Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After the excitement of their experiment, the kids actually settled down with Nix relatively easily.
Jif’s classroom management skills let them transition from one to the other with only a minimal amount of difficulty.
They were third graders, after all, and Elias sounded like a handful even on his best days.
Miles had come often enough, though, that he could redirect them when they got too rowdy.
Huh. He’d learned something in Jif’s class, too.
Not that he disliked learning. But children like Danny and Elias reminded him a lot of himself, going to school before fidget toys (he’d learned about the little spinners and rubber poppers his first day) and universally designed learning (he’d heard Jif discussing it with another teacher in the hallway when he arrived for his third visit).
Would he have done better at school if those had been options for him?
Keeping his hands busy might have helped his body settle.
A lot of people had opinions about new-fangled teaching techniques, but from his experience in Jif’s classroom, they didn’t seem all bad to him.
When Jif directed the kids to gather their gear, he let them each say a final goodbye to Nix. They loved the familiarity of it, repetitive and comforting. He’d make sure they did it whenever he came for his last visit. Rituals were important for letting go.
It would be soon, too. Everyone, including Jif, had improved, and as much as he’d love to keep coming—and wasn’t that a surprise! —their need for Nix wouldn’t last much longer. It had been a few weeks and kids were resilient. At least, Abby said so; he didn’t have much experience to draw from.
They’d moved on. Soon, it would be time for him to move on, too. He didn’t like the thought, but he sat with it anyway. He sat with a lot of uncomfortable thoughts these days.
After the kids left, Jif took up her usual spot on the floor beside him and rubbed Nix’s belly.
“What is Jif short for?”
Her hand paused for a moment, but it didn’t tremble, then she went back to stroking Nix. “Who says it’s short for anything?”
“Who names their kid after peanut butter?” he shot back.
“Fair.” She chewed her lip, her fingers dancing over Nix’s fur at a frenetic pace before finally saying, “Jennifer, but I don’t go by that. Ever.”
The corners of her mouth turned down, and he waited. She had a few tells and this one clearly said she didn’t want to talk about it, but she surprised him.
She tucked her hair behind her ears, pulled it forward again, then, clearly irritated, shoved it back. “My dad named me after his mother. I never met my grandma, she died before I was born, but he told me about her all the time. Colton was named after his dad, too.”
Ah, a family affair. What did her mother think of this naming ritual?
“Then, a few weeks before I turned seventeen, he left.”
Oh.
“He came back.”
Oh good.
“With the police.”
No.
“My mom’s name wasn’t on anything. Not the house, not the cars, even the bank accounts were all shared. He had his money, and they shared her money, but she didn’t have any of her own. So, when the police asked us to leave, we had nowhere to go.”
She swallowed hard, but her hand never paused as she rubbed Nix’s belly.
“He let us take the oldest, most beat-up car. We slept in it for a week until my mom’s next paycheck came in and she could open her own account for the first time in her life.”
“We stayed in a hotel sometimes. On people’s couches when we ran out of money.
My grandma—her mom—sent some money, but she didn’t have much, either.
I had one duffel bag of clothes because he gave us thirty minutes to pack our stuff, but even then, he went through it all before we left.
Said he had to make sure we weren’t stealing anything. ”
“How long?”
Jif tipped her head to one side, as if counting, but he sensed she didn’t actually need to. He knew exactly how long it had been since the accident. He’d bet money she knew exactly how long they’d been without a home. That kind of thing left a mark on people.
“Seventy-six days.”
Bingo.
“Colton was drafted on April twenty-seventh. His signing bonus got us into an apartment, and after his rookie year, he bought my mom a place out in Somerset. By then, I’d been accepted to CSU, so he paid for my room and board, and I had a varsity cheerleading scholarship for tuition.”
She twined her fingers together, gaze unfocused.
“School made me feel safe. Stable. My mom didn’t like asking for help, so a lot of days I didn’t have enough to eat.
Some of my teachers had crackers, and eventually the counselor got involved so I could get free lunches.
I keep food for my kids because I don’t ever want them to sit in here with an empty stomach.
I showered in the locker rooms. I went to class and pretended I wasn’t sleeping in the back seat of my mom’s car.
I hung out with my friends, and they were real friends.
People think cheerleaders are ditzy, or shallow, or too wrapped up in themselves, but I stayed on some of their couches, and they never treated me differently. Not once.”
Miles held up his hands at her fierce tone. “I wouldn’t say that about cheerleaders.”
“I want my classroom to be a safe place for my kids. I think I’m so upset because this is my safe place, and it should be theirs, too, but now it isn’t.”
She stopped petting Nix, her hands clenching into fists, her knuckles white. He reached for one, gently prying her fingers open, but instead of pulling away, she left it resting in his hand.
He swallowed. “I get it. The place you trusted let you down, and it scared you.”
“Yes,” she breathed. She swiped at her eyes with one finger, then, as if noticing he still held her hand, she wrenched it away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload all that on you.”
She sniffled and pulled the pieces of herself back together by sheer willpower. First the shoulders, then a fan of the face to dry up the last of her tears, then the fake, pasted-on smile he’d come to hate.
“Stop.” He reached for her hand again and, against all odds, she let him take it. “It was hard. And scary. It isn’t right or wrong, it just is.”
She raised teary, but wonder-filled eyes to his. “How do you do that? I bring all these big, ugly, messy, complicated emotions to you and you somehow make it all better. It’s like magic.”
“It’s not magic. It’s psychology.”
She frowned but accepted his answer.
“You are resilient, Jif. You’ll feel safe in your classroom again. Give it time.”
He wouldn’t be able to come for much longer, but he wasn’t ready to leave quite yet.