Chapter 2
Ivy Reeves glanced up at the students seated at their desks. She was only a few years older than most of them, but they all looked so young.
And lost. God, they all looked lost.
Ivy decided to go over it again, starting from the beginning.
“Bayesian statistics really isn’t that complicated. In essence, it’s the interpretation of probability.”
Blank, glassy-eyed stares.
Ivy sighed.
“You know how frequentist statistics relies on long-term frequencies and data?” She pointed at the digital display behind her, where the second of two peaks was bisected by a single line marked, “New Estimate.”
“Well, Bayesian statistics differs because it incorporates additional data into the data set to form new beliefs.”
She moved her finger to the first peak now.
“See how the estimate changes based on these new data or beliefs?”
Ivy’s eyes returned to her class, expecting to see arched eyebrows and slight smiles indicative of understanding.
She saw neither.
Instead, she was met with the same glossed over expressions that had graced the faces of the twenty-three members of Fundamentals of Statistics since she’d started the lecture.
Fundamentals . . .
If the students couldn’t grasp the fundamentals, how could they ever be expected to understand complex concepts like regression analysis? Clustering? Dimensionality Reduction?
Ivy shot a glance at her TA sitting behind the desk at the front of the class.
Tristan Coates stared back.
He understood, at least.
But when the young man just shrugged, Ivy knew that she wasn’t going to get any help from him. Tristan may be the teaching assistant, but the teaching part was all up to her.
She enjoyed teaching and was good at it . . . usually.
Ivy exhaled.
“Okay, let’s start again. Tristan, pull up the original data set.”
The peaks disappeared and a table took its place.
“Using frequentist statistics, we can—”
Ivy’s pocket started to vibrate and she frowned. Then it made a sound: two beeps followed by one beep.
Now the class seemed to come alive. Someone snickered. Someone else muttered under their breath.
Beep, beep. Beep.
“I’m sorry, but this is an emergency.”
Ivy slipped her hand into her pocket and grasped her phone, but didn’t pull it out yet.
“Tristan,” she said quietly. “Think you can take it from here?”
The TA tucked his dark hair behind his ears.
“Sure, no problem.”
Ivy nodded.
“Thanks. Don’t forget to give them their phones back after the bell.” Then to the class, she raised her voice and said, “We should have last week’s tests marked for next class. As a reminder—”
Beep, beep. Beep.
Ivy spoke more quickly now.
“—the test isn’t going to count toward your final grade. It’s just to help me figure out where you all are, where you’re starting from. The next test will count, however. If you need extra help, I’m keeping regular office hours all week.”
The students groaned as Ivy moved to the door and opened it.
“Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Ivy nodded at Tristan, who had since moved to take her spot in front of the digital screen. Sure, teaching was her job, but she didn’t think that the TA finishing the last few minutes of class was a big deal. After all, assistants assisted, didn’t they?
She left the room, closed the door softly behind her. Only now did she remove her phone from her pocket.
Sucked in another breath.
Ivy wasn’t surprised by the caller ID. The ring—beep, beep, pause, beep—was a dead giveaway.
Her students weren’t allowed phones in class—she confiscated them and put them in her desk drawer prior to the start of a lecture—and Ivy was extremely reluctant to use hers. She almost never did. It stayed on silent.
Except for one number.
Lecture, midnight, even in the middle of a meeting with the department head—it didn’t matter. If that number rang, Ivy answered.
Always.
“Is he okay? Please tell me my father’s okay.”