by Ivy Black
“Me too, Mom.”
A soft knock on the bedroom door draws my attention and I turn to see Nurse Ranovich, my mom’s day nurse, standing there.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s time for me to give your mother her medication and a bath,” she says, her voice slightly colored by an Eastern European accent.
“Of course. I’ll see you for dinner then?” I ask.
“Looking forward to it, honey.”
I walk out of my mom’s room to let Nurse Ranovich do her thing and head upstairs to my room. I sit down in the chair at my old desk and spin around, taking it all in. The countless memories of this place come flooding back as I soak it all in. Of all the places in the world I thought I’d end up, back in my old room in Blue Rock would have been last on the list.
It’s not that I was unhappy here. In fact, I had a happier childhood than most people I knew. My parents loved and doted on me, and though we didn’t have the kind of money some of the other kids I grew up with did, we were comfortable enough. But then, my dad had a heart attack and died in my sophomore year in high school and my entire world was turned upside down.
The shame fills me as I think back to those days after my father died. I was so caught up in my own grief that I never stopped to think about how my mom felt. He was the love of her life and she was so happy. I guess I never stopped to think about the hole that had been ripped in her heart when he passed. Having never had a soulmate myself, her grief was different than mine and it never occurred to me that she might be hurting every bit as much as I was.
After my father passed, I acted out. I lashed out. And it pains me to remember what a horrible little bitch I was to her. It was then that I decided I needed to get out of Blue Rock. I remember vowing to myself that once I got out, I’d never come back. The happy little bubble of childhood I’d lived in had burst and I wanted nothing more than to put the grief and the anger I felt at having my father taken away from me so unjustly in the rearview mirror and never look back.
Of course, once I got to school out in Colorado, I started missing my mom and our home. Not enough to go back, but having been away for a while, and learning to cope with my own grief through my own therapy, I was able to let go of a lot of the anger inside of me, recognizing it as a childish response.
So, I was finally able to bury my pride and call her. And I’m glad I did. We spent some time together and grew as close as we used to be. Closer perhaps. Even though I was living in Colorado and building my life there, my mom was genuinely happy for me, and it didn’t diminish the bond that had been rebuilt between us. Which made getting that phone call feel like an absolute punch in the gut.
I’m not ready to let go of my mom. I’m not ready to say goodbye. And it makes me kick myself again and again whenever I think about all the time that I wasted being a petulant little girl. Knowing I wasted years being mad and keeping her at an arm’s distance is a regret I am going to live with for the rest of my life. I have no idea how much time she has left—not even her doctors can say with any real certainty—so all I can do now is try to make up for the time I lost because I’m an idiot, by cherishing every last second that I have with her. And that’s what I plan on doing.
Getting to my feet, I grab my bags and throw them on the bed, then start to unpack, placing all of my clothes in my old dresser and closet. Literally nothing has changed in this room. All of my old things are right where I left them. It’s as if my mom hermetically sealed my room like a time capsule.
After getting all of my clothes put away, I decide to leave the boxes for later. And since I’m here for the long haul, I’m also going to have to make arrangements to have all of my other things currently filling my mom’s garage sent to storage. But that’s all going to have to wait since I have an appointment to keep.
Chapter Three
Bellamy
“It is so good to see you again, Bell. I am so happy you’re back,” Ruby says as she pulls me into a tight, rib-cracking embrace.
“Thanks, Rube. It’s great to see you, too,” I gasp.
Her smile stretching from ear to ear, she finally lets go of me and steps back. It really is good to see Ruby again. She’s been my best friend since grade school and even though I was living in another state, we’ve been able to maintain our friendship. When she found out I was moving back, although she hates the reason for it, I thought she was going to explode with excitement.
Ruby is currently the principal at FDR Jr. High and when we talked about me moving back to Blue Rock, she told me she incidentally had an opening in her school for me. I’m still not sure she didn’t manufacture this opening for me, but I need the job and am not in a position to turn it down.
Besides, even if I were rich, I’d still take the job. The last thing I want to do is sit around the house all day. I’d go stir-crazy. I like the setup I’ve worked out with her nurses. They’re there all day and I cover the nights. Not only does it help defer some of the cost since she’ll no longer have round-the-clock care, but it also gives me some time out of the house to do my own thing. Which is something I need and will probably need even more as her disease advances and her body begins to decline.
I just don’t know that I can sit there and watch her wither away to nothing. I’m not ready for it and will need some time out to recharge and refresh myself. To get my head on straight and manage my own emotions. I don’t want to be a wreck around her. I want to be there to enjoy the time we have together, and I don’t want them to be marked with sadness or any sort of awkwardness. I want to be able to look at her and smile and remember nothing but the good things.
“Come on, let me give you the tour,” Ruby says.
I follow Ruby around the empty corridors of the school we both attended when we were younger. There have been some additions and modifications to the place. It’s a lot more modern with computers in a lot of the classrooms.
“This place is a lot nicer than when we were here,” I remark.
She nods. “They’ve really upgraded the place, that’s for sure.”
“I still can’t believe you’re the principal here, Rube. I mean, you’re not even thirty yet! That’s crazy.”
