Rising From the Dust

by Adrianna M Scovill

  “That, too,” Jack answered with a smile of his own.

  “Ew, now I’m uncomfortable,” Alex said. “Maybe I should change my answer to Mr.—”

  “That’s not funny,” Jack snapped, shooting him a warning look, but Gabriel laughed.

  “It’s a little funny,” the teacher said. “But seriously, I can’t take off and leave everyone here to worry—” He stopped, looking down as his phone buzzed on the table. “Sorry, just a second,” he said when he saw his son’s face, and he answered the phone. “Ben, it’s fine—” He started without preamble, knowing exactly why his son was calling.

  “What the fuck, Dad?” Ben said, loudly enough that Jack and Alex could both hear him. “Who in the name of fuck-all do I need to pound into the ever-fucking ground?” he asked, and Alex snorted laughter.

  Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Stop saying fuck, Benny.” Now it was Jack’s turn to snort laughter, and Gabriel shot him a dirty look that did nothing to diminish Jack’s grin. “I take it you spoke to your mother.”

  “Effing right I did,” Ben said. “And I’m getting on a train to come down there to—”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “—tell those assholes—”

  “Ben, stop,” Gabriel said, and his son fell silent. Gabriel could feel Ben’s emotions coming through the phone. “It’s okay. It’s all been a big misunderstanding. Sanderson knew that Alex was in the bar with me, but he didn’t know about me and Jack, so—”

  “How’d he know Alex was there, then?”

  “—he was concerned.”

  “We didn’t see anyone we knew but maybe someone saw us.”

  “The point is, steps were taken in an effort to look out for Alex, and now…things should be cleared up,” Gabriel answered, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.

  “And you’re going to push for Sanderson to be fired,” Ben said. It wasn’t a question.

  Gabriel hesitated. “Not because of this,” he finally said. “But…there are issues that need to be addressed. Look, Ben, you don’t need to worry about this. I’m going in to talk to the school board as soon as possible, and we’ll figure it out. Do not come down here and miss school, got it?”

  “You should tell them to screw themselves and walk away, is what you should do. Let them see how the whole school falls apart without you.” Ben paused, and said, quieter and calmer, “But I know you don’t want to do that. You love it there. Just…maybe take a little time off, Pop, get some perspective. I know money’s probably tight now, but I can help out if you need—”

  “Benny,” Gabriel sighed, closing his burning eyes. “Te amo, mijo, mi cielito, te amo hasta la luna, but—”

  “Y de vuelta,” Ben answered.

  “—no, you don’t need to worry about any of that.”

  “I’m not a kid, Dad,” Ben said. “I know that’s hard for you to accept.”

  Gabriel laughed. “I’ll never accept that,” he answered, and he heard Ben’s soft, exasperated chuckle from over a hundred miles away. “But you’re right.” He looked at the man beside him. “You and Jack are both right,” he added, watching Jack’s lips curve up into a smile. “I think some time off, some time away, might be good. I’m going in to talk to the board first, though, as soon as they’ll meet with me. Then…I think I might go to California.”

  ***

  “Mr. S.”

  Gabriel shook the extended hand, returning the man’s smile, and said, “I’ve told you, Sam, you can call me Gabe. You’re an adult, now.”

  Sam Carlton laughed. “Sorry, Mr. S, not gonna happen,” he said.

  “It’s been a while. Missed you at the last couple parent-teacher conferences.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been traveling a lot over the last year, for the company. I’m also always afraid you’re going to tell the twins what a horrible student I was while I’m sitting beside them,” Sam said with a grin.

  “Hmm, you know I always offer the option of meeting without the kids in the room,” Gabriel answered.

  “Yeah. My parents used to take that option,” Sam said, narrowing his eyes at the teacher, “and I always sat outside wondering what you all were talking about.”

  “Well. Let’s see,” Gabriel said. “Your junior year, your mother gave me her secret family recipe for pumpkin pie. I still make it at least once a year.” When Sam laughed, Gabriel smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Seriously though, Sam, it’s good to see you. Shame it’s not under better circumstances.”

