The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2011

The Third Day

Suzannah Windsor

We sit side-by-side without speaking, waiting for the buzz over the intercom to tell us your parents have arrived. Listening to the hum of the heating duct and muffled cries outside. The laughter of children. Jesus loves the little children.

I’ll write this all down when I get home. I’ll record it so I can keep you in my mind just as you are right now.

*

Three days ago, you stood in front of me, the ends of your hair colored purple with permanent marker, backpack slung casually over your shoulder, kilt doubled over at the waist and knees peeking out beneath the hem. I didn’t believe you when you said you were ‘knocked up’. You curled your fingers like quotation marks and used drawn-out syllables, as if I were so old, you needed to speak slowly so I could understand you. As if you were so young, the words ‘knocked up’ were from some ancient language.

Ego sum gravida.

I had no reason to believe you, not just because of your history of lying, and not because your face remained preternaturally calm as you told me, but because you are thirteen years old.

For those first two days, as the newness of your secret and all its implications hovered between us, you remained untouchable. Slamming your hands on your desk, throwing things at Tuula Luhtala’s head, slumping in your chair, curling the side of your nose at the wooden cross on the wall beside the clock.

But when you fell asleep in class today, I hadn’t the heart to wake you. All through last period, you held your winter coat like a pillow, cradled your head in your arms. The vertebrae of your curved back undulated in a shiver, even though the heat from the ceiling made my glasses slip down my nose. When Amanda Reid poked you and said, “What’d you get for the first question?,” you didn’t reply. The bell rang and the others filed out of the classroom swaddled in toques, mittens and scarves.

Above your head, the light flickered as I whispered your name and neared you, held my hand just above your hair. It reminded me of Medusa’s evil snake hair. Perhaps you only pretended to sleep so one of those purple tentacles could reach up to bite me unaware.

*

I suppose you are the type of girl with immodestly large breasts for your age, the type who purposely walks around with the tip of a tampon sticking out of her pocket like a war medal. When other girls point and whisper, “Don’t those hurt? My mom would never let me,” you press on the tip to bury it in your pocket, raise your finger to curled lips, narrow your eyes.

I don’t imagine your mother even knows you use tampons. You do as you please. You get whatever you want. Last time I met with your parents about those missing class donations for the AIDS orphans in Africa, they assured me with stony faces that you would never steal from the school—your allowance was already more than generous enough. But would a check keep everyone happy? How much? There are always excuses for people like you.

“Are you absolutely sure you’re pregnant?”

“I took four tests, Miss.”

You probably stole those, too. “Have you told your parents?”

“No.” You flicked your fingernails.

“Have you told anybody else?”

“No.”

“Who is the father?” There is not a boy in my classroom capable of such a thing. Not a boy in the whole school.

“My cousin had this party. There were some high school guys there. One of them had a car.”

I pressed my temples, closed my eyes, imagined the scene: you, hypnotized by dark rhythms, flesh stuffed into a too-tight dress you took from your mother’s closet, breath thick with pilfered liquor. Did you pretend to be sixteen or seventeen? Did you have any idea whatsoever what might happen? Surely you couldn’t have known—diagrams of ovaries, and condoms on bananas aside. Intellectual knowledge is different to experiential knowledge.

“Did he…” I searched for gentle words, “…force himself on you?”

As long as I live, I will never forget the expression on your face. Incredulous. You looked away to restrain a laugh like you couldn’t believe what I’d just asked you. As if I were just an old fool.

Thirteen. The heart is desperately, desperately wicked. I wanted to slap you, but I gathered my breath with the words, “What will you do?” In truth, the real question was Why, God? Why her? Why not me?

You shrugged, smoothed your purple hair. Said you might call it Lily.

*

Has it been a blessing or a curse to teach you three times in eight years? Both, I suppose. I’ve enjoyed watching you grow from a little girl into the person you are today, but I admit I liked you better when you were younger.

Back then, your hair was normal-brown, and blunt-cut with thick bangs like a little girl’s hair should be. You always wore a pink headband and you wanted to be a ballerina. Everywhere you went, you danced. Twirled to your desk, leapt to the blackboard, shimmied into your snow-pants for recess. I haven’t seen you dance in ages.

Back then, you still bowed your head during the Lord’s Prayer, in the chill of the morning, at the end of the anthem broadcast over the crackling intercom.

Back then, I had to remind myself not to pat you on the head or gather the ends of your hair in my hands the way a mother might. Teachers aren’t allowed to show such affection or favoritism.

