by R. R. Banks
"Well, unfortunately, it isn't a good surprise," I said. "That teacher that you and I talked about sent a letter home with Jason yesterday asking me to come up here and talk to her about him."
The color in the thin man's face drained away slightly, but he fought to keep the smile in place. I couldn't tell if that was because he was trying to lessen the impact of the situation or just because he wanted to stay on my good side. Either way, all I needed was for him to tell me where to find her classroom. He offered to escort me there and tried to keep up with a casual small-talk conversation as we made our way through the crowds of students congesting the hallways, as they tried to escape the school building for the afternoon. I kept my eyes out for Jason but didn't see him, as we turned off the main hallway and into one of the wings of the building. There was a sign above the main entrance to the section of the school that said Humanities and I remember that Jason had mentioned that Miss Martin was his History teacher. We turned down another small hallway and Mr. Jefferson stopped, gesturing at one of the classroom doors.
"Here it is," he said. He then turned toward the door. "Gwendolyn, there's a parent here to see you."
Gwendolyn? Is that what he just said? There can't possibly be many of those in Silver Lake.
I waited for a few breathless seconds until the teacher appeared at the open doorway and then felt my heart drop to my feet. Gwendolyn stood with her mouth partially open, her eyes locked on me. She was holding a pen in one hand and it dropped to her side, the pen falling from her fingers and onto the floor. The sound made her jump, seeming to bring her back into the moment and she leaned down to pick it up.
"Are you alright?" Mr. Jefferson asked.
"Yes," she said, brushing hair away from her face as she tried to regain her composure. "I'm fine. Thank you."
Mr. Jefferson looked at me.
"This is Garrett Allen. He tells me that he received a letter from you requesting that he come in to discuss his son Jason."
Gwendolyn stumbled over her words for a few seconds and then nodded.
"Yes," she said. "That is correct. Thank you for making sure that he found me."
Mr. Jefferson looked between the two of us, apparently able to see the tension that was building.
"Do the two of you know each other?" He asked.
Gwendolyn's eyes snapped to him.
"I met him at the party that was thrown for him at the community center," she said. "I helped Sarah organize it and he and I had a few moments to speak then."
The principal nodded.
"Good. Well, then, I will leave you to your conversation. I hope that everything works out well."
There was a strange tone in the way that he said that almost as though he were saying it both as a plea to me and a warning to Gwendolyn. We both watched as he walked back down the hallway and as soon as he disappeared around the corner she turned dark, piercing eyes toward me.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm the one that received a letter from you saying that I needed to come in and have a conference with you about my son's behavioral issues. Actually, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter received a letter from you."
"How was I supposed to know that he doesn't have the same last name as his parents?" she hissed at me.
Another teacher stepped out of a classroom a few doors down and slid her eyes toward us. I gave a small smile and we both fell silent as she walked past. She moved at a pace that was far too slow, obviously hoping that she would be able to catch more of the conversation, but neither of us said another word until she was out of sight and we couldn't hear the sound of her high heels against the polished concrete floor.
"Maybe we should go in your classroom and continue this conference,” I said.
"Fine," Gwendolyn said.
We walked into the classroom and she closed the door behind me before stalking across the room to take her place behind the desk. It was like she was bracing herself, creating a protective barrier between the two of us with her professional standing as much as the hunk of pressed wood and metal.
"So, do you want to explain to me why you have so much of a problem with my son?" I asked.
"I didn't even know that he was your son," she said defensively. "How could you lie to me about something like that?"
"I didn't lie to you. You never asked me if I had any children."
"I didn't think that I needed to ask. I would think that having a teenage son is something that you mention."
"When?" I asked. "It's not as though we've been having a lot of deep and meaningful conversations. When exactly were we going to have the opportunity to get to know each other? You never even told me your last name and didn't program it into my phone when you put your number there."
Color splashed against her cheeks and she looked down at her desk so that she didn't have to make eye contact with me. Finally, she looked up again.
"Why doesn't he have the same last name?"
"Not that it's any of your business or that it has anything to do with this, but Baxter is his mother's last name."
"Are you married?" she asked.
I scoffed and rolled my eyes.
"Seriously? You think that this is all some sort of lurid affair and I have a little wife back home who has no idea."
"It happens," she said.
"No," I said emphatically. "I am not married. I haven't been married for a long time. Jason came along when I was still a teenager. His mother and I weren't married, and her family insisted that he be given her last name on the birth certificate. Even when we got married, she refused to have his last name changed."
"Why?" she asked.
