5. Giselle
FIVE
GISELLE
All Work and No Play Makes Giselle a Sick Girl
Time most certainly was relative, because the closer we got to testing, the faster every single day went.
But, as stressful as it was, Benny Jr. was falling asleep a lot less in class—much to my delight.
And while the evaluations for first graders weren’t grueling, it was their entryway into the rest of their scholastic careers in the American public school system.
While their placements wouldn’t determine much else beyond whose class they went to in second grade, I wanted to prepare them as best I could.
And truly, I was very happy with how my class was doing.
But that was the only smooth sailing in my life.
My father’s health was deteriorating much faster than it had the past two years, and it was impossible for me not to notice.
Things like the tremor in his hand when he took his morning coffee.
Or the way he called me by my brother’s name the entire morning.
Or him misbuttoning his shirt, and when I told him, he just shrugged and didn’t even try to fix it.
It was nothing too solid, nothing I could point to and say “hey, that’s bad enough to go to the doctor”, but I was worried.
But there wasn’t really much I could do with everything on my plate.
I was trying my best, but I wasn’t getting enough calories in to gain weight, and I really could use an extra hour of sleep each day.
But it was so hard to make myself sleep when I came home so late only to grade papers, meal-prep, then clean.
Even my weekends were packed with grocery shopping, cleaning, spending time with Grandma Mack, and then catching up on some educational reading.
I only had around six hours to myself outside of sleep each week, and that just wasn’t enough.
Oh well, I could rest on the holiday break.
“You guys will have to have leftovers for breakfast!” I called as I rushed out the door, my late-alarm going off on my phone. “I’m a bit behind.”
It was rare for me to oversleep, but somehow I had, and now I was leaving fifteen minutes later than I liked to be.
Not the end of the world, but I would have to rush into class, and I hated how it made me feel when I was starting the day off on the wrong foot.
I would recover, sure, but it was a struggle I didn’t need to. Especially since I felt so exhausted.
Whatever. Maybe I’d nap in the teacher’s lounge during recess. It wasn’t totally unheard of for one or two of us to take a fifteen-minute snooze on the couch when we could. Such was the life of a teacher.
“Hello, class,” I said in a breathless voice as I power-walked into my room.
Technically I wasn’t late—we still had fifteen minutes until morning announcements, but I was late for me.
I would have hardly any time to set up or catch my breath, which would definitely put me on the back foot for the rest of the day.
Maybe I could skip lunch to make up some time? Catch up for the afternoon? It wasn’t the best idea considering all that I was trying to accomplish body-wise, but I’d certainly done worse in my twenty-seven years of life.
“Hello,” my few early students murmured as they filed in after me.
“Good morning, Miss Fischbacher,” a couple chorused.
Jessica followed me all the way to my desk, giving me a curious look.
“Yes, dear?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t about to be asked a complicated question such as “where do babies come from” while simultaneously bracing myself for the worst.
“What happened to your pretty hair?”
“My hair?”
Confused, I reached up to my head only to feel thin, stringy strands that I knew to be mousy brown. No kanekalon fibers, no carefully coiffed human unit, no lace, nothing.
I wasn’t wearing a wig.
I wasn’t wearing a wig!
I swallowed hard, trying not to picture how I must look. I was fairly gaunt on the best of days, but at least my wigs made me look like I wasn’t one shale ledge away from toppling into the abyss.
“Must have left it behind,” I said after a very pregnant pause.
“You can do that?” Jessica blurted, looking really alarmed.
“Relax. My mommy forgets her hair sometimes too,” Tamisha said. She wasn’t the biggest talker in my class, but when she did speak, it was with a whole lot of confidence. She gave me a bright smile. “Sometimes my scalp hurts after hair day, so I get it if you want a break.”
Goodness, how incredibly sweet. I really was incredibly lucky. “Thank you, Tamisha.”
But the girls were already deep in conversation with each other. “What do you mean hair day? Don’t you do it every day?”
“Nu-uh! It takes so long. I’d never get anything done!”
“Can your mommy do my hair for a hair day?”
“I dunno. I’d have to ask her. We don’t really have the same type of hair.”
“We don’t?” Jessica’s eyes went wide. “Oh yeah, I’m a blonde!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as the two walked to their desks, talking about hair. It was so innocent, so matter-of-fact. I wished adults could hold on to that, but unfortunately, hate was a learned concept.
As much as I tried to put my mind to the task at hand, which was getting as ready for the morning as I possibly could, my hand kept going to my head.
I hated my hair. It was so thin and a mousy brown.
Damage from my medication and my thyroid going crazy had wreaked havoc on my hairline, making me feel less than feminine with each retreating centimeter at my temples.
