Where You Are (14 page)

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Authors: J.H. Trumble

BOOK: Where You Are
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“I find that curious, Drew. Usually parents chaperone those dances.” He holds my gaze for a moment before continuing. “Look, I have no objection to you chaperoning a band dance. I do, however, question your judgment in spending time alone in a parking lot at night with one of your students.”
I start to open my mouth to defend myself, but I clamp it shut at the last second. Any protest would stink of guilt.
He studies me as I struggle for some kind of neutral response, then drops another bombshell. “Robert Westfall has been having lunch in your classroom for the past week.” It isn't a question.
My first thought is,
Jen
. But any number of people pass by my classroom during any given lunch period. It could have been anyone from the copy room aide to another student. The door always remained wide open. I haven't been trying to hide anything, exactly.
I steady my voice before I speak. “He's having a rough time. I think he sees me as a big brother he can talk to. That's all.”
“That ends today, Drew,” he says sternly. “This instant. Let me remind you that perception is everything in a public school. You're young. You're a nice-looking man; he's a vulnerable teenager. And
you
are not a counselor. That is Ms. Lincoln's job. I've already asked her to call Robert in today for some counseling. Might I suggest that you stick to algebra and calculus. You have a bright future ahead of you. I don't want to see you screw it up.”
I mumble, “No problem. Thank you,” and stand, willing my knees to lock beneath me. He hands me a sheet of paper. I take it, but I'm afraid to look at it.
“By the way,” Mr. Redmon says as I open the door, “I don't have the admin training list yet, but I'm sure your name will be on it.”
“Great.” I offer him a bright smile and close the door behind me.
In a faculty bathroom, I shoot the deadbolt and sit on the toilet. My hands tremble as I take out my cell phone and delete all text messages from both my in-box and my sent box. From my photo album, I take one more look at Robert's face before I delete that too.
At lunch I quickly exit with my students and lock my classroom door behind me. Jen is surprised when I show up in the lounge. She's sitting at a round table with other math teachers and pats the empty seat next to her. I take it.
“You know,” I say with a big fake smile on my face, “I might take you up on that concert after all.”
I open my cooler on the floor and retrieve one of the sandwiches, a bag of chips, and a Powerade, careful to keep the lid half closed.
She flicks her eyebrows at me. “Well, all right, then.”
I force myself to eat, to swallow, to laugh at all the right places, and when Jen places her hand on my knee, I leave it there.
I try not to think about my student, standing outside my locked classroom door, wondering what happened.
 
In Calculus I feel Robert's eyes on me. I can barely think straight as I work through problem after problem on the board. I don't let them start their homework early as I usually do. And when the bell rings, I call Stacy Woodward up to my desk to give her the letter of recommendation she asked me to write for a summer job she's applying for. I chat with her for a few minutes about the job and her college plans.
Robert lingers, and when Stacy gushes a thank you and heads for the door, he approaches my desk. I try to look busy, shuffling papers that don't need shuffling, jabbing the pens and pencils that litter my desk back into the holder.
“I thought we were going to have lunch together,” Robert says.
“Oh, hi, Robert. Sorry. I had to attend a meeting. I hope you got something from the cafeteria.”
I can see on his face that he's uncertain whether to believe me or not. Finally, he seems to decide not. His face screws up with his question: “Are you mad at me?”
“Mad at you? Of course not.” I keep my voice bright and slap him lightly on the shoulder as my seventh-period students begin making their way through the door. “You better get going or you'll be late for class.”
His eyes hold mine for another couple of beats until I look away. And then he goes, and I'm left standing behind my desk, feeling like I've just kicked him in the gut.
When the bell rings at the end of seventh period, I don't wait until my duty ends to leave. I lock my door and head to the parking lot.
 
