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The Headmistress's Office

"And you're certain you're all right with this new arrangement?" Miss Honey asked Matilda when she could once more be assured of their privacy.

It was the next school day, and they were together in her office brewing tea in the coffee percolator. The former headmistress's lair had been cleared of trophies (these Jenny presumed her aunt had taken with her; she didn't know when or by what transportive means), and the surveillance network had been decommissioned alongside the Chokeys and other torture devices that had once enforced the Trunchbull's draconian rule. Now, the walls of the office were papered with drawings by Miss Honey's students, an ever-growing menagerie that had once patchworked the walls of her former dwelling.

The slender teacher arranged tea by the window (another surprise discovery, as she had been previously unaware of any windows in the office). It wasn't every lunch period that Matilda visited her, and Jenny wouldn't have it any other way. It was important for her charge to engage with peers outside of a classroom, after all... though she couldn't help feeling a bit flattered every time Matilda's slight knock alerted her she would be having company.

"Is that what my father intends, Miss Honey, do you think?" Matilda sat perched on a pile of books occupying the spare chair, nibbling a cucumber sandwich. "To stay with us?"

"I'm not sure what your father intends, Matilda." Miss Honey set a saucer of tea down before the girl and leaned against the desk, cradling her own cup. "But I did extend the invitation before we left today. It seemed only polite." The woman did not appear as if she was contriving a teaching moment; in fact, she appeared rather uncertain about it all.

"It was very kind of you," Matilda assured her. "But I'm afraid, Miss Honey."

"Afraid?" That was certainly not what Jenny had expected to hear, although she understood the sentiment all too well. "What are you afraid of, Matilda?"

"I'm afraid that my father will not give you the same courtesy." Matilda set her sandwich down and looked at her very gravely. "I'm afraid he doesn't really understand courtesy, unless his life is threatened."

Jenny smiled like weak tea, and took a sip to regain her strength. "Well, it will be an adjustment for us all," she agreed. "I'm sure he will tell us why he has returned when he is ready." She did not want to raise Matilda's hopes by voicing it aloud, but Jenny allowed herself to be hopeful, at least, that Mr. Wormwood had undergone a change of heart where it came to his daughter. Of course, with that hope came a fresh anxiety she didn't feel at all equipped to face just yet: if the Wormwoods decided they did want Matilda to rejoin their family, what then?

It must always be Matilda's choice, she thought firmly. That was the only right way to go about to. Though of course, if the Wormwoods elected to involve child services—but Jenny pushed the thought from her mind. She had to focus on making life the best it could possibly be for Matilda in the time they were granted. She wasn't sure how this might square with allowing the girl's father back into her life—into both their lives—and Matilda herself was being a bit of a closed book in that regard. How she wished she could know what the girl was thinking!

"But I already know why he's here, Miss Honey," Matilda supplied. Jenny blinked her surprise in something resembling Morse code. "He has nowhere else to go."

"What do you mean, Matilda?" She was genuinely puzzled, but had learned long ago to take the little girl at her word. "What about the rest of your family? Your mother, and your brother, and that interesting dance instructor?"

"But haven't you noticed?" Matilda asked her. "My father isn't wearing his wedding ring." She hopped down from her stack of books, leaving Jenny bewildered as the woman processed this not-insignificant detail that had gone overlooked. "I don't think he is married to my mother, Miss Honey. Not anymore."