  Sam’s expression sobered, and he glanced over his shoulder toward where the rest of the school board, and the superintendent, were waiting. “This is bullshit,” he said. “Everyone knows it’s bullshit, and I’m sorry you have to deal with it.”

  “Seems like a series of misunderstandings we should be able to clear up,” Gabriel said with more confidence than he felt.

  “If we’re all ready,” Sarah Gale said, “we can take a seat and get this procedure underway.”

  “Procedure,” Sam muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes at Gabriel. He patted his former teacher on the arm and offered an encouraging smile before turning to head toward his seat behind the table.

  Gabriel sat in the chair facing the table, and the people—three men and two women—on the other side stared back at him. Gabriel pulled an ankle up onto his knee, straightened the lapels of his jacket—worn over a dark sweater and paired with jeans—and waited. He’d shaved to make himself more comfortable, but he felt somehow naked without the heat of the beard hugging his jaw. He’d gotten used to it, it seemed.

  “Thank you for meeting with us today, Mr. Santiago,” Sarah said. She straightened the stack of papers in front of herself and paused. If she was waiting for a platitude, like no problem or, God forbid, my pleasure, she was going to be disappointed. “As you know, we’ve concluded that there was no need for any sort of criminal investigation,” she continued, glancing at the people to each side of her.

  “As I understand it, there were very serious accusations made against me,” Gabriel said. “I would think those allegations would warrant an official investigation and I certainly wouldn’t oppose such an endeavor—knowing, of course, what the conclusion would be.”

  Sarah cleared her throat. “Of course,” she said. “But as we quickly came to understand, the accusations were…a misunderstanding. The concerned party was alarmed by photos on a student’s phone but it’s clear that they were…taken out of context. While we are…somewhat troubled by the possibly blurred boundaries between you and the student in question, we cannot govern what their parent deems—”

  “I’m sorry?” Gabriel cut in. “Blurred boundaries? Could you explain your meaning, please, Ms. Gale?”

  Sarah fidgeted and glanced to her left for assistance.

  “There are concerns that your friendship with your student and his parent could open you, and the school by extension, to questions of bias or preferential treatment,” Rodgers said. “But since you disclosed your relationship with the student’s parent, we understand that the social gathering was under their supervision and, as Sarah said, we have no authority to govern that.”

  “I see,” Gabriel said. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his temples, but he kept his voice calm. “So in the course of your investigation, my fairness and objectivity were brought into question?”

  “No, of course not,” Sam said.

  “But you’ve never dated a student’s parent before,” Sarah added.

  “Ah,” Gabriel said, holding her gaze. “So long as that’s what this is about.”

  He could see the flush staining her cheeks, but she didn’t drop her eyes. “What are you implying?” she asked.

  “I’m not implying anything,” Gabriel answered. “Let’s just lay all our cards on the table, shall we? It’s not Alex’s parent that I’m dating, it’s his father. There’s no need to tiptoe around the issue. As you can imagine, the situation was sensitive for everyone involved. My wife and I w
ere dealing with the difficult decision of divorce. Jack is a widower and single father, and I’m his son’s teacher. Like I said, a sensitive situation that, with all due respect, I didn’t think was anyone’s business but ours. The only reason I chose to tell Mike when I did was because Jack was at the school to intervene in the altercation between Doug Sanderson and myself and I wanted to be transparent in case there were any legal actions taken.”

  “I assure you that your…sexuality has not been discussed with anyone outside this room, aside from the two students who were already aware of your relationship with Mr. McGinty,” Rodgers said.

  “Windsor,” Gabriel corrected. He felt ill. As his gaze skimmed their faces, Sam dropped his eyes to the table; he looked rather ill, himself.

  “Windsor, yes, my apologies,” Rodgers answered. “McGinty was his husband, as I understand.”

  Gabriel dragged his gaze over their faces again. “To what lengths, exactly, was my sexuality discussed?” he asked, watching them avert their eyes.