Perhaps you don’t remember the June we took a field trip to the botanical gardens to study the life cycle of plants. You walked behind me as I led the class between the soil beds, and when we passed a sign that said Daylilies, you asked me how those flowers got their name. I said it’s because each flower only blooms for one day, and you scrunched your nose in that way children do when they don’t understand something.

“Why would God make something so pretty that’ll just die?”

“Sooner or later,” I said, “everything dies.”

You took my hand and raised it above your head to twirl yourself beneath my extended arm. “I’ll never die,” you sang. “I’ll never die. I’ll never die.”

I told you everything that lives, lives for a reason, and everything that dies, dies for a reason. Maybe it was God’s way of reminding us to appreciate what we have, when we have it. Good things can disappear quickly. You did.

*

Perhaps you think I’m a nun because I teach at a Catholic school, and because I’m wrinkled and unmarried, and wear elasticized skirts and flat shoes, and keep my hair off my face. I’m not. I used to live a much different life to the one I have now. I had a husband long before I became a teacher, long before you were even born.

Every single day of my marriage, I prayed for a child of my own. Every night on bended knee I humbled myself, let that primal ache seep out of my empty womb in words and tears. And you know, God always answers prayer YES, NO, or NOT JUST YET.

The Holy Ghost did whisper in my ear once. I’d clutched my belly and just knew I was pregnant. I went out and bought a pink blanket and a blue blanket, a frilly dress and a sharp sailor’s suit, a doll and a soldier. I painted the guest bedroom yellow. Lemon yellow. Sunshine yellow. Searched my profile in front of the mirror, released my waist until it overhung the top of my skirt, cradled my hands under that little pot and imagined what I might look like as the baby grew bigger and bigger. I practiced motherhood by holding my hands in the arch of my back and straining my face. I would be ready when that baby came.

But instead of a baby, there came a flood. The red water, the purge, the awful-horrible red. I tried to think of our dear Savior on the cross and how His blood made us whole, but I didn’t feel whole. My baby wasn’t whole.

It all became too much for my husband. I hope you never know what it is to be old and alone.

*

You hadn’t confided in anyone else, not your parents, not your friends. Why me? You didn’t want my advice, didn’t believe the things I said. You simply shook your head when I told you how it would all unfold, even though I gave you the abridged version.

Here’s what will really happen:

One morning very soon, you’ll wake and vomit. Your parents will hear you from their bedroom, though you’ll try to conceal the sound by flushing the toilet or slamming the cabinet doors. You’ll feign illness, garner a few days off school. It won’t be until your mother notices you’re gaining weight and that she has to buy you a new kilt because your old one is too snug. She’ll think it’s only her imagination. You won’t even be fourteen until spring.

When all is revealed and you say you want to keep the baby, they’ll laugh, they’ll cry, throw their hands in the air, throw dishes at the wall. They’ll tell you about your family’s reputation, your college fund, your hope chest, your future. Fill your head with nonsense about how perfect your life will be one day, how you’ll have a handsome husband and live in a big house on the hill. That you’ll be able to have children when you’re older, when you’re ready. They’ll say that none of this is your fault, you are a victim, you didn’t know what you were doing. That you didn’t know it was wrong to steal from AIDS orphans or throw things at people’s heads or yell at your teacher or get drunk and sleep with boys in the back of cars at parties. They’ll tell you there’s only one thing to be done.

Then.

One day you’ll be absent.

No one else will think anything of it, but I’ll know where they will have taken you. Another cover-up. And from then on, whenever I see your stone face, the ends of your hair trimmed to its normal-brown, your kilt loose at the waist, I’ll hold my hand over my heart to keep it from falling on the floor. I’ll remember the awful-horrible red.

But what else can be done? What else?

I know.

If I can get you to keep it a secret just a little longer, I can make you understand: that baby isn’t meant for you, it’s meant for me. That’s what this is all about. Like Mother Mary and the Holy Ghost—a miracle. It’s all part of God’s divine plan to give me a child. At last. Finally. That’s why this has happened. Your hyper-hormonal body is only a vessel. He’ll reach inside and siphon that little seedling baby out of you. I’ll swallow it up and it will descend into my womb, implant itself, root itself, grow into a strong vine. I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me. Give that baby to me. Hand it over. Please. Please. DearGodInHeavenPlease.

*

At the end of the second day, I said I would have to tell your parents if you wouldn’t do it first. You aren’t old enough yet to enjoy the privilege of mandated privacy.

“Not yet,” you said. “Just let me figure out how to break it to them.”

“You can’t possibly care for a child at your age.”

“I’ll love it. That’s all that matters. I’ll love it more than anything.”

