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  The bell rang over our heads, increasing the building excitement in the students in front of me. The last little boy sat down at his desk, and I beamed at the twenty children sitting quietly and patiently in their desks, waiting for me to kick off the start of our day.

  “Good morning, class!” I said and shut the door to the classroom.

  “Good morning, Miss East!” they sang back to me as they had every morning since the first week of school. I smiled wider. I would never get tired of the sound of this greeting. I loved seeing all of these shining, innocent faces open and ready to learn. It was one of those natural highs adults were always telling us about back in high school.

  “Who wants to tell me about their Christmas break?” I asked, and just about every hand in the room shot up, fingers wiggling against air. Not Sophia’s, I noticed. She didn’t really like presenting in front of the rest of the class, though she usually knew the answers when I asked a question. I was still working on her, determined to peel back at least a few more layers of her shyness before she moved on to first grade.

  I called on one of the little boys sitting in the first group of tables. “Dylan, why don’t you share a few things about your holiday with the class?”

  Dylan went on to tell us about going sledding in Colorado with the rest of his family. He seemed most excited about the plane ride because he was over the clouds and got to have two snacks while his brother was only given one by the flight attendant.

  “Thank you for sharing, Dylan,” I said, grinning at him. I turned to another little girl at the next clump of tables. Sophia was sitting next to her, but I wouldn’t put her on the spot unless she raised her hand. Sharing time was never mandatory. “Lulu, tell us about your Christmas.”

  Lulu talked about waking up on Christmas morning and finding a new bike in front of the tree, left by Santa. He’d eaten the cookies and drank the milk she’d set out, as well. A few other children burst in to tell their own stories about Santa Claus.

  “Only one student at a time can share,” I reminded the class. “Unless it’s our turn, we’re wearing our listening ears.”

  After several more students had talked about the best parts of their winter break, we moved on to the first lesson. I liked to start with math in the morning because it was more hands on than reading. I used different tools, including the number chart I’d put on the floor, to keep the children interested. They loved jumping onto the numbers in order to solve math problems. We were working on simple addition, but were due to start subtraction shortly.

  The kids had many targets they needed to meet before the end of the year, and most of them were on track. A few of the children — Sophia was one of them — were ahead of where they needed to be. When we broke up in to learning groups, I put kids with similar abilities together and gave them work according to their learning level to keep them from getting bored.

  We worked steadily until lunchtime. It amazed me how much laughing we did during the day. Sometimes, this really didn’t feel like work, at all. I led the kids to the cafeteria and watched as they all collected their trays and sat down at our assigned table. I sat next to Sophia, who quietly told me about her holiday.

  “I went to visit my Nana and Poppy,” she said, a small smile on her cute little face. Her dark eyes were shining with excitement. “Nana made lots of cookies and let me have as many as I wanted.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” I said. “My mommy made cookies, too, and I ate a lot of them.”

  Sophia’s smile twitched and became a little bigger as she turned back to her food and began to eat again.

  I ate with the kids, and then they went out to the kindergarten playground, which was separated from the bigger kids by a chain link fence to cut down on any bullying.

  I went to stand next to another one of the playground monitors — the other kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Wallace, who was about forty years older than I was — and we chatted about our winter breaks without looking over at each other, choosing to keep our eyes on the students. They ran around, laughing, screaming, and chasing each other. Even Sophia, who was pretty reserved during the rest of the day, was getting into the current game of tag. She didn’t have many friends in class, but she had one or two girls that she tended to hang out with on the playground. They were running together now, trying to avoid being tagged.

  Mrs. Wallace blew the whistle, signifying the end of recess, and the kids ran to get in two orderly lines: one for my class and one for Mrs. Wallace’s. I led my children back to our classroom.

  “Circle up for story time!” I announced, and the kids cheered. Half of our reading and phonics time was spent sitting cross legged on the carpet. I sat down in between two children — Sophia on my left and Dylan on my right — and held up the day’s book. I read a chapter aloud every day, and then we went around and read from flashcards so each child got a turn. At the end, I asked questions about what we’d just read to measure each student’s level of comprehension. I had some kids lagging in the math department, but just about all of them were great readers. Especially Sophia and another little girl, Daija. They were my superstars.

  The final bell rang shortly after we finished with our story time. I couldn’t believe how quickly the day had flown by. Many of the days during the break seemed to creep by, I was so bored. But once I fell into my work, the hours just melted away.

  “Line up, ladies and gentlemen!” I called from my place at the door.

  The kids got in an orderly line, clad in their coats, with their bags slung onto their backs. Kids in the older grades could walk out to the car loop alone, but not kindergarteners. We all walked out together. Most of the parents were already waiting, and I watched the kids jump into the waiting cars, waving as they drove away.

  “There’s my daddy!” Sophia said, lighting up at the sight of her father’s blue pickup truck. Mr. Reid was leaned against it, his long legs clad in a pair of dark jeans that showed off his muscular thighs. He lifted a hand to wave at Sophia, who waved back. I waved, too. In all the months Sophia had been in my class, I’d only spoken to Mr. Reid a handful of times. Mostly, I just watched him pick up his daughter at the end of the day.