My wigs were a shield for me, a way of pretending to be a bit more normal than what I was, and now I felt completely exposed.
It was too late to go home and get one, not with class starting in less than ten minutes, so I was going to have to suck it up and pretend it didn’t rattle me down to my core.
What a shit day.
But I couldn’t take it out on my kids. They deserved the best even when I wasn’t feeling my best, so I had better do my best. So, I took a deep breath and mentally prepared myself for the day.
And just like I knew I would, I got through it.
It wasn’t easy, and when I caught sight of my reflection in the window, it made me want to spiral hard, but I didn’t let myself get lost in it. After my kids came back from lunch, I had plenty of other things to distract me.
Like how hot I was. Normally, I was always cold, but they must have cranked up the heat, because I’d started sweating right after morning announcements and it had only gotten worse.
Thank goodness I had clinical-strength deodorant.
An unpleasant side effect of either my disease or my medication was intense BO.
Yet another thing that made me less than feminine, but clinical-strength deodorant was a lot cheaper than a human hair lace-front unit.
“So, class, when you… pardon me…” I paused, reaching for my water bottle only to find it empty. Huh, I could have sworn I’d filled it while the kids were at lunch. Had I drunk it already? “One moment, I need a refill.”
Walking to the back of my class to the combination water fountain and sink, I filled my half-frozen bottle.
When I had first started, we only had the sink, but I’d added the water dispenser so students could hydrate when they needed.
Some teachers were against it, but in my opinion, hydrated was best, and if a kid was drinking enough to purposefully go to the bathroom more, there were other issues at play.
As I walked to the front of the class, everything went a bit wobbly for a moment. It was fleeting, but intense, and the edges of my vision turned to static. I knew better than to panic, so I paused, took a drink, then returned to my usual position.
“Now, as I was saying?—”
Benny raised his hand, his arm shaking with urgency.
“Miss Fischbacher!” he said without me calling his name, which was odd.
While Benny was far from anti-social in my class, he also wasn’t exactly an eager beaver when it came to raising his hand.
That was the whole reason his original question about nightmares had stuck with me so much.
“Just one moment, Benny, let me finish this thought.” I was afraid one more interruption would permanently foil me.
I had been fine moments earlier, but now it felt like my thoughts were growing more and more sluggish as my heart sped up.
The dichotomy made keeping any sort of coherent dialogue fairly difficult.
Benny’s hand dropped, and I almost heaved a sigh of relief, but it turned out he didn’t lower his limb in deference to my request. He jumped to his feet and fixed me with a stare that was far beyond his years.
“Missus Fischbacher, sit down now! ”
Why was he talking to me like that?
Also, maybe he was right.
“Excuse you, Benny,” I murmured. I knew the way he was speaking to me wasn’t okay, but I didn’t really understand why. What was going on again? I was teaching… Which unit were we in?
“Miss Fischbacher, I mean it. Sit down now!”
Benny was a good kid. He wouldn’t yell at me for no reason. And now that he mentioned it, the world was kinda spinning. Maybe I should?—
I should…?
I should what?
The next thing I knew, I was looking up into the very young and very concerned face of Benny as he held my water bottle up to my lips.
Wait, when did I lie down on the floor?
“Please take a drink, Missus Fischbacher. You gotta drink water.”
I opened my dry mouth, my eyes searching his face. I was so confused. It was like someone had suddenly yanked my plug out, then rebooted me like a computer with no recovery mode.
“Jimmy! Go get a teacher!”
Jimmy? Why… oh, right. He was the fastest runner in my class and had about two inches on the rest of them.
The water went down my throat like a blessed panacea, and a bit of coherency came back to me. I’d gotten dizzy and fainted after being sweaty all day and skipping my midday meal and meds.
Fuck.
I was really sick, wasn’t I?
As much as I knew it, I mentally tried to deny it. Verbally wasn’t really an option, since I couldn’t figure out how to breathe and articulate at the same time. Actually, I was pretty sure that most forms of speech were impossible for me.
Time got a bit weird, and the only thing I was certain of was taking slow, long, and steady draughts of water from the seemingly endless bottle. Then the paramedics arrived. Ugh. I was making a scene. Definitely hated that.
They asked a lot of questions, but their words mostly sounded like the adults from Charlie Brown. Squinting, I shoved my trembling hand towards the closest one, my medical bracelet dangling from my wrist.
“Graves’ disease,” I rasped, trying to focus on my breathing and body rather than my embarrassment and shame.
Maybe I was far too much in my own head, but I swore they exchanged looks before they got me fully onto a stretcher and started to roll me out.
Oh yeah, I definitely fucked up.