I squeeze my eyes shut: to block out the sun, to stop the tears that threaten, to clear my mind’s eye of my daughter doing nasty things. But she is there behind my eyelids doing things I never imagined. I push the wheeled cart harder and enter my daughter’s classroom. I study its normalness. It is silent in the late afternoon, the setting sun shining through the curtains I made for this, her first classroom. The desks are skewed and I push them back into orderly rows. I study the family photos at her desk: Mike and Andee close up with the wedding veil floating out behind them, Andee in a bikini on water skis, Andee, Andee, Andee looking fresh and innocent. I wipe the dust from each and set it back. I grab the garbage and flipping it upside down I hurl its contents into the wheeled dumpster and then slam the garbage can back down. Flipping the lights off I push my wheeled cart out the door and into the waning sunshine.
This is the last classroom and I trudge toward the storage room, my keys jangling on my hip. My thighs rub full and uncomfortable, and my mind circles back again to her, her thighs opened wide and inviting. Again and again I replace that image with the soft-cheeked, pudgy blonde child she was. I cannot, simply cannot align that innocence I have known with the woman they say Andee is. I shake my head vigorously in protest as my mind reviews what I have heard. It cannot be true, must not be true, and yet is. There is proof. And day after day, more boys come forward, proffering ever more lurid details. Their faces are downcast but their voices hint at pride.
Andee teaches high school English. It is what she always dreamed of. She says it proudly. I am an English teacher. I say it proudly too. My daughter Andee, she is a high school English teacher. It is a small school so she teaches junior and senior English. She boasts she knows every student that passes through our one-school town. My mind cringes at the thought that every young man in town has passed through her classroom. And what? Under her skirt and through her thighs? How did it happen? How did it start, this inconceivable thing?
I see her there at the front of the class, nouns and verbs on the whiteboard behind her. She is not a sexy vixen lowering her glasses and sensually shaking dark hair out of a bun. She is small and neat, with freckles and her sandy hair is pulled back into a ponytail. She wears jeans and little t-shirts and blends in with the students. She is proud of that. I’m not gonna be stuffy and superior like other teachers she said. I’m gonna talk to them on their level, I’m gonna be their friend. And I had smiled in pride. She was going to be their friend. She was going to be on their level. Everything has so many meanings now.
I sigh and lock the storage room door and placing the giant ring of keys over my arm I walk back to my car. A tan, four-door Honda, nine years old, parked under the mural of a puma. It is the school mascot, painted by students but still, pretty good. I unlock the door and slide into the drivers seat and insert the key into the ignition but I don’t start the car. The car ping, ping, pings and I cannot hold it back any longer. My throat swells until I think it will burst and the parking lot is empty so I finally just let it go. I cry hard sobs with my mouth open, rubbing the base of my palms into my eyes. My head is tipped forward almost touching the steering wheel, but my saliva starts to come out my mouth so I wipe it away and instead tip my head back. I cry like this a while, head way back, loud sobs coming out of my mouth and I then I am not sad anymore. I am angry, angry, angry. I shake my head back and forth and I scream noises but not words, stomping my feet and beating my hands on the steering wheel. Through the tears I see a car pulling into the staff parking lot and I stop. Just like that it turns off. I quickly wipe my face on my hands and start the car, backing out roughly and pull out past them staring straight ahead.
