Now I look at that photo of me and Alzy and reflect on how the destinies of those two little girls are intertwined in a way I never could have imagined. Alzy’s life, and perhaps especially her death, would be a major turn in the road for me and for Stefan, but it would be months before I would discover exactly how.
What I learned at the end of my first week back at work after the holiday break was how rough at least some of that road would be. Keith Fu, my department chair, dropped by my office. He brought me a latte. I’d just found a fortune cookie in my pocket and I showed it to Keith. It said, I cannot help you. I am only a cookie.
He said, “No wonder people think the Chinese are inscrutable.”
“Stefan used to say ‘inscrewable.’”
“That, too,” said Keith, and laughed, albeit weakly. “My name in Chinese means master teacher.”
“I never knew that was what ‘Keith’ meant,” I said.
Keith attempted another laugh. “How is Stefan? How are you?”
“I have no idea how I am. I just feel so guilty because I have this other world, my respite, and he has nothing.” I sipped my coffee. It was foamy and cinnamon-y. “Thanks for this.”
I told Keith how diligently Stefan was working since he came home to find a job. He made lists of A employers and B employers, so that he wouldn’t wreck his mood by trying all the top places first, in case he was rejected. His parole officer had given Stefan the names of employers who proudly hired the formerly incarcerated; and in a Twitter chat about Stefan, one vocal community influencer wrote that no one ever prospered without help. But, strangely enough, that man didn’t have a job for Stefan, nor did anyone else the man could think of. Stefan tried a painting company and a moving company. He tried the French patisserie, the Russian deli and the New York bagel bakery. He tried the garden supply, the pool supply, the art supply, the pancake house, the steak house, the Omelet House and Gandalf’s House of Games. As soon as he identified himself, people standing right next to Help Wanted posters said there were no openings. His mood sank deeper with every rejection. I would pass by his door sometimes in the early morning and peek in if it was open a crack. He often slept on the floor, curled like a shrimp with no pillow, always fully dressed in a sweatshirt and sweatpants and socks, as if he might have to spring up at any minute. I guess the floor felt more like the shelf in his cell. It seemed so cruel, but I dared not bring it up with him, for which humiliation might be the endmost one?
I was afraid to leave for campus this past week, afraid that I might come home to find him hanging by an electrical cord from the garage door opener. I would waste time staring blankly out the window as protestors gathered; then push past them to my car with a sheaf of folders in front of my face. I tore into my classroom door a few times at twenty after, perhaps ruining the morning for my students who had just begun to dream that the two-hour seminar would be canceled. Like some woman in a sixties comic strip, one day I was still wearing my Minnetonka bedroom slippers when I arrived.
Not my finest pedagogical hour. But that was why they called it “tenure.” I was popular, published, respected. Mourning Becomes Her: Bereft Women of Fiction from Olivia to Olive Kitteridge and my other seminar, Ghost Stories: Shades in Short Fiction, turned away students every semester.
I told Keith, “I shouldn’t bend your ear.”
He said, “Ah, Thea. Someone from Dateline called me the other day. And she called the dean, too.”
I said, “Ugh. Sorry.”
“Well, the thing is, Thea, maybe this is an opportunity for you.” His voice went official. “No one would blame you for taking a year or so leave of absence. Call it a sabbatical. You’ve been wanting to write Women of Obsession for years. Given the circumstances, why not turn lemons into lemonade?”
“Did you just make that up?” I asked. “If I did that now, it would look like I was running away. And Stefan is probably going to enroll in summer school next semester.”
Keith said, “Here?”
“Where else?” I got free tuition for family members at Thornton Wilder. When Stefan decided against the football route, we re-evaluated. He was young in years, almost a full year younger than many of his classmates, and he was no scholar. So my institution became the plan for him, after he’d taken some community college courses to start. Now the latte in my hand looked like my cup of hemlock. I set it down, too hard. They didn’t want a murderer matriculating at Thornton Wilder College; they didn’t want a murderer’s mother teaching there either, especially my new seminar, which would be about fictional women and obsession. Tears blurted from the corners of my mutinous eyes. Keith looked wretched.