A Sister's Promise (Promises)

by Lenfestey, Karen

  “It’s just a lot all at once,” she said, looking up at the giggling girls running through the yard.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Joely shook her head. “I’ll never have kids. Never have grandkids.”

  “I know.” Kate also knew that Mitch was wrong. There was something more that she could do for Joely.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Scanning the fifty-six unread e-mails in her in-box Kate’s eyes stopped on one with the subject line “Help Me Please.” Realizing she didn’t recognize the sender’s address, she opened the message. Her pulse quickened and her hands shook—fearing the worst. Maybe one of her students was on the edge. She hoped it wasn’t too late.

  To: guidance@fcs.k12.in.us

  From: jennifer1993@verizon.net

  Re: Help Me Please

  I am writing because something happened to me when I was a student at Foxworth High School that I was too embarrassed at the time to talk about. Now after years of nightmares and therapy I can face the truth. And so must you!

  Starting my sophomore year I was molested by one of your staff. I was young and I thought this person really cared about me. My parents were divorced and busy shuffling me back and forth between them. No one paid attention to me. I suppose that made me an easy target. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized how sick this person was!

  What really bothers me is that I just learned this person is still employed at Foxworth High. How can this be?

  I currently live far away, but am planning to be in the area soon. At that time I would like to meet to tell my story. I will be in touch.

  Kate re-read the message as rage, sadness and fear bombarded her. This was the worst thing to ever happen at Foxworth High. She had to talk to Rhonda. She rushed to her mentor’s office, but the lights were out and the door was locked.

  “Antonio?” she called to the guidance secretary. “Where’s Rhonda?”

  “She’s at that conference in Indianapolis today, remember?”

  Oh, right. But this couldn’t wait until tomorrow. Kate had to do something immediately. She printed out the message. Without much thought to Todd Wannamaker in the reception area who stood up when he saw her, she exited the guidance office.

  She walked directly to Mr. Mohr who was on a phone call. Undeterred, she hovered outside his office for what felt like a lifetime, but was probably only fifteen minutes. The moment he put down the receiver Kate marched in.

  Mr. Mohr looked surprised at Kate’s assertiveness. “What can I do for you?”

  “Someone sent me an e-mail that you need to see.” She handed him the print-out.

  His brow furrowed and his lips barely moved as he skimmed the document. “Who is this Jennifer?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t work here in 1993.”

  His hand curled into a fist around the edge of the paper. “Who else have you shown this to?”

  “No one. I came straight to you.”

  “Good.”

  Kate held her palms upward. “What should I do?”

  “You shouldn’t do anything. I’ll handle this. Did you delete the message?”

  “No.”

  “Go to your office right now and delete it. And don’t mention this to anyone. Do you understand?”

  Kate nodded, gnawing on her bottom lip. She hesitated before finally turning away.

  A jumble of thoughts swirled in her mind as she headed back to her office. Why wasn’t Mr. Mohr more outraged? Was he just hiding his emotions because he was the boss? And why didn’t Jennifer say who did this to her? Did it really happen? Maybe she had a vendetta against the school.

  Seeing that Todd Wannamaker still waited to see her, she told him it would be just a minute. She went into her office and clicked on the e-mail message, part of her thinking it wouldn’t still be there because she had imagined it. But it was still there. She read it again. Molested by one of your staff. Was it a teacher? A coach? An administrator? I can face the truth. And so must you!

  She wondered what Mr. Mohr was going to do. She had no idea what the protocol was when you didn’t even know who was accused.

  When her telephone rang, Kate jumped an inch out of her chair. “This is Mrs. Hopper, may I help you?”

  “Did you delete it yet?” Mr. Mohr’s stern voice asked.

  “I’m just about to.”

  He hung up abruptly.

  Why did he want her to get rid of it so badly? It couldn’t have been him since he had only been at FHS since last year. Was he going to try and cover it up? Kate’s finger hovered over the delete button. Something didn’t feel right.

