Forgive Us Our Trespasses

by M. L. Steinbrunn

  I take a seat in the back of the room with my pile of rubric grading sheets, as a sea of hands fly into the air to be called upon. Kerri calls on someone, and she takes her seat next to me.

  Halfway through the class hour, the number of volunteers has dwindled, and we start to randomly pick the remaining students left to present. I draw a name from the selection sticks from my class name jar, and Sarah’s name is pulled. She is an above-average student, and I am surprised that she wasn’t one of the first ones to volunteer.

  Immediately, she freaks out and refuses to go to the front. “I can’t present, Mrs. Matthews,” she says.

  “Is your poster complete?” Kerri intercepts.

  “Yes, but I don’t think I should share it.”

  Kerri and I look at each other, confused by the situation; Sarah isn’t usually shy. “Honey, you do great work. I’m sure it’s fine,” I tell her. “If you’re a little worried about being up there alone, just pick a friend to stand up there with you, and they can hold your poster while you talk to us.”

  She looks to her best friend Alison, who looks down at Sarah’s poster and immediately starts to laugh. “I don’t think she should present, Ms. James.”

  “Girls, what’s going on?” Kerri asks.

  Alison runs to the class marker basket and starts drawing on Sarah’s poster. “I fixed it, I think. She can present.”

  The girls begin to make their way to the front, but I stop them, worried about what’s on the poster. Concealing the poster, Alison speaks for Sarah, who is hiding her face in her hands with embarrassment. “There was a minor typo on the poster, Mrs. Matthews, but I fixed it. It should be okay now,” she reassures me.

  “Bring it here and let us see,” Kerri tells them. By now, the class is struggling to hide their sneers and giggles. Information about what exactly is on this poster has not surprisingly made its way through the class, and they are all trying to hold themselves together.

  Sarah stays planted where she’s at, so Alison brings the poster to our desks in the back of the room. She turns it around and announces, “See? I think I did a pretty good job of fixing it.”

  I gasp, and Kerri tries to stifle a laugh, but when the class completely loses their composure, so do we. Sarah had apparently selected the Virginia Plan for her poster; however, she’s misspelled the name of the state. In big, bold, pink and purple lettering across the top of the poster is ‘The Vagina Plan.’ Alison has attempted to make it look less like vagina and more like Virginia by squeezing a miniature ‘r’ between the ‘a’ and ‘g,’ but her attempt has failed miserably.

  I dab the tears from my eyes and take a deep breath. “Sarah, it’s okay; mistakes happen. Go ahead and sit down. You don’t have to present in front of the class, just stay after class and you can present then.”

  “I thought I had fixed it just fine,” I hear Alison mumble as they take their seats. The comment sends Kerri back into hysterics, and I smack her arm to get her to compose herself. We have to get the class back under control. I lean in and whisper to her, “I think I finally have the story that will beat all of Will’s funny stories.”

  She nods vigorously, “That was seriously hilarious. I don’t think I can ever look at that state the same way.”

  “Alright, everyone, let’s pull ourselves together and finish our presentations,” I announce. The class slowly smothers their laughter, and when a harsh knock on the door echoes through the room, the class goes silent.

  Our principal, Mrs. Jacobs, pokes her head in the door. I internally groan; I’ve already been observed this semester, so her presence is more than likely to request that one of us covers a class. Our lack of substitutes is seriously ridiculous. It’s not that it’s Susan fault, but man, the lack of planning time is wearing us all out. We all love Susan; she is like everyone’s adopted grandmother. She is short and plump, with a heart of gold. Make no mistake though; she is a principal for a reason. This woman can make a grown man cry. I’ve seen it; it’s not pretty.

  “Mrs. Matthews, I need you,” she says before stepping back into the hallway. I look to Kerri, and her expression lets me know that she assumes the same thing; I’ll be lacking a planning hour this afternoon.

