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About two weeks had passed since Greta had taken residence in the Engel-Devereux family barn. There, she helped tend to the land and the animals. Goats and chickens. Two dogs and a cat with her kittens. If it weren’t for the ever-growing tension with Gretchen, Greta might have liked to stay on longer. Even as a girl, she’d always liked housework. It brought her a sense of calm. Every Friday, as a young woman, she’d do light cleaning for her grandparents. They paid her ten dollars a week, but Greta would have done it for free. There, she would make the beds, tidy the kitchen, and add little touches here and there—if Greta hadn’t fallen into teaching, she might have become a maid. Maybe in some southern manor somewhere. Service had long been a part of the fiber of her being, and housework particularly filled that calling.
Working outside at Maggie’s quickly took on the shape of therapy for her, allowing for the chance to process her life, reflect on where things soured with Kadan (spoiler: they’d started off as being sour).
And while she raked the back field, she practiced her answers to interview questions.
Interviews that hadn’t yet been scheduled.
Despite the bond that grew between Greta and Maggie and between Greta and the land, she took back up with completing online applications; first, in every district she was familiar with. But with no open secondary English positions, she had two choices: lower her standards and consider returning to long-term subbing or broaden her geographic scope.
After her most recent experience in the world of educational babysitting, Greta knew her only option was to look elsewhere. Dead set on returning to a big city, where she’d still have a shot at a dating life, Greta now sat behind her laptop on the futon in Maggie Devereux’s barn and tapped away her responses to the online interest form for Chicago Public Schools.
Ten years’ experience. Indiana State Teaching License: Secondary English Education. (She made a mental note to see about certification reciprocity between Indiana and Illinois.) Specialization in literature and language with added emphasis on reading instruction. Yes, she’d be interested in coaching an after-school sport, though her experience was limited to softball and volleyball. No, she was not familiar with ASTUTE, a state-wide assessment technology system that also offered curriculum maps, professional development webinars, data tracking, and student-friendly software. However, yes, she was a fast learner, flexible and driven.
Greta rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and hit submit on the darn thing.
CPS was an expansive district, and right then, that’s the only hope she clung to. A big school system. Lots of openings. Lots of students. Lots of children who needed a teacher to inspire them and love them. Even if the inspiration would be muted by a wide-reaching technology platform.
Anxious, she closed her laptop, leaning back and stretching her legs out.
Rhett was due for supper that night, and Greta needed to shower and change. She’d spent the day cleaning the chicken coop, and she had promised Maggie she’d help prepare dinner. At every one of Greta’s offers to take on this chore or head up that project, the kind mother of four insisted up and down that Greta ought to relax and enjoy herself. Go for a walk. Get a bite to eat at Mally’s. But Greta refused, feeling that, for a while, she’d quite like to retreat. So long as Greta didn’t have anywhere else to be, she preferred to play Transcendentalist. Maggie’s farm was her Walden Pond.
***
Maggie’s kids flopped in from the backyard, their shoes caked in dried mud, though it hadn’t rained in recent days. Ky, the oldest of the three who lived at home, was leading the parade, a baby cat nestled in the crook of his arm. “What’s for supper?”
Maggie left Greta at the stove and redirected the children back outside to hose off. “And then go through the front door so you can leave your sneakers on the porch!” Maggie’s voice grew louder at the end of the sentence as the kids dashed away. “And don’t forget to wash up!” she added loudly after them with a laugh.
Greta admired her. The single mom never seemed to grow impatient with her rascally brood, instead laughing off their mess-making as “kids!” Greta might have done well to see Maggie in action before she took on the elementary subbing gig.
“How’re the taters lookin’?” she asked Greta as she transferred a steaming pot of collard greens to the center of the table.
Greta left the chicken on the stove and grabbed the bowl she’d finished whipping. “Mashed and buttery,” she answered with a proud smile.
Maggie took over on the fried chicken and Greta took up with scooping creamy ladlesful onto each plate. The doorbell chimed, and a ruckus ensued. Voices mixed out on the porch.
“You all get your rear ends to the bathroom and wash up on the double!” Maggie hollered.
“I already washed up.”
Greta’s head whipped to the doorway. Her brother stood there, his hands held up in defense of himself. His eyes were on Maggie, and in his gaze, Greta thought she spied the look of a groom as his bride entered the aisle. Desire. More than that, actually. True love.
