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  The second request took the shattered remnants of my teacher’s heart and scattered them across the skies looking for somewhere else to be. Donny wants his wooden reindeer so he can give it to his mom after all. He wants it tucked into the coffin. He’s been told that this will be done.

  I walk into my classroom and pick up the stupid wooden deer. It’s made out of four puzzle pieces of jigsawed wood, carefully fitted together so that it stands up and looks at you with vacant, black, painted-on eyes. Donny gave it a big red nose and a red smile as well. The words “To Mommy” are painted in bright blue across the side.

  “Blue is my mom’s favorite color,” he told us.

  The deer is staring at me.

  “Stop smiling at me,” I tell it. It doesn’t listen. Maybe I should sic Baby on it. She’d wipe that smile off its face.

  I carry it down to the office, where Mrs. Callahan said she’d hold it until someone came. I had offered to take it to the funeral, but they needed it there early. Apparently guests aren’t supposed to shove things into the coffin. Or maybe it’s because they’re actually going to let Donny give it to his mother in her coffin. The thought makes my throat swell until it hurts so much that I can’t swallow.

  “I know this will be difficult for you. It matters, you know.” Mrs. Callahan looks at me as she takes the reindeer into her custody. She looks at it for a second and then briefly closes her eyes.

  “What?” Nothing really seems to matter right now.

  “It matters that he cares enough to want you there. That he wants this for his mother. This place…you…matter to him.”

  “It’s not enough, though. This is a school. He lost his home and now his mother. This place. It’s just not enough.” My voice breaks, and I feel a tear slipping down my cheek. I don’t bother wiping it away. She rests her hand on my shoulder in a quick gesture of comfort. It doesn’t work. I still really just want to hide under her desk and cry myself to sleep.

  “It’s something,” she says gently, putting the reindeer on her desk, where he stands, looking obscenely festive, cheerfully guarding her office. I glower at him for a second and then turn and walk back to my class.

  The boys are quiet after I tell them why Donny is away. Even Mike looks upset, perhaps imagining losing his own mother.

  “Sucks,” says Kevin, using the word correctly today.

  “Totally sucks,” agrees Cory.

  The next couple of days in the classroom are relatively easy. No fistfights and few threats. Some work gets done. By Wednesday, I’m feeling like perhaps they’ll all survive without me long enough for me to survive the funeral.

  The chapel is about half full of people I’ve never seen before. Donny is nowhere to be seen, so I find a seat near the back. I’ll give him a little wave when he comes in so he knows I’m here and then slip quietly out the back when it’s over. That’s my plan.

  Five minutes later, the family comes in. Donny is walking between an older woman I don’t recognize and his foster mother. I wonder if the first woman could be his grandmother. She’s holding his hand as they stand solemnly looking at the coffin. I imagine the reindeer lying in there with Donny’s mother. It makes me feel a little sick. I want this thing to start so it can end quickly.

  “Ms. S! Ms. S!” The voice is piercingly loud and interrupts all of the hushed conversations. I look up, startled, and see Donny looking at me. He has a big grin plastered on his face and is waving madly at me. He whispers something to the older woman, who nods. Then he lets go of her hand and comes running back to me.

  “I’m glad you came! Come and see my mom!” He grabs my hand and starts pulling me toward the front of the room. Every single person is staring at me, and I realize that refusing to grant a grieving child his wish at his mother’s funeral will not go over well. I let him tug me up the aisle, trying not to trip and fall on anyone on the way up.

  “She’s here!” he says to the older woman. “This is my nana. Nana, this is Ms. S.” She smiles at me with tired, lackluster eyes sunk in a careworn face.

  “Nice to meet you. He’s been looking for you. He can’t stop talking about Ms. S.” She doesn’t smile again. Just shrugs and sighs. She looks at Donny with an expression that I can’t read.

  “Come and meet my mother,” Donny says. I really, really don’t want to do this, but I have no choice. He pulls me over to the open coffin and makes me look in. I know by now that his mother died of an overdose. No one knows whether it was an accidental one or not. I don’t want to look at her and wonder if she left him on purpose. But I do.

  The makeup people who do the impossible job of making dead people look…less dead, I guess, have made it appear that she is sleeping comfortably. She’s a lot older looking than I expected, but maybe it isn’t so much age as the life she’s had.

  “See! Look!” Donny reaches over as if to touch her. I involuntarily reach out, thinking I should stop him for some reason. He doesn’t touch her, though. He just points to the top of the reindeer’s antler that’s peeking out by his mother’s left shoulder.

  “That’s lovely, Donny.” The words stick in my throat, and I have to cough so I don’t choke on them.

  “It’s time to sit down now,” one of the staff says gently, and we take our seats. I am now in the front row with the family—such as it is. The coffin is closed up, and Donny looks shell-shocked for a second, as if he has just realized that his mother is actually going to stay inside that big wooden box with that little wooden reindeer. He sits staring for a few more moments and then seems to shake it off.

  “I can’t come to school today. I have to go to the graveyard. I’ll come tomorrow instead,” he whispers to me as the service begins. I just nod at him and try to focus on the words flowing down from the pulpit. I don’t actually register any of them.