  I give Kerri all of my rubric papers so that they can continue without me, and I head out into the hallway. “Which class do I need to take today?” I ask as soon as the door closes behind me.

  She grabs my hand, squeezing it when she takes a deep breath, “I don’t need any classes covered today, Viv. I just need you to come with me.”

  I quickly trace my memory of anything I can think of that could have warranted being pulled out of class and taken to the principal’s office. I come up with a big fat zero, so when she turns and heads in the direction of her office, I just follow.

  Susan slows so that we walk shoulder-to-shoulder, but stays quiet as we walk. If I am in trouble, I’m not going to start a conversation in the hallway, so I remain quiet as well.

  When we turn the corner down the last corridor towards the office, the situation becomes clearer. We are only fifty feet from the front desk, but when Rob in his uniform turns around, hearing our footsteps click on the tiled floor, I come to a standstill.

  His red, puffy eyes and splotchy cheeks tell me everything that I need to know. My feet feel like they are in quicksand, and they refuse to move any farther to face what’s waiting for me at the end of the hall. Susan continues on, not noticing at first that I’ve stopped moving. She turns around and steps towards me to encourage me to continue on, but I hold my hand up to stop her.

  There are only two reasons why Rob would be here right now, and I lock eyes with him and attempt to reach into them with my soul to grasp how serious the news is. I hold my breath, waiting for him to tell me. When he shakes his head and looks down at the floor, I know Will is gone.

  The hallway is empty, but I feel like I’m being crushed between the cinder block walls. My heart plummets to my stomach, and everything around me spins out of control. As the dizziness takes over, I fall to the floor, unable to breathe, unable to look up at Rob who I hear rushing towards me. My sweaty fingers claw into the tile, and I feel myself teetering on the brink of numbness–my emotional shelter. Rob hovers over me, his own tears landing on the back of neck. When his hand lands on my back, my grief bursts to the surface. I exhale the breath I have been holding and sob into the ground, letting the cold floor cool my warm tears.

  Rob lifts me into his arms, and I weep into his shoulder. I hear mumbling as we continue down the hall towards the office, but my cries drown out the words around me. A door closes, and he places me in one of the chairs in Susan’s office. Susan offers me a tissue and then leaves the room. They say an officer’s wife should be prepared for something like this to happen, but right now, being suffocated by that situation, I can’t think of anything that would have prepared me for this. Rob sits across from me and lets me cry; he offers no empty words of condolences, nor does he try to soothe me, and I’m so damn thankful for that.

  I let myself feel every bit of my loss until my eyes have no more tears. I use Susan’s tissue to wipe my nose and cheeks, and turn my shoulders toward Rob. I realize that he’s hurting, too, but I need to know everything before I walk out that door. I need to be able to walk down that hall and face my children knowing the truth of what happened to my husband.

  “I need to know what happened, Rob.” My words are muffled and scratchy from my constricted throat, but I manage to squeeze them out.

  “Viv, do you think now is the time? Why don’t we worry about getting you home? I can have your mother get the kids; that way we can get you settled.”

  My sadness morphs into anger. I feel like I’m five-years-old all over again, and instead of my mother keeping the truth from me, it’s now one of my closest friends. “I’m not going anywhere,” I snap. “I will gather my children and take them home, only after I find out what happened to their father. I refuse to leave here until you tell me.”

  I
grip onto the handles of the chair, readying myself for what he’s going to tell me. He attempts to speak, and his voice cracks. He takes a second to gather his breath and clear his throat. “He was just south of town on a basic traffic stop for speeding. He had already cleared all of the information through dispatch, so we think he was out of the car talking to the driver, giving him all the information for the ticket. A semi-truck driver veered out of his lane onto the shoulder, and he hit both Will and the car that was pulled over.”

  “Did anyone survive?” I stutter.

