by M. S. Parker
I nodded. “That’s what I was thinking too. I want to do some cross-referencing, look for the ones in the lowest-income districts that also have the most troubled students. See where I can do the most good.”
Eoin went very still, and his face went blank. When he spoke, he was more careful than I’d ever heard him. “You’re looking for what?”
“I want to go somewhere I can make a difference,” I explained, thrown off by his reaction to what I’d thought was a good plan.
“You’ll make a difference no matter where you go,” he said. “You’re going to be an amazing teacher, whether you’re there for a day or a year.”
“Thank you.” I smiled, but now we had a tension between us that hadn’t existed a few minutes ago. “When I did my student teaching, I was at this amazing elementary school that had small class numbers and more resources than it knew what to do with. The salaries there were great too.”
He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “If you want to go back to a school near Stanford, we can figure something out.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” I struggled to find the words to express what I’d felt that semester. “A school like that will get the best teachers because they can afford to be competitive in ways schools in poorer neighborhoods can’t. But money isn’t something I need to worry about, so I can afford to work for much less, go to places that couldn’t normally pay for someone with my credentials.”
I felt like such a snob saying it that way because I firmly believed that plenty of quality teachers came from public colleges, and I also believed that not all intelligence could be measured by IQ, but I knew that I was smart. Literally a genius according to standardized testing. I didn’t think it would be bragging to say that I’d be an asset to any faculty.
“That’s true,” he said. “But when you were thinking of all that, you weren’t pregnant. You can’t seriously be thinking of working in some school with metal detectors and gang members.”
“You’d rather I teach at a school with a nice library and good tech? Great sports programs?” I tried not to let my annoyance seep into my words, but I didn’t think I succeeded.
“Yes!” he snapped.
“You mean a school like Columbine in Colorado?” I countered, my own temper rising. “Or Sandy Hook? Don’t you think I know that being a teacher doesn’t automatically mean I’ll be safe? If I’m going to be in danger no matter where I go, why not be with kids who society has written off? Kids who, despite the statistics regarding mass shootings proving that they generally don’t take place in those ‘bad’ schools, are generally given the dregs of educators?”
“Do you even hear yourself?” He pushed to his feet, something dark on his face. “After what happened in Iran, how can you even think about putting yourself in that kind of situation again? Are you just looking for trouble?”
I stood up too. He was still much taller but being on my feet made me feel like we were a little more on even footing.
“I’m fully capable of deciding what I want to do with my life, Eoin.” I crossed my arms. “I would’ve thought Christmas with my family had driven that point home.”
“This is different.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “Because you’re not my parent, so stop treating me like a child.”
He threw up his hands. “You’re damn right I’m not your parent because I never would’ve let you do something as fucking crazy as going to a war zone on some fucking crusade!”
Everything inside me went cold.
“Let me,” I echoed his words and then nodded. All right then. “Fuck you, Eoin McCrae.”
Without another word, I walked out.
Thirty-Six
Eoin
What the hell just happened?
We’d been getting along great since the engagement, even after that rough patch on Christmas Day. I’d half-expected her to backpedal on getting married since her family seemed to think it was a bad idea, but she’d stood her ground.
I doubted her parents would be upset for long. Their baby was getting married and was pregnant with their first grandchild. They were concerned, not idiots. They’d come around before the wedding. Or the birth. Aline and I hadn’t set a date yet.
Except now I wondered if we’d be doing any wedding planning at all.
I’d simply been trying to explain to her why her plans for teaching at schools in bad neighborhoods wasn’t a good idea for a pregnant woman, and she’d flipped out on me. I’d already expected there’d be hormone issues that made her act emotionally or irrationally, but I hadn’t expected this.
I winced as I finished that last thought. Mom and my sisters would kick my ass if they ever heard me refer to a woman as emotional or irrational because of hormones.
And maybe that hadn’t been the reason at all. After all, Aline had gotten into my face in Iran when she’d realized I planned to leave the other hostages. Actually, now that I thought about it, she’d never really had any problems making her opinions known to me.
I just couldn’t understand why she’d want to do something that risky. Going to Iran had been crazy, but at least it’d only been her at risk. Now she was pregnant. Couldn’t she see how dangerous the world was? How many things I had to protect her and our baby from?
I’d thought I’d been getting through to her, convincing her that she could find much safer places to work, and then she’d mentioned the school shootings that had been happening for more than twenty years. One more thing to worry about. One more way to have her and the baby taken from me.
I’d been in elementary school when the Columbine shooting occurred, but my older siblings had been in junior high and high school, old enough that it’d been all they’d talked about for days. There had been more since then. Little kids too. Teachers. Some bad enough that I’d heard about them in war zones.
My chest tightened, and my vision narrowed. Every picture and news story I’d seen, even ones I hadn’t realized I could remember, came flooding into my mind, tangling up with everything else.