Robert
 
I hurry through the rapidly clearing hallways to my seventh-period class. I don't understand. I thought that maybe he'd been called away on an emergency, that perhaps something had happened to Kiki.
I took that worry with me to fifth period. When I arrived in his classroom sixth period, I expected to see a sub, but he was there, just like every other day. He greeted everyone, just like every other day. He took roll as we completed our warm-up, just like every other day. He lectured and worked problems on the board, just like every other day.
He didn't look at me. Not once. And I don't know why.
And when I stayed behind after class and asked if he was mad at me, he acted just like a teacher—fake cheer, distance thinly disguised as warmth.
Lunch was
his
idea, I remind myself angrily as I take my seat in economics.
“Mr. Westfall,” Ms. Flowers says quietly before I can even pull my mechanical pencil from the rings of my spiral notebook. She hands me a white office pass with my name on it and a check mark in the little square next to the word
Counselor.
“Ms. Lincoln would like to see you.”
I lay my notebook on the desk and start to get up. “She wants you to take your things with you,” she adds.
Ms. Lincoln greets me with a sympathetic smile and gestures to a chair in front of her desk. She seats herself in the chair next to me. “How are you holding up?”
“I'm okay,” I answer.
“I spoke to your mom a few minutes ago.”
“Is my dad . . . ?”
“No. But I think you should go home.”
My heart sinks a little. “I only have one more period.”
“Robert . . .” She shakes her head but doesn't finish.
I meet her eyes and wonder what she thinks about me. I heft my backpack back onto my shoulder, but I don't get up.
She sighs. “I know this is a really hard time for you and for your mom. You should be with your family right now. School can wait.”
I nod my head. I know she expects this.
“Is there anything you want to talk about before you go?”
I shake my head, and she pats me on the knee.
“I want you to know that my door is always open. You can talk to me about anything. I'm here for you, okay?”
I wonder for a moment what she'd say if she knew how desperately I wanted this chapter to end and the next to begin. Would she understand? Or would she refer me for some psychiatric counseling on the grounds that I am a psychopath, unable to form an attachment with or feel empathy for my dying father?
She takes the pass from me and scribbles something on it, then hands it back. “Go ahead and check out, then go home.”
I stand, my knees weak at the understanding that now I will have to witness death. Ms. Lincoln means well. But I know Andrew never would have sent me away. At least, a few hours ago, I thought I knew that.
I don't understand.
He doesn't respond.
 
I've always thought of death as coming in one of two ways—quick and bloody, or slow and gentle. It comes neither way to our house.
Dad's eyes are still open, still vacant, but now he's blowing huge wads of foam from his nostrils in great but irregular bursts. My aunts huddle around him. Aunt Whitney gently wipes the foam from his face.
Over the next seven hours, the foam dries up, and Dad's breathing becomes so shallow, so intermittent, that it's hard to know sometimes if he's breathing at all. Near midnight, he grows still. Aunt Olivia places the round disk of her stethoscope on his chest.
Aunt Whitney is curled up next to him and whispering in his ear, speaking for him the words he can't speak for himself. And even though her voice is soft, I can hear her pray: “Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. Holy Mary, Mother of grace, pray for me. Protect me from the enemy and receive me at the hour of my death.”
“He's gone,” Aunt Olivia says quietly. She sniffs as she gently closes Dad's eyes, then places her cheek on his chest and sobs. I see tears in Mom's eyes as she sits quietly on the end of the bed, ever the outsider, and I'm surprised to feel the pricks in my own eyes.
When Aunt Whitney and Aunt Olivia pull back the sheet to bathe Dad one last time before the funeral home people show up, I have to leave the room. Even though he's gone, I'm still embarrassed for him, for me, for my mom.
It's a relief when the hearse pulls into the driveway. We wait stiffly in the living room while the attendants take care of business. When they emerge a few minutes later, they are soft-spoken, kind, and respectful as they wheel the black vinyl bag cocooning Dad's wasted body out to the hearse. It's one o'clock in the morning, but a few neighbors are standing around. Aunt Olivia reaches for me as one of the attendants closes the back doors. I shrink from her touch and pull my keys out of my pocket.
No one tries to stop me as I get in my car.
Chapter 17
Andrew
 