“Love is an action word, my Dear.”

“You mean like how Mom’s screwing Dad’s brother and everyone knows it? Right. Love is action.”

“I mean it’s more than a feeling. It’s duty. It’s responsibility. And we’re talking about you here, not your parents.”

“Bet I could do a better job than them.”

“How will you finish school? How will you earn money to buy diapers and formula? Have you thought about adoption? There are a lot of wonderful people out there who would love to have a child.” I couldn’t bring myself to mention the other thing, the other option which must have lingered in the back of your mind already. No, your parents would take care of that.

You set your jaw and slammed your hands on your desk, leaned toward me. Eyes steady as a lion. “I would never give my baby away. Not ever.”

“But think of what’s best for the child. Maybe this baby isn’t meant for you, but for someone else. God has a plan for everyone.”

“Yeah? What was his plan for you?”

Somewhere beneath us, the furnace clanked. “I suppose I’ll find out one day.”

“Well guess what?” Your words were sour in my ears. “I don’t need God to make plans for me—I make my own plans. I plan to have this baby, and keep this baby, and love this baby. I thought that maybe you’d understand, but you don’t. You’re no different to everyone else.”

When you stalked from the room with your books held in the cross of your shaking arms, your anger was palpable. But, there was something else, too, in the hunch of your shoulders, in the bend of your neck. Something like an ache. Something I recognized. A desire to hold something in your arms and know it is yours, and know it will always love you and you’ll always love it. The desire to never be alone again. And that’s when I knew you did this on purpose, not a doubt in my mind.

That night, for the very first time, I slept in the yellow bedroom. I cried for all of us—for you, for me, for your living baby and my dead one—and then I prayed. The walls aren’t so bright as they once were. They’re yellow as butter instead of lemons, but still, they’re yellow.

*

This morning, the announcement of a graduation dance to be held at the end of the year had the whole class whooping and head-bopping. A rite of passage to mark the transition to high school. Such a fuss over nothing, really.

But you were in no such mood. When Tuula Luhtala mentioned buying a new dress for the dance, and you told her to make it a long one to cover her fat legs, and she said good luck to you finding a dress big enough to cover your ‘implants,’ I expected you to fire your pencil at her head again, expected you’d end up in detention for the second day in a row. Instead, you slumped further into your seat.

During silent reading, long after I’d imposed a ban on talk of the dance, I watched from my desk as Jordan Reynolds passed you that note. I expected you to smile your usual wicked smile when you received the words—whatever those words might have been. That’s what you would’ve done three days ago. It’s no secret you like attention from boys, even the ones who are a foot shorter than you, even those whose voices still sound like sparrows.

Instead of smiling or sitting back in your chair and rolling your shoulders in self-satisfaction, you opened the paper, scanned the words over and over. Over and over. Over and over. Your body rigid. Beads of sweat began to form at my hairline. Jordan looked at you with wide eyes, a cocked brow. Then, your face crumpled like a wilted flower and you ran from the classroom, knocking over your chair as its legs scraped back against the linoleum tiles. Somehow, Jordan had discovered your secret and was ready to make it public. Now people would throw pencil-darts at your head, stuff their coats under their shirts in lumpy, mock bellies, make lewd gestures and laugh. In those moments I mentally plotted the damage control. Dear God, how will I handle this?

I waded through the sea of turned heads and confused voices to find you in the corridor, curled in a ball and weeping into your knees. “What happened?”

“My life is over.” You snuffled, wiped your nose along the back of your sleeve and passed me the paper.

I unfolded it carefully. It wasn’t an accusation, after all. On the piece of paper, scrawled in an immature hand, were simply the words:

Will you go to the dance with me?

You looked up at me in agony, motioned to your belly, clutched your hair at the crown and keeled over at my feet. Now you understood the gravity of what you had done. The baby was real—not a doll, not some play-thing to make you feel better about yourself or about your stupid parents. And you were no longer a child. Your friends will go to this dance in ridiculous satin dresses, hair sprayed, faces made up like grown women, but underneath it all they will still be children. But to let a thirteen-year-old boy hold you by the hand and waist, and lead you around a gymnasium decorated with tissue paper flowers and twinkle lights—that would be as absurd as if it were me in that boy’s arms. (Sweet, pout-lipped, short-legged Jordan Reynolds might never speak to you again.)

You had a decision to make. What could I say? What consolation could I offer you? I sighed, eased myself onto the cold floor next to you, favored my sore hip on the way down. “If your life is over, Dear—well—I must have been buried ages ago.”

