Page 81 of Losing Faith

“Oh, god,” she drawls. “What now?”

I stifle a laugh, appreciating her shared annoyance. “You know how they work on five different words every week for the little spelling test?”

She hums in response.

“Well we were practicing the wrong ones this week, so she ‘failed’,”I say in air quotes since I refuse to call my five-year-old a failure in anything. “They had a lot to say about it and apparently I’m an irresponsible father. I kind of got into it with them and lost my temper.” I roll my eyes, more upset with myself than them.

“They need to fuck off already.” She leans back on her hands. “Whatever you said was deserved.”

I shake my head at her words. “I told them not to call me unless it was an emergency.” I cringe at the reminder. “I need to call them back and apologize.”

“No the hell you don’t,” she counters. “Isn’t this the third time they called you this week? Enough is enough, stop being so nice and you better not call back.”

When I feel my headache returning, I rest my head on her lap again. “What made you get into teaching?” Shutting my eyes, I soak in the hot sun.

“It was honestly very impulsive.”

That doesn’t surprise me one bit, but I don’t say anything as she goes on, her voice easing the tension in my shoulders.

“My major was undeclared my first two years in college. I was dating this guy at the time and he said his job as a special ed teacher was hard and I didn’t believe him.”

She stifles a laugh as she thinks of something. “I really just did it to prove to him I’d be better at it than him.” She quickly goes on. “ButI also have always loved kids. I was babysitting in college to make extra money and after working with a few special needs kids, I knew I’d love my job and I did.”

I can feel her mood shift and I kiss her leg gently. “Would you go back?”

She takes a beat to think. “Maybe. I just saw a post about a school shooting in Florida and that shit is sickening.”

A chill runs down my back at the mention. I also saw that on the news and I nearly enrolled Isabelle in homeschool on the spot.

“That’s actually the reason I got fired, so maybe I wouldn’t go back.”

I lean up to look at her. “What do you mean?”

She shakes her head before explaining. “My school had a new protocol for that situation. Rather than boarding the door and hiding, we would listen for how far the shots were and if we thought we could get out of the building, we’d run with our kids or remain hiding.”

“What?”I feel my eyes bulge as I watch her. “They made you practice that withkids?”

“No, no.” She quickly explains, “Only faculty did it a few weeks before school started.”

I thought that’d make me feel better, but it doesn’t in the slightest.

“Unless the shots sounded like they were in my direct hall, I was making it out of that fucking building, especially since I knew I only had five or six kids, but when the year started, I had a wheelchair baby and that drill was all I could think about.”

I keep my eyes on her and she looks scared of the thought.

“I kept going over it in my head and there was no way I could make it out with five kids and a wheelchair, and I sure as shit wasn’t leaving her. On top of that, I had a nonverbal autistic kiddo who wouldn’t let anyone touch him. Majority of my plan depended on me carrying my smaller kids who wouldn’t run with me, but…”

She takes a deep breath as she shakes her head. “It was overwhelming and when I started drinking, I just spiraled. Then my depression was really bad.”

“That shouldn’t have cost you your job.”

She musters up a smile as she looks to the side. “The board didn’t think so.”

My heart sinks. “They reported you to theboard?”

She nods and I hate the disappointed look on her face because I know she feels that way about herself. “I thankfully didn’t lose my license, but I was fired and suspended from teaching for the school year. I was cleared for this fall but never got around to applying.”

When she looks up at me, a more genuine smile is on her face. “It worked out, though. I’d take tutoring your kid over public school teaching any day.”

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