Chapter 13
SEPTEMBER
I sat cross-legged on the floor in my living room, seating charts and silent auction sheets scattered around me. Tomorrow evening was the school’s fall gala fundraiser, and I was determined to make sure every detail was perfect.
I had worked hard in university with the goal of having my pick of jobs at prestigious schools upon graduating.
And I had made it happen; I could have landed a teaching job at just about any school I wanted based on my grades and glowing recommendations from the RCW faculty and administrators.
But as I was filling out applications and writing cover letters for positions around Wexstone and even a few in the UK, I kept circling back to a job listing from a primary school in the Garland neighborhood back home in Altborn.
The Garland neighborhood was of Altborn’s lowest-income areas.
I had grown up in an adjacent neighborhood and was familiar with how hard the families there worked while still struggling to make ends meet.
I was also acquainted with the research indicating how much harder it was for low-income schools to attract the same teaching talent as their higher-income counterparts.
Even though I was just a newly minted teacher, I knew deep down that I had what it took to be the kind of educator that the children in the Garland neighborhood deserved.
It didn’t matter that the position paid less than some of the other jobs I was looking at—I was single and didn’t have a family to support, so I would make it work.
This was now my sixth year teaching kindergarten at the school and I had never once regretted my decision to apply there. I adored my students and their families, and I loved getting to shape the youngest minds, setting them up for success as they progressed through school.
Given the financial struggles of most of the families, the faculty and staff did what we could to support them.
The school held a donation drive every November to collect and distribute clothing, food, and personal hygiene items. It was one of our biggest events every year; we even gave students the day off for it.
As I wrapped up my first year of teaching, I proposed holding a gala fundraiser the following September to draw in some of the aristocrats and bring their attention to the needs within the neighborhood.
I offered to plan it and spend the summer holiday securing the necessary sponsorships to fund the event, so long as we could host it in the school’s courtyard.
I wheedled Dash into helping me, and the two of us went back to our roots of making something out of nothing, crafting decorations out of things we found at thrift stores and flea markets.
In the end, that first gala was enough of a success that it had become an annual function, bringing in more and more funds each year.
Tomorrow night was set to be our biggest event yet with the royal family attending. My dad had apparently made a phone call and extended an invitation to the king and queen.
I sighed deeply as I put the final touches on the seating chart, scowling at Oliver’s name.
I hadn’t seen him since the night before his commencement.
I had fallen asleep feeling safe and happy beside him and had woken to find him gone.
No note, no text, no carrier pigeon, nothing. He had simply vanished from my life.
I’d spent the nearly eight ensuing years studiously avoiding events where he might be present, which had been pretty easy up until now. One time I spotted his friends Tej and Vince at a restaurant but had ducked behind a server and slipped out before they could spot me.
But Dad, in his excitement to support me, had unknowingly brought that streak to an end. Perhaps I would get lucky and Oliver wouldn’t be able to attend after all.
My phone rang. I grabbed it and answered without paying attention to the caller ID.
“Dash, I’m very busy being annoyed over this seating chart. Can I call you back in a bit?”
There was a pause from the other end. My stomach fell into my ass as embarrassment heated my cheeks. This was most certainly not Dash.
I was about to hang up and go dig my own grave when a woman cleared her voice. “Adelaide? This is Dr. Bonafonte. I have the results from your bloodwork and ultrasound and would like to discuss them with you briefly if you have a few moments?”
I stood up, stretching my legs as I moved to perch on the edge of the couch.
Dr. Bonafonte was my new gynecologist, a specialist I had fought for years to see.
From the time I had started my period at the age of twelve, my cycle had been wildly irregular, with heavy bleeding that lasted days when it did finally start.
It was Dash’s mum, who worked as a nurse in the emergency department, who first told me this wasn’t normal.
“It’s common, but that doesn’t mean it’s normal or okay, Aderēdo-chan,” she had told me when I was sixteen, using her favorite term of endearment for me with the Japanese translation of my name.
From that point, I brought it up to every doctor I saw.
They all brushed me off until last spring when I had an ovarian cyst burst and was, begrudgingly, given a referral to a fertility specialist. Dr. Bonafonte was the first doctor to take my concerns seriously and had immediately proven to be worth the several-months wait for my initial appointment with her.
“Yes, hi, so sorry about that,” I said, hastily, trying to brush off my humiliation at answering my very smart doctor’s call like a jackass. “Yes, I have time to talk now.”
“Wonderful. I know you’ve been anxious for some answers. I’m going to be on holiday for the next week and didn’t want you to have to wait until I got back to know what’s going on.
“After reviewing the results of the pelvic exam we performed at our last appointment, along with your recent bloodwork and ultrasound, which indicated hormone irregularities and cysts present on your ovaries, I am confident that my initial suspicions were correct and you do have polycystic ovary syndrome.”
She paused, giving me a moment to process her words. I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat. “Okay,” I croaked, not sure what else to say in the moment.
“Now, as we discussed previously, PCOS can have some long-term complications that I’d like to try to get ahead of.
I’m going to have one of our schedulers give you a call so we can set up some follow-up appointments and talk further when I return.
If you’d like, I can also send you a message in the patient portal detailing the bloodwork findings and what they mean if that is something you’d to read through in the meantime.
Do you have any questions for me now, though? ”
I shook my head, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “That would be great, thank you. And my questions can wait until I see you,” I said, choking back tears.
“All right, Adelaide. I’ll have the team call you tomorrow. Try to have a good evening, okay?”
“Thank you, Doctor. Have a good evening.”
I hung up the phone and released the hold on my emotions, allowing the floodgates to open. On one hand, it was a relief to finally have a diagnosis and to know that I wasn’t simply a “hysterical woman.” On the other, I was left with questions that even Dr. Bonafonte probably couldn’t answer.
For as long as I could remember, I had wanted two things: to be a teacher and to be a mother.
While the first dream was finally a reality, it seemed now like the latter might only ever be a dream.
Infertility was one of the most common complications of PCOS, and there was no real way to know if my body could ever get pregnant, much less carry to term.
I thought about all the years of being so careful with taking my birth control at the same time every day and snorted through my tears.
The irony of trying so hard not to get accidentally pregnant, only to find out that that was probably never a possibility anyway, sent me into hysterical laughter.
If anyone had walked in right then, they would have certainly been more than a bit concerned to find me with tears and snot rolling down my face as I hiccupped a strange combination of laughter and sobs.
Shadow emerged from my bedroom and hopped up beside me, letting me cry into his fur.
I finally calmed down and thought about calling Dash but found I didn’t have the energy to talk about it.
Instead, I quietly organized the materials for tomorrow’s event into a tote, closed it up, and climbed into bed.
I expected to be awake for hours, thoughts racing, but emotional exhaustion overtook me and I was asleep within minutes.
“Adelaide, I’ve got two more silent auction items to display, but the tables are getting full. Do you want me to squeeze them in? Or do we have an extra table we can use?” my colleague Liam asked. He was one of our third-year teachers and one of my favorite volunteers.
I turned from where I was conferring with the caterer and quickly took in the silent auction display.
“Let’s pull over one of the bistro tables.
We can move a couple of the smaller items there and set it up between the two longer tables so it doesn’t get missed.
” Liam flashed me a thumbs up and set off to finish the setup.
I glanced at the time on my phone. We had just under thirty minutes until guests would start arriving.
“Liam, I’m going to go get changed. Are you good here?
” He nodded and made a shoo-ing motion over his shoulder.
I laughed. “Make sure you take a few minutes to rest and regroup before everyone arrives, too. You deserve it!” I called to him as I grabbed my bag and hurried off to the restroom.