She glanced away, grinning to herself. Rhett deserved all the happiness in the world. It seemed like Maggie did, too.
***
Dinner was a boisterous affair. It began with a sweet, lumpy, rushed rendition of grace by Briar.
Bless us o Lord and these is my gifts from Ky bounty Christ the Lord Amen. Rushed signs of the cross morphed into a squabble about who would get the last dinner roll, which made no sense to Greta, who had baked no fewer than forty of them.
“It’s thy bounty,” Dakota corrected his little sister as he rolled a piece of his bread into a doughy lump and tossed it into his mouth. “Not Ky bounty.” The brothers shared a laugh, but the spunky girl shrugged it off and resumed babbling to her Barbie doll.
Once tummies started to fill, and the adults wrapped up their small talk, attention turned to more serious matters. The kids kept chatting, and their previous bickering churned like butter into easy conversation about those little conspiracies children formed between each other. What traps the boys had set. Which kitten Briar had just finished bottle feeding before they dragged themselves back to the farmhouse.
Maggie smiled warmly at them then pointed a manicured finger to the empty seat, a veritable elephant in the room. “Gretchen’s been taking her evening meals with Theo.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Greta then Rhett.
“He’s a nice kid,” Rhett commented, oblivious.
“Yeah, if only his girlfriend was a nice kid, too.” Maggie flicked a knowing look to Greta, who was the only one to catch the joke. But it didn’t sit well with her. Why bring up the most awkward thing about their arrangement?
Dabbing her lips with her napkin, Greta spoke next. “I filled out an interest form for Chicago Public Schools today. I’m going to send my resume to some principals up there, too.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Maggie replied, clicking her tongue.
Greta looked at her, trying to read between the lines. She had yet to pressure Greta to stay. So far, things felt like a pleasant arrangement, only made pleasant by the promise of its impermanence. “Maggie, Gretchen is sick of me being here. I have to get a plan in place sooner rather than later or else we’re in danger of having a full-blown falling out.”
Maggie set her fork down on her plate, and it clattered to the center, leftover butter sliding up the length of the silverware. The woman wiped her hands on her napkin and shook her head. “I wasn’t trying to start trouble. I was just pointing out that maybe this was a good thing.” She waved her long fingers back and forth between Greta and herself.
The three younger children fell silent, turning into an audience rather than the sideshow act.
Greta cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
“That girl was on track for working her life away. She wakes up, does some classwork for school, goes to Mally’s and takes orders, gives them ten hours, heads to night school, comes home and does more coursework then starts all over again. Once she got together with Theo, he was little more than a footnote in her phone. And if Gretchen had moved into that barn, if just to set up her little sewing studio, it’d go to waste. She’d still be working all day, rolling in late with her nose in a book, and falling asleep well before she ever sat down at a sewing machine. One, which, by the way, we can’t even find all the parts for.” They’d been down this road. Maggie complained about her daughter’s work ethic every second of every day. “I just want her to have a little fun, but I can’t seem to convince her to slow down.”
“It’s because you’re her mom,” Greta replied evenly. “She needs to hear it from someone else.”
Maggie lifted an eyebrow to her other children, who were rapt with this lesson in family dynamics. “So, is that also why Dakota and Ky can’t be convinced to do their homework? Because it’s their mama who tells them to?”
The table erupted in laughter, and all was well again.
School was one arena in which Greta was supremely comfortable. She took a long swig of her sweet tea then braved the waters of opening a conversation with an adolescent boy. “Ky, what books did you read in English class last year?”
He took an oversized bite of chicken, the crispy crumbles sticking to the corners of his mouth as he shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t remember. Some story about a boy named Jonas.” He swallowed but didn’t bother to wipe his face. “Oh, yeah. We had to read The Secret Garden which the girls liked, but it was a kids’ book to me.”
“That does sound a little young for a middle schooler,” Maggie added thoughtfully.
Greta shrugged, trying to take up for the poor teacher who surely had a good reason. “It’s a classic. You’re never too old to read a classic.”
“That’s true. And the school and teachers are terrific, truly. It’s just that since I don’t know how to help them learn the difference between commas and a scratch on the paper, they might fall behind. Will they be prepared?” Maggie asked pointedly.
