Bright Before Us (9 page)

A few of the other teachers parked nearby, setting thermoses on their roofs as they gathered up books. I touched my jaw, found a spot I had missed shaving. I glanced at my watch. It was time.

My classroom wasn't far from the street, just through the side entrance and then a hike up the sloped hallway. I rattled the keys in my pocket. The kids in the early-bird program—corralled in the library with juice and word searches—were starting to waft toward their rooms. The place smelled like bleach and chicken fingers, with an
undertone of ancient paper.
Morning,
I said to the janitor. My ears burned when he didn't look up.

I got to my classroom and inserted the key, pushing against the door with my shoulder. It didn't give. I tried the key again: nothing. Jesus Christ, I thought, breaking into a cold sweat. Not even a stern talk first? They changed the locks, locked my things inside? I felt someone coming up behind me. Every hair on my body stood on end.

I haven't had a chance to fix that lock yet,
the janitor said.

He stepped forward, jiggling the key into position.
The lock went loose, you said.
He squinted, pointing at the door.
You said last week ...

While I stared at him, he turned the key and opened the door. I mumbled a thank-you and walked into the classroom; there were five minutes left. I had prepared nothing in particular to say. Then there were four minutes left. Usually by now there were a few kids waiting in the hall. Three minutes. I sat at my desk, which was littered with cassette tapes, splayed books, an apple core turned brown. Still three minutes. Think of something else, I thought. Remember that time you went to the Grand Canyon? I watched the second hand swing around, bringing me down to two minutes. I was eight when we went, worrying the whole trip about riding the mules. My mom kept saying,
It's like the pony ride at the fair.
But I nursed a heinous anxiety during the twelve-hour drive, thinking I would have to ride the mule straight down, perpendicular to the ground, attached to the cliff with some kind of spiked horseshoe. I smiled. I couldn't
remember the actual mule ride. One minute left. All I remembered was what I had feared.

It was 9:01. Then 9:02. Still no one was milling around outside. 9:04. 9:06. I heard footsteps coming up the hall and froze: a grown-up's shoe.

Frank?
The principal poked her head in, a jowl pressed against the door frame.
May I?

My face went hot.
Yeah, no problem. Come on in. Of course.
I couldn't get the words out fast enough, emphatically enough. I had learned it from the kids: when they got ratted out for cursing, for hitting someone behind the monkey bars, they knew nonchalance suggested blamelessness.
How was your weekend?
I said lamely.

She squinted at me and I shriveled.

Frank, I'd love it if I could borrow you for a moment.
She held out her hand.

Class starts in like ...
I checked the clock again.
It started eight minutes ago—

I shook my head.
Why?

Let's go talk for a sec.
She made the “come here,” swing-arm motion; she may as well have bent at the waist and slapped her lap.

We walked silently up the hall. I knew she wouldn't speak to me until her door was closed. I took the chair in front of her desk, the room thick with potted ferns and posters of children's book covers: Max dancing in his wild rumpus, the selfish boy gazing up at the doomed Giving Tree. I saw her pick up a piece of paper and hold it in her lap, taking the chair next to mine, both of us turning to face each other. She leaned forward enough that I could
see part of the reinforced, masking-tape-colored apparatus that held her gigantic breasts.

Frank,
she said.

I thought, If she says my name one more goddamn time.

Did you get my message?
I asked—the lie was automatic, unrehearsed.

She ignored it.
You should have called me immediately, from the beach. I tried your house ten times this weekend. I left message after message—

I began to speak, but she stopped me with a lifted hand.

Let's come back to that.
Her anger had congealed, spreading over her voice like a film. She gripped the paper; I tried to look through it but couldn't make out the backward lettering.
I spoke to Callie Stone's mom on Saturday morning, and Caleb Noel's father on Saturday night,
she said.

She waited for me to say it for her: they had told her everything. That I was staring into the bay as they took regular head counts and answered questions about pickleweed and barnacles. That I had let the children have free rein on a beach punctuated with pointy rocks. That I was reading a newspaper. Grenades of shame and terror detonated in my head.

You've had
—she looked down at the sheet of paper—
six absences so far this year.

She waited for me to speak. I didn't.

You've been asked repeatedly to attend district-wide teacher development days and thus far you have
—she
consulted the paper—
done so only once, at the beginning of the academic year.

I looked at her with the same expression, I imagined, as someone being addressed in a language he doesn't speak.

This is the part where you tell me,
she said, losing patience,
that you understand my concerns and will take steps to address them.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them she was leaning toward me, her irritation nearly propelling her out of her chair. I could smell her baby-powder scent. I felt rage begin to replicate like cancer cells. It had always been my way: regardless of my own culpability, the anger of others made me angry.

The body was my wife's,
I said.

She squinted again—that tight face of disdain and disbelief.

Her eyes widened in perfect concert with her mouth and nostrils—every hole in her head dilated in shock.

God almighty,
she said.
Oh Jesus, I'm just—

The police identified her,
I said.
They told me.

One phone call—that's all she would need to find me out.

I'm so sorry, Frank.
She grabbed my hand, enveloped it.
Why didn't you tell—
she stopped, correcting herself. I experienced a relief so strong I actually sighed: already, she was censoring her criticism.

God almighty,
she said again.
Was she missing?

I sat back in my chair, looking everywhere but at her—the junk on her desk, a terrarium filled with moss, the wood-beaded macramé hanging in her window.
Yes,
I said.
She had been missing for a while.
I picked up a glass paperweight from her desk and held it.

She watched the paperweight as she spoke. Her words were careful, precise.
We can offer you some time to get back on track ... whatever time you need to do that.

