The Blue Bottle Club (13 page)

"To our dreams."

Letitia raised her glass with the rest of them and cut a glance at Eleanor. She was smiling, but her eyes held the haunted look of one who knew too well the hopelessness of her own cherished dreams.

12

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

November
24,
1943

M
iss Cam-ron! Miss Cam-ron!"

Letitia turned from the window to see a dark-haired boy bouncing in his seat, his hand