  Rob presses his hands together and keeps his head down, unable to look at me; he’s struggling to keep himself together, but I offer him no reprieve. “The semi-driver made it, but everyone else died on impact. We took the driver to the hospital for minor injuries. All of his initial toxicology tests were clean; we interviewed him, and he said he fell asleep. We went through his log books and he was way over on hours.” He says it all so quickly, I struggle to follow all of what he’s saying. It’s like he wants to hurry and spit it all out. Then he slows down and finally makes eye contact with me. “Viv, he shouldn’t have been on the road,” he sighs.

  I sit silently, gradually letting the information settle. I know what arrangements need to be made, what needs to be done; I just need a minute to find the courage to stand up and take the first step towards that life–a life without Will. I feel like the longer I sit here, the easier it is to believe that it’s not real. It won’t feel real until I have to say the words aloud.

  “Tell me what you need me to do, Viv,” Rob says, moving to the edge of his chair, ready to act.

  “I need you to notify my family,” I quietly say, “but I want you to keep everyone away from my house. I need this time right now to be with the kids. I don’t want it crawling with people, whether they mean well or not. I will let everyone know when we are ready for visitors.”

  “You got it, whatever you guys need,” he says, sniffling.

  I take in one last deep, ragged breath and stand on my wobbly legs. I begin to reach for the office doorknob, but turn toward Rob instead. He stands immediately, ready for whatever directive I need accomplished. I close the gap between us and rise up on my tiptoes to pull him into a hug. Realizing that he is probably hurting just as much as I am, I wrap my arms around him, giving him the moment he may need to mourn for the best friend he just lost.

  Rob had held himself together exceptionally well, considering; I know that he is trying to be strong for me. But I know this man; he needs permission to breakdown, so I give it to him. He stands there with his hands at his sides, shocked by my sudden embrace. “We’re both going to miss him, Rob,” I tell him while I pat his back.

  It is all the encouragement he needs to let his emotions breach the dam. He brings his arms around me, picking me up off the floor, squeezing so hard that I can hardly breathe. He buries his head in my shoulder and releases all of the pain he has been holding back for my sake. His body shakes with every sob, and I just hold on, letting him feel what he needs to. “I don’t know what to do now, Viv,” he cries. “He was my best friend, my brother; what am I supposed to do without him?”

  “We just keep going, one day at a time. That’s all we can do.”

  He nods into my neck and I massage his back, trying to soothe him, soothe us both.

  When his cries subside, he gives me one last hard squeeze and places me back on the ground. “I’m sorry, Viv. I shouldn’t have lost it like that. I should be here for you right now.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Right now, we all need to be there for each other. I wasn’t the only one who lost Will today; we all did.”

  He nods, but doesn’t say anymore. I understand though. Will and Rob really were like brothers. His pain, I’m sure, feels just as deep as my own, and I wouldn’t want to take anything away from him.

  “The halls should be cleared out by now; I’m going to go get the kids and go home. Please keep everyone away,” I say before turning toward the door.

  I open it and walk through the threshold. The halls are desolate, as I expected. I have no intention of stopping into the main office to let them know I’m leaving. I’m sure word of the accident has spread, and I don’t want to see or talk to anyone. My sole mission is to hug Blake and Emma and go home, so I head towards the direction of the preschool.

  In a school the size of ours, it doesn’t take long to get anywhere. Within a few minutes, I find myself standing outside the kids’ classroom. There is a huge glass window next to the door, and I stand stationary, watching the kids play on the other side. I can’t bring myself to open the door yet, knowing that when I do, their lives will forever change. I will smash the world that they know, and it will never be the same again. I wait, watching their laughter, hanging onto the final moments of their carefree childhood.

  Their teachers begin to round up all of the students for naptime; my time to procrastinate has ended. As I enter, I’m immediately greeted by the preschool staff. My coworkers are friendly, but surprised to see me. They must not know.

  “I need to pick up Blake and Emma,” I tell them as I sign each child out and gather their backpacks.

