The Teacher

by Gray, Meg

  With five minutes remaining before the school doors opened, teachers started shuffling out of the library.

  “That was a great way to start the morning,” Emma said, walking into the hall with Susan.

  “Yeah, remind me why I went into teaching again, because it wasn’t for the money was it?” Susan waved the small paper in front of her.

  “We don’t do this job for the money,” Mary Ellen said, suddenly materializing next to them. “We do it because we make a difference in children’s lives. You can’t put a price tag on the value of the knowledge, confidence and abilities we foster in our students.” Mary Ellen gave her head a sanctimonious shake before picking up speed and heading for her classroom.

  “Well, that won’t help me pay for Junior’s college education,” Susan said to Mary Ellen’s back. She rubbed her growing bump fondly and parted ways with Emma as they reached their classroom doors.

  Emma hoped her day would get better as she unlocked her door and turned on the lights. But fifteen minutes later her hope was snuffed out when Carl and his mother came into the room. The short, stocky woman with dark corkscrew curls hanging down to her ears marched across the room to Emma and trapped her into a confrontation.

  “Why is it Carl doesn’t want to come to school anymore?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her ample chest. She tapped the toe of one foot and waited for an answer as every student and parent in the classroom looked her way.

  Emma, stunned by the bluntness of her question, stammered and tried to come up with some sort of an answer. “I’m sorry, I have no idea why he isn’t excited about coming to school right now,” she finally offered.

  “Well, it’s pure torture for me to get him in the car and off to school these last few days. I’m just wondering what’s been going on here. I’m going to talk to Mrs. Wolf about having him put in Mrs. Katz’s class. His brother was in her class last year and we all really liked her. I think it might be a better fit for him.”

  “Oh,” was all Emma could think to say. She knew Mrs. Wolf wouldn’t support a classroom change, but wasn’t about to start a debate with this woman. As far as she was concerned if she wanted to change teachers Emma would gladly pass this mother onto Mary Ellen, but she would miss Carl. He was a sweet child.

  “Well, it’s either that or let him stay home all day and play his Xbox,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air as if there were no other plausible solutions.

  Carl’s eyes zipped to his mother and then back to his puzzle.

  Ahah, the Xbox, I think we have our answer now.

  “That’s right,” Emma said. “Carl mentioned getting a new Xbox for his birthday last week. I’m sure he’s still excited about the new games and would rather play them, than come to school. Hopefully, the novelty will wear off soon. I’ll keep a close eye on him this week and maybe we can follow up on this next week at our conference.”

  Carl’s mom gave a quick nod and stomped out of the classroom as the bell rang and the children began to clean up.

  Talk about a red-letter day. It wasn’t even nine o’clock and Emma wanted to head home. She pictured herself dipping into a warm luxurious bath while the brownies baked tonight.

  Things started looking up when Brayden joined the class at the carpet immediately following recess. He sat at the back with his legs crossed, elbows propped on his knees, and chin cradled in his hands. His head bobbed as carelessly as Emma had ever seen it while she read from the big book resting on her easel. Brayden’s minuscule amount of involvement with the class was a tiny thread of silver lining in her dark day.

  The classroom door opened quietly and Dave stepped inside. His worn Birkenstock clogs, khaki shorts and tropical print shirt made him look like he had just stepped off the beach. The blatant rain falling outside, however, told a different story.

  Dave must have been ready to start his testing with Brayden, since Mr. Lewis had signed his consent on Monday morning.

  “Brayden, someone’s here to work with you,” Emma said, pointing to Dave.

  Specialists dropped into Emma’s classroom all the time to pull kids out. The speech pathologist came twice a week taking kids to work on speech articulation. The nurse would drop in from time to time to take kids out for hearing or vision screenings, or to check for head lice whenever there was an outbreak in the school. The English as a second language teacher came once a week and took all of Emma’s non-English speaking children for forty-five minutes to work as a small group. The reading specialist came three times a week and pulled low achieving readers. It happened so often that it was considered a normal part of their classroom routine. A very small number of children had never been called out, Brayden was one of them.

  Today it was his turn and for some reason she expected him to stand up and leave with Dave on her command. She returned to her book and the next time she looked out across the faces of her students Brayden was still sitting there, looking at Dave.

  When the boy turned back, a dark mask covered his young face, all the buoyancy in his body had turned to stone and Emma knew there was no moving him now. Dave seemed to understand and instead of insisting Brayden join him, he pulled a half-size plastic chair up to the carpet behind Brayden.

  For the remainder of the lesson Brayden sat as still as a statue, his back rigid and square, only his eyes shifted from side to side as his attention was acutely drawn to the person he couldn’t see sitting behind him.

  Brayden made a wide circle around Dave when he walked back to his seat, reading assignment in hand.

  “Brayden, this is Dave,” Emma said as she knelt next to Brayden in his seat. “He has some work for the two of you to do together,” she added softly. Brayden’s hand moved quickly and recklessly over his page as he scribbled with a red crayon.