I'm distantly aware that my sleep is fitful—I startle awake, then drift off, then startle awake again. I'm dreaming that I'm standing at my classroom door, jiggling the key in the lock, but it won't open. I pull it out, check the key to see that it's not bent and that none of the teeth have been broken off. I insert it again and twist, but it holds fast.
A sharp rap on the door, and I bolt upright. Another sharp rap.
I grab for my phone on the end table next to the futon. Three
AM
. My first thought is Kiki. Heart pounding, I flip on the lamp and open the door without even checking the peephole.
Robert is standing there, his eyes slightly swollen and downcast, his hands stuffed into the front pocket of his hoodie. And all I can think to say is, “You shouldn't be here.”
He swallows hard and seems to grapple for something to say. Finally, he settles on, “Can I come in?”
By way of answer, I step out onto the porch. He hesitates, then takes a step back, and I pull the door closed behind me. I couldn't have hurt him more if I'd slammed the door in his face and called security.
It's chilly out and I hug my arms to myself. I feel exposed standing under the porch light, but I know that to let him in is to commit a far graver error. The paper Mr. Redmon handed me as I got up to leave, the litany of cautionary behavior that served as a warning, looms large in my mind:
1.
Maintain your boundaries.
2.
Don't touch students to show affection.
3.
Avoid being alone with students.
“Why?” he asks, faintly. “I thought we were friends.”
I think about all the hours I spent in front of the computer this evening researching—the names, the faces, the charges, the lives destroyed by acts of indiscretion. Amy McElhenney, twenty-five, accused of having a sexual relationship with an eighteen-year-old student and charged with a second-degree felony. Randy Arias, twenty-seven, facing a twenty-year prison sentence if convicted of an improper sexual relationship with a seventeen-year-old he planned to marry with her mother's consent.
The 2003 Texas law under which they were arrested was intended to apply to students under seventeen, but some self-righteous blowhards had fought to amend the law, making it a felony now for educators to engage in sexual relationships with students of any age.
It's a law that makes criminals out of consenting adults, and while not without its critics, it is the law. Amy McElhenney, Randy Arias, Mary Kay Letourneau, Rachel Burkhart—their names and their public records stand as beacons of caution about letting one's baser desires overrule the strict code of conduct for teachers.
The pain and confusion and, yes, maybe the anger in Robert's face digs at my resolve, and I have to steady myself by imagining my name and mug shot on a site titled The Fifty Most Infamous Teacher Sex Scandals
.
I'm grateful that this happened now rather than later, when it might have been too late. Because if I'm being honest with myself, my relationship with Robert has not been as professional or as innocent as I claimed.
I take a deep breath and determine to get this over with.
“Mr. Redmon called me in today.” He looks up at me for the first time, surprise flickering in his eyes. “A parent told him we were in the parking lot Friday night.”
“So? We were just playing around with my guard rifle. Didn't you tell him that?”
“It's not what we were doing so much as the fact that I was with you at all.”
“What does that matter? We're friends. Didn't you—”
“No. Because I can't
be
your friend.” I scrub my hand over my face, trying to clear my head. “Look, Robert, it's a violation of the student-teacher relationship. The state calls it a differential of power.” I realize I'm parroting my research, that I'm talking down to him like a teacher to a student, but that is what we are, that is what we have to be. “I could lose my teaching certificate. I could even go to jail.”
He looks at me like I'm making this stuff up. I don't blame him; it feels that way to me too. “We weren't
doing
anything,” he says. “They don't fire people or throw them in jail for talking.”
He's right. But the way he emphasized
doing
reminds me how easily talking becomes something more if you're not careful. I have a daughter who is proof of that.
“It's a public high school,” I say to him. “Mr. Redmon is right. Perception is everything, Robert. If it even looks like there might be something going on—”
“Nothing is going on.
Nothing.
”
His words slice through me, and Kiki's voice echoes in my head:
Silly Daddy.
Yeah. No kidding.
Shit.
I feel like I've really let him down. All he wanted was a friend, and I'd screwed that up by imagining there was something more. And now there is no going back.
“Robert. I'm your teacher. That's all I can be. I can't be your counselor or your therapist or your—”
“I only asked you to be my friend.”
“I can't.”
He glares at me like I've just shed my sheep's skin and revealed the wolf beneath. “You could if you wanted to.” He huffs. “You just—”
“I can't have lunch with you anymore,” I say quietly. “I'm sorry. Ms. Lincoln—”
“Ms. Lincoln doesn't know me.” He looks away at the empty parking lot. A fine drizzle is just starting to fall.
I don't want to say what comes next, but I know I have to.
“I need you to do something for me.” He tilts his chin to the sky and closes his eyes, waiting for the anvil to fall as he surely knows it must. “I need you to delete all my texts and any that you sent me.” His jaw clenches. “And I need you to delete my photo. I can't text with you anymore.”
He doesn't respond. The drizzle gathers in droplets on his tense face and dampens his hair. It torments me to see him hurting like this and to know I'm the cause.
“I'm still your teacher, Robert. I can still be there for you in that way.”
He opens his eyes and blinks a few times. “If you're worried about my Calculus homework, Mr. McNelis,” he says coldly, “don't be. It'll be on your desk tomorrow along with every other student's.”
I wince a little at his formal address, but I nod. He has a right to his anger. I'm the adult; I let this happen. I reach behind me for the doorknob.
“Be careful driving home. I'll see tomorrow.”
He begins to turn away, then pauses. “My dad died. A couple of hours ago.”
“I'm sorry,” I say, trying to imbue my words with more meaning than simple sympathy for his loss.
“Yeah. Me too.” He turns and walks, then jogs to his car across the lot.
 