  I had to admit, he was stunningly handsome, with dark hair he kept trim around his neck and ears, but longer on top. His eyes were brown, too, and seemed to burn up the air whenever we glanced at each other, which, admittedly, wasn’t often. He was tall and well built. I could see he worked out from how well his clothes hung on his body. I liked that he was never clean shaven — he always wore dark stubble on his square jaw. It gave him the rugged look of a bad boy, which I found particularly appealing. Not that I was out of control, but I had a wild side of my own.

  I watched longingly as Sophia jumped into her dad’s strong arms. Oh, to have a man hold me like that. Specifically, that man. I shook my head, forcing myself back to reality. I needed to get it together. That was a student’s father, not a piece of meat.

  When Mr. Reid lifted his hand to wave goodbye, I waved back. Then he drove away, leaving me behind to daydream about staring longingly into his dark, smoldering eyes.

  Chapter 3

  Drew

  Friday

  I only had another hour before I needed to leave for the day to pick up Sophia. Luckily, a solid chunk of my job could be done remotely from home after Sophia went to bed or during the weekend. The company had worked with me after Chelsea passed, allowing me to keep my demanding job and raise my daughter at the same time…but it didn’t leave a damned minute for anything else. Not that I minded. Sophia was my number one priority. Once she was off to college, I could worry about reinstating some kind of personal life. I was still a young man, after all. But, for right now, I was fine with my life consisting solely of dad duties and work.

  Brian was tapping away at his computer. He stayed another two hours after I left at the end of the day, but he didn’t do any of his work from home unless things had piled up. I sometimes brought Sophia into the office on the weekends
and worked while she played with some of her toys in the middle of the floor. She was good at keeping herself occupied with quiet activities. I could bring her on days the school was closed, too, but I had to make arrangements for summers and winter breaks. Brian loved having Soph here. He was really good with her, calling himself her backup father. You’d never guess he was a single guy.

  “You want to hit a few bars tonight and get some drinks?” Brian asked, not looking up from whatever he was working on. “Maybe we can meet up with a few ladies.”

  I stared hard at the top of his head. He should know better than to ask, but he’d been trying to get me to go out at night with him for the last eighteen months solid. I always said no, and today wasn’t going to be any different. Not that it deterred him. He’d ask again next Friday.

  “I have things to do tonight with Soph,” I said.

  Brian lifted his light eyes to give me a critical look, his mouth pressed into a disappointed line. “Like what?”

  “Like none of your business.” I didn’t see the need to share that my hot plans for tonight involved getting dinner together and watching a kid’s movie on Netflix.

  He shook his head and really seemed disappointed, though he had to expect I’d decline his offer the way I always did. I hadn’t been out at night without Sophia in well over two years, and even then it was work related. Chelsea and I used to go out dancing on the weekends, but that had ended as soon as she got sick.

  “There’s nothing wrong with going out and enjoying yourself on the weekends, Drew. It doesn’t make you any less of a father.”

  I took offense to that, mostly because it was my exact train of thought. Sophia was already down one parent. She didn’t need me going out at night and getting shitfaced all the time. If I wanted to drink, I could do it at home after she went to bed — not too much, though; I still needed to be able to drive her to the ER if something happened in the night. Brian could come over, too, as long as he agreed to keep his voice down.

  “You have a good time, Bri,” I replied, ignoring his last comment. “Friday’s pizza night for me and my girl.”

  He shook his head, but was smiling at the mention of Sophia. “You want to get together this weekend? Maybe take our little lady to the movies or something?”

  I wiped the hard look off of my face with a smile. I was honored to have a friend who cared so much about my daughter, even going so far as to devote many of his weekends to doing activities that she loved, including soccer, movies, and rock climbing at the indoor adventure park. He was always buying her books and special, exotic candies whenever he came over to hang out with us. She loved him like crazy.

  “She’s been wanting to go rock climbing. They don’t have an indoor place where my parents’ live. She missed it all break.”

  “I can do Saturday or Sunday,” Brian said. “I need to work off some of the crap I ate over the holidays.” He patted his stomach, and I chuckled. He was skinnier than I was, and I was pretty damned thin, but with a good amount of muscle from the weightlifting I did every evening after Sophia was in bed.

  “Probably Sunday,” I replied. I finished up the last of the tasks on my desk, which didn’t take more than fifteen minutes. I had to get going if I wanted to be there to pick Soph up on time.

  I gathered a few of the reports from our active construction sites — we had dozens of them going on all over the tristate area at any one time, some private and some government contracts — and a printout of the master schedule. Part of my responsibility every week was to make sure we were fully staffed for all of our projects. I also identified future jobs we could put bids into. During my years here, I’d helped grow the business by fifteen percent.

  “I’ll see you later this weekend,” I told Brian on my way out. He said goodbye without looking away from his computer. It was usually just the two of us in the office, plus Karen, who answered the phones and did other clerical work on a part time basis. Job foremen would drop by off and on throughout the day. It was a small office and I liked it that way. We could probably do with one more employee to help Brian out, but we’d managed for years just the two of us and I didn’t see a reason to change that now.