  Instead of hitting delete, she hit “forward”.

  She apologized as she rushed past Todd one more time.

  Trish was reading the e-mail just as Kate arrived in her classroom.

  Kate closed the door behind her. “Did you know anything about this?” Since Trish’s dad was the school board president, Trish was usually the one informing Kate about what was going on behind the scenes.

  Trish shook her head. “Who do you think it is?”

  Kate hesitated to name names. Even though many teachers didn’t understand or appreciate what she did, they genuinely cared about the students. One of the math teachers volunteered to chaperone the marine biology trip to Florida over spring break, another hired students receiving free and reduced lunches to work in his lawn mowing business, and a science teacher helped a handful of interested students start a chess club after school.

  Trish tugged on one of her reddish-brown ringlets hanging near her eye. “Maybe it’s Al Glick.”

  “Glick? You really think he would do something like that?”

  “Sure. He’s weird.”

  Al Glick, the industrial tech teacher, had been teaching since the class was called “shop”. He wore polyester suits from the ‘70’s and his wife packed his lunch for him every day. Once Rhonda had told her in confidence that he lost his only son at six months old. The boys in his classes joked about his clothes and were so rude Kate always felt a bit sorry for him.

  “He’s just out-of-it,” Kate said. “I think he’s nice. It has to be one of the old-timers, though. What about Brent Ewing?” He cussed her out her first week on the job for accidentally putting a freshman in his junior-level art class. She would never forget it. Especially since the teenagers were pretty much the only ones who used foul language in the school. They cursed to impress their friends in the crowded hallways so the teachers couldn’t identify who said what in order to write them up. The majority of the adults, however, watched their tongues in an effort to be good role models. Except Brent.

  “Brent? Naw. He’s too mean to seduce anyone.”

  They both half-heartedly chuckled, stopping short. It felt wrong to laugh.

  They barely had time to discuss their shock and potential suspects before students started wandering in. Rrrrring! The bell gave the five-minute warning.

  “We’ll talk more later, but don’t tell anyone else.” Kate stood up and noticed a book on Trish’s desk titled Overcoming Panic Attacks. Oh, no. She wondered if Trish thought she was having panic attacks. Trish diagnosed herself with every new trend: obsessive-compulsive disorder, lactose intolerance, and restless leg syndrome. Just like Kate, she was always expecting to find something wrong.

  Trish picked up her attendance book. “So, who knows about this?”

  “Just Mr. Mohr. He said not to tell anyone. But I thought somebody else should have a copy.” After all, Kate already had a secret. She didn’t want any more.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Kate arrived back in her office, she felt relieved that Todd Wannamaker had taken his notebook and gone to class. She wouldn’t be able to really give him the attention he deserved today. She sat at her desk and wondered why a total stranger had reached out to her instead of going to someone with power.

  Then one of Kate’s frequent-fliers walked in. The girl had short blond hair, shiny braces and the most innocent-looking sky blue eyes. Kate
suspected she had invented a reason to see her so that Kate would give her a pass and she wouldn’t get counted late. The ironic thing was the girl’s mom taught at the middle school. Kate used to think teachers’ kids would follow all of the rules—but sometimes they were the worst.

  “Mrs. Hopper, I just don’t know what to do. My boyfriend and I got into this huge fight,” she said with the passion of an Academy Award winner.

  “Really? When was this?”

  “Um. Two days ago.”

  “And you’re just now coming to tell me?”

  “Well, yeah. I tried to work it out on my own, but I couldn’t. I just know you can help me.”

  As a first year counselor, Kate would’ve eaten up this kind of flattery. Now she knew better. “Actually, I would love to talk to you about this. However. . .” She looked up the sophomore’s schedule on her computer. “Right now it’s more important that you hear what is being taught in geometry class.” She realized that the classroom was on the far side of the building. This was definitely a ploy. “How about you stop by during your lunch hour to update me on you and your boyfriend’s situation?”

