I wasn’t wearing a wig.
I wasn’t wearing a wig!
I swallowed hard, trying not to picture how I must look. I was fairly gaunt on the best of days, but at least my wigs made me look like I wasn’t one shale ledge away from toppling into the abyss.
“Must have left it behind,” I said after averypregnant pause.
“You can do that?” Jessica blurted, looking really alarmed.
“Relax. My mommy forgets her hair sometimes too,” Tamisha said. She wasn’t the biggest talker in my class, but when she did speak, it was with a whole lot of confidence. She gave me a bright smile. “Sometimes my scalp hurts after hair day, so I get it if you want a break.”
Goodness, how incredibly sweet. I really was incredibly lucky. “Thank you, Tamisha.”
But the girls were already deep in conversation with each other. “What do you mean hair day? Don’t you do it every day?”
“Nu-uh! It takessolong. I’d never get anything done!”
“Can your mommy do my hair for a hair day?”
“I dunno. I’d have to ask her. We don’t really have the same type of hair.”
“We don’t?” Jessica’s eyes went wide. “Oh yeah, I’m a blonde!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as the two walked to their desks, talking about hair. It was so innocent, so matter-of-fact. I wished adults could hold on to that, but unfortunately, hate was a learned concept.
As much as I tried to put my mind to the task at hand, which was getting as ready for the morning as I possibly could, my hand kept going to my head.
Ihatedmy hair. It was so thin and a mousy brown. Damage from my medication and my thyroid going crazy had wreaked havoc on my hairline, making me feel less than feminine with each retreating centimeter at my temples. My wigs were a shield for me, a way of pretending to be a bit more normal than what I was, and now I felt completely exposed.
It was too late to go home and get one, not with class starting in less than ten minutes, so I was going to have to suck it up and pretend it didn’t rattle me down to my core.
What a shit day.
But I couldn’t take it out on my kids. They deserved the best even when I wasn’t feeling my best, so I had better do my best. So, I took a deep breath and mentally prepared myself for the day.
And just like I knew I would, I got through it.
It wasn’t easy, and when I caught sight of my reflection in the window, it made me want to spiralhard,but I didn’t let myself get lost in it. After my kids came back from lunch, I had plenty of other things to distract me.
Like howhotI was. Normally, I was always cold, but they must have cranked up the heat, because I’d started sweatingright after morning announcements and it had only gotten worse. Thank goodness I had clinical-strength deodorant. An unpleasant side effect of either my disease or my medication was intense BO. Yet another thing that made me less than feminine, but clinical-strength deodorant was a lot cheaper than a human hair lace-front unit.
“So, class, when you… pardon me…” I paused, reaching for my water bottle only to find it empty. Huh, I could have sworn I’d filled it while the kids were at lunch. Had I drunk it already? “One moment, I need a refill.”
Walking to the back of my class to the combination water fountain and sink, I filled my half-frozen bottle. When I had first started, we only had the sink, but I’d added the water dispenser so students could hydrate when they needed. Some teachers were against it, but in my opinion, hydrated was best, and if a kid was drinking enough to purposefully go to the bathroom more, there were other issues at play.
As I walked to the front of the class, everything went a bit wobbly for a moment. It was fleeting, but intense, and the edges of my vision turned to static. I knew better than to panic, so I paused, took a drink, then returned to my usual position.
“Now, as I was saying?—”
Benny raised his hand, his arm shaking with urgency. “Miss Fischbacher!” he said without me calling his name, which was odd. While Benny was far from anti-social in my class, he also wasn’t exactly an eager beaver when it came to raising his hand. That was the whole reason his original question about nightmares had stuck with me so much.
“Just one moment, Benny, let me finish this thought.” I was afraid one more interruption would permanently foil me. I had been fine moments earlier, but now it felt like my thoughts were growing more and more sluggish as my heart sped up. Thedichotomy made keeping any sort of coherent dialogue fairly difficult.
Benny’s hand dropped, and I almost heaved a sigh of relief, but it turned out he didn’t lower his limb in deference to my request. He jumped to his feet and fixed me with a stare that wasfarbeyond his years.
“Missus Fischbacher, sit downnow!”
Why was he talking to me like that?