"That's a really good fucking question. She never told me. I think that she did it to punish me for taking her youth away from her and turning her into a military wife rather than letting her continue to live the carefree lifestyle that she wanted. I think that she wanted to have a constant reminder for me of what I had done and what I had cost her. Like she wanted to make sure that I always knew that this wasn't her plan, that the life that I fought and struggled so hard to provide for her and Jason was just the consolation prize for everything that she had ever wanted being taken away from her." I didn't know why I was explaining all of this to her. It was something that I never talked about. Not to anyone. But now that I was saying it, I felt like I couldn't stop myself. "Once she was gone, I thought about changing his last name to Allen, but he was already so accustomed to his name. I didn't want him to have to go through more change and more confusion. "
"Gone?" Gwendolyn asked. "Did she...?"
"She didn't die," I said. "But she might as well have. She abandoned both of us after I asked for a divorce. Jason hasn't even seen her since he was a little boy. I figured that taking his last name away from him would just add to the trauma and make him feel more like he was losing everything that he had always known. I didn't want him to feel more abandoned."
"So, you left him with a constant reminder of the mother who left him?" she asked.
Anger surged within my chest and my fists clenched at my sides.
"I'm not here to discuss my parenting tactics with you. I'm here because you won't get off my son's back and give him a chance."
I was seething, but the emotions inside me went well beyond just the anger that I had felt at the way that she was treating Jason and having my tattered marriage brought up by someone who had no idea what she was talking about. I could still feel the heat between us, the almost consuming passion, but that feeling only made my anger harsher. I didn't know her. I knew nothing about her. I felt like everything that she had said to me, everything that I thought that we had experienced together, was a lie. There was no way that I could even consider allowing the feelings that had started developing to exist now that I knew who she really was. This was just confirmation that I couldn't trust any woman, and I didn't want to even look at her anymore.
"I have given your son every chance that he deserved. You're j
ust refusing to admit that he's capable of doing anything wrong."
"I'm not refusing anything except to deal with you being too hard on him. He's just a teenager."
"A teenager that's already on a path to self-destruction. He shows no responsibilities and no motivation, he's rude and surly, and he's made no effort at all to fit in with his fellow classmates…"
"That's funny because he comes home every day telling me about his friends and what he's learning in his other classes and the baseball team."
"The people that he calls his friends I would be very cautious about," she said. "I haven't talked to any of his other teachers, so I don't know how he is actually doing any of those classes, but as for his baseball team, that's what made the situation worse, to begin with." She paused, and her eyes narrowed at me. "Of course, you know all about that."
"Yes, I do. I know that you tried to force him to miss an important practice just so that he could stay after school and get scolded for not being the prim and proper little schoolboy you want him to be."
"No wonder Mr. Jefferson went behind my back and lifted Jason's detention."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Everybody in this town knows that Benjamin Jefferson is a wannabe firefighter. He has been his whole life. But he was never able to be healthy or strong enough, or frankly clear-headed and organized enough, to get through the training. So instead he just has an almost obsessive fascination with firefighters. He must worship you. Of course, he would bend over backwards to make sure that your son wasn't unhappy and that you didn't have to be embarrassed by the fact that he got detention on his second day in my class. It probably would have been the first day if he had bothered to show up, or did he failed to mention to you that he skipped almost his entire first day of classes?
"Jason got out of detention because it was ridiculous that you gave it to him in the first place. Especially after he explained to you that he needed to go to that workout."
"You aren't doing him any favors by not holding him accountable for his actions. How can you possibly expect him to act like an adult when you aren't making him learn how to?"
I rolled my eyes, not believing that she was acting like this. What happened to the expressive, free woman who I couldn't get out of my mind?
"Are you serious? Even you have to admit that you are being absolutely ridiculous. You seriously think that he has somehow destroyed his future and any prospects that he has to be a responsible and successful adult? Why? Because he has a little bit of a cocky attitude? Guess what? He comes by it honestly. I do too unless you haven't noticed. And why? Because he didn't finish an assignment and he skipped a couple of classes? Who didn't act like that when they were in high school? I know I did."
"I didn't," she said.
I looked at her feeling at a loss for words. I felt like she was pushing me like she was escalating what should have been a non-issue just to get a rise out of me. I took a step closer to her.
"Back off Jason," I said. "Stop acting like you think that you're some hero and that he's a charity case. Just because he doesn't like you or your class doesn't mean that there's something wrong with him, and it doesn't mean that he doesn't have a future ahead of him that is just fine. Give him some time to settle in. He's been through more than your shiny little sugar-coated mind could ever comprehend."
I turned and walked out of the classroom, not stopping until I was back in my car. My tires squealed as I sped out of the parking lot and toward the firehouse. For the first time in my career, I found myself actually hoping that there would be an emergency call that night. I needed something to work off the rage and adrenaline that I was feeling.
Chapter Ten
Gwendolyn
"Can you believe that? I mean, seriously, can you believe that he actually did that?"
I was pacing through my living room with such hard, stomping steps that I wouldn't have been surprised to see that I had burned a path in the carpet. I turned and looked at The Reverend who was draped across the back of the couch and watching me go back and forth like a fish in an aquarium.
