there, young Aditya. Such a smart little boy. Such a good little boy -- one who learned to walk at five months, speak at eight, and to earn a mastery of the alphabet before the dawn of his second birthday. In fact, since the day of his birth onward, he had been more -- better -- a wunderkind, if there ever was one.
Such unchecked success continued into his first years at a world-renowned New York private school for the gifted. The brilliant child receiving as high of marks as were possible, in every class he sat in.
Beyond just the technical, his teachers loved him, without exception. And in each of those teachers' minds, Aditya's path to success -- both in his education and thereafter, seemed certain. Inevitable.
But then came the divorce -- one that changed everything.
It is so often a destructive thing: divorce. But for Aditya's mother, Riya, it was doubly so. For the only income in the family's home, came from Aditya's father. A father who was more monster than man. He being not only controlling and cruel but a drunkard -- one with a penchant for infidelity. He making sure to find the bottom of whatever bottle sat next to the arm of his bourbon-stained La- Z-Boy, as he cursed and chided his family for even the smallest of inconveniences and irritations.
Like those stains, which aged by the day, so too did Riya's desire to leave him, as undeserving and potential-endangering as he was. That growing desire fueled by his loudening shouts and worsening threats -- sharpening insults and increasingly brazen cheating -- each getting worse and worse, without end or ebbing.
She should leave him, her friends told her. Just take Aditya and move, others begged. But such advice, well-meant and wise though it may have been, left Riya with so many questions to answer.
Where would she move to? How would she afford to feed not only herself but her child? Where would it leave little Aditya's education? Each of those questions, and without fail, even their answers, the thirty-something mother found terrifying.
Yet still -- in the end, despite so many avenues for failure and suffered-through-moments of frailty, brave Riya had no choice but to leave. Not just her husband. Not only his home. But the city of New York, the state of it, and everything she and her son had ever known behind. They two, with not but their car and their clothing, moving far, far away, to a place called Granbury in Texas.
It was not her first choice, or her second, or in fact, even her choice at all; for it was the only place she was able to find a job. At least one that would pay for her moving expenses, and then enough to find a one bedroom apartment for herself and Aditya to live in.
It was small town compared to New York City -- in fact, it was a small town, compared to most. One where everyone had an accent, and some even wore cowboy hats. Worse yet, in what seemed to Riya almost as a comical cherry on top, some there even rode horses. "HORSES!" She texted her girlfriends back in New York, wanting to share with them the hilarious quirks of her new home.
Those quirks, along with the people who lived there, made it feel to Riya as if she and Aditya had traveled back in time -- or stepped onto a western movie set. Still though, for both she and her bright, beautiful boy, it was a fresh start. A chance for she -- for them, to build a new, safe, and stable life, without an alcoholic, abusive husband torturing them day in, and day out.
To Riya's surprise, before too long, the distracting backwardness of the place seemed to just fade into the background, and it all just became normal. The dirt roads. The trucks. The lack of taxis. The ten-gallon hats. The horses. Each and all of it becoming nothing more than the quaint backdrop to their new world.
Into that world, Riya began to sink, quickly getting accustomed to her new role as not only head of household but a working mother. Better yet, and much to her own joy, Aditya, even removed from his father and friends, seemed happy too -- at least at first.
Until the day his teacher retired mid-year. The story was, as Riya heard it, that the elderly instructor had suffered some sort of heart attack or something to that effect, and had been replaced. That replacement, somehow, and in some way, seemed to put Aditya off. His mood upon coming home from school quickly changing from glowing and excited, to depressed and quiet. Riya, only in her early 30's, remembered well, the tension that a new teacher could instill in students. And so she waited to address whatever the issue may have been -- hoping it would resolve itself. But that decision to wait and see was shown to be a mistake when Aditya brought his first report card from this new teacher.
"F," it said on it, in bright red, stamped ink. "F," as if Aditya were even capable of such a failing.
"What is this...?" Riya asked as she held the card out for her shame-faced son to see.
"Momma, I don't know. She hates me. It's Ms. Saunders, she just..." The boy choked out, before finding himself overwhelmed by emotion.
"Show me your homework," Riya demanded, trying to find the sweet spot between being supportive and trusting, and constructive and stern.
"Yes, momma." He said obediently, before running off to his room. It took only a moment for him to return with his homework from the last year. All of it neatly organized and filed. Stabled and labeled. The very sight of such precise and neatly kept documents spoke to how unlike Aditya a bad grade was. It just wasn't in him to give a class anything less than everything he had. And everything he had, was usually nothing short of perfection. An "A+" in academic vernacular.
Still, however, Riya examined and poured over his assignments. Comparing answer to question, and then correct questions to grades. Before she was even three assignments deep, she had found a definite pattern. Regardless of the answers provided, or how meticulous Aditya was in answering even the hardest of challenges, the score was the same from this new teacher: "F."
It is a common practice for parents go over their child's homework with them, but with all that had been going on, and with Aditya's history of scholastic excellence, Riya had abandoned the practice. Letting him, the wunderkind of the family, draft and submit his own work, without parental guidance. But that allowance and trust had been taken advantage of, not by her sweet little Aditya, but by his teacher -- this Ms. Saunders.
The discovery filled Riya with such rage and confusion that in an instant she knew what she had to do. She needed to meet this teacher -- this woman, face-to-face, and find out why her son had been given "F's" when his work clearly deserved "A's." With that in mind, she called over to her neighbor's home and asked their teenage daughter if she would come and watch Aditya.
Within only moments, the young girl arrived, and after giving her a short list of instructions to follow, Riya left. Storming out to her car in precisely what she had worn to work, a pair of black heels, and an emerald green dress. In that outfit, and with her hair draped softly across her shoulders, the thick-thighed Indian woman slipped into her car and drove -- gripping her steering wheel tightly as she traversed the small town, barely able to contain her boiling anger.
When she arrived, the green grass field in front of the school was empty, and the sky overhead had already begun to darken in an early sunset. In the distance, Riya could see a guard talking to a departing teacher, his keys already in the press-lever of the front door of the school.
"Excuse me!" Riya shouted, as she briskly and carefully ran up the sidewalk to the school and the soon-to-close door, an assortment of her son's homework and report card in hand. "Wait! Don't lock it!" She begged as she neared.
"Ma'am...?" The heavyset, African American guard asked, confused at the sudden appearance and shouting of Riya, who had only just reached the distance to hear him. "Sorry. I'm Aditya's mother; is Ms. Saunders still here!?"
"Aditya? Ah, he's one of my favorite students. A bright future waitin' for that boy; not that I'm much'a judge of that. But, Ms. Saunders...? Hmmm, yessum; I think she's still here. In fact, she's the last one." The man's voice was comforting and soft, and within only a few words had convinced Riya that whatever else might be going on here, this kindly only guard had no role in it.
"Wonderful, I really need to speak with her." With her quickened heartbeat and stressed breathing coming to a slow, Riya smiled at the news and the guard who gave it to her.
