And there it was. I frowned before I could stop myself. Grandma Mack meant well, but she should know better. I hated people commenting on my body—it wasn’t like I could help it—and I’d told her what I struggled with.
“I’msick,Grandma Mack. You know that. And I’m doing my best.”
“Of course, of course, dear. I’m sorry. It slipped my mind. Lord knows it ain’t fair what happened with your mama. The fact that you got the same thing, I…” She shook her head as she took the Tupperware from me. “You’re an inspiration, my dear.”
“Enjoy the lasagna,” I said, somehow managing to pull my frown off my face even though my mood was rapidly sinking.
After so many years of being sick, one would think that I was used to having Graves’ disease and all the complications that came with it. But I would never get used to the awful way people handled it.
Yes, I was sick with the same thing that had taken my mother. Yes, it wasn’t fair. But that didn’t mean I needed to be reminded of it or told I was aninspiration. Or howbraveI was. I wasn’t my sickness. I was a teacher, and a good one, if I said so myself. I was a good cook. A good sister. I was so much outside of the illness that had taken my mother.
Don’t let this ruin your day,I told myself as I walked back to my house to get my car. Maybe I should have driven the three houses down, but sometimes my pride was my own detriment.You know Grandma Mack means well.
And she did. Sure, she seemed to forget about my difficulties gaining weight every two or so weeks, but she also crocheted me larger hats to accommodate my wigs and fingerless gloves so I could keep my hands warm but still type in winter. She was also the first person to take me to a hair shop when my thick tresses began to fall out at nineteen.
Remembering all that pulled me out of my funk, and I squared my shoulders.
I had a whole bunch of first graders waiting for me.
I got into my car and drove the short distance to the school. One nice thing about living more in the suburbs rather than the city was that I wasn’t that far from my place of work. Sure, rush hour was still hell, but usually I stayed late enough after class was dismissed that I didn’t have to deal with it.
Once I was inside, I made my way to my classroom and started setting up for the next several hours. Thankfully, there wasn’t an art lesson today, so that significantly cut down on my get-ready time. Whenever arts and crafts were on the schedule, I tried to put it towards the end of the day—partially for the mess and partially because if I did it right in the morning, the kids wouldn’t be able to concentrate for the rest of the day.
As always, there was never really enough time to get ready. I’d just taken a seat at my desk to rest when my students filed in, chatting before morning announcements.
Thankfully, there was nothing too exciting uttered over the PA system. A few minutes later, I was standing in front of my students.
“Good morning, class.”
“Good morning, Miss Fischbacher!”
“Welcome back, class.”
“Thank you, Miss Fischbacher!” they chorused back.
Goodness, even on my worst days, I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of the way they greeted me. College hadn’t exactly been easy for me, dealing with rapidly losing weight, my thyroid deciding to emulate a rollercoaster, and my hair thinning even further, but I’d made it through and gotten my degree. I was fiercely proud of it, even if I did feel like it was stupidly expensive. Especially considering my relatively meager salary.
“I’m going to give ten minutes for everyone to settle in and shake off the food sleepies,” I said with a bright smile. “Then we’re going to begin our lesson on clouds. And despite what you think, it’s not going to be aflufftopic.”
The class groaned, and the satisfaction of a terrible pun washed over me. It was an ongoing joke with me and my students, but I was pretty sure I enjoyed it way more than they did. I considered it part of my compensation since I definitely wasn’t paid enough.
“All right, composition notebooks out, and let’s get to learning!”
I was grateful I had such lovely students. Yes, Mickey had an issue with interruption and concentration, and Jennifer tended to make inappropriate jokes that I had to correct her on (no doubt having learned them from her fifth-grade sister) but at least they weren’t outright raunchy. Just… definitely towing the line for a first grader.
Then there was Addison, who I usually had to beg to stop reading long enough to pay attention. I gave her a lot more free rein than other teachers would, but as long as she maintained her grades, I let her escape into her books more. I got the impression her home life wasn’t exactly the best, and while I couldn’t show up there with either a baseball bat or a book on how to raise a child, I could at least make her school hours a place of rest.
The lesson was rolling along swimmingly, with built-in pauses so the students could fill a page in their notebooks with doodles of the different types of clouds. They had tablets for much of their work, but I found that giving them time to draw, cut things up, and otherwise use their hands for lessons massively helped their concentration and their hand-eye coordination. Would their evaluation be done through their tablets? Yes, but I didn’t think that took away from what I was doing.
“All right, who’s ready to move onto cumulus clouds?” I asked after their second doodle break. There was a round of positive sounds, but then I spotted a hand up in the back. “Yes, Alisha?”
“Miss Fischbacher, Benny is sleeping.”
My gaze immediately darted back to Ben Poynter Jr., a brown-haired boy whose head immediately popped up from where it had been resting on his desk.
“No, I wasn’t!” he objected with just enough guilt for me to know it was true. Benny was one of my sweetest students, evenif he wasn’t always enthused about learning. Although I was just getting to know him, I’d met him a few times in kindergarten when it was my time to chaperone at lunch or recess, and he used to be called Junior. He preferred to go by Benny now, but he spoke very highly of his father, the man he was named after. I’d never met Ben Sr., but he was raising a wonderful son.
“Benny,” I said slowly, realizing this was an opportunity for a quick lesson for my growing girls and boys. “It’s okay if you were asleep.”
