Love in the Lesson Plan

1. Giselle

ONE

GISELLE

An Apple a Day…

My alarm clock screeched, and I allowed myself one long, deep breath before slowly sitting up. My head swiveled this way and that as if I were looking for the source of the annoying sound, even though I’d been keeping my alarm clock in the same place ever since I’d moved back home after college.

Most people used their phones as an alarm and kept them on their nightstands, but that didn’t work for me. There was too much of a chance I wouldn’t hear it, would hit snooze indefinitely, or turn it off in that hazy daze between waking up and actually being coherent.

“Yeah, yeah…” I muttered to myself as I swung my feet out of the bed. As usual, everything ached, but since that was pretty much the par for the course, I allowed myself one more breath to mourn it, then I moved right along.

My morning routine was pretty simple. I hopped into the shower, did a quick wash-off with my extra gentle body wash, and made sure my thin hair stayed up in my shower cap.

That would be added to tomorrow’s routine.

Although I wished I could go four or five days between washings like my curly-haired youngest sibling, I pretty much had to use shampoo and conditioner every other day to prevent my fine, dishwater brown hair from getting darker and even flatter with grease.

After the shower, it was back to my room in a towel to get dressed, apply simple eyeliner, lipstick, and mascara, and then pick out my wig for the week—it was Monday, after all.

“Hey Google,” I said, not wanting to spend time typing into my phone when I had things to do with my hands. “Open YouTube.”

The phone went through the normal, overly polite responses before the app opened.

I got a bit distracted opening my closet, looking at my mix of synthetic and human hair units, some of them full lace, some lace frontals, and few hard lines when I wanted bangs—which honestly, wasn’t very often.

With my cheeks being so gaunt lately, the bangs overpowered and shadowed my features.

And since I wore wigs to boost my confidence, putting on something that made me feel self-conscious was the last thing I wanted to do.

“I think I want to be a redhead this week,” I mused to myself.

I’d gotten into the habit of narrating out loud back when we had a cat named Peaches who followed me everywhere.

Peaches had sauntered into our house one day and decided to stay.

None of us had had the guts or desire to protest. But she was gone now, having passed at the ripe ol’ age of nineteen.

To be honest, I had known it was coming.

Once my mom was gone, Peaches lost her spark, and more often than not I’d find her curled up on Mom’s rocker in a deep sleep.

What was I doing again?

Oh right, I was trying to pull up a video to listen to while I got ready.

“Okay, Google, play ‘watch later’ list.”

The first video that played was a semi-serious guide on Gen Alpha slang, what it meant, and if any were NSFW. Most adults my age would find that odd, but as a teacher, I needed to be up on the lingo.

“Today, we’re gonna go over some of the most common phrases kids use these days!”

It didn’t take long for my thoughts to return right back to the distraction.

Sometimes I liked to think that Peaches and my mother were together now, Peaches rumbling and demanding cheek pets while my mother caught up on all the needlepoint she couldn’t do when her hand tremors got too bad.

It was a nice thought, even if the edges were dipped in melancholy.

That was the downside of loving a person or a pet; eventually, no matter what, you had to say goodbye. And yeah, hopefully I’d be able to say hello again, but the wait on my side sometimes seemed achingly long.

“ Skibidi Ohio Rizz. Now, this one is a mouthful, but ? —”

“Hold up,” I said, grabbing my phone and rewinding the video. There was no way that was correct. I played it again. That was exactly what she said.

Huh.

“All right, you’re the expert,” I murmured to her like she could hear me.

I continued getting ready, only half-listening to the video.

But that was kind of how it often was for me.

I didn’t know if it was because my body was falling apart, but I spent a lot of time wandering around my own thoughts, and outside of the classroom, those thoughts were not organized in any way.

Which, of course, meant it drifted right back to me missing my mother and my cat. It wasn’t that I wanted to rush my time on Earth. No, not at all!

I didn’t exactly have the easiest hand extended to me, but I wasn’t miserable or bereft either.

I had a roof over my head, a loving father, a wonderful brother, and a baby sibling who was off doing their thing in college.

Whenever they came home, they seemed to have grown a bit more comfortable in their skin.