  The girl looked uncomfortable. “Uh, OK. . . . Can I have a pass?”

  “I told you the last time that if you walked into my office after the bell, I wouldn’t give you a pass to class any more.”

  “I was here before the bell.”

  “No, you weren’t.”

  “Well, I was outside your office waiting for a long time, but you weren’t here.”

  That was possible. She was starting to wear Kate down. Was this how she manipulated her mother? “I’ve been in my office for several minutes. Where were you?”

  “Oh. I was talking to Mr. Fuentes,” she said, pointing toward the secretary’s desk.

  “Go ask Mr. Fuentes for a pass to class then since he’s the reason you’re late.” Kate was pleased with her resolution. As a counselor, she had to be careful students didn’t use her to get out of class. Sometimes it was a difficult call to make and she often felt guilty when she sent a student away. But the teachers had a job to do and they resented it when one student always had a pass from the counselor. “And be sure to stop by during lunch. I’d love to talk to you.”

  The innocent-looking girl stood up, a little disappointed, and quickly put on her sweet-talking smile as she walked toward Antonio Fuentes’s desk.

  One time Kate called the girl’s mom to discuss why she was always tardy, only to find out her mom dropped her off at FHS every morning on her way to work. She was there in plenty of time. It was just that the sophomore ignored the warning bell in order to gossip with her friends. Her mom said she had tried everything, but nothing worked.

  This was another thing that scared Kate about motherhood. A professional, like her, trained in child development, couldn’t get her own daughter to behave.

  After the teacher’s kid left, there was a lull. All of the students were actually in their classes and Kate welcomed the chance to get organized. She turned to her daily tasks list and wrote down everything she needed to do: check her mailbox in the teacher’s work room, write a pass for Michelle and prepare for the career exploration group she led.

  Before attacking her first task, she got stuck thinking about the fact that someone on staff was a child molester. Who could it be? How could they have gotten away with it for so many years? What if some student had asked Kate to remove them from that teacher’s class and when they wouldn’t give her a reason why, she basically told them to “suck it up”? The truth was, kids asked to switch teachers all of the time. Usually it was just a personality conflict or the fact that the teacher wouldn’t let them get by with inappropriate behavior. Rhonda and Kate both felt that sticking it out was a good life lesson for teenagers. But suddenly, she doubted every time she had made that call.

  She felt frozen, unable to get on with her day. Nothing else seemed to matter until she knew her students were protected.

  The ringing of her telephone snapped her out of her daze. “Kate Hopper. May I help you?” After two sweaty summers employed by a cabinet-making factory, Kate had been promoted to working in their customer service department. She still answered her phone with the same greeting she used there and tried to have the same attitude: that the callers were the customers and she was there to serve. The students were the customers, too, which made for a delicate balance, trying to satisfy everyone. She did her best.

  “Hey, Kate.”

  Hearing the familiar Kentucky accent on the other end, she relaxed. “Hi, Nancy. What’s up?”

  “I just need to talk to an adult for a change.”

  Kate heard Sammy whining in the background. “Having a rough day?”

  “You could say that. Sammy has a cold, which makes him super fussy. And we can’t go anywhere because I don’t want to get anyone else’s baby sick. I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic.”

  “So you called a counselor,” Kate joked.

  She heard Nancy’s muffled voice say, “Sammy, Mommy’s on the phone. You have to be quiet. Why don’t you play with your train?” Then she uncovered the receiver. “Sorry about that.”

  “That’s OK.” Kate turned back to her Franklin calendar hoping to multi-task.

  “You want to talk to Sammy?”

  She has got to be kidding. Before she could answer, Kate heard Nancy put the phone up to him. He screamed, possibly damaging Kate’s eardrum before she jerked the receiver away.

  When Nancy got back on the phone she said, “Sorry about that. Are you doing anything Friday night?”

  “I’m going to see Joely as soon as I get out of school.”

  “What about Monday then?”