  I use the necessity of getting back to my class as my excuse not to follow the coffin to the next stage in the day. I say good-bye to Donny and his nana and head back to the school.

  The boys are sitting at their desks, with Sean and Ms. J slipping from one to the other, helping them with what look to be word searches. I had left mostly “fun” activities for the day, figuring it might make life easier.

  As I walk into the classroom, the first thing I see is a row of fully painted, ruthlessly happy reindeer grinning at me from the back of the room. I wish I had a large, heavy bowling ball right now. I’d send them right into the maw of the volcano.

  “Hey, Ms. S. How’s Donny?” Sean is watching me watch the reindeer. I try a smile, but I can’t manage it.

  “He’s…okay. Under the circumstances. I’m here now, Ms. J. Thanks so much for your help.” She smiles at me, that slightly sad kind that doesn’t really reach the eyes.

  “No problem. The students were great.”

  “Nice to hear.” I’m so tired that I feel like I’m going to fall down.

  None of the boys ask me about Donny. No one says anything to me at all. They just keep on going about their business as if nothing is different here. As if no one has died.

  “So, are you okay?” Sean asks, after the endless day finally ends.

  “Of course. It wasn’t my mother who died.” I realize that the words came out harshly and try another smile to take some of the venom out. I still can’t do it, and the poison lingers in the air, filling the classroom with its acrid fumes. Sean doesn’t seem too adversely affected and just pats me on the arm, as if he’s the mature one in the room and I’m the twenty-year-old.

  “Go home and spend some time with those beautiful girls of yours. It’ll make you feel better.” I look at him and nod.

  The pleased look in both daughters’ eyes when I show up early starts to make me feel better. An early supper at our local greasy spoon, complete with chocolate milkshakes, lovely mounds of fries, and easy conversations about life in junior kindergarten versus
life in grade three and the excitement of the upcoming holidays…and life starts to feel a little less bleak.

  My life, anyway. I’m trying not to think about what Donny is doing right now.

  This is going to be our first holiday season as a “chick” house. That’s what my friend calls it now. She thinks that I should see my impending divorce as a liberating time in my life. I’m free to do what I want now—to raise my children as I see fit, to decorate my home the way I want to, listen to the music I want to listen to, eat whatever looks appealing to me.

  Free to worry about money and custody and the emotional damage to my children. Free to wonder if I’m going to stay free forever. Poor baby.

  Every night I sit down in the basement, hiding in the laundry room while I finish the girls’ “big” gift. In my infinite lack of wisdom, I decided that I would make them something this year—because I’m not busy enough at work or being a single mom. And so I chose to make a Victorian dollhouse from a kit. I figured it wouldn’t be all that difficult to do. After all, it’s a kit, right?

  I didn’t bother to read the not-so-small print on the side of the box that said “professional level.” I didn’t look at the back of the box where the materials were listed. If I had, I might have seen words and numbers that would have given me pause for reflection—words like “1,000 cedar shakes.”

  One thousand teeny, tiny cedar shakes to be individually glued onto a roof that started out as a few pieces of wood that I had to cut and attach. Virtually everything in that box was raw material that required following intricate directions in order to make a five-bedroom house with about fifteen windows and three staircases.

  I thought about taking it to school and getting Arthur to help me, but decided that I’m too stubborn for that. I’ve been working every night from the time the girls go to bed until about midnight, trying to get this miniature lumber pile to look like something that will make their eyes light up with excitement.

  One night, I spent two hours trying to straighten out one of the stairs at the entrance way because I was afraid someone might trip trying to go into the house. The doll house.

  Maybe I could have a tiny little house fire, collect the insurance, and buy them the new Barbie van instead.

  I used to love the holidays. Even though it’s mostly artificial, that whole deck-the-halls holiday spirit has always made the world seem a little shinier.

  Maybe it’s all the lights.

  This year, I just want to get it over with so I can see that we all survived. I wonder what the holidays are like for my boys? I wonder what school will be like for all of us when they come back after two weeks of a completely different life. I don’t imagine it’s going to be cool, calm, and collected in our room in January.

  I imagine Mike’s stocking will be full to the brim with everything he has ever wanted. I’m sure Kevin’s parents would want to fill his also, but I don’t know if he talks enough even at home to tell anyone what he might want to see under the tree. A new whale maybe? Although we seldom hear from Baby anymore now that Kev is trying to do his own talking.

  Cory’s mother most likely has completely forgotten that there’s a holiday coming up. If she does remember, all of the gifts will have either Bobby’s or Alvin’s name on them. Silly raccoon. I wonder if his head wound has stopped oozing yet or if she’ll knit him a little hat for the winter. I’ve yet to see one on Cory’s head.

  And Chris? I still don’t like to think about what goes on in that house on any day of the year, let alone at a time that comes with such high expectations. I wish he would say something that we could take to Children’s Services so that something could be done about…whatever is going on. But he comes to school relatively well dressed, clean, and apparently well fed. No obvious signs of physical abuse. Only worries and suspicions about what he is witnessing, or worse, participating in, at home.