Kids running out of their school with their hands in the air. Flags being lowered to half-mast. Crime scene tape around a parking lot. Police cars with lights flashing and a parade of names and faces. The sound of gunfire and the smell of dirt and death.
It occurred to me that I needed to sit down, but then I realized I already was sitting. I didn’t remember doing it. I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands, focusing on breathing, focused on keeping my panic attack from becoming a full-blown PTSD flashback.
When this happened before, I’d think about Aline, and her face and smile grounded me, but thinking about her now just brought up all the fears of what could happen to her.
A knock on the door made me jump, but at least I recognized the sound for what it was and not as an explosion or gunshot. Knowing that I hadn’t completely disappeared from reality help me steady myself enough to get up and go to the door. Part of me wondered if it was Aline. If she’d forgotten her keys, she’d have to knock or ring the doorbell.
It wasn’t Aline, though. It was a young guy in a brown uniform. “Eoin McCrae?”
He massacred the pronunciation of my name, but I didn’t bother to correct him. No one who ever saw it said it right the first time.
“That’s me.”
He handed over the package, his gaze fixed on my face. He was still staring when I turned around and closed the door. I figured my rudeness balanced out his.
I went to toss the box on the counter, not really caring what was inside, but then I saw the return address.
Israel McCormack.
Leo’s dad had sent me something.
If anything was going to get my mind off of the shit that’d just happened, it’d be something from Israel and Nana Naz. Sure, it’d make me think about Leo, but I’d take that over my head spinning out over Aline walking out.
Another box was inside the plain cardboard box, but on this one was a card with my name on it. In Leo’s handw
riting. When I flipped it over to open it, my fingers were shaking. A different hand had written a brief message on the back of the envelope.
I found this in the last box of Leo’s things. I don’t know what’s in the box or in the card, but I think it was a birthday present. It’s a little late for that, but that’s not important. I know this year hasn’t been a good one, but I hope that this will bring some form of closure so you can go into the new year with hope and a new outlook. Love you, son.
I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat didn’t go away. A part of me wanted to put the card away, unopened, put the box in a closet, and pretend that I hadn’t gotten it. Not that I’d be able to pretend that Leo was still alive, but Israel had talked about closure, and that wasn’t something I felt like I wanted.
Or deserved.
But I opened the card, anyway.
It was a birthday card with the sort of corny joke that Leo had always loved. And there, right under the punch line, was a message from my best friend.
Creeping up on thirty now, old man. Hard to believe we’ve been friends for more than two decades. Here’s hoping for a few more, brother.
“Fuck.” The word cracked as I said it.
I sat down before reaching for my gift. My pulse pounded as if I was running a marathon, but I wasn’t going to back off now. I forced myself to take off the wrapping paper and then opened the box. I braced myself for what was inside, but there was no way I could’ve prepared myself for this.
It was a book.
Not a big one. Probably the size of one of those little kid books Evanne had had five years ago, but the picture on the front wasn’t some Dr. Suess craziness or whatever.
It was a picture of my mom and me on the day I’d been born.
I opened it and found another note from Leo inside.
I know you don’t remember your mom, so I put together some memories for you.
Each page had a memory from someone in my family. Alec. Brody. The twins. Extended family from back in Scotland who I hadn’t seen in years.
On the last page was a picture of me with both of my parents and a memory from Da that I’d never heard before.
I don’t share this with many people, but my late wife, she had a touch of the sight. The night before Eoin was born, Shannon had a dream that he would be a great man. A brave man who would sacrifice everything for the people he loved, but also a man who would take every loss to heart. A man who would fight and love with everything that was in him. I never told him any of this, didn’t want to put any pressure on him, and maybe that had been the wrong thing to do, but without even knowing, he’s become the man his mother always knew he would be. A man we are both proud to call our son.
Shit.
I rubbed my cheeks, hardly aware that I’d been crying. I would’ve had to be a cold-hearted bastard to not shed tears over that. I wasn’t mad at Da for not telling me this years ago…I wouldn’t have gotten it before. Now, for the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to hear the right thing at the right time to get the needed revelation in time to fix a mistake before it became the worst moment of my life.
I’d done it again. Now, however, I needed to not only apologize to Aline but actually talk to her about the why behind my behavior. I’d admitted it to myself but hadn’t wanted to say it to anyone else. Hadn’t wanted to admit that I was fucking terrified, and my way of dealing with it was to overreact. That I felt like I had to carry all of that weight on just my shoulders instead of asking for help.
Instead of treating her like the equal partner she was supposed to be.
I just hoped she’d actually answer my call.
Thirty-Seven
Aline
While I might’ve thought snow at Christmas would be nice every once in a while, right now, I was glad for the warmer December weather that L.A. offered because it meant I could walk wherever I was going. I didn’t have a specific place in mind. I just needed to be away from Eoin.
And I needed to talk to someone.
Tears burned my eyes.
No, not someone. I needed my sister.