  “We have no desire to make an issue out of this,” Sarah said. She cleared her throat and looked at him. “We have no desire for it to become public knowledge amongst the student body. We understand that may be difficult when people learn that you’re seeing Mr. Windsor, but we hope to mitigate—”

  “Have you discussed your relationship with any other students?” Greg Larson interrupted.

  Gabriel tipped his head, regarding him. “My relationship? No. But that’s not really your question, is it?”

  “Have you discussed sex with your students?” Greg asked.

  “I’ve taught sex education for—”

  “Your sex,” Greg cut in, although it was clear from his face that he immediately regretted the impulsive choice of words. “I mean, your personal—”

  “I’ve never discussed my sex life with a student, Mr. Larson, in more than two decades of teaching and marriage. Why would I start now?”

  “Did you teach gay sex in your health class?” Greg asked.

  “Did I teach gay—Jesus Christ, Greg, I didn’t teach ANY kind of sex. Did I cover the topic in the class? No. Honestly? I wish to God I had. It should be covered in the approved curriculum, and the students need to be given a broader view of sexuality. Doing so could save actual lives.”

  “Are you talking about the Kaye girl?” Sarah asked.

  Gabriel ground his teeth for a moment, gathering his composure. “I’m not talking about anyone, specifically,” he said in a low voice. “I’m talking about our responsibility to teach and protect the students entrusted into our care.”

  “We understand that it was Alex McGinty who informed Ms. Kaye of your relationship with his father, but we also understand you had a private conversation with Ms. Kaye while she was hospitalized,” Greg said. “We are concerned—”

  “It seems like you’re concerned about a lot, considering how much you understand,” Gabriel said before he could stop himself. “I will not divulge any private discussions I’ve had with any of my students—I will not betray their confidences in order to put your minds at ease but I imagine you’ve done a thorough review of my file. If I recall correctly, there have been…four grievances against me from the parents of students.” He looked at Sarah Gale, and she shifted in her seat.

  “Yes, one from my parents, as you know,” she said. “If you’re suggesting I should recuse myself from any decisions—”

  “I would suggest no such thing, as I have no doubt you would be fair and unbiased. I won’t venture a guess as to what decisions there might be to make at this time.”

  Sarah glanced at her fellow board members again. “My parents thought I should be skipped at the end of tenth grade to twelfth and graduate a year early. All of the teachers signed off except Mr. Santiago,” she told them, even though they must already know the details after perusing his file. She looked at Gabriel. “You were teaching History because Mrs. Santiago took most of the year off to have her—your son,” she said. “The school couldn’t find a History substitute for such a long period of time, but they did have an English sub, so she filled in for Mr. Santiago and he taught History.” She paused, fidgeting with her pen.

  Gabriel smiled. “A class I really had no business teaching,” he said, tamping down his agitation. “But I was young and full of confidence.”

  She shook her head. “My parents felt you shouldn’t make the decision since you hadn’t even been my teacher in the subject the year before—and you were willing to sign off on my English credits.” She hesitated. “You were right and they were wrong,” she said, and Gabriel knew how difficult it was for her to say such a thing.

  “It was a long time ago,” he said. “We don’t need to rehash old decisions.”

  “They went above your head and overrode your decision. Mrs. Santiago tried to second your decision but as she was on leave, her opinion was discarded. It was a crappy thing, I realize that. You got a grievance in your file and I got skipped to the twelfth grade and I would’ve failed History. I was failing History. I’d barely managed to scrape through before skipping.”

  “Sarah,” Gabriel said, lowering his foot to the floor and sitting forward, “you were a good student, and your parents wanted you to reach your full—”

  “You stayed after class, you gave up hours and hours of your time to help me understand the material, to prep me for tests, you gave me extra credit assignments, and you never once griped about being forced to have me in the senior class—”

  “You were barely sixteen.”

