Being a teacher does not pay well. Being a teacher’s aide pays even less. Mostly the kids are fine, just loud. It’s small town school.
Jeremy waited in line for the microwave. He was a small boy, a good boy. He rarely smiled. His eyes were of that particular blue the British call grey. When it was his turn, she saw him stick a can of beans in the microwave, then shut the door, looking at the controls, trying to figure out what to do.
Lisa walked over. She asked him Jeremy, what are you doing?
Trying to cook my beans, he said.
He looked at her directly and spoke slowly. Like all small boys asked a direct question, he wanted to give the right answer and was painfully conscious of being wrong.
She told him about microwaves and metal cans. She found him a bowl and a cover and a can opener and helped set the timer. While the beans cooked, she asked him, how old are you, Jeremy?
Ten in January, he said.
He looked at her carefully when he responded.
Your mom gave you a can of beans for lunch, Lisa asked?
I couldn’t wake her up this morning, he said, so I looked for something for lunch and I found beans. I like beans.
Is she sick?
I don’t know, he said. She’s asleep and I can’t get her up.
She looked at his clothes. He didn’t look like he had dressed himself. Small boys dressing on their own often show up in orange and green with no socks and spectacular bed-head, but all small boys look like they have bed-head even ten minutes after they have bathed and brushed. She looked at the bag he had brought the beans in. It was just a plastic grocery bag. The receipt was still in it. She took it out and read it. The receipt was for two cans of beans.
The microwave’s bell went off and his beans were ready. He ate furiously. It was loud in the lunchroom, no one heard them talk.
After lunch was over and all of the kids and Jeremy had gone back to class, Lisa went to the office and told the school secretary about Jeremy and the beans. The secretary said that there had been problems with the family.
What kind of problems, Lisa asked?
Oh, you know, the secretary said. No father. The mother struggles some
Children’s Services were called. They must have known the family a bit better. They called the police. An hour before school ended the secretary called Lisa to the office. The police had gone to the residence with the social worker and when no one responded they forced entry. Jeremy’s mother was dead on the couch. She’d been dead for long enough that no attempt was made at resuscitation. They suspected that she had overdosed on Fentanyl. There would be an autopsy but the F-word had been around and had lain on other couches, in other homes, here and there.
But this is small town, Lisa said.
I know, said the secretary, but it still happens. It happens everywhere now.
The principal came out of her office and asked Lisa to bring Jeremy to the office after class. A social worker and someone from Victim’s Services were coming over to look after him. They’d be here soon. They have to find a place for him to stay. That would take time. Calls were being made.
The Victim’s Services lady is really great, said the secretary. I know her. She’s been here before. She’s really kind.
He turns ten in January, Lisa said.
The secretary looked away.
She’s good with children, the secretary said.
Is anyone going to say anything to him, Lisa asked?
The secretary said nothing. The principal came out of her office.
Thanks for doing this, Lisa, said the principal.
Does he have grandparents close by, Lisa asked? Aunts? Uncles? Anyone?
That’s what the professionals are looking into, the principal said. Can you bring him here? He can wait here for them.
Lisa said she would.
Thanks again for doing this. Tough day to be a T.A. I feel bad for you.
Lisa walked back to her class along the rows of coats hung in the hall. Most kids had their lunch boxes on top of the ledge where they hung their coats. The coats were pink or blue or green and bright. The lunchboxes had ponies or impossibly muscled cartoon heroes or professional sports team’s logos. Her heart beat in her ears and her face felt numb.
Come with me Jeremy, she said. We need to go to the office. There is someone coming to see you.
Am I in trouble, he asked?
Lisa thought of how he was small for his age. A very small boy.
No, she said, you are good. It’s just some people coming to see you.
What about, he asked? His voice was getting a little higher, thinner.
I don’t know, Lisa said.
The floor felt hard under her feet. He walked behind her. His coat was undone and he slung his backpack over one shoulder. He still had the plastic grocery bag with the receipt for the two cans of beans. Somehow, from some habit of thought he could not articulate on his own behalf, he’d thought to save the bag. Perhaps, this was what his mother had taught him.
They arrived at the office. The secretary was already gone. She could hear the principal in her office, on the phone. She was a loud talker.
Stay here, Lisa said, and wait for the people.
Do you know them, Jeremy asked? His voice was thin, barely creaking, and his eyes a bright and searching blue.
I don’t, she said. But don’t worry.
I want my mom.
Jeremy said this without looking at her. He set his jaw. He believed it when he said it, and he spoke it as if it might conjure her in his presence, there to be incarnated in the most perfect form of herself and thereby make everything alright. Like those lost at night who pray to the solitary light of the Stella Maris, he hoped, and he thereby believed.
Lisa left him then, sitting alone in the waiting area. She got her coat and her things and walked out. When she walked past the office he was still sitting there. The people hadn’t come yet. He saw her walk by and he smiled a little smile, wiggling his fingers in a half-wave. He swung his feet back and forth. He was not quite tall enough to sit in the office’s chairs and have his feet touch the floor. His shoelaces were undone.
Am. I. In. Trouble? He mouthed the words, his features exaggerated, his eyes bright enough to light the room. She shook her head and waved back, the same wiggle-fingered wave he had given her, and she felt him follow her with his head and eyes and a kind of gravity specific to him leaning to see her as she walked out into the parking lot to find her car and go and she would not look back, would not chance that, thinking that if she did she might be cursed and become undone and be made all salt and misery and rue, rue for the day and for the boy and for all to see.
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