I knew she’d probably say, “I told you so,” but I also knew that she’d come. It wouldn’t matter where she was or what she was doing. If I needed her, she’d drop everything to help me.
When I looked up and saw a café, I decided that was where I would wait. I got myself a decaf latte and then texted Freedom, praying that she hadn’t gone back to Stanford yet. She answered a moment later, saying she’d be here in fifteen minutes. I closed my eyes and let myself feel the relief that I wouldn’t be alone much longer.
I sipped at my drink, more to look like I was doing something than any real desire for it. Not that it wasn’t delicious, because it was. I just didn’t want anyone coming over to talk to me. Maybe, if I stared at the dark liquid long enough, I could turn my brain off. Hypnotize myself or something.
“Aline?”
I raised my head to see Freedom standing on the other side of the table, concern clear and sharp on her face.
“What’s wrong?” She sat down and reached out her hand to take mine.
I pressed my lips together and shook my head. I’d wanted her here to talk to her, but now that she was right in front of me, the words seemed to stick in my throat.
“Dammit, Aline. What happened?” She squeezed my hand. “Did you…did you lose the baby?”
The question startled my tongue loose. “What? No. No, that’s…no, I’m fine. The baby’s fine.” At least I hoped it was. I didn’t feel like anything physical was wrong.
“Did something happen with Eoin?”
After the question, I waited for her to tell me how she’d been right all along, that I’d been irresponsible and lacked good judgment. That I couldn’t handle the real world.
But she didn’t say anything like that. Instead, she just repeated the question, and the floodgates opened, words pouring out before I really thought about any of them.
“Everything’s just happening so fast, and I thought I could handle it, but now, I’m thinking that I can’t because absolutely no one in my life thinks I know what I’m doing or can take care of myself. I mean, I understand why it’s hard for you and Mom and Dad to see that I’m grown up since it’s not like I had a normal childhood and adolescence so you had to take care of me during times when most people would’ve been on their own, but I really thought Eoin saw me the way I saw myself. Capable and smart and independent and…” I shook my head and pulled back my hand to twist my fingers together. “But he doesn’t.”
“That’s not how it sounded last week.”
I shook my head again. “I told him that I wanted to look into doing some substitute work at some low-income schools, and he just started arguing with me, saying that I’d be putting myself and the baby at risk, just like I’d put myself in danger by going to Iran. I told him that he wasn’t my parent, and he said that if he had been, he wouldn’t have let me go at all.”
Freedom winced. “Let you?”
I nodded.
“That was stupid.”
I frowned at her. “But you were right. All of you were right. I don’t know what I’m doing. I was stupid to believe that I could make this work with someone I clearly don’t know as well as I thought I did. How could I be that dumb? So completely wrong about the type of man–”
“Stop.” Freedom’s voice was gentle, and when I looked at her, I was startled to see that she had tears in her eyes. “Please, Aline, stop. You’re not stupid.”
I shook my head, wanting to argue, but she didn’t let me.
“I’m so sorry I ever made you feel that way.” She grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her eyes. “I’m especially sorry for how I behaved on Christmas. How I went after Eoin when I heard you were pregnant.”
“But you weren’t–”
“I was taking out my own issues on him,” Freedom said. Her voice was firm again. “I had a pregnancy scare a few years ago.”
My jaw dropped. I hadn
’t known.
“My freshman year, there was this guy named Jack Graves. Pre-law and a junior. We started dating, and I thought things were getting serious. I wanted him to come home to meet the family on Christmas, but he thought it was too soon.”
I could see the pain on her face, and my fury toward this man I didn’t know pushed back my own feelings. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to talk about him if it hurt so much, but I knew that she must’ve had a reason, and if this might help heal our relationship, I’d listen. I’d been a fool to wait so long, to let things fester rather than forcing the issue.
“A couple days after I got back from break, I realized I’d missed my period, and when I told Jack, he freaked out. Said that I was trying to trick him into something more serious. He even insinuated that I’d been sleeping with someone else, and if I was pregnant, it wasn’t even his. I wasn’t pregnant, but that was it for Jack and me.”
I reached for her hand. “I’m sorry.”
She gave me a weak smile. “Thank you, but that’s not why I’m telling you this. I’m telling you because I’d thought I’d moved past it, but in the last few days, I’ve come to see that what happened with Jack really messed with my head.”
“Well, yes, it would,” I agreed.
“You don’t understand. I was jealous, Aline,” Freedom said. “Jealous that this man who you’d had a fling with, after learning that you were pregnant, proposed and wanted to make a life and family, while the man I’d been dating for months had cheated on me and accused me of trying to trick him.”
Suddenly, I saw Christmas in a whole new light. Heard the things she’d said with this new information in mind.
“Eoin’s lost people close to him.” The soft tone surprised me almost as much as what she said. “Maybe it’s fear of losing more people he loves that has him pushing so hard to protect you.”
I didn’t know what to say. The last thing I’d expected when I’d called her was for her to defend him.