  I drove to the elementary school and parked in my usual spot. I waited to hear the bell ring before I got out of the car. The weather was unseasonably warm, but still in the forties. No reason to stand outside before I had to. One of my favorite things about picking her up was the way Sophia liked to run into my arms at the end of the day. I realized these days were short lived, so I planned to enjoy them while I could.

  The bell rang and I hauled myself out of the truck, stepping in front of it to wait with my hands stuffed in the pockets of my light jacket. A few minutes later, out came the kindergartners. They always came outside with their teachers. I caught sight of Sophia huddling close to her teacher, Miss East. I couldn’t help but stare at the woman as she leaned down to whisper something to Sophia. Her red hair was loose and fanned over her back in a way that made it catch the ample sunlight and glow like hot flames. She was wearing a skirt with black tights that showed off her long, curvy legs. She straightened again and turned to smile at me as she lifted her hand in a wave. I waved back. We’d only talked to each other a few times at school functions like the Open House and the kids’ Winter Concert.

  Sophia ran across the parking lot, launching her small body into my arms. I picked her up and spun her in a circle like I always did.

  “I missed you so much today, little girl,” I said, but she wasn’t laughing the way she usually did.

  I put her down and walked her to the passenger side. I gave her a boost up into the truck and then went around to get into my own side. I maneuvered out of the parking lot carefully, keeping an eye out for stray kids and their parents. Once we were safely off school grounds and on the road, I relaxed and got the usual conversation going.

  “How was your day today, kitty cat?” I asked.

  Sophia burst into tears.

  Alarmed, I looked over at her. I reached to take hold of her tiny shoulder, but had to put my eyes back on the road or risk getting into an accident.

  “Honey, what’s going on? Did something happen at school?” She was the quiet sensitive type, ripe for bullying. It hadn’t happened yet, but she’d only started real school this year.

  She didn’t speak through her sniffling and chest hitching.

  I pulled into a fast food restaurant, parked the truck, and then focused all of my attention on her. These were the times I really missed Chelsea. I was a good father, but Chelsea had always instinctively known how to make Sophia feel better. Without her here, it perpetually felt like I was doing a half-assed job, no matter what I did. I worried that Sophia would suffer because of my ineptitude.

  I turned my body to face her and took one of her cold little hands in mine. “Soph, what’s going on?”

  She wiped her face with the back of her free hand and sniffled hard before she spoke. “Miss East told us about the Valentine’s Day lunch at school.” Tears were still running down her face, but she was calming down as she got the words out.

  “Why is that making you sad, baby?” I asked. I hoped it wasn’t some ridiculous setup that expected kids to pair off with each other at this lunch. They were too young for that kind of shit.

  “Because mommies and daddies are supposed to come and I don’t have a mommy!” She disintegrated into fresh tears. I tried to soothe her, but was simmering with rage. Why would the school do something like this? I thought. They know Sophia’s situation. Surely, she isn’t the only student with only one parent.

  “I can go to the lunch, Soph.” It was a struggle to keep the tightness out of my voice from how angry I was. I was seeing red right now at how insensitive the school board had been in allowing this kind of an event. “We can have lots of fun together.”

  She shook her head hard. “I want Mommy to come.”

  I clenched my jaw. Sophia had been newly three when Chelsea succumbed to the stage f
our breast cancer she’d been diagnosed with only six short months before. I didn’t know how much she honestly remembered of her mom. I tried not to talk about her too much or too little. It was hard to know what was right in this situation. It had just been the two of us for so long. It always surprised me when Soph brought up her mother or how much she missed her.

  “You don’t have to go to this lunch,” I said. “We can do something else fun, like climbing.”

  Now, she seemed angry. She balled her hands into fists and pounded her legs once as her face squeezed into a hard frown. “I want to go!”

  “Lower your voice, sweetheart. I know you’re upset, but let’s not get carried away.”

  She wilted against her seat, turning her head away from me as she continued to cry.

  I watched her a moment, too furious even to think. Once the full access of my faculties returned, I decided to give the school a call on Monday morning to find out just who in the hell thought this Valentine’s Day parents’ lunch was a good idea. Whoever it was needed to take responsibility for how upset my daughter was right now.

  I backed out of the parking space and pulled onto the road again. We drove home without saying another word to each other, Sophia’s light sobs the only noise in the cab of my truck.

  Chapter 4

  Abigail Monday

  I was behind my desk, listening to some light music streaming on my cellphone while I went through my lesson plan for the day. I liked to set out the materials I was going to use ahead of time to cut down on the scrambling around later. I’d put together detailed plans and activities over the break. I had my stacks of worksheets and the flashcards I’d need in the afternoon phonics session. We were going to tackle some science today, too, with a very brief experiment. The kids loved all of that hands-on stuff, and I never got enough of the surprise blooming on their faces like rare flowers. I had to make money in order to live, but, really, the spark I saw firing in my students’ eyes when they truly understood a concept for the first time was all the payment my soul needed.