Robert
 
The driveway is empty when I get home, but the house is ablaze with lights.
I ease past the oxygen compressor that's now blocking the path to the garage door and let myself in. The dryer is tumbling, and the washing machine next to it is filling with hot water. I open the lid and recognize the sheets from my mom and dad's bed. The smell of bleach is strong.
I make my way through the otherwise quiet house. There are no dishes in the sink, no throw pillows on the floor, no crumbs on the couch.
I find Mom in her room. She's managed to dislodge the king-size mattress by herself. It's lying half on the second box spring and half on the carpet. The box spring that sits closest to Mom is out of the frame and leaning against the highboy.
“Where have you been?” she asks softly, looking up at me from her kneeling position on the floor.
“Just driving.”
“I wish you would have called or answered your phone. I've been worried. You okay?”
I shrug. “What are you doing?”
She sighs, then tucks a loose strand of hair that's freed itself from her messy ponytail back behind her ear. She looks around the room like she's never seen it before, then she leans back over the bed frame and applies the Phillips head to a screw.
“I'm just cleaning up.”
What she's doing is removing all traces of disease and death that have slowly taken over her bedroom over the past year or so, starting with the oxygen compressor and the sheets. And now she's moved on to the side rail bolted to the bed frame.
“Let me do it,” I say, taking the screwdriver from her. She drops back on her butt and scuttles backward until she's leaning against the fish tank.
I remove the first of the screws and lay it on the carpet. From the corner of my eye, I see her pull a trash bag from a roll sitting next to her chaise. She opens the cabinet below the tank and starts dumping everything into the bag.
The second screw is only half out, but I stop and watch her for a moment.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
I start to ask what she thinks the fish are going to eat when my eyes stray upward, and I realize there are no fish swimming in the tank. The water still bubbles from the various filters, the live plants still sway in the current, but there is no other sign of life. Then I notice the large net lying on damp carpet next to the tank. I quietly lay the screwdriver on the lip of the bed frame and go to the kitchen.
Dad was meticulous about caring for his fish. The tank was always spotless, the water clear, the fish colorful and healthy. At the first sign of ick or any number of ailments that fish tend to get, he'd isolate the sick fish in a separate tank and treat it with antibiotics or whatever fish medicine his amateur diagnosis pointed him to. Sometimes it recovered; sometimes it didn't.
When it became clear that a fish wasn't going to make it, he'd scoop it into a Baggie with a little water and put it in the freezer, where he believed it quietly and humanely froze to death.
I pull open the freezer door. A large Ziploc bag, a gallon size, sits on a shelf, the fins and eyeballs of thirty or so fish pressed against the plastic, frost just forming along the amorphous outline.
I close the door and gag into the kitchen sink.
Then I get a garden hose from the garage. In the bedroom I unplug the filters, then drop one end of the hose into the tank and draw the other across the room. I open the window, lift out the screen, then suck on the hose just as I've seen my dad do so many times. Just as I feel the water bubble up to my lips, I hang the hose out the window and let the air pressure on the surface of the tank push the water through the hose.
As the hose siphons off the tank, I take the trash bag and dump it in the container in the garage.
We don't say a word.
After I remove the side rail, we maneuver the box spring back onto the frame, then heave the mattress on top.
Mom runs her hand across the bare mattress. A stain darkens the quilting on Dad's side, blood from a bad jab or maybe just a cut. I don't know. I don't want to know.
I sit on the floor, suddenly exhausted, my eyes grainy. I pick up the small notebook on the bedside table and turn it over in my hands, but I don't open it.
“Why did you marry Dad?” I ask. “I mean, I know you were pregnant with me, but you still didn't have to marry him.”
Mom takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, then lies back on the bed. Her bare feet dangle over the edge.
“He was handsome and charming and boyish. He was from a good family. He had a great future ahead of him.” She shrugs. “And he asked me.”
“Are you sorry you did?”
“I don't know. Sometimes I think I was really bad for him. Not that I was a bad wife, that I didn't do enough, but that, I don't know, that I did too much. He went from being the baby of the family to being my baby. I think I was too willing to take the reins when he wouldn't, to make decisions, to be both mother and father to you. Maybe if I hadn't, he would have.”
“Did you hate him?”
“Wow. Is that what you think?”
“I think that's what those fish think.”
She gets quiet and curls her toes tightly. Then she sighs heavily and flexes them. “I shouldn't have done that. Yes, maybe I did hate him. Or maybe I just hated what I became after I married him. He was like a child. I think that's partly why I fell for him in the first place. He needed me; I took care of him. I think maybe he resented that, even though he had no choice, and I resented him for not loving me for it.”
“Did he love me?”
She rolls over onto her stomach and shimmies around until she's facing me, then rests her chin on the palm of her hand and studies me. “Yes. Of course he did.”

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