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The final bell rang, and Clara Hannigan fell into her desk chair, momentum rolling her back into the window.
Teaching was draining. Emotionally, physically, and mentally draining. But she loved it. It would be good if she strode out with the kids, keeping an eye over them as they rushed down the hall and out toward the busses and their waiting parents. Teachers were supposed to reign over teenage hormones at every moment, but Clara needed to be in her classroom just then, away from the chaos. It was a mental health choice.
She stared out the window which featured a view to the back of the school. Few students left that way—only those with parents who worked in one of the school buildings, since it was the faculty and staff parking lot. Most spilled out the front doors, automatically veering to one of the two busses that sat waiting or beyond to the parent pickup line. Anyone who lived within a mile or had plans to be at a friend’s house within a mile or so, simply left on foot, braving the onslaught of summer tourists in order to make it home.
Of the high schoolers from the secondary building, the ratio was sharper, with many walking or driving themselves away from campus.
In Birch Harbor, fewer students rode busses, with only a fraction packing themselves onto the hot plastic seats, terrorizing each other and the bus driver for up to sixty minutes of a jagged route that heaved and hoed around town.
The rest tucked themselves into SUVs and minivans, walked, or drove themselves away from the ancient brick building that sat just inland from Harbor Avenue, off a small side street called Lowell. On the other side of Lowell sprawled the Birch Harbor Cemetery. No one seemed to mind that you could learn the Pythagorean Theorem, then go visit Granny in one fell swoop. It was one of those quirks of a small town, charming and bizarre to outsiders, normal and mundane to insiders.
The image of an errant student caught Clara’s eyes. A girl from one of her classes—Mercy Hennings—with her head down, hands gripping the polyester straps of her backpack as she strode languidly toward a waiting truck.
Clara looked more closely at the man standing outside of the truck, his hands shoved into jean pockets.
She’d met Mercy’s father just once, the week before, in fact. He was kind and grateful, the ideal parent. Easygoing and casual, Mr. Hennings was the polar opposite of his daughter, whose anxiety and seriousness aligned more closely with Clara’s own personality.
She felt like a voyeur, watching them hug in the parking lot. The father kissed Mercy’s head. She passed him her backpack, then they lifted themselves into either side of the truck. A happy duo.
Clara felt a pang in her heart.
She’d never been kissed by her father. Not once in her life.
***
Half an hour later, Clara called her oldest sister.
Kate answered her phone breathlessly. “Hey.”
“How’s it going?” Clara asked, munching on a baggie of baby carrots as she slid into the front seat of her car.
“Good, good. We decided to get Amelia’s room cleaned out and set up. Then we’ll meet with Michael. I think Amelia is waiting on him to call her back.”
A second voice floated past in the distance of the phone call. Clara knew it was Amelia’s. She and Kate exchanged muffled words, then Kate came back on the line. “Sorry, I mean Amelia is definitely not waiting on him to call her back. They are texting, I guess. I don’t know why, but it’s all very hush-hush.” Kate laughed lightly, but Clara frowned. She was sick of things being hush-hush, even if it was a jokey hush-hush.
Clara stalled at the mouth of the parking lot. “Should I come over now or... I mean what’s the plan for tonight?”
“Come over as soon as you’re ready. Our goal is to finish Amelia’s room and the bigger bathroom on the second floor. Then, we’re laying out a game plan.”
Dedicated to being part of the team, Clara replied that she was on her way. After all, there was something she’d like to add to the supposed game plan.
***
When she arrived at the house on the harbor, a sense of doom settled over her. In the years that her three older sisters had lived away, Clara had been the lone Hannigan responsible for keeping the house on the harbor in acceptable shape.
It was a job she was not made for. Clara was not a fix-it-upper type. She was a grade-papers type or a jigsaw-puzzle-doer type. Still, for as long as she and her mother had lived away from the big house on Heirloom Cove, Clara watered the plants and even sometimes did a little yard work. She conducted walk-throughs of the property from time to time, ensuring no one had broken in and vandalized. But that was it. Clara did not live her life in the shadow of the family’s past. At least, insomuch as was possible.
Now, she wondered what it might be like to return to the fold. Would she find a new joy in scrubbing dated toilets and changing old bed sheets?
Probably not.
But she would find joy in bonding with her sisters. After all, being over ten years younger, Clara had never really gotten that chance.