Chapter 2
NADINE
I barely make it out of the building and into my car before I lose it. Great heaving sobs that have my makeup running and lungs burning. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear Erik’s voice, reminding me to settle down and breathe.
All of his usual zen bullshit.
Yet I try to focus on my breathing anyway. After a minute, when my hiccuping finally subsides, I open my eyes to find my cell phone.
Out of my entire family, Erik is my favorite. We’re only two years apart, and I know he won’t judge me for the decision I’m about to make. He answers my FaceTime call with a smile that quickly drops. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do it anymore,” I say, another wave of tears racking my body so hard that I can’t speak when he asks me to repeat myself because he can’t understand.
“Breathe, Nan. You’ve got to breathe. I’m gonna count, okay?”
He does his big-brother thing, counting to four, directing me to inhale slowly, hold it at the top, exhale it out until I can speak once again.
“I’m quitting,” I say, my throat thick and my voice like sandpaper.
His eyes widen even as his brows narrow. “You’re quitting?”
“I can’t do it anymore.”
He shakes his head, confusion written across his features that are so much like our father. Out of all five of us kids, he looks most like him. “What happened?”
I take a shuddering breath and press my shaking hand to my chest, almost unable to say it out loud. “One of my seniors, Stacey, she’s pregnant, and she asked me to be the godmother of her baby. The godmother, Erik. Because she said she doesn’t have anyone else in her life to ask.”
He doesn’t speak for a long time, only watches as I find some tissues in my glove compartment to mop up my face. Once I meet his gaze on my phone screen again, he asks, “What did you say?”
“I told her that as much as I love her, it wouldn’t be appropriate, and that if she thought about it more, I was sure she could come up with someone else in her life who she could ask.
But that’s the thing…” My eyes sting with more tears.
“She doesn’t have anyone else.” I stutter out the rest. “Sh-sh-she’s in foster care.
She doesn’t have anyone except m-me. How f-fucked up is that? ”
I have to stop because my crying gives way to a distraught moan from the depths of my soul as I think about the rest of my kids, and I smack my hand on the steering wheel as if the physical pain will take away the emotional toll.
With a ragged inhale, I tell my brother, “I gave Orlando money for prom tickets because he couldn’t afford them, and he wanted to take his girlfriend.
And god, Manny—he and his mom finally received their green cards.
He was so happy, but he’s worried about his dad because he still doesn’t have one.
And Christopher has started hanging around with a gang, and… ”
I dip my chin, all of my frustration and anger crashing over me so I can’t talk anymore, only cry for my students. For me. For all the kids our society continuously allows to fall through the cracks.
Once I feel like I finally have most of it out, I clear my eyes with the back of my hand. “I can’t do it anymore. I have to quit. If I don’t, I don’t think I’ll have anything left to offer anyone. I already feel so empty.”
“You’re burned out,” Erik tells me quietly. “It’s understandable you feel this way, but don’t make any rash decisions. How many days of school do you have left?”
“A few weeks.”
“Okay, try to take it easy, but don’t quit.
” When I open my mouth to argue, he holds up his hand.
“I know how much you care about your students, which is why I think you shouldn’t make any decisions right now.
I don’t want you to end up regretting anything later on.
Then I want you to come stay with me for the summer. ”
I blot a tissue under my nose. “You don’t want me in your house.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You have your hands full with Kai.”
“Who needs to spend time with his aunt.”
Sniffling, I give in with a nod because I could use baby snuggles, and Erik offers me a sad smile. “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out. I’ll help you.”
I do believe Erik thinks that’s true. Yet with how barren I feel, utterly useless from constantly giving everything I have to a profession and a school that don’t give anything back, I’m not so sure.
But I don’t come from a family that quits anything. We don’t give up.
We work hard.
We overcome.
We become doctors and PhDs and professional athletes.
We do not settle. Ever.
So, I’m sure Erik assumes I’ll make it past this momentary blip and go back to work in the fall after I have some time off to recharge, but I’ve felt this coming on for a few years. Hell, maybe my whole career.
I made it past the statistic of most teachers quitting in the first five years, but it’s this sixth year that has put the nail in the coffin.
Being a teacher is not for the faint of heart. Being a teacher in a Title I school is even harder. Being a learning support teacher in a Title I school? Like building a sandcastle in the middle of a hurricane.
For almost as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a special education teacher.
My siblings and I are CODAs, Children of Deaf Adults.
With a Deaf mother, I saw firsthand how education needed to be accessible to everyone, and I still believe that.
I simply don’t know if I’m a person who can do it anymore.
I don’t know if I can watch my kids continue to slip through the cracks.
I don’t know if I can break up another fight.
I don’t know if I can spend another lunch period on cafeteria duty.
As a high school learning support teacher, I assist the general education teachers to adapt their lessons for my students, who read below their grade level, anywhere between third and sixth grade, usually.
On top of that, I have a caseload of thirty Individualized Education Plans, which means I spend a lot of time in meetings and writing up reports, making sure my kids receive everything they need during the school day.
But of course, they need just as much support outside of school as well.
Because more often than not, these children are the ones who are forgotten about.
They come from poor households. Sometimes they have relatives in the prison system.
Most of the time, they have only one parent or guardian at home.
