Chapter 29
Anne
“You can sleep here tonight if you want,” Paige said when I finally arrived at my apartment, shaky and triumphant after the six-and-a-half-hour drive from St. Ignace.
“I don’t want to put you out. But…” I pressed my knees together, doing a jiggle dance. “I really need to use the bathroom?”
“Right down the hall.”
I knew the way.
I’d made the solo trip fueled by mocha lattes and Taylor Swift’s Red album. No breakdowns, no blowouts, no locking myself out of the car when I stopped for gas. No farm stand stops.
No Joe.
I sat on the toilet, taking stock. A new flowered shower curtain hung over the tub, matching the fluffy new bath mat. The clutter of bottles and hair clips on the sink had been replaced by a makeup mirror.
I washed my hands and returned to the living area. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem,” Paige assured me. “It’s your apartment.”
I smiled, my throat tight. “Not anymore.”
“Until I sign the new lease,” Paige said. “Honestly, you’re welcome to stay. You did me a favor, renting me this place. I love it here.”
I looked around at the lumpy couch with brand-new throw pillows, the mismatched table and chairs cleared of my piles of paper.
“It looks very…” Clean. Orderly. Not mine. “Nice,” I said.
My formerly dying rescue plants in the window were healthy and green. They were thriving here. I had, too, for a while. This apartment had been a refuge when I’d needed one. But it wasn’t home anymore.
“Do you want to keep the plants?” I asked.
“Seriously? Don’t you want them?”
“Maybe one. To give to Mr. Banerjee,” I said.
“The old guy across the hall?”
“He’s a really good neighbor.”
Paige shrugged. “Cool. Whatever.”
We stood there awkwardly. I couldn’t ask her to sit down. She didn’t invite me to start packing.
“So…I have some other errands to run,” I said. “I can come back later.”
Relief flashed across her face. “Sure. I’m going out tonight. The place will be all yours. You can sort through whatever you want to keep.”
Not much of me remained. The contents of a closet. My books. “Great. See you around…?”
“I’m leaving at six.”
“Six o’clock,” I said.
Back in the car, I checked my phone. A text from Mom. Drive safely. Another message from Chris. Nothing from Joe.
I texted Mom to let her know I was in Chicago and then opened the message from Chris.
Home for Mom’s birthday. Can I see u
I stared at it, puzzled, and then realized. I never told him I’d quit my job. He expected me to be here, where he left me, in Chicago.
I hesitated. Can’t. Moving out of my apartment today
Chris: ?
Me: Long story
Chris: Tell me over drinks
Maybe the question mark was implied. Or he could be assuming I would drop everything to see him again. But I didn’t have to fit my schedule around his anymore.
I typed, Busy. Sorry.
Not sorry. I put my phone away, returned my overdue book to the Northtown Branch of the Chicago Public Library, and then drove myself to school.
—
At four o’clock on a teacher workday, the lot at Ravenscrest was almost empty.
I parked close to the main doors, thankful my faculty key card still worked.
The halls were empty, too, echoing with ghosts, haunted by the scent of dry-erase markers and pine cleaner, sneakers and Axe body spray.
The building was a husk without its students. Easier to leave behind.
My inbox was gone from the teachers’ lounge. My nameplate was gone from the classroom door. The school had forgotten me and moved on. The realization was bittersweet. “Not as easy when we’re the ones doing the leaving,” Beverly Powell had said. But I was moving on, too.
I hefted the last carton from the floor of my closet.
“I was hoping I’d catch you,” Sarah said from the door of my classroom. “How are you?”
I felt a twinge of resentment at the concern in her voice. She didn’t get to ask me that anymore. She’d lost the right to care when she put me on leave and packed up my library.
“I’m fine.” I shifted the box of books in my arms. “How’s Colin?”
“He’s all right. Finished the year with a B, I think. He’s in my class this year.”
“Good. He’s a good student,” I said. “He just needs encouragement.”
“I’ll do my best.” Sarah smiled faintly. “I don’t expect to replace you.”
I glanced around my (former) classroom. My bulletin board of epic opening lines had been swapped for motivational quotes. My readers’ corner now housed a conference-style table. “You already did.”
Red stained her cheekbones. “I meant…your students will always remember you. And so will I. I’d be happy to write you a reference,” she added.
I’d been a student teacher in Sarah’s classroom. I owed her my first job. She was my mentor and, I’d thought, my friend. But the days when I would have blurted out my plans, when I could have confided in her my dreams of becoming a writer, were gone. “Thanks.”
“Just because you’ve lost the battle doesn’t mean you can’t continue the fight.”
I was momentarily speechless. And curious. And confused. “Sarah, if you feel that way, why didn’t you back me up when Colin’s parents complained?”
She looked surprised. “I did. Jim wanted to fire you. I saved your job. It was your choice not to come back.”
A weight I didn’t know I’d been carrying lifted from my chest. “Okay. Thanks.”
“What will you do now?”
The words stirred up a memory: Joe’s deep brown eyes, his deep, low voice asking me, “And then what?”
Once I’d imagined my future stretching out in an unbroken line to the horizon. But I didn’t need to see the whole path shining in front of me anymore. All I needed was to take the next step. “Remember how you told me we could make a fresh start in August?”
She nodded.
“That’s what I’m doing,” I said.
—
I had to stop at the liquor store on Western Avenue for more boxes, but by nine o’clock the trunk of my mother’s car was weighted down with books, the back seat crammed with black garbage bags.
Paige had thoughtfully left out a blanket and an extra pillow.
I didn’t need more. The apartment, built in the years before central air-conditioning and climate change, held the August heat like an oven.
I took off my bra and shook out a blanket, memories tumbling from the folds.
Joe, bringing me water and ibuprofen. Coming out of the bathroom in his boxers, his hair damp from the shower.
Kissing me good night, his beard gently chafing my throat.
Lying beside me in the dark, the mattress shaking and creaking with our stifled laughter.
Yearning scraped my insides. The knock on the door was a relief. I wondered if Paige had forgotten her key or was simply respecting my privacy.
I knuckled away my tears and swung it wide. “You’re home early,” I said cheerfully.
But the person standing on the other side of the door wasn’t Paige.
The hall light gleamed on his short blond hair and clean surgeon’s face.
“Hello, Anne,” Chris said.