“They do not mention that stuff in Morality class,” I say.
Ms. Holden laughs. “No, Tagubio, I suppose they don’t. There are only so many weeks in the semester, after all, to teach you how to be a moral person in the modern day.”
“You don’t mention this stuff in History, either,” I say.
Ms. Holden tilts her head. She’s still smiling, but I’ve challenged her. I feel heat creep into my cheeks.
“You have an AP test to prepare for,” she says. “The content predetermined by the College Board.”
“Totally, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“But are you interested in history?” Ms. Holden asks. “Is it something you might want to pursue as a major?”
I hadn’t thought about that at all. I’d tried to imagine going to college, what I might do or be, how I might look. But my mind always came up with a panicky blank. I couldn’t think beyond my mediocre grade point average. I wasn’t smart at math like my mom, or smart at mechanics like my dad. The only thing I liked to do was doodle in my notebook sometimes, but that didn’t seem like a career at all—nothing they advertised to us at Saint Agatha’s, anyway.
But I can see my chance now: to study something that matters to her.
I say, “I’m interested in the story you just told. I think I want to hear more stories.”
Ms. Holden nods. She likes that answer, and inside myself, I dance like I never do in life. “That’s what history is, after all,” she says. “A whole series of stories we tell ourselves about what came before, and what might come afterward.”
The bell rings. We hear hundreds of feet shuffling along the hallway, girls shouting to each other, an announcement about the lunch menu on the intercom.
“If you don’t mind the closet,” Ms. Holden says, “we can talk about characters like Konrad von Marburg. We can call it extra credit.”
“Whoa! That’d be awesome!” I check myself. “Uh, I mean. If it’s not too much work for you. Don’t you go to the beach after school?”
She smiles. “I can skip one session a week, if it’s for the betterment of the eager youth.”
“Is that who you surf with?” I blurt, looking at the framed photo. “Your, uh, Valentine?”
Ms. Holden laughs loud, a short, sweet sound. She looks at the shirtless surfer. Her laugh turns into a sad smile.
“My brother,” she says.
“Oh.” I am so embarrassed. So of course I keep talking. “I always wondered, you know, what it would be like. To have a sibling.”
Then I remember my Skype calls with Kuya Jun. Technically I have a half brother. But it seems like too much to explain to Ms. Holden. And anyway, he’s not really someone who lived with me the way her brother grew up with her. I’ve never even met him in person.
Ms. Holden keeps looking at the photo. “‘Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen,’” she says.
I wait for her to translate. “Wittgenstein,” she says. “Tragic guy. Germans. We can talk about him later.” Then she looks worried. “Though the nuns might not like me sharing unflattering stories of the Church. Or controversial philosophers.”
“What stories?” I joke. “What philosophers? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
We smile, our first shared conspiracy. “Good,” says Ms. Holden. “Sehr gut.”
The bell rings, and our first history tutoring session ends.
I’m not thinking of Mary when I go back to Morality class to get my stuff. I don’t even feel nervous around Mrs. Scott when she asks me how my digestive issues are. I tell her I feel better.
Because I do. I’m fueled by new knowledge, new plans, new hints of Ms. Holden and what she wants to share with me. Just me!
But I can’t avoid Mary forever. I have to pass by her to get to my next class, English, the last one of the day.
It occurs to me, though, that I feel blessed. Therefore, I should thank Mary.
I should tell Mary: It’s for my grades. It’s for my GPA. My parents both had mentors who helped them: My mom had a college math professor; my dad had his brother, a handyman who taught him how to fix anything and everything. Now I have a mentor too!
And I’m just about at the walkway near Mary’s courtyard, having the kind of faith in Her love and acceptance and nurturing and gifts that the sisters and my parents always say will lead to Great Joy and Peace and Righteousness. I’m going through more of the acronyms that will determine my destiny—SAT! ACT! AP!—thinking of how tutoring with Ms. Holden will launch me to success with all of them. I’m happy, full of faith. I believe in whatever happens next.
And then I hear my name over the intercom, telling me to come to the front office right away.
I freeze.
I walk slow.
I imagine Mrs. Scott’s disappointment and calculation. My new status as a Scott story. The sisters’ fingers on their crosses as they look at me, their eyes damp with prayer for my soul.
How do they know? What evidence did I leave behind?
Through the open glass doors of the office, I see my mom.
“Corazon,” she calls to me.
I freeze again.
My mom is using the kind of voice I’ve never heard before.
Somehow, I recognize it when I hear it. It’s the kind of voice that announces a break in time. A life-size, inescapable change.
I force myself to keep looking her way. My mother’s face is as altered as her voice. It’s filled with a kind of horror and fear that’s never been there before.
“Ma?” I say.
Now she’s a torrent of action and commands, her voice hard.
“Corazon, your papa fell from the roof. Let’s go.”
And before I can ask my questions—What roof? Where are we going? Papa’s fine, right?—my mom’s hard voice shoves us toward her idling Corolla, into a new, terrible future. “Come, come now!”
The End of Our Ordinary Time
I was expecting a black eye, maybe. An arm in a sling. Both ankles sprained. My dad grinning through it all. Maybe missing a tooth and making a joke about whistling better. Not this.
Not the machines helping my dad breathe, raising his chest up and down automatically. The plastic cuff around his neck. The tight bandage around his left wrist. His face locked in a grimace.
My father almost never shows pain. He does everything to hide it. For us.
I’m sure this is not my father.
And in a way I’m right. It isn’t.
But I’m not me right now, either. Part of me isn’t in this too-dark, too-cold room. I’m still back at In-N-Out, listening to my dad tell me a funny story. I’m still at school, keeping my eyes to the floor, away from the sun that is Ms. Holden.
I’m downstairs with my mom, waiting for my dad to be done with a computer conversation. Sitting in the truck with him, waiting for his blessing.
All of me is not ready to be here and worry on a scale this big. On a scale so big, the worry is useless.
The worry does nothing.
My mother shuts her eyes, opens them. Her face crumples for the briefest moment, and then smooths.
I know I’m supposed to comfort her. Say the right thing. Touch her arm.