Some do not speak English. All of them need attention and love, more than I can give them, even as I wish I could.
The school doesn’t have enough resources, and the administration is caught between a rock—the government—and a hard place—the local community.
The behavior of some of the students is out of control, with no repercussions, and while I usually have no problems with my kids, I know they can be disrespectful to other teachers.
I’m not sure what even happened, but a few weeks ago, I watched Ronny be put in handcuffs, and I haven’t been able to obtain an answer about what happened to him, other than he had a physical altercation with a teacher in the hall, and they were pressing charges.
I haven’t seen Ronny since I witnessed him chest down on the floor, pleading for me. “Miss, please! Help me! I need you!”
I threw up in the faculty bathroom after that.
I’ve lost weight, stress stealing my appetite, and every morning, I wake up dreading the day and what it might bring. And I don’t know if it’s worth it. As much as I love my kids, I don’t think I can do it anymore.
But before my thoughts can spiral again, my brother asks, “Where are you right now?”
“Outside of school.”
“I’m going to stay on the phone with you until you’re home.”
“Thanks,” I mumble and readjust my position in my car seat, so I can drive home. While I do, he catches me up on his life, which is the same as always, working out and preparing for the upcoming season, except that he has a trip to take.
“I booked a flight out to Iowa for tomorrow.”
“Why are you going there?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Camden’s parents died. It’s been all over the news.”
I suppose it would be since Camden Long is the leading tight end in the NFL, alongside my brother, who is quarterback for the Philadelphia Founders.
I gasp. “Oh my god.”
“Yeah, it was a bad accident with a tractor trailer.”
I exhale a low breath. “How is he?”
“I haven’t talked to him much, but a lot of the team is attending the funeral. I’m going to spend the weekend out there in Cedar Falls with him.”
Although I’ve met my brother’s best friend and teammate on a few occasions, I don’t know him that well. Which suits me fine because he’s a giant asshole, but I still feel bad for him. To lose both of his parents suddenly is unspeakable.
“Can I do anything? Send anything?”
“No, I’ll give him your regards. I think he’s in shock right now.”
“I’m sure.”
“He has a younger sister whom he now has guardianship over. She’s in eighth grade.”
I wince, imagining being that age and without parents. “How devastating.”
“And,” my brother adds pointedly, “she’s Deaf.”
“She’s in public school?” I ask, my mind immediately spinning with questions and ways to solve problems. “How does she do?”
“I don’t know much about her, but I guess he’ll be moving her here.”
While I’m sure Camden is grieving hard for his parents, the changes his sister will have to go through will make it exponentially worse. I ache for her, knowing how difficult it will be.
“Please let me know if I can do anything.”
“I will,” he says, then calls out to his wife Molly, explaining to her that I’ll be staying with them for the summer, to which she responds happily.
Molly started dating my brother when they were only sixteen, and they’ve been together nearly fifteen years now. She’s more than my sister-in-law; she’s one of my best friends. So when she pops on-screen, her voice immediately changes, “Oh Nan, what’s wrong?”
I shake my head, unable to talk about it again, so Erik takes over. “She’s burned out from school.”
Molly makes an understanding sound. “I’m so sorry, but we’ll get you feeling better. I can’t wait for you to come. You know you can text or call whenever you want.”
I blink a few times, clearing my vision before making a right at a red light. “I know, but I don’t want to bother you with Kai.”
My brother dismisses that idea. “You wouldn’t be bothering us. He doesn’t do much right now besides sleep and poop. And there is no way you can bother us more than Mom and Dad already do.”
Molly agrees. “Your mom won’t stop sending us onesies.”
Kai is the first grandchild, and when he was first born, Erik had to physically remove my parents from the house so he and Molly could get some peace. I love them dearly, but they are both overbearing in their own ways.
Mom was born in East Germany before the Wall fell, and while we don’t know much about her early childhood, she was somehow smuggled out and placed into an orphanage in West Berlin, and she was adopted by my grandparents in the US a few years later.
She is quite literally a miracle, born deaf in a time and place where disabled children did not have a high chance of surviving.
But she did, and she made it all the way to New York City during college, where she met my father, newly arrived from Puerto Rico to find fame in the boxing ring.
But that fateful night in a dance club, they learned they didn’t have to speak each other’s languages to fall in love.
A few years later, they married and started having half-German, half-Puerto-Rican babies whose first language was ASL and who were raised to be the best in our chosen fields.
Mom had earned her PhD in psychology after overcoming so much adversity, and there is no excuse for us not to.
Not to mention Dad, who won himself a silver medal at the Olympics before opening a string of successful gyms throughout New York and New Jersey.
Felix, my oldest brother, is almost done with his oncology fellowship.
Then there is Erik, one of the best quarterbacks in the league right now.
My younger sister, Emmaline, is about to graduate law school, and the baby, Benedict, is at Harvard on a full sports scholarship for football.
The Riveras do not quit.
Except me. The middle child who can’t hack being a public school teacher.
Because Molly knows me well enough, she can see it before it happens. “Don’t cry, Nan. It may not feel like it, but it will get better.”
I glance down to the screen at another red light to find my brother back on it. “Focus on finishing out the year. That’s all you need to do. Take it one day at a time, and then you can come here and relax.”
Sure. Easier said than done.