I leaned back, dazed.
You want me to take time off?

Sure. I know.
She watched me set down the paperweight.

I didn't answer.

God almighty,
she said.
I just had no idea.

I rubbed my palms on my knees like I was juicing oranges, my head swimming from the pills.
No,
I said.

They need me,
I said.
I want to see this through with the kids.

She nodded, believing me.

 

We walked to the auditorium together. It also served as the gym and cafeteria: a basketball hoop hung opposite the small stage, and folded tables leaned against one wall. The children sat Indian-style along the three-point line, conducting their usual squabbles. The girls were braiding one another's hair, the boys raising their arms in threatened punches. Marcus, my problem kid, taunted another student, his head bobbing in practiced provocation. Jacob sat very still, and I watched his breathing for a moment before looking away. Edmund sat beside a couple of girls—a rarity among kids their age; mostly they divided
into gender-based teams to regard the opposite squad with disdain. Ed was tucking his knees into his shirt, showing Emma and Marisol his makeshift breasts. The three of them laughed wickedly. Sitting to the side was a petite brunette maybe a few years older than me, in hip eyeglasses and a snug pink T-shirt, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail.

Good MOR-ning, Mrs. Norman,
the kids said to the principal in their robot voices.

Good morning, little ones,
she said, pausing to bend and smile at them as she walked to the dais. She reached the foot-high stage and stood at the podium, thought better of it, and with great effort and imbalance, took a place on the floor. I stood against the wall, the light switch in my back.

You guys,
she began,
something happened that I think we should talk about. Can anyone tell me about Friday?

In a stuttering chorus came the simultaneous replies:

The principal nodded.
Those are all correct answers, but can anyone tell me what happened that was scary and sad?

Marcus piped up without raising his hand.
I ain't scared or sad about it, it wasn't even scary. I seen it, and me, Ben, Ed, and Jeff seen it, and we wasn't even scared.

Amber raised her hand and gave the principal that hungry look: pick me, pick me. It took no imagination to see her giving that same look someday to some man. The principal said her name and Amber began her fidgety recitation.
We were at the beach looking for flora, and we
saw something, and it was a dead person's body, and that means that their soul went to heaven.

You only go to heaven if you're good,
said Marcus.

Marcus,
the principal said, pinning him with her stare.
Hands raised.
He went quiet, the kids tittering.

There's a very special someone here,
the principal said,
who can help us talk about what we saw. Her name is Dr. Jennifer.

The brunette stood up, eyes twinkling behind her cat-eye glasses, and took another spot on the floor. The principal stood, walking laboriously across the room until she reached me. As Dr. Jennifer reintroduced herself, the principal took my hand and held it for one, two seconds.
I'll stop by later,
she said.

You don't have to,
I said.
I'm fine, really.

She smiled, and mercifully dropped my hand.
I'll see you in a few hours,
she said, and then left, the equine clop of her shoes echoing behind her.

Hawthorne's in-house psychologist had been laid off the spring before—one in a series of desperate budget cuts—and I knew immediately that Dr. Jennifer had never worked with children this small. She appeared to believe it required a louder voice than usual, more deliberate enunciation.
Has anyone ever had a pet that died? Or a grandma or grandpa?

Cautiously, a few kids raised their hands.

Rebekah spoke after being called on.
My mom died,
she said.

Dr. Jennifer looked stunned. There was a pause as she recovered.
What did it mean when she died?

Rebekah shrugged.

Dr. Jennifer sat up straighter.
What does it mean, to ‘die'?
She made the quotation marks with her fingers.

Marcus spoke up again.
It means you never come back.

The kids turned to Dr. Jennifer for confirmation the way a game-show host consults the judges.
That's true,
she said.
It does mean that.

And as she spoke, she looked up and saw my pink face, the tearful tributaries meeting at my chin. Before the kids could see, I ducked out and ran up the hall to the boys' bathroom. I untucked my shirt, drying my tears with the bottom as Buckingham's words returned.
The greatest waste.
The phrase repeated itself, changing shape, losing meaning. I fought back a rapid succession of childish urges: I wanted to suffocate in the warm embrace of my own arms, to stretch T-shirt over knees and duck into that fashioned cave. Let yourself think it, I thought. You're allowed to think it: she doesn't call you because she's dead. You'll never see her again.
It means you never come back.
And as though I had touched a live wire, I went weak as suddenly as I had on the beach. It didn't matter whether it was true or not; the very thought shut me down, blew me backward like a blow.

No one in my family had ever died, apart from the four grandparents who went before I was born. The closest I had come to death was cheating it: when that pickup truck's belt did snap, I wasn't on the freeway. I wasn't even on the road. I was in the driveway of my aunt's house, about to go to my cousin's Little League game. There was an abrupt jolt. The interior lights went off; the motor stilled. The car rolled back—the mechanic had been right, I had lost all control—and I yanked the
emergency brake at my knee. It stopped rolling. I sat for a moment, sweating. That was it.

I understood then that nothing like that other scenario—speeding unanchored into oblivion, dying in the crush of a renegade metal machine—would ever happen to me. I felt certain in that moment that I would spend my whole life doing normal stuff, watering my lawn and yelling at my kids. I believed I would grow up and grow old and have money enough to pay my bills; I would vacation in Hawaiian shirts, push a stroller, bitch about property taxes. I would never have a hallowed, tragic name, would never be a sad story parents whispered about. My curse would not be adversity, but banality. I knew I might not get everything I wanted, everything I asked for. But things would move forward. I would get rid of that truck and buy another. And, in fact, a month later my dad fronted the down payment for the little white car, the one I still drove despite a busted cassette player and a smashed driver's side door.