*

You stirred before I had the chance to touch your Medusa hair. Had you really slept through the whole period? I said yes, pointed to the clock. Everyone was gone.

I squished my thighs into Amanda Reid’s tight desk next to you, and you turned your face to the window, to the snowflakes twirling, falling like doves, shrouding the trees. “Don’t make me go. Please, just let me stay a few minutes. It looks so cold outside.” You’d never pleaded with me before about anything.

I confessed I’d already contacted your parents and they were on their way to the school at that very moment. “We really mustn’t leave this any longer. I’ll be here to help you tell them, and to help them understand whatever it is you want to do.”

“What should I do, Miss?”

The primal ache was there again, but now it weighed on both our shoulders. I wanted to tell you to give that baby up for adoption, no question. Give it to me, I’ll take care of it and love it far better than you ever could. Since the dawn of time, it’s been God’s plan to use your juvenile stupidity as a means of carrying a child for my broken body. But He heard my thoughts before I had a chance to speak them, and His hand rested on my back, squeezing just at the base of my neck. “The policy is to counsel you toward adoption.”

You looked through me. “And the truth?”

“Truth is. Truth is—God help me—it’s a decision you’ll have to make with your parents.” I hate that they have that power over you.

You rubbed at your wet eyes until lashes stuck to the apples of your cheeks. “How come you never had children?”

“I did once. But she died before I could hold her in my arms.”

“That’s sad.” You touched your belly.

“Yes, it’s very sad.”

“Think God really has a plan for everyone?”

“I know so.”

Then, something strange happened, something I’ll never fully understand. The light above your head flickered and fizzled to a dim glow so that shadows bruised the hollows beneath your eyes and the contours of your cheeks. You reached out and rested your pale fingers on top of my gnarled hand as if to comfort me. That in itself would have been more than astonishing, but when I looked up, your eyes glassed over with water and your mouth opened like you were about to say something. It hung open like that for a moment, words stuck in your throat. I strained one ear toward you to catch those unspoken thoughts hovering somewhere between us, words that might unlock the mystery of how this all happened and what would happen next.

It wasn’t your voice I heard, but His. The Holy Spirit whispered in my ear. I have answered your prayer, He said.

In your fluid eyes, I saw myself reflected. Recognized my own coarseness in the texture of your hair, my strength in the curve of your jaw, my weakness in the paleness of your cheeks. I saw myself and understood. All along, you were the one meant for me, not your baby. My prayers had been answered long ago. You were my own, my child, my girl. You died, and yet here you were. You left me, and were resurrected into this new form.

But it wasn’t just you. My child lived in every face that passed through those classroom doors each morning. Just as if God had captured her in the heart of a flower and set her seeds to the wind, every blinking eye, strand of hair, drop of blood in that room was mine. I felt life burst inside my womb, and knew beyond a doubt why I had become your teacher, or Tuula’s or Jordan’s, or any child’s. Divine Providence.

And, as quickly as it began, the light flickered again, your lips closed, and you withdrew your hand to bury your head in the folds of your coat. I’ll never know what words you chose to withhold, words either too difficult to speak or ones that needn’t be spoken to be understood. But I know what I heard, and it took my breath away.

*

The funny thing about daylilies: each flower only lasts one day, but while one flower dies, another blooms. I think of blessed Jesus buried in that tomb, his death a tragedy, but only temporary.

*

The buzzer sounds. Your parents are here. Footsteps in the corridor. We wait for the door to open. Your face is turned into your coat. I say a quick prayer for you.

I’ll write this all down when I get home, because in four months you’ll be gone, pregnant or not. You’ll leave this school and take with you your growing waistline or your secret. Either way, I don’t think I could bear to ask after you.

One day, when you are 30 or 35, and when I am very, very old and hobbling down the street, maybe we’ll pass each other. I’ll think of this account—perhaps just the first of many stories written about my children—recorded on yellow pages somewhere, in some dusty box buried in the basement. Trying to recall the details will be like wiping away twenty years’ worth of cobwebs from an old beloved photo, but I’ll recognize your face. I won’t forget that.

So many possibilities. Will you have normal-brown hair? Will you wear a wedding ring and hold a young child’s hand, or will you walk alongside someone much older, even older than you are today? A Lily, maybe. Will you dance toward me, call Miss! and tell me you live in a big house on the hill? Or will you pass me by, pausing only to part your lips once more and share that silent alliance?

Dominus vobiscum. The Lord be with you. Whatever you do, wherever you go, whatever happens. I’ll thank my God upon every remembrance of you, and I know you’ll rise again some day.

We both will.◊