“I got lucky, to be honest. I wasn’t actually trying to get the job. But when Mr. Willerson retired, some friends in high places decided I was the right fit. You ask me, they simply wanted a female face in charge for the optics,” she replies.
“That’s crap. You’re one of the smartest and most dedicated people I know. You’re eminently qualified for this post.”
She shrugs. “I wasn’t going to turn it down whether I was given the job for the optics or not. There are some real changes I want to make here,” she says. “But don’t think it hasn’t earned me quite a bit of resentment from some of the old-timers here. A couple of them up and quit after I was named principal.”
“Well, I think you’re better off without them there, anyway.”
She flashes me a grin. “So do I, to be honest. I was able to bring in some smart, more progressive-minded people. Like you.”
We round a corner and stop before room number 304. She gives me a smile and opens the door, ushering me inside. I flip on the lights as I walk in and look at the room, breathing in deeply. There’s still the lingering scent of fresh paint in the air, and a quick count shows twenty-five empty desks all lined up in neat rows. I turn to Ruby with a wide smile on my face.
“Welcome home, Bell. This is your classroom,” she says.
I throw myself at her, pulling her into another tight embrace. She laughs and hugs me back as I fight off the unexpected nostalgia-laced tears that are welling up in my eyes. Between my mom and now being here with Ruby, it really is starting to feel like home again.
Stepping back, I delicately wipe my eyes and look around the empty walls of the classroom. The excitement bubbles up inside of me as I look at the blank slate that I’m free to do with as I will. Back at my school in Colorado, there were restrictions on what could and could no
t be displayed, and it was all very uniform and rigid. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but I’ll admit to chafing a bit at the tight control. Ruby’s already told me that here, with regard to decorations and my lesson plan, I have free rein—within reason, of course.
“So, like I told you before, you’re going to have eighth grade US History and Civics,” she says. “Are you okay with that?”
“More than okay. I’m ecstatic. I can’t wait to get started,” I tell her.
“Well, take the rest of the week and get your classroom set up,” she replies. “It’s going to take me that long to juggle the students and schedules around enough to get you some bodies in here.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry to drop in like this with a semester already in progress.”
She waves me off. “Honestly, you being here is going to reduce the size of the other classrooms, so if anybody whines about it, I’ll know it’s just to whine since no teacher I’ve ever known gets upset about smaller class sizes.”
There’s a quiet burst of static over the loudspeakers that’s followed by a tinny-sounding woman’s voice.
“Ms. Salter, please come to the office. Ms. Salter, please come to the office.”
There’s a click as the speaker is shut off and Ruby turns to me. “They’re playing my song.”
“Go be Superwoman,” I tell her. “I’ll be fine here.”
“You’re going to be great here. Drinks soon?”
I nod. “Absolutely.”
She gives me another hug, then turns and walks to the door, and calls over her shoulder. “It’s great having you here, Bell. I can’t tell you how freaking happy I am!”
The door closes with a soft click, leaving me alone to take it all in. I look at the blank walls, just waiting for me to fill them with something, and can’t help but think it’s a metaphor for this new chapter in my life. It’s an unexpected new chapter, but it’s up to me to fill the pages with something good.
“So, let’s get to it.”
***
After spending a couple of hours in the classroom moving furniture around and getting it just how I want it, I call it a day. I’m going to have to dig through my boxes in the garage to find some of my old classroom decorations. But I’m also going to need to go shopping for some new things as well, which excites me.
There’s something about putting my classroom together that I’ve always enjoyed. I think it’s fun and it always symbolizes a new start for me. Of course, that new start usually comes at the end of summer, when I’m on the cusp of a new school year, with all new students, and not in the middle of a semester. But I can’t control the timing, and the idea of a new beginning is perhaps more relevant now than it’s ever been. I’m definitely not the same girl who left Blue Rock all those years ago, and my life today looks nothing like it did back then.
I close up the classroom and head out of the school. Ruby’s probably busy doing her “principal” things, so I figure I’ll just shoot her a text later. It’s getting late in the afternoon and I should probably head home, both to check on my mom and to start hauling the important classroom-type stuff out of the garage.
My head is in the clouds as I cross the parking lot that separates the junior high on one side and the grade school on the other. I’m almost to my car when a familiar voice stops me in my tracks.
“As I live and breathe, now, there’s a face I haven’t seen in ages,” he says.
I turn around to see Max Wise standing there. And much to my surprise, he’s got a young boy, maybe four or five with him, the child’s small, delicate hand in Max’s large, strong paw.
“Wow. Talk about a blast from the past,” I say. “How are you, Max?”
The boy standing beside Max looks up at me with a serious expression on his face. “Domino. His name is Domino.”
“Domino, huh?” I ask, thinking the boy’s nickname for him is cute.
“You can just call me Max. Ashley—this little one’s mom,” he says, ruffling the boy’s hair, “refuses to call me Domino.”