  Emma sighed and walked over to Dave.

  “I guess, I’ll try again on Friday,” he said, walking toward the door.

  Brayden, with his head slumped over his work looked sideways, out of the corner of his eye, as Dave left the room. He remained distant and withdrawn the rest of the day. There went her silver lining.

  A pint of ice cream made it onto her list of comforts for this evening.

  The day tumbled on and came to a rapid halt when the bell rang in the afternoon. Emma thought, as she walked back to her classroom, that with the school day over she would be safe from any more pitfalls. But when she walked through the door she found Carl and his mother waiting for her. She couldn’t help the feeling of dread that crept in and wondered, what does she want now?

  Emma didn’t have to wait long, because the woman’s gel-crisped curls immediately started shaking as she wagged her head back and forth demanding to know now why she received two weeks’ worth of lunch charges in the mail today.

  “His lunchbox comes home empty every day, so why do I have all these lunch charges to pay?”

  “I’m sorry,” Emma apologized. “There could be an error in the cafeteria books. Stop in at the office and ask them to take a look at it for you.”

  “I already did that,” she said flippantly. “And I talked to the lady in the cafeteria. She said it was correct and that I needed to pay the charges. She said Carl has been getting lunches the last two weeks. Why is he getting lunches when I already pack one for him.”

  Emma furrowed her brow and tried to think of an answer. She had no idea why Carl was eating his lunch from home and buying a lunch from school. She decided the best way to get an answer was to go straight to the source.

  “Carl. Are you eating school lunches?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “And are you eating the food your mom packs for you?”

  Carl hesitated and then shook his head.

  “Yes, you are,” his mother snapped at him.

  “No, I’m not,” he said, turning to her and then back to Emma.

  “You better not be throwing it all away,” his mother snapped again and Carl didn’t respond.

  “Carl,” Emma said. “What do
you do with the food your mom packs for you?” Carl’s mother settled her hands on her hips and waited for a response.

  “I give it to Charlie,” he said in a voice as quiet as a mouse.

  “To who?” his mother asked, leaning forward.

  “To Charlie,” Carl said again, adding volume to his voice this time. “In Mrs. Reed’s class.”

  “Oh,” Emma said. Susan shared at lunch today how she’d just learned that Charlie and his family were living out of their car after losing the lease on their apartment.

  “What are you doing giving your lunch away?” Carl’s mother cried out.

  “He doesn’t have one,” Carl told her, visibly resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “His family doesn’t have any money, so I let him have mine, and I get the school lunch. We have money right Mom?” he asked, showing sudden concern.

  “Of course, we do,” his mother said, finally understanding the situation. “Of course, we do,” she repeated and reached over to pat Carl’s head.

  “I’ll talk to Mrs. Reed and make sure the other little boy gets a lunch. So, Carl you can go ahead and eat yours from home now, okay?” Emma asked.

  He nodded and his seemingly satisfied mother led him out of the room. Why don’t you try talking to your child, Emma wanted to call after the woman, but resisted and closed the door behind them. She mentally added a glass of wine to her list for tonight as well.

  She rested her back against the door and surveyed her room. She wanted to get out of here as fast as she could before some other soul-sucking, confidence-zapping incident occurred, but she had one more thing left to do before she could clean up and go home.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Marcus Lewis’s office. She left a message with Gretta because Mr. Lewis was on another line. Struck out again, Emma thought and hung up with an audible sigh. Make that two glasses of wine tonight.

  She pressed the button on her CD player and sifted through her students’ work from the day.

  * * *

  “Your boys didn’t show up, Marcus. They couldn’t sink the threes,” Gregory Sharp, a senior partner from the Seattle office, taunted him over the phone. After discussing the terms of a construction contract the conversation had diverged to the devastating loss the Blazers suffered the night before.

  “Tell me about it,” Marcus said, leaning back in his chair as he propped his feet on the desk. “It was a disgraceful showing. I admit.” He laughed into the phone when the door opened. Gretta walked in with a pink message slip. She handed it to him and left.

  Marcus dropped his feet to the floor as Gregory made another remark about the game, but he didn’t hear it, because the pink slip in his hand had all his attention. Ms. Hewitt’s name was neatly printed at the top. A mix of pleasure and dread welled up inside him.

  “There’s always next year,” Marcus threw in before he thanked Gregory again for his advice on the construction contract and ended the call.

  He dialed the number to Fitzpatrick and waited as he was connected to Ms. Hewitt’s extension.

  “This is Ms. Hewitt.”

  “Hi Emma, this is Marcus. I have a message that you called. Is everything okay? Is Brayden okay? Did they finish the testing already?” he rushed on, throwing out every question that had drifted through his mind in the last two minutes.

  “Everything is fine. Brayden is in the gym. And no the testing is not complete, but that is what I wanted to talk to you about. I was hoping you could help with something.” Marcus could hear the smile in her voice and he pictured her there in her classroom sitting at her desk amongst the piles of lovingly colored pictures from her greatest admirers.