  Imagining Nancy wanted to catch a chick flick, Kate turned her calendar pages. She noted that her annual check-up was that afternoon and on the weekend the Foxworth football team had an away game. She smiled, seeing that she was free Monday night.

  “I was thinking,” Nancy said, “if you wanted to get some practice being a mom, you could babysit Sammy.”

  Kate’s enthusiasm plummeted. Nancy didn’t want some one-on-one time with her; she wanted to see her husband. Didn’t she realize that Kate gave her heart and soul to kids all day long? When Kate turned off the light in her office each night, she was drained. She looked forward to drinking a cup of chamomile tea while she waited in her quiet house for Mitch to come home. Once he arrived, they took turns making dinner and exchanging anecdotes about their work. This process helped her recharge. That way she could be ready the next day to once again solve everyone’s problems but her own.

  As Kate opened her mouth to answer, she heard a thump and a loud wail through the telephone.

  “Oh, Sammy just fell. Gotta go.” Click.

  Kate had to admit she was relieved. She felt confident about one thing: the last place she wanted to be on Monday night was trapped in the house alone with a baby.

  Returning to her calendar, Kate flipped the pages backward. Counting the weeks, she realized something.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  What am I going to do if I’m pregnant? It would make it easy for me to keep my word to Joely. But I was hoping I would have more time to get “on board” with the whole kid thing. If I could talk myself into it, I would then try to sell Mitch on the idea.

  As Kate thumbed through last week’s issue of People, her palms started to sweat. She remembered Aunt Suzy taking her to the gynecologist for the first time when she was twelve. The obese, balding doctor—a man Kate had never met before—explained to her the birds and the bees. Needless to say, her cheeks burned and she wanted to hide under the table. As if the experience hadn’t been traumatic enough, on the car ride home Aunt Suzy told her that if she ever got herself “knocked up” that her aunt would kick her out of her house. She went on and on about how nobody else would take Kate in, how nobody would want her. That was probably another reason Kate always saw having a baby as something to avoid.

  Part of her couldn’t help but wonder how he
r mom would’ve handled Kate’s transition from girl to woman. She always felt cheated out of one of the key moments between a mother and daughter. She liked to think her mom would’ve done something special like Kate did for her sister. In an effort to make adolescence a little easier for Joely, Kate made sure she was the one to explain to her little sister what changes to expect. She read a book from the library to get her facts straight and then tried to figure out how to put a positive spin on what had been for her such a negative revelation. After the “big talk”, she took Joely for some pampering—her first trip to a spa. She could only afford for them to get manicures, but she liked to think it helped Joely see one of the benefits of being female.

  “Katharine Hopper,” the nurse called from a partially opened door.

  Kate decided to bring her magazine with her, just in case she ended up waiting some more in the exam room, naked beneath an oversized paper towel. She gave a reserved smile as the nurse greeted her and showed her to the room.

  Once undressed and barely covered by the rectangular gown, Kate flipped open the magazine to see an unattractive paparazzi picture of Oprah playing with her dogs. Kate thought she had heard the talk show host say once that she scheduled her physicals on her birthday as a little present to herself. Oprah couldn’t make her understand that no matter how hard she tried.

  A different nurse, looking tired and uninterested, took Kate’s blood pressure. She wrote down Kate’s statistics then updated her family medical history. “Any questions for the doctor today?”

  “Actually I think I’m pregnant.”

  “Anything else?”

  Kate pushed her hair behind her ear. “No, I guess not.”

  “When was the first day of your last cycle?”

  This question always seemed way too personal for anyone in the whole world to ask. ”It’s been five weeks.”

  The nurse looked down at the chart and made a note. “I’ll run a pregnancy test.” She stood up abruptly and walked out the door, saying, “The doctor will be in shortly.”

  At this point, Kate was so nervous she swung her feet over the end of the exam table, like a little kid. The metal felt cool against her heels whenever they made contact with the base. She tried to focus on the hollow sound they made each time they hit.