  “And you had a pregnant wife and then a newborn son at home and you still…You never said a bad word about my parents—or to them, even after they filed a complaint saying they thought you were treating my unfairly. You just did everything within your power to help me graduate. Mr. Santiago, you are a good teacher. A great teacher. You always have been—I’m sure Sam will agree with me—and you still are. Your file has a stack of awards and commendations. Even compliments from parents about you taking extra time for students who need…more help. I do not want to be here under these circumstances.”

  “It’s bullshit,” Sam piped in, and Sarah grimaced before continuing.

  “There’s been a suggestion that we implement a rule prohibiting both the dating of a student’s parent, and inter-faculty relationships, as we’ve come to learn that Mrs. Santiago and Mr. Shafer are…involved. And that they were also at the…bar you attended with Alex McGinty and his father.”

  Gabriel considered his words carefully before speaking. “You cannot possibly be suggesting that you should have the authority to dictate relationships between consenting adults, relationships that have no bearing on the students whatsoever?” he said.

  “Many school districts prohibit—”

  “This is a relatively small town, Mr. Larson,” Gabriel interrupted. “But I won’t bother arguing the logistics of trying to avoid—Never mind, the point is that you wouldn’t be accomplishing anything except to make life more difficult for future single teachers. It won’t change anything now—relationships already established would clearly be exempted.”

  Greg coughed into his fist before speaking. “We would consider the rule to apply retroactively, excluding marriage.”

  “I think you’ll find you could not,” Gabriel said, enunciating slowly and carefully. “Retroactively enforce such a rule, that is. Not without opening yourself up to the potential for a lawsuit.”

  “Are you…suggesting you would risk legal action and your career for a relationship—and one that seems to be fairly new?”

  Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest. “I would certainly need to know what lines you were drawing in the sand before I could begin to speculate whether or not I would cross them,” he said. “Though I do think it’s ridiculous—and appalling—that you would think you, as an elected body, have the authority to dictate who can and cannot date one another.”

  “Look,” Rodgers said, holding up a hand, “I think what Greg is saying is that we’ve
discussed ways to avoid making this into a bigger issue than it needs to be.”

  Gabriel raised his eyebrows at the superintendent. “Really? Exactly how big an issue does this need to be?” Before anyone could answer, he continued: “We found ourselves in this situation, all of us, because of a misunderstanding over a text between students, and while what I really think we should be discussing is the behavior of the principal surrounding his confiscation of that phone, the one thing I won’t begrudge him for is voicing his concerns. Now we’ve cleared the air and everyone here, I believe, is in agreement nothing inappropriate happened with Alex?”

  “One of the complaints in your file is from Mr. and Mrs. Potts, who asked for their son, Oliver, to be excluded from sex education, is that correct?” Greg asked.

  Gabriel drew a breath through his nose. “They sent a note asking that I excuse him from the class. I did not receive the note. I honored their wishes as soon as I was made aware of them, even though I do not agree with their decision to keep Ollie out of the class.”

  “You didn’t receive it, that’s what you said when you were asked at the time. What you really mean is that Oliver didn’t give it to you, is that correct?” Sarah asked.

  “I never received the note,” Gabriel said. “Until Mrs. and Mr. Potts showed up in my classroom—”

  “He never gave you the note,” Rodgers cut in. “Why beat around the bush?”

  “I never received the note from anyone,” Gabriel said.

  “But the parents said they’d given it to him to give to you.”

  “If they want to blame their son, that’s their prerogative,” Gabriel said, his words tight and clipped.

  “But they didn’t. They blamed you,” Rodgers said, and his frustration was evident. “Oliver said he’d turned the note in. Either you were lying, or he was. They believed him. They filed a formal complaint against you. You were given an opportunity to refute—”

  “What’s your point?” Gabriel asked.

  “You’re not going to say the kid lied?” Greg asked.

  Gabriel stared at him. It was none of their business that Oliver Potts had come to him to apologize, begging for forgiveness, desperate to keep his parents from knowing the truth that he’d sneaked his way into the sex education class in the hopes they’d never know—and they might not have, had they not found the pamphlets in his backpack.