Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
I’ve never been to Disney World. I know it seems stupid. We’re only a few hours’ drive away, but there was never enough money, and when I grew up, there was never enough time.
Seemed boring anyway. Kids’ stuff.
My nephew would love it, though.
When I don’t answer, she continues. “I think mine is Animal Kingdom. It feels so far away.” She takes the container of pencils and starts checking for ones needing to be sharpened. “Callum likes Hollywood Studios—” Her eyes go big and she singsongs in a spooky voice, “The Tower of Terror.”
I pinch my eyebrows together, watching her. I can’t imagine Callum relaxing enough to enjoy a thrill ride.
“Music?” I remind her. “Candles?”
Her eyes light up, and she skips over to a nearby table. Pulling a lighter from the drawer, she moves around the room, lighting wicks as thunder cracks outside.
“Have you ever seen snow?” she asks me.
Leaning over my desk, I pull up my lesson plans. “No.”
“Me, either.” She sighs, the room glowing with firelight. “I hope he takes me to the snow this winter. I want to ice-skate.”
Did Callum promise her he’d take her somewhere to see snow? What do their parents have to say about that?
Horses prance through a silver storm…
Snow.
That’s why she wants to see a real winter.
Sliding my hands in my pockets, I walk to the windows, searching through the red, yellow, and purple glass, but I don’t see his car. Their driver must’ve brought her this morning.
I want to ask if he’s home. I want to ask if he’s alone.
Music starts, a soft tinkling of whatever Anna-Katherine feels in the mood for today—a little Native American flute, it sounds like—and I walk back to the switch on the wall, dimming the lights.
Students start drifting in.
“Oooh,” Sadie Knox coos as she looks around at the rainy morning mood. “I like it.”
“Morning!” Ginny Taylor-Thomas smiles, carrying in a container with her school bag hanging around her neck. “Is it okay if we eat in here?”
I peer through the clear top of the tray. “What have you got?”
She sets everything on her desk, prying off the lid. “I made some for everyone.”
She holds the tray of sugar-coated croissants out to me, and I don’t like sweets this early, but Krisjen’s words from a few years ago always rise up to bite me. Let people be nice to you.
I gave her some flippant retort at the time, but it stuck with me. People enjoy being helpful, I guess.
Taking a cocktail napkin from the center of the tray, I pick up a pastry. “Thank you,” I tell her, setting it on my desk.
She circulates through the room as my nine summer school students take their seats and unpack their laptops.
Whitney Patton takes a croissant. “What time did you get up?” she asks Ginny.
“It’s easy to get up early when you don’t stay out late partying,” Ginny replies.
“You don’t have any fun,” Whitney mocks. “You’re so amazing.”
Sounds like banter I would have with Army or Macon.
The students get busy eating, and I notice them sucking vanilla cream from the center.
“What did you do this weekend?” I ask Whitney.
“Partied a little.” She crosses her high-top white Chucks, pulling a thick stapled packet out of her bag. “But I did my homework.”
She lays her book report on top of her closed laptop. I asked them for hard copies rather than submit them digitally. I find it helps other students’ productivity when they can compare each others’ presentations.
Anna-Katherine closes the door, her croissant sitting on her desk, same as me.
“What about you?” Atlas Wade picks apart his pastry. “Did you fall or something?”
Students laugh, checking out my face, and I won’t bother lying. They know a fight when they see one. I was their age eight years ago, and I was just as smart as they are.
I lean back on my desk, giving them time to eat. “I didn’t do anything with my weekend, actually,” I tell them.
At least not Saturday or Sunday.
I don’t have kids. I don’t have a spouse. Krisjen handles the food shopping, and Aracely makes sure the house is clean. The lawn care business has long since stopped being a family affair, new workers taking over once we got our own careers, and my time is mostly my own now.
“Sounds nice,” Sadie says.
“Sometimes it is.”
I see Army running Dex to whatever sport he’s playing that season, and Trace is constantly in St. Carmen, busy with one thing or another. Macon is chauffeuring Paisleigh to school or a birthday party, and Krisjen is busy teaching Mars to drive. Liv and Clay are lunching with friends or volunteering their time at some charity or senior center.
Iron and I can do whatever we want, but it usually ends up being sleep or the bar.
Not Iron so much since he came home, though. It still feels like I’m on my own.