Chapter 24: Room 9, Again

On the first Monday in January, I walked back into Room 9 with a travel mug and a bag of new paint.

The brush jars were still on the shelf where I had left them. Somebody had watered the geraniums.

Someone had also taped a banner over the whiteboard in crooked purple letters.

WELCOME BACK MISS TIERNEY. DID YOU HAVE THE BABY.

I laughed until I had to sit on a little chair.

At nine, my whole class of second graders came through the door and stopped.

"She's back," a boy in the front said, loudly, to nobody.

"I am," I said. "Hands washed, everybody. Today we're painting."

A girl with two missing teeth raised her hand.

"Miss Tierney, is it true you were in the newspaper?"

"A little."

"My mom says you were really brave."

"Your mom is kind," I said. "Brushes first. Then talk."

They painted.

The room filled with the smell of tempera and wet paper.

I walked the rows with my mug, and my shoulders came down for the first time in months.

One boy had painted a van, black and square, with a tiny gray figure beside it.

I stopped behind his chair.

"That's a lot of black," I said.

"It's my uncle's truck. He drives for the grocery."

"It's good," I said, and moved on, my shoulders finally dropping once I was past his desk.

Not everything had finished healing.

Some nights I woke at three, scared, and checked the crib before I let myself breathe.

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