The Word of a Child. Janice Kay Johnson
pressed End on her phone and stashed it again in her tote. Her heart was drumming. Ridiculous.
The door to the classroom rattled, and she glanced up to see a couple of blurred faces in the mottled glass. Startled, she saw that the clock had reached seven-fifteen without her noticing.
She let in the eager beavers. Probably eager not for her brilliant instruction, but for the chance to slump into their seats and achieve a near-doze for a precious few minutes before she demanded their attention. Most did, however, drop last night’s assignment into her in-box as they passed her desk.
This ninth-grade crowd was reading Romeo and Juliet. She was big on Shakespeare. She’d let them watch the updated movie version last week, the one with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio and guns and swimming pools, which she personally detested as much for what it had left out as for the interpretation. But she’d found it effective with the kids, helping them to understand that the words were timeless. Now she was making them read the original, not cut to suit the constraints of moviemaking budgets and filmgoers’ limited attention spans.
Tracy wasn’t in her seat for Beginning Drama. Was she too scared or embarrassed to come to school now that the cat was out of the bag? Or had her mom made her stay home? The principal might even have suggested she take a day or two while the police investigated.
The class passed with Tracy’s empty desk nagging at Mariah. The bell had rung and students were making their way into the hall traffic when Detective McLean’s head appeared above theirs. Under other circumstances Mariah might have been amused as he tried to force his way upstream in a hall so packed, kids shuffled along in file with their backpacks protectively clutched tight. Stopping to visit with friends was impossible, the equivalent of an accident during rush hour on a Seattle freeway.
His progress would have been even slower on one of the lower floors. This was the bottom of the bottle, so to speak, tipped up to empty. Students were fleeing it for the commons or the covered outdoor areas where they could hang out for the lunch hour.
“God Almighty,” the detective muttered when he finally stepped into her room. “What if there was a fire?”
“That,” Mariah said, “is our worst fear. There is a fire escape on each end of the building, which would help, but since going down that would be single file, evacuating all four floors would still take way too long.”
He looked back at the stragglers in the now-emptying hall and frowned. “The fire inspectors have been here between classes?”
“What are they going to do? Condemn the building? Where would we go?”
He growled something and closed the door on the hubbub. Mariah fought an instinctive desire to step back. Connor McLean was a very large man, easily six-two or six-three, with bulky shoulders to match. While she watched, he strolled around her classroom reading quotations, scrutinizing photos, smoothing a big hand over a desktop just as she’d done earlier.
“Place hasn’t changed at all.”
She raised her brows. “Since?”
“I went here. Smells the same, even.”
“I like the smell.” She was sorry immediately that she’d let herself get personal.
He inhaled. “Yeah. Creates instant memories, doesn’t it?”
Yes. Yes, that was exactly it. Floor polish and books and chalk dust could release a kaleidoscope of memories of herself behind one of those student desks. The rustle of a note being passed, the wonder of the passage a teacher read with deep feeling, the stumbling recitation of a report before bored classmates, the glow of seeing a huge red A—good work!—on the top of her paper. Days and weeks and years spent in classrooms like this, the time happy enough that she had chosen teaching as a career. No wonder she loved the smell of school.
“Yes,” she said stiffly. “I suppose it does.”
He stood before the window for a moment, looking out. “This town doesn’t change.”
“The strip malls and Target and Home Depot weren’t here when you went to Port Dare Middle School.”
He gave himself a shake, as though ridding himself of memories she wasn’t so sure were good. “No, or the developments in the outskirts. But the view from here hasn’t changed an iota.”
“Unless we tear down all the Victorian houses or allow new development on the waterfront, it never will.”
Detective McLean turned abruptly, his gaze focusing intensely on her. “You didn’t grow up in Port Dare, did you?”
She wasn’t sure what business it was of his, or why he cared, but answering seemed harmless. “No. I’m actually from California. Sacramento. I came to college up here, met my husband and stayed.”
“Where did you go?”
Was he going to check her college transcripts? “Gonzaga, in Spokane. Then Washington State University for a masters degree.”
He made an interested sound as he strolled to the front of the room. “Why Port Dare?”
She looked at him steadily. “Simon found work here.”
“You’re still married?” He sounded casual, as if he didn’t care. And why should he?
“No.” Acid corroded her voice and her heart. “You did manage to destroy my marriage. Is that what you wanted to know?”
A muscle jumped in his cheek, but he didn’t look away. “I hoped you were divorced. For your little girl’s sake.”
Mariah tasted bile. “Now Zofie gets to spend weekends with her daddy. Without Mommy around at all.”
A frown gathered his brow. “He gets unsupervised visitation?”
“Of course he does!” She stared at him with dislike. “You never even arrested Simon. You never proved a thing.”
“It’s almost impossible when the victim is a child that young.”
She clutched the edge of the desk for support, listened to her voice shake. “Then what’s the good of making accusations you can never substantiate? If there is no sperm, no witnesses, why start something you can’t finish?”
His mouth twisted. “How can we not? He might have given something away. You might have been able to prove your husband was never alone with the child and her identification of him was wrong. You and he had a right to know he had been named. Would you really have wanted to go on with your marriage in ignorance? Maybe have had more children with him?”
The sound that came from her was nearly a sob. “I don’t know! How can I even remember life before you came and spread doubts like…like salt in a field?” Mariah drew a shuddering breath and fought for composure. “I hate what you did to Simon and me and Zofie. I had to say that once. Now let’s do what you came for and not talk about the past again.”
“It’s my job.” Did he sound hoarse?
“We all choose how we spend our lives.” She, in turn, was cold, unforgiving.
“Someone has to stop child molesters and rapists.”
“Just know that you do bad along with the good.”
He gestured toward the rows of empty desks and said scathingly, “Don’t you ever let down a student? Maybe not connect, because you don’t want to change how you present your material? Could it be you’re so sure everyone should appreciate Shakespeare, you ignore those kids who can’t read well enough. Or, hell, maybe you don’t listen, because you’re too busy or you don’t like that student anyway?” He stalked toward her, predator toward prey. “Fail her on a test, when she needed you to understand that her mom walked out last week and she’s cleaning house and doing the laundry and putting dinner on the table and taking care of her little brothers and crying when she should be sleeping? Maybe just failed to reach a kid, period, no matter how hard you tried?