Greta restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “Depends on how the teacher had them study it. I’d say it’s more about the how rather than the what when it comes to instruction and curriculum.”
“Maybe you could tutor Ky and Dakota this summer,” Rhett offered. He meant well, Greta was sure, but even Maggie cringed.
“I’d love that. But, Rhett, look at your sister. Greta does enough around here. She doesn’t need to wrangle these heathens in their academics. Ky will have another English class again next year, with Ms. Randall. And I’m sure she will fill in any gaps or whatever you education people call it.”
Greta tried to redirect the conversation, rising from her seat so she could bring dessert over.
But Ky grunted. “Ms. Randall isn’t gon’ be there next year.”
“What?” Maggie asked, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Greta’s ears pricked up.
“She’s getting married to somebody in Louisville and moving.” He went back to eating but a flash lit up his face. “Hey! Wait a minute! Maybe they’ll just cancel Language Arts! Maybe I won’t have to take it at all!”
Maggie smacked her hand down on the table in front of her oldest son. “Ky,” she glanced back at Greta, who’d returned with an apple pie. “Are you positive?”
Ky looked from Maggie to Greta to Rhett, his face a chubby ball of furrows and confusion. “Maybe. Maybe they’ll just tell my class to read a book for Language Arts.”
Rhett chuckled, and Greta smiled, but Maggie shook her head before it flopped backwards in aggravation. “That’s not what I’m talking about, young man. I’m asking you if Ms. Randall really did quit her job.”
The lightbulb flickered in his little boy brain, and a slow smile crept across his lips. “You’re talkin’ about if there’s gonna be a teaching job there? At Hickory Grove Middle?”
Greta just shook her head. “Surely, they have more than one English—er, Language Arts—class per grade level?”
Though, even when she attended H.G.M.S., there was only one teacher per grade. Small rural school, that’s what you got.
Maggie wordlessly raised an eyebrow to Greta then pinned her gaze back on her son. “Yes, little boy blue, that’s what Mama’s saying.” She wagged her hand in lazy circles to drag more information out. But boys Ky’s age were notoriously useless at gossip.
He hooked a fleshy finger at Greta. How that child could be pudgy was both bewildering and perfectly sensible. Though he played hard all the day long, he ate hard at every meal, with snacks in between. Rhett had said that ever since Maggie had taken up in the farmhouse, it was part hair salon, part Cracker Barrel. She ought to name it Maggie’s Cut and Crunch. It was a lame joke, but Greta began to see how true it rang. All throughout helping Maggie fix supper, every single day she was there, they had to repurpose the whole kitchen space, air it out with long dish towels and open windows, light half a dozen candles, preheat the oven with that morning’s bacon pan then move the supplies to the parlor, which Maggie eventually intended to turn into her shop. Just as soon as Rhett could get a plumbing fixture in there.
“Are you asking if I could get Miss Greta a job at my school?” Ky asked.
Rhett belted out a laugh and reached across the table to scruff the kid’s hair.
Maggie just shook her head and held her hands to God to save her from her misery. “Oh, Lordy. Ky, you just kill me.” At length, she and Greta also laughed, but Greta’s died off faster.
“Ky, I’d love to be your teacher.” She sliced into the pie, dividing it into six equal triangles before sliding each one onto the waiting dessert plates. “But I can’t.”
“Oh, come on Greta. What are you talking about? If Ky here knows what he’s talking about, then there is an English position right under your nose, for goodness’ sake!”
Greta blinked and fell into her chair, stabbing at her pie and shaking her head. “Language Arts,” she corrected him under her breath.
“Huh?” Rhett asked.
Greta held up a hand toward Ky. “It’s Language Arts, not English. I’m a high school English teacher.”
“Sweetheart,” Maggie rested her hand on Greta’s forearm, squeezing it warmly. “I mean this to be as kind as I possibly can. You’re not a high school English teacher, Greta Houston. You’re a broken heart. You’re a little sister. You’re a houseguest and a farmhand. You’re a neat-freak and a hard worker. You’re a small-town girl who found her way home and yet you’ve got your sights set on some big city school up north. Why? So that you can say you’re a high school English teacher? Honey, you don’t know what in the heck you are.”