  I know Donny won’t be having the Christmas of his dreams. I don’t even want to imagine what that day will be like for him. The loneliness he will feel without his mom.

  Loneliness seems enhanced during those times when the media tells us we should be with family.

  Most of the time I try not to notice that I’m alone once my babies go to bed or when they’re with their father on Sunday afternoons. It’s been a little easier lately, what with all of the house construction keeping me so busy. Add on endless thinking about school, and you have a mind and body with little space left for feeling lonely. At least that’s what I tell myself.

  But I do have to keep enough space in there to keep track of how my girls are doing with all of the changes they’re going to be dealing with this holiday season. I have to hold it all together for them.

  I have to try to keep my life separate from the lives of my students so that I don’t accidentally self-destruct and turn into useless pieces of myself—a disassembled reindeer looking for his smile.

  Chapter 22

  Gone fishing

  The first day back after the holidays is about as wild and crazy as I expected. Two weeks away from what passes as a routine in our room, and it feels as if we have started over at the beginning. Seemingly nonstop bouts of yelling, swearing, fighting, and endless meltdowns are keeping the time-out room busy virtually full-time.

  I’m starting to think that I’m not the only one who spent the holidays riding an emotional roller coaster, flying uphill one moment and crashing down the next, until my stomach tied itself into so many knots that I couldn’t get then undone in time to come back to school.

  Everyone is basically nuts.

  Except for Donny.

  Donny came back acting as if nothing at all had happened. He doesn’t talk about going home to his mother’s anymore, of course, but otherwise it seems to be business as usual. Actually, if anything, he seems a little calmer. There have been fewer physical outbursts, and he even seems able to ignore the other boys when they’re trying to get him going, which is pretty much all the time. I can’t help but wonder if in some strange way his mother’s absence has changed his stress level. He isn’t constantly worried about when his next visit is going to be or how long he has to wait until he moves home.

  Then again, now he has to worry about where he’s going to spend the rest of his childhood.

  ✘

  Before the break, Sean and I had been thinking that we were starting to get the hang of dealing with these guys. Not all of the time—not even close—but some of the time we felt like we were actually figuring out how to be proactive in helping the boys find ways to avoid conflict instead of always having to jump in to mitigate the damage after the fact. Our days were actually inching toward a routine. Friday would sometimes creep up on us, and we’d be pleasantly surprised to find out we had made it through a whole week instead of desperately trying to survive each day intact. We were both feeling like we might actually survive the whole year intact.

  That feeling pretty much disappeared after three days of absolute chaos that almost brought both of us to the point of heading to the nearest bridge for a quick leap into the water. By day four, the tide appears to be turning, ever so gently, as life in our room starts to slow down. A few of the knots begin to come loose, and I have hope that maybe I can come to school without that anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach, wondering who is going to get smacked upside the head today.

  Every once in a while I actually teach something curricular, like a math concept or some science. It’s a challenge to figure out how to do that here. Although the boys are close in age, they come from three different grades at the moment. Combine that with endless days of missing classes and all sorts of learning issues that have yet to be formally identified, and you have quite the recipe for a convoluted set of lesson plans.

  Most of the lessons are individualized, in an attempt to get each student from point A to wherever he needs to go. But I also try to do group le
ssons so that each of the boys gets experience in paying attention to someone who isn’t necessarily talking directly to him. It becomes a combination of social skills and science or whatever other lofty curricular goal I set on a given day.

  Everything in this classroom becomes a social-skills lesson, whether or not it starts out that way. The topics are endless. How to show people you’re listening to them. How to show people you want them to listen to you. How to have a conversation. How to join a group already having a conversation. How to wait your turn. How to deal with teasing. How to stop teasing others. How to deal with someone yelling at you without punching or swearing. How to deal with someone ignoring you. How to ignore someone who is bothering you. How to deal with negative reinforcement. How to deal with positive reinforcement.

  Come to think of it, maybe none of us should be taking these skills for granted. Most of us could use a refresher course in social interaction. The staff room springs to mind. If the kids only knew what goes on in there….

  ✘

  “All teachers are asked to send a runner down to the office with Winter Activity selections by nine-thirty today. All permission forms must accompany the selection sheets.” The announcement interrupts my lesson on the universe. Nothing like starting small. The boys are actually listening, and I resent the intercom enormously at times like this.

  “You seriously mean that we’re not at the bottom looking up? We’re, like, in the middle?” Cory is totally fascinated by the idea that the earth is a sphere floating in space. Like explorers of old, he had the idea that the earth is flat.

  “What’s winter activity mean?” Donny asks, interrupting the already interrupted lesson.

  That’s a great question to which I don’t have a great answer. I know the answer, but I don’t know how to share it without upsetting everyone in the room.

  Our school has a Winter Activity Day every February. It’s a huge, complicated undertaking involving all sorts of field trips to local ski hills and skating rinks. Virtually the whole school is involved, with all of the grades mixed together, creating a nightmare of logistics for the teachers involved. The planning is extensive and begins the minute we get back in January. Permission forms are sent home right away, and there’s a whole complex first-come first-served organizational horror that I’ve managed to stay out of since starting work here.