  “Is everything all right?” they ask. Thankfully, none of them are close enough to see the makeup streaked down my face. I figured that question was coming next; I never miss a day of school, and to be taking the kids as well is completely unorthodox. As much as I knew it was coming, I couldn’t say the words out loud, so instead, I went with denial. “Just not feeling well, so I thought I would just take everyone home.” I don’t bother to elaborate that the reason I feel like my stomach is in my throat, or that my eyes burn with every blink, is because whatever bit of heart I had was put in a blender and pureed about an hour ago.

  Both Blake and Emma run to me and attack my legs when they see me, which only makes the lump in my throat more difficult to swallow down. They grab their backpacks from me and ask nothing of the break in our routine until we pull away from the school.

  “Where are we going, Momma?” Emma asks. I’m not about to talk about anything until we get home, so I generate the most generic answer I can that won’t prompt more questions.

  “Oh, we need to talk about something that couldn’t wait until after school. Besides, I figured you guys wouldn’t mind getting out of nap time,” I say, looking in the rearview mirror. They ask me no more questions and quietly converse in the backseat until we pull down our dirt driveway.

  I feel myself relax a bit when I see that there are no other cars parked in front of our house. It probably took Rob holding my mother at gunpoint to keep her away from our house; but whatever he did to accomplish the task that I asked, I’m so appreciative.

  As soon as I park, the kids quickly unbuckle. I press the child lock so they can open the car doors on their own and go inside. “Please, go in and sit on Momma and Daddy’s bed,” I tell them, as they burst out of the car.

  They rush into the house, but I remain in the car, holding onto the steering wheel, zoned in on the empty spot where Will usually parks his patrol car. I try to think of what to tell them, what the best way to go about telling a child that their father isn’t coming home. I’ve been in their place before, and I don’t know if there are any right words, but there sure as hell are bad ones. There are no do-overs with something like this, and I’m terrified that I’ll screw it up.

  Giving up, I open my door and slowly walk inside, where what’s left of my world is waiting for me. I find them sitting patiently on my bed, both dangling their feet off the edge. I kneel down and take both of their shoes off, and then remove my own. I climb on to the bed and motion for them both to join me farther. We sit in a small circle, and I grab each of their tiny hands, rubbing my fingers along their knuckles.

  “Guys, something happened today that we need to talk about.”

  “Did you quit your job like Aunt Charlotte and Grandma want you to? Is that why we are home early?” Blake asks which brings the first half-hearted smile to my face since I
got the news.

  “No, little man, I didn’t quit,” I answer, giving him a smirk that doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “Your daddy was in a very bad accident today.”

  “Are we going to the hospital to see him? Did the doctor fix all his owies so he can come home?” Emma asks. The sweetness of her question makes the growing boulder in my throat painful. It becomes difficult to breathe, and my voice cracks when I try to speak. I have to look away from them to pull my emotions back under control.

  “No, baby,” I exhale through the tears. “The accident was too bad, and the doctors couldn’t fix him. Daddy was just hurt too bad, and he went to Heaven.”

  Their little faces begin to scrunch as the tears hit their eyes and they comprehend that their father isn’t coming back. When Emma’s first tears hit my pillow, I allow my own tears to fall and wave them into my arms. Both quickly crawl into my lap and bury their faces in my chest.

  “I’m so sorry. You know Momma loves you, and we will be okay. We just have to stick together,” I tell them as I lean back against the headboard and begin stroking their hair.

  Blake pulls away and looks up at me with tears running down his reddened cheeks. “But he said we were a team and that he was the captain; we would always be our own team. If he’s not here, we won’t be a team anymore.” I see the panic pouring out of him at the idea of our family crumbling, and even though I need to ease that anxiety, I fear the exact same thing.

  Cradling them in my arms, I ease down the bed to lay us all down. “Blake, our team is not going to fall apart. We may be changing the line-up, but we will always be a team; we will always be a family.”