Triplets Make Five

“I want Daisy to be part of our family.”

“You and me both, kid,” I sighed before I could stop myself.

“So why don’t you just ask her?” Emmy asked as if it’s that simple.

“I wish it worked like that,” I said, “But it’s complicated.”

“You say that about everything,” Emmy rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should just grow a pair and apologize already.”

“Emmy!” I gasped. “Where did you learn to talk like that?”

She just rolled her eyes at me again.

“Please,” she said. “I’m a kid, not a dummy.”

I felt my heart swell with affection for my ridiculously sassy niece, and I grabbed her in a bear hug.

“You are wise beyond your years, you know that?” I ruffled her hair.

“Enough small talk,” she scoffed. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to get Daisy back!”

19

DAISY

“Come on,” Raven begged, making puppy dog eyes at me from the doorway of my bedroom. “Please come out, you need this!”

“The only thing I need right now is to grade all of these assignments,” I said, ruffling the stack of booklets at the edge of my bed. “And maybe a bottle of wine,” I added with a wink as I reached for the glass of pinot on my nightstand.

I was perched on my bed beside the mountain of homework that I needed to grade by tomorrow morning. They were turned in Friday, and I had already put them off all weekend, waiting until the last minute to grade them before Monday. I had got my red pen and my wine, now all I needed was some peace and quiet.

Unfortunately, ‘peace and quiet’ wasn’t on Raven’s itinerary for the night. Ever since the debacle with Caleb, she had been attempting to drag me to the bar for a ‘girl’s night out.’ It was easy to brush her off during the week, “it’s a school night!” I would protest, but she became more persistent when the weekend hit. Now, Sunday, her urgency was at an all-time high.

“Maybe next weekend,” I offered, even though I know I have no intention of leaving the comfort of my bed or my sweatpants then, either. I was not like Raven. I was not the type to process my grief on the dancefloor, or between shots of Fireball. I preferred sobbing into my pillow in between binge-watching episodes of Gilmore Girls.

“Fine,” Raven sighed in defeat. “But next weekend I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer!”

“Uh-huh,” I nodded dismissively. I listened to the sound of her footsteps stomping down the hallway and, once I heard our apartment door slam behind her, I collapsed onto the bed.

I stared at my phone, waiting for it to ring even though I knew it wouldn’t. I blocked Caleb’s number. I had to. What happened in the cafe was a wakeup call. A reminder of why Caleb and I were always destined to fail.

He was the billionaire playboy and I was the girl from Brooklyn. He was the legal guardian of one of my students and I was the teacher. He was notorious for being unable to commit to women, and I was the girl with an inherent inability to trust. We couldn’t be more wrong for each other. And no matter how right things felt when our bodies touched, it was always going to end with someone getting hurt. Better for it to happen now, rather than later. Better for it to have been a clean break, without the school board or the tabloids getting involved.

I had gotten out most of the tears and fought through the anger and resentment phase of our unofficial ‘break up.’ Now I just felt empty. I pulled myself back up on the bed and took a sip of wine, then I reached for the first assignment in the stack of homework projects that I needed to grade.

Every week I assigned my class a take-home project that needed to be completed with the help of their parents. The idea was that the project forced parents to take an interest in what was going on at school and get involved. But the sad reality was that most of the time, the nannies just ended up working through the project themselves at the last minute.

For this past week’s project, I provided each of my students with a storybook. The pages inside each book had been pre-printed with the texts of different fairy tales. One book was Rapunzel, another told the story of Snow White. Besides the block of text printed at the bottom of each page, the book was blank. The assignment was for students to read the story with their parents, then work together to create illustrations that matched the passage of text on each page.

Flipping through the stack of completed books, I couldn’t help but wonder, cynically, how many nannies were up late the night before, racing to complete their illustrations.

It was times like these that I questioned whether I really belonged at a school like Bellamy Day. I wanted to help kids that fell between the cracks, but even my best efforts to build real connections seem to falter and fall short.

The truth was if it wasn’t for Emmy, I probably would have considered leaving Bellamy Day a long time ago. Helping Emmy gave me a reason to stay. But now that Emmy didn’t need me anymore, I was wondering if I really belonged at Bellamy. I felt like I was missing my real calling. That I should be doing more.

I flipped open the first assignment and immediately my suspicions were verified. The storybook Aladdin had been painstakingly illustrated with drawings far beyond the preschool level. I flipped through the pages, and felt my heart sink.

Then, knowing there was not a damn thing I could do about it, I marked the back cover with a passing grade and moved on to the next book in the stack.