Above all else, Rose was closed, while Sabrina had been a dwelling with the door flung wide open. Too open to contain either her happiness or her discontent, and too open to effectively conceal her extramarital activities from him, although she’d managed to shield Bea. They both had, and they both would. On that they agreed.
But again: landmines.
“Your mother and Ms. Owens both like kids. They have that in common.” He didn’t really want to know, but he had to ask. “Bea, why are you comparing them?”
They’d reached their driveway. She turned the key in the ignition, and the car’s rumble abruptly ceased.
“Mom has Reggie. I’m leaving for college next year.” She unbuckled her seat belt and angled her body toward him. “Dad, you need to start dating. The thought of you in this house all alone—” Her hands fisted in her lap. “I hate it.”
Her concern warmed him, but—dating. The word alone made his heart clench in terror.
He’d been awful at dating. Awkward and too quiet and…boring.
In academic settings, he’d communicated capably. Outside of them, he’d become someone else. Old Sobersides. Mute Boy. Casper. Only he’d been the one ghosted again and again as a teenager.
Sabrina had been his first girlfriend. Likely his last, too.
“I don’t need to date. I’m fine.” He touched her chin with a gentle finger. “And sweet Bea, you should know something. You can be more alone in a bad relationship than if you’d never dated anyone at all.”
Her mouth trembled. “Maybe I should go to Marysburg University.”
God, he’d love that.
“No, Bea.” He spoke over her protest. “No. You are not responsible for me. I can take care of myself, and you’ll have your own independent life to create. So you’re only going to Marysburg U if that’s the college you most want to attend. Period.”
His daughter slumped in her seat. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am. I will be.” He got out of the car, rounded the bumper, and opened her door. “Come on out. I’m claiming my moment of mush for the day.”
It took her a moment, but she eventually rolled her eyes and accepted his hand as she climbed to her feet. Then he pulled her into the tightest hug he could give without hurting her.
For a moment, he simply breathed in the familiar scent of her apple shampoo. Focused on the familiar sight of blond curls at the crown of her head. Soaked in the familiar feel of her, his baby girl, nestled against him.
But not everything was so familiar. Not her lanky limbs. Not her height.
Soon, her head wouldn’t even rest on his chest anymore.
His throat ached. He closed his eyes for a moment, bereft.
Still, he let her go as soon as she loosened her grip, and he worked hard to keep his tone teasing. “Did I ever tell you you’re my favorite daughter?”
She didn’t seem to notice how hoarse he’d become. “Ha-ha, Dad.”
The rest of the evening passed normally. At least until bedtime, when she gave him another brief hug and then lingered in her doorway, silhouetted by her bedside light. The oversized tee Bea used for a nightie was becoming threadbare, but she refused to let him buy new ones. So stubborn, his girl.
Without warning, she prodded his chest with a fingertip. “Ms. Owens likes you, you know. She smiled at your dumb jokes, and she was watching you when you weren’t looking at her. Which you were totally doing all the time. You should ask her out.”
His daughter needed practice interpreting body language, because his new colleague did not like him. Not in the slightest. But it was sweet that Bea considered her middle-aged father someone who could interest a woman like Rose Owens.
“I’m not going to date Ms. Owens. Or anyone, for that matter.” He kissed Bea’s forehead and nudged her inside her room. “But I love you. Good night, sweet Bea.”
“So stubborn,” he heard her mutter as he closed the door. “Love you too, Dad.”
Three
Rose sipped from her enormous mug of black coffee and surveyed her classroom.
As always, she’d arrived over an hour early, before almost everyone else, to make sure she had time for any last-minute adjustments and to enjoy the final few minutes of quiet she’d have until late that evening.
Her desk, cabinets, and shelves contained all the supplies and papers she should need for the foreseeable future. The student desks and chairs had been arranged in neat rows, and the seating chart—useful for taking attendance until she learned all the kids’ names—was posted in several places around the room. Stacked copies of the day’s schedule rested on a side table, laying out what would happen during class and roughly how long each activity would take, as well as the state objectives met by the lesson and any homework she might assign.
For all their avowed laziness, kids liked to know what to expect each day, and they responded well to structure, as long as that structure came coupled with a sense that their teacher actually cared about both her students and her subject.
She did. She loved both.
As soon as kids entered her room each day, they received a task to complete. Usually annotating a document, in the case of the AP students, or answering a review question or two, in the case of the regular history students. Otherwise, the beginning of class could devolve into chaos within moments.
Today, they’d immediately fill out introductory paperwork about their interests, their contact information, etc. All standard. And then she’d go over the syllabus and introduce another getting-to-know-you activity, one she’d formulated last month with photographs from the National Archives.
Every year, even if she kept the same preps, she tweaked her lesson plans. They could always be better. She could always be better. Pedagogical research and historical research both advanced inexorably over time, and she needed to do the same. Otherwise, she’d be a substandard teacher, not to mention a bored one.
She was neither. So everything lay in wait, ready for the whirlwind of students that would shortly blow into the building, and the rapidity of her heartbeat told her she needed to slow her coffee roll before she shook herself to pieces.
A light knock on her half-open door heralded company. She straightened in her chair, setting aside her mug. “Yes?”
A now-familiar head of neatly combed brown hair poked through the door. “Good morning, Rose. Sorry to bother you, but I was hoping to drop off some of the papers I’ll need for second period.”
One of her two planning periods, which she could no longer spend in her classroom. Lovely.
She stood and gestured for him to enter the room. “Come in.”
Then there he was, lingering just inside the doorway. Martin Krause, the paragon. Such a paragon she couldn’t really even hate him anymore, although she was petty enough to try. But hating a man who listened so intently, spoke quietly but intelligently, and never seemed to impose himself on others had proven more difficult than she’d hoped.
Almost two weeks of teacher workdays and staff meetings and department gatherings, and she still hadn’t spotted anything loathsome about him. Sure, she’d tried to despise his ever-present blue button-downs and striped ties and dark pants, and the careful side part of his hair, but that was a stretch even for her.