Lessons: A Secret Baby Romance

1. Jessie

1Jessie“Miss Hollis?” One of my students raised her hand, then tried to wave me over to her desk. “I don’t understand this problem.”

I went to her, bending over to check out her work. Erica was always a serious student, probably more serious than the average second grader, but math still wasn’t her strong suit. I talked her through until she seemed to get it, then patted her on the back and left her alone.

It had been a long day. I stretched slightly, rolling my head on my shoulders to get the kinks out of my neck. It had been a long week, actually. The final bell couldn’t ring soon enough. Funny how as a kid it never occurred to me that my teachers might be just as eager for school to be over as I was.

I cast a glance at the only empty desk in the classroom, frowning. Gina missed the entire week of school—unheard of for her. She might have had a recovering drug addict for a mother, but she brought herself to school every day.

I told myself, as I always did, not to be so hard on her. I didn’t know what it was like to struggle the way Rae did. I only knew the effect it had on her little girl. I resented that.

Gina wasn’t my only student, though, and the rest of them needed my help. I turned my attention to a couple who were getting in an argument and told myself to think about Gina after the bell rang. I needed some answers.

When the bell finally rang and I led two dozen excited seven-year-olds outside and I took a deep breath. It was chilly outside. I wondered if Gina was warm wherever she was.

Linda, the other second-grade teacher, approached me. “No Gina today either.”

I frowned, watching the kids run off to their parents, babysitters, school buses. “No. That’s a full week.”

“Has she ever been out so long before?”

“No.” I wrapped my sweater tighter around my waist.

“There was that nasty stomach bug going around,” Linda reasoned. “It might have been that.”

“For an entire week? Without a phone call, no less? I don’t think so.” I put a hand on Linda’s arm. “I appreciate you trying to make me feel better.” She knew how special Gina was to me. Every teacher had that one student, the kid who stood out for one reason or another. It wasn’t that Gina was the most vocal, the showiest with her smarts. But she was easily the smartest in the class. She was also the sweetest, always concerned for the other kids. When she picked up a math problem somebody else didn’t understand, she would help them with it. She wouldn’t make the other kids feel bad for lagging behind her lightning-fast brain.

For all that, she had a quiet sadness. She reminded me sometimes of a broken puppy, one who had been kicked one too many times. Not that I ever saw bruises on her. It was more a haunted quality about her eyes that touched my heart. She had a quiet, gentle way about her, and a wisdom far beyond her years. No kid should have been as wise to the world as she was, poor thing.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Linda walked with me back into the school.

“What makes you think I’m going to do anything at all?”

She laughed. “I’ve met you, that’s what makes me think it. Come on. This is me you’re talking to. I know how much you love that little girl. And I know you would go out of your way for any one of your students. So what’s the plan?” She sat on the edge of my desk while I cleaned up my classroom.

“I can’t say that I have an actual plan,” I admitted. “I was hoping to find out something about her whereabouts. I want to call the hospitals, the police if I have to. I’m hoping somebody will have an answer for me, because I’m just about going out of my mind with worry for her.”

“Do you think it’s really that bad?” Linda asked.

“You know as well as I do that her mother’s a drug addict. It’s not a secret.” I flipped my long blonde ponytail from one shoulder to the other as I bent to gather toys. “So if I jump to the wrong conclusions, I don’t think it’s unwarranted.”

“I never said it wasn’t. I’m wondering if you’re not getting a little too involved is all.”

I stood, scowling. “Now you sound like Vickie.” Our principal warned me all the time about my closeness with Gina, but I couldn’t help it. I went to her office to recommend we intervene on several occasions—whenever it seemed as though Gina was looking a little thin, or was underdressed for the weather, for instance. One day she came in wearing nothing but a t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers in an inch of snow. Poor thing couldn’t reach the winter clothes packed away at the top of her closet. When I asked her why she didn’t even wear a coat, she told me she couldn’t get her mommy to wake up. I drew my own conclusions. The poor thing had dressed herself, then walked six blocks in a snowstorm.

That afternoon, I took her out for a new coat and winter clothes. The following day, I received a reprimand—not because Rae had complained about her baby not coming home right after school, but because Vickie had seen me load Gina into my car. The whole thing made no sense to me whatsoever. Why shouldn’t I do everything I could to help her? Her own mother didn’t care. I could see if the other kids in the class were also underprivileged and I ignored their plight, but that wasn’t the case. They were all well-dressed, well-fed, well-loved. Gina was the only one who needed the sort of help I wanted desperately to provide. I couldn’t do it if Vickie kept hamstringing me the way she did.

“Please don’t say anything to her about this.” I nodded in the direction of the front office.

“Cross my heart.” Linda made an X over her chest.

“Thank you.” I grinned, then got my things together.

“Did you try calling her home?” Linda asked as an afterthought as I locked up my room.

“Of course. Every day. I never get an answer.”

Linda frowned, deep in thought. “Did you ever think that maybe, well, they moved away? She might have packed up, taken the girl and left for one reason or another. She might be on the run from the law or something.”

“God, I hope not.” I didn’t even like considering it.

“Why not? It might work out for both of them. Might be just the thing Rae needs. She might have family somewhere, and they might be able to help her care for Gina.”

“Maybe.” I chewed my bottom lip, thinking about it as we walked out to the parking lot together. I couldn’t deny I didn’t want that to be the case. I didn’t want Gina to be gone. I would miss the poor thing. I’d been caring for her for months, ever since she first walked into my classroom and I’d noticed the sad, ancient look in her eyes.