The boy darts behind Max’s legs and peeks around them at me, a shy but playful smile on his face. Max looks pretty much the same as he did back in high school. Although, he’s definitely matured and is very much a man now. He’s still lean but wide through the shoulders, and he’s sporting a neatly trimmed goatee he didn’t have before. The two white spots, one above his upper lip and one below his lower lip, obviously account for the kid’s nickname for him, since they actually look like pips on a domino.
He’s clean-cut but has a rugged, almost wild, and untamed look about him. He was always fit back in high school, but he looks even fitter now. He’s got a square jawline and eyes that glitter like emeralds. He’s a handsome man now that he’s all grown up. I had just never pegged him for the settle-down-and-have-a-family type.
“And where did you come by such a charming nickname?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Around. What are you doing back in town? Last I heard, you were somewhere over in Timbuktu or somethin’.”
I laugh. “Never made it to Africa.”
He cocks his head and looks at me, which makes me burst into laughter. He screws up his face and although he’s frowning at me, I can see that he’s not actually upset. Slightly embarrassed by his ignorance, perhaps. But not upset. We weren’t ever really good friends back in the day and never really hung out socially, but we had a couple of classes. We got along well enough. One thing about Max I remember well is that he’s not afraid to laugh at himself. More than that, I remember that he’s willing to stand up for people.
There was one time in an English class we had together, this was shortly after my dad had died so I was having a hard time of things anyway, that he made himself look like a fool, and he did it to protect me. I remember it so well because we had no connection, and we weren’t friends. Hell, at that point, we were barely acquaintances. But when I needed somebody to step up for me, he was there.
It was in the cafeteria one afternoon. I was already an emotional wreck, but when I dumped my cup of juice in my lap, I lost it. It looked like I’d wet myself. The uproar in the cafeteria, people laughing and pointing and making jokes at my expense, was deafening, and I was frozen. I just sat there with tears streaming down my face, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and none of my friends stood up for me. Not a single one of them.
But Max came over and sat down next to me, the whole cafeteria went silent as he poured a cup of juice on his own lap. He never said a word, he just looked at everybody standing around, silently daring them to laugh or say something. Anything. And of course, people were so afraid of him that nobody said a single word. In fact, the crowd drifted off and everybody went about their own business. I’m sure they were still making jokes about me, but I couldn’t hear them anymore.
The next day, when he walked by my table at lunch, he set a child’s sippy cup filled with juice in front of me. He never said a word, he just gave me a wink and a smile then walked away. My laughter filled the cafeteria, making people turn and look at me strangely. It was embarrassing, but the funniest thing to me, like… ever.
We still never hung out together after that. There was no overlap in our social circles. But I like to think that, in our own way, we were friends. We talked in class and whatnot, but that’s about it. Our connection was strong, but it was purely platonic. And he never tried to cross that line. I think maybe knowing I had something of a thing for one of his friends might have had a little something to do with it.
“Timbuktu is in Africa. Mali, to be precise,” I tell him.
“Oh, right. I knew that.”
“Uh-huh,” I say with a laugh.
“So, what are you doing back here, anyway?”
A frown pulls at the corners of my mouth as I feel the familiar heaviness settle about my heart, dragging me down. I don’t know that I should be telling him all this. Like I said, it’s not like we were besties or anything. We ran in different social circles, and his friends were all a bit
rough around the edges.
But that was then, and this is now. Time moves on and the things that seemed important back then—things like social standing and what our friends thought—are no longer relevant. In fact, as I look back at all the things that I thought were important back then, I want to kick my own butt. It was all so stupid and superficial. We’re all grown now. Adults. And I don’t have to worry about being excommunicated from my social circle for talking to somebody like Max Wise any longer. The truth of it is, with some distance and perspective as an adult now, looking back on those years, I wish I would have been a different person. In a lot of different ways.
“My mom… she’s sick,” I finally admit. “I came back to take care of her.”
His face darkens and he nods. “I’m sorry to hear that. That’s a really tough break. I wish…”
His voice trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish the statement for me to know what he was getting at. And I appreciate the sentiment, even if there’s now suddenly a very awkward tension in the air between us.
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” I say, then gesture to the boy, just to change the subject. “Your son is adorable.”
“Oh, he’s not my son. He’s my girlfriend’s boy. This is Cole,” he says, ruffling the kid’s dark, shaggy hair. “Cole, can you say hello to Bellamy? I went to school with her.”
“Hi,” he says softly then ducks behind Max’s legs again, drawing a laugh from both of us.
“He’s shy,” Max says. “Sorry about that.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. Some kids are shy. He’ll grow out of it,” I say.
“Yeah,” he replies. “So, do you have kids of your own? Is that why you’re here at the school?”
I shake my head. “Oh no, not at all. I’m actually teaching over at FDR.”
“Wow, that’s great,” Max says. “Maybe you’ll get to teach this one in a few years. What do you think about that, Cole?”
He giggles and presses his face into his legs again. His awkwardness makes me laugh. It’s absolutely adorable. And watching Max with him warms my heart. For being such a big, gruff guy, he’s really good with Cole. Seeing Max again brings another familiar face to my mind and makes me feel like there’s a swarm of butterflies loose in my belly, their velvety wings brushing against my insides.