  “Something with Brayden?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “Well, Dave, the school psychologist, remember him?”

  “Yes, I do.” How could he forget the man who wanted to examine Brayden?

  “He came in today to take Brayden to the counseling office to do some testing with him, but Brayden wouldn’t go with him.”

  “I see,” Marcus said, wondering what it was she wanted him to do about this.

  “Would you let Brayden know that Dave will be back on Friday and that it’s okay for him to go with Dave? I’ve noticed that he seems unsure of new people and I would’ve prepared him for Dave today, but I didn’t know he was coming until he walked into the classroom.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Marcus was quick to reassure her. “You’re right Brayden isn’t real keen on new people. It’s no problem for me to talk to him. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “No. Well actually,” she hesitated. “I noticed on Monday when you walked Brayden into the classroom he was much more at ease in the morning and joined in our activities sooner. I know you’re busy, but if you have time on some mornings to walk him to class I think it might help him transition a little better.”

  “I think I could do that,” Marcus said, his tone lightening with his smile, because bringing Brayden in meant seeing Emma and she was turning out to be someone he enjoyed being around.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Post-traumatic Stress Disorder?PTSD?

  Emotional disturbance, it sounded so ugly and grotesque. But those were the words that would be attached to Brayden’s permanent record forever. What school was going to take him now? Certainly not Portland Private Academy, not with a label like that linked to his name.

  Marcus still couldn’t believe he checked the box on that piece of paper agreeing that his son was emotionally disturbed. There was a moment when he thought about refusing, jumping from his seat, and declaring that he would fix his son by himself.

  He had seen Emma watching him and remembered how desperately he wanted someone to help him with his son. He wanted someone to know his son the way he did—the good things about him—and that was her. She knew Brayden probably better than he did by now and if she agreed this was the best thing for Brayden, then he would too. And just like that he checked a little box saying his son needed help, special education services.

  P-T-S-D, he drew the letters out in his mind again, separating them and trying to fit them back together. Were these pieces to the puzzle that completed Brayden? By making this discovery, would their lives begin to change? Was this the answer?

  Dave, the psychologist, insisted it was. He mentioned the fire again and Marcus still couldn’t believe Brayden would remember it.

  Starting next week, Dave would see Brayden twice a week for thirty minutes and his services would extend through the summer. Dave was optimistic that once Brayden started to heal emotionally his academics and social relationships would improve.

  Marcus paused in the threshold of the gymnasium door and saw Brayden sitting alone in the far corner bouncing a little rubber ball, while the other children ran and played without a care in the world.

  * * *

  “Hi, Ms. Hewitt,” Brayden said, walking into his classroom, Marcus right behind him. All the other specialists were gone. It was just him, Brayden and Emma meeting for their conference.

  “Hello, Brayden. It’s nice to see you again,” she said and Brayden beamed at her. They sat at the odd shaped table, it looked like a C. Emma pulled out Brayden’s latest progress report. She handed Brayden a file folder with his name printed on the tab with a black marker. “Go ahead and show your dad your work,” she said.

  Brayden looked up at her from under his long curling lashes and she nodded encouraging him. He opened the folder and looked at the first page, a piece of copy paper with two rows of twelve squares stretched across the page. The squares were neatly colored in a variety of random colors. Marcus leaned over in his chair to look at the paper with Brayden.

  “What’s this?” he asked his son.

  “We were coloring the blocks,” Brayden answered.

  “It is a patterning assessment,” Emma broke in. “The students built patterns with the blocks and then transferred them to their papers.”

  Marcus quic
kly made the connection that Brayden hadn’t mastered the concept yet. He returned his attention to the folder on the table and Brayden turned to the next page, a grid of one hundred squares. Brayden had started his numbering in the first square on the left and continued to number seven. The eight looked like it had been difficult for him to form in the square. His frustration apparent on the page by the way he had raked his pencil down to the bottom left corner and then zigzagged back up to the top. The page was partially crumpled.

  “Brayden did a great job of writing these numbers,” Emma said, reaching across the table and pointing to one through seven. “He had a little trouble with the eight, but that’s the tricky one and we’re still working on it.” She smiled at Brayden and never mentioned the apparent breakdown he had in not completing the assessment. It was the same throughout the entire folder. His projects were carefully colored, but ripped through with the scissors and pieces were glued haphazardly to a page.

  Marcus said nothing as they shuffled through the pages of the folder.

  Lastly, Brayden turned the pages of his writing journal showing off his beautifully detailed drawings. A drawing with a firefighter and a baby, surfaced three different times and each time Marcus felt Emma glance at him.

  When they were through all of Brayden’s work, Emma passed Marcus a copy of Brayden’s progress report, which was marked mostly with N’s citing his need for improvement in all academic areas.

  Marcus was thankful Emma didn’t pour salt into his open wounds. If he’d held out any hope that his son’s needs weren’t as great as everyone else was trying to tell him, then he’d just gotten the message. He could see the whole picture now, the one he’d been trying to ignore.