“There’s nothing you can do about it if that’s the case,” Linda reminded me. I knew she was only trying to help me. She was trying to warn me away from getting too close, from having my heart broken. Any teacher who’s ever really given a damn about their kids knew how it felt to get too close to the one or two who needed special attention.

“I have to try to find out. I’m going to check at her house first. I’ve been calling, but I never dropped by.” Not because I didn’t care, of course, but because I hated the idea of going there. It was a terrible neighborhood, though it was only six blocks from the school, and the run-down condition of the house only reminded me how bad Gina had it. I hated the reminder when there was nothing I could do for her.

Rae was trying to find work. I reminded myself of this as I got in the car. She was always looking for a job, it seemed. Four times during the school year, Gina had come in with a big smile to tell me her mommy found a job. All four times she lost the job for missing a string of days. She never seemed to keep a job for more than a few weeks. Then it would be the same thing all over again—welfare money spent on booze. She stayed away from drugs—she’d told me that much herself, during our first parent-teacher conference. She made no attempt to hide the fact that she was a recovering addict. She didn’t touch heroin anymore, or any other drug. She did, however, drink. One crutch for another.

But she was trying. I told myself that again and again. She was trying. It couldn’t be easy trying to fight an addiction with a little girl. She couldn’t exactly go away to rehab when there was a seven-year-old to worry about. Still, I’d think Gina would be reason enough to do whatever it took. Again, I had never been in her shoes. I could only guess at how it felt.

I pulled up in front of the tiny house with a shudder. The vinyl siding was peeling. One of the shutters on the front windows was crooked. The screen in one window had been slit—somebody might have tried to break in, maybe to steal drugs from Rae. Who knew? The front lawn was pockmarked with brown patches. It was pretty pathetic.

There weren’t even any toys in the yard. Other kids had swing sets, a bike, that sort of thing. Gina didn’t have anything like that. I’d thought of buying them for her, but knew word would eventually get back to Vickie. Somehow, it always did.

There was no car in the driveway, but that wasn’t a surprise. Rae didn’t own one. I walked up the cracked, broken driveway and went to the front door. There were no lights inside, no TV. I pressed my ear to the door. No sound coming from inside either. I held my breath, straining to hear even the littlest thing.

One of the windows had several broken slats in the blinds, so I cupped my hands around my eyes in order to get a better look inside. Darkness. My heart sank. Maybe Linda had the right idea when she guessed that Rae took Gina away. The house looked deserted. Then again, from my memories of the place, it never looked exactly furnished.

I looked around the street. Most of the houses were pretty depressed looking, but none as bad as Rae and Gina’s. Two of the houses had cars outside, so I went to the closest house to see if I could find out anything. It was better than doing nothing.

I got an answer after a minute or two. “Yeah?” The woman standing in the doorway wore a housedress, curlers in her hair and slippers. There was some overwrought soap opera playing on the TV just beyond the door. I didn’t know there were any soaps still on TV.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said with what I hoped was a friendly smile. I didn’t want to come off condescending or panicky. “I’m Gina’s teacher.” I pointed to the little house three doors down.

“Oh, Rae’s kid?”

“That’s right. She hasn’t been to school all week, and I was pretty worried about her. I wondered if you knew anything about her. Is she sick?”

“Oh, Rae didn’t tell you anything?”

“No, not at all.”

She smirked. “Not surprised, knowing her.”

“Where are they?”

“Rae dropped her off with her daddy earlier this week.”

“Her father? I never heard anything about her father.”

“That’s not a surprise either, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Considering who he is.” She was so cryptic, so withholding, I thought I might scream.

“And who would that be?”

“He’s the leader of one of them whaddya call ’em, those motorcycle clubs.”

My blood ran cold. “Gina’s father is in a motorcycle club?”

“Yup. I don’t think they exactly have what you’d call a relationship.” She shrugged. “But Rae said something about her little girl needing to know her daddy, and Rae didn’t look too happy when she said it. A little shaky, even. She was always getting into trouble, though. You know that, I bet.”

“Yeah, I know that.” I shuddered a little. A motorcycle club? That precious little girl? What the hell had Rae been thinking?

“Do you know which club he’s the head of? Gina’s father?”

“Oh yeah. She said the name. Oh, what was it.” The woman looked up at the sky, thinking. “Somethin’ about a storm. What was it…oh! Fury’s Storm. That was it. I remember, it made me think of my stories.” She jerked her head in the direction of the TV.

“I won’t take you away from them anymore,” I said, thanking her for the information before hurrying back to my car.

A club? Fury’s Storm? Who in their right mind would leave a little girl in a motorcycle club? Had Rae gotten herself into trouble somehow? Was she on the run? It was literally the only excuse I could think of that even came close to making sense. Otherwise it sounded like a clear-cut case of neglect.

I looked up the club on my phone, hoping I could find some information on them. Where were they located? What was the name of the leader? Who was I looking for? It wouldn’t do to show up at their headquarters—if I managed to find it—without a name to reference. I had to show authority if I was going to convince him to give up his child to me. I didn’t know the first thing about those motorcycle people, but I had the impression from hearsay that they were very proud, very secretive. I didn’t want to upset anything, didn’t want them to close ranks and shut me out. Gina’s life was in the balance.

Strangely enough, when I googled the name, an address to their headquarters came right up. I thought that was hilarious, but then again, maybe there was no reason for them to be secretive. Why hide who they were? I thought that was a good sign, that sort of transparency. It boded well.

Still, it was no environment for a little girl. My blood boiled when I thought about Rae leaving her child there. I turned on the engine and headed straight for the address in my GPS. I had my sights set on the club’s leader: Landry Richmond.