"Don't you think that he should have mentioned to me that he was the father of a teenage son? Beyond that, that he was the father of a teenage son who was in my class at school?" I thought about that for a few seconds and gave a resigned shake of my head. "I mean, it's not like he had any way of actually knowing that Jason was in my class. I didn't exactly volunteer the information that I am a teacher. But that's not an excuse. Not telling him that I'm a teacher is not the same thing as him not telling me that he has a son. Don't you think that that is a bit more of a pressing issue that he should have mentioned?"
The Reverend yawned. I took that as his sign of agreeing with me.
"Exactly. And then he had the nerve to say that we didn't have any conversations."
As soon as I said that I realized how ridiculous it was, not only complaining to my cat but actually trying to defend myself while complaining to my cat. I knew that what Garrett had said was actually completely true. We had never had an actual conversation. The closest thing was either when we first met in the bar or our brief exchange at his welcome party. Until this afternoon, of course. That was most certainly a conversation. Not one that I would have ever wanted to have and certainly not one that I would want to repeat, but a conversation nonetheless. I felt like I had learned more about him during that encounter than I could have even if we had had several meaningful conversations during the time that we had known each other. I learned things about him that he couldn't just tell me with words. They were things about him that I learned by looking into his eyes and listening to the tone of his voice. As he stood there in my classroom shouting at me I saw in him the forceful arrogance that I thought he didn't have. He was so incredibly different than the other times that we had spent together. He suddenly reminded me of the man that I put behind me, who I tried to forget, who I promised myself I would never repeat. It was sickening and terrifying.
My mind went back to what Garrett had said to me in the last moments before he stomped out of the classroom and disappeared.
He has been through more than your shiny, sugar-coated mind could ever comprehend.
That single line that hurt and enraged me more than anything else that he had said. How dare he make assumptions about me like that? How dare he pigeonhole me when he didn't even know me? He knew virtually nothing about me and yet, he had encapsulated me, created an image of what he thought I was, and projected all that he had gone through and all that his son had gone through onto me, not believing that I ever could have experienced anything that could have caused pain or heartache, anything that could burst the little bubble of perfection he thought that I lived. The thought made my stomach turn and my ears buzz. I had experienced what he would never understand, what he would never see just by looking at me. He couldn't see what I had endured. He couldn't see that there were so many times when I felt like one of the delicate blown glass ornaments I hung so carefully on my Christmas tree and then so hastily took down for the new year. On the outside, I seemed smooth, polished, even perfect. But all of that was just a thin, fragile veneer. Inside I was hollow and dark.
Seven years earlier…
"Are you sure?"
I was so breathless I wasn't entirely sure that my words were audible. Michael smiled at me, his face bright and high with the color of excitement and joy. He was kneeling in front of me, one hand clutching mine, the other presenting me with a ring. My hands were trembling, and I felt like I wasn't fully in the moment, like I wasn't really experiencing it.
"Of course, I'm sure," he said. "I love you. I love you more than anything in the world."
"I love you, too," I said.
But we're seventeen.
I didn't say it. Maybe I should have.
"Then tell me you'll marry me. Tell me that when I leave for school it will be with the promise that you'll be my wife when I come home."
I was so swept up I wasn't even thinking beyond h
is words. I nodded, smiling as the tears were forming in my eyes.
"Of course, I'll marry you."
Michael took my hands and slipped the ring on to my finger. I looked down at the delicate gold band and the single, perfect diamond sparkling up at me. He saw me staring at it and touched the stone with one finger.
"It was my grandmother's," he said. "When she and my grandfather first got engaged, he didn't have the money to buy her a real engagement ring. She just wore a simple ring that he had gotten at an estate sale. For their 30th Anniversary, he bought her this ring. She gave it to me when I told her that I want to marry you."
I lifted my eyes to his face, surprised by the statement.
"You told her?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "I told her that I had found the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and that I would be honored if I was able to give her the ring that my grandfather had given to her. I know that they had a long, happy marriage and I want the first symbol of our marriage to represent that."
"But she hasn't even met me," I said.
"She's going to love you as much as I do. Well, maybe not as much as I do, but that's because no one in the world could possibly love anyone as much as I love you."
I smiled, covering his face with both hands and drawing it toward me for a kiss. My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt almost dizzy with happiness. I have been dreading Michael leaving for college. We'd been together for two years and he was the center of my universe. I couldn't imagine spending a single day without him, much less years. I knew that he was my future. He was my everything. He had been accepted into an exclusive program that would take him across the country for almost three months out of his first semester and the thought of him being that far away from me had been devastating. Now, though, things were different. I knew that we were still going to be apart. He was leaving in a matter of days and I wasn't going to be able to go with him. But the ring on my hand and the lingering sweetness of the promise between us took some of the edge off the pain.