It really made me happy. High school hadn’t been easy for any of us.

While I was there, Mom had gotten sicker and sicker after nearly a lifetime of chronic illness.

My own illness had escalated while Simon, my brother, was in school, and Nox, the baby of our family, had been bullied for their short hair and androgynous features—as if they had any control over what they looked like.

While I took after my mother and my brother took after our father, Nox was a near-perfect mix of both.

It was uncanny sometimes, that was for certain.

Speaking of Simon… Once my silicone wig grip was on and my hairline laid, I stopped the video and headed across the hall to knock on his door.

“Hmn?”

“Going to pop some waffles in the toaster oven. You want one?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“All right then.”

Simon wasn’t a morning person, but in an hour or so, he’d drag himself out of bed, zombie-walk down the stairs, and chow down on whatever I’d left him.

He could make his own breakfast, but it was no trouble for me to pop another “extra hearty” frozen waffle that was supposedly made with “real” ingredients onto the tray next to mine.

Was it the healthiest breakfast? No, but it wasn’t Eggos and didn’t have any icing or chocolate chips on it, so I counted that as a win.

Plus, the waffles were fortified with extra iron, and clearly my blood couldn’t get enough of that stuff considering I flirted with anemia every time my period decided to kick in the door and set fire to the premises.

“Morning, Dad,” I said as I reached the bottom of the stairs, pausing a moment to catch my breath.

I wasn’t panting, but there was a slight tightness in my chest warning me I needed to pause a bit.

So, pause I did. If there was one thing I had learned in my decade since being diagnosed, it was that listening to my body was key—even though people would tell me I was stupid for doing so.

I knew it wasn’t malicious. I knew it was simply because a lot of people didn’t get what chronic illness was like.

Modern medicine had come so far that folks didn’t realize that asthma, diabetes, Graves’ disease, and even the flu could be lethal, so all the extra steps sick people took felt a bit excessive to them.

Sometimes we spoonies—a term often used online—came across as being whiny or dramatic, but I wished people could walk a mile in my shoes.

Maybe then, they’d understand what life was like for someone living with a chronic illness.

“Gonna heat up some waffles,” I said cheerily despite my somewhat grim musings. “You want one?”

“Oh sure, I wouldn’t mind that,” Dad said from his chair right by the window that looked out onto the front lawn and the chrysanthemum bushes and hostas my mother had planted so long ago.

None of us really had the spare time or energy to garden, but they came back every year.

A simple thing, but it was like a kiss on the cheek from her memory that I cherished, especially in the first throes of spring when the air was just beginning to warm, and the cool breeze had no problem carrying the lighter scents of cold-hardy blooms.

We weren’t quite there yet, with winter fading but holding on to the last vestiges of its power with a stubbornness that only a long, cold, wet season could have, but I wasn’t particularly in a rush.

After all, we were headed into the midterm evaluations, and I was dreading how it stressed out my students.

I tried to mitigate it, I really did, but there would be a certain level of anxiety no matter what—even with my students being as young as they were.

I couldn’t imagine how high-school teachers did it. My kids were first graders, and I still felt quite guilty for making them jump through academic hoops that didn’t really serve them, just tested how well they memorized data.

But the flaws with the school system wouldn’t be solved before I had breakfast, so I grabbed the waffles, popped four in, then set the timer.

One frozen waffle wasn’t enough calories if I wanted to regain the weight I’d dropped, so I got one of the awful, high-calorie protein bars that bodybuilders used when they were trying to gain weight, or when high-school mean girls tried to sabotage another’s waistline.

They always left a weird texture in my mouth, but I hadn’t lost another pound since I’d started eating them every other day, so beggars couldn’t be choosers.

If only my diet hadn’t burnt me out on Ensure when I was first diagnosed.

I still choked them down, of course, but it wasn’t an enjoyable experience.

A solid year of hyperthyroidism plus intense nausea had left me with three things I could ingest: water, Goldfish crackers, and Ensure. That was it.

Not exactly an enlightening time for me, gastronomically, so unfortunately the calorie-laden meal supplement was forever tied to some pretty awful memories. Unless it was a life-or-death situation, I wasn’t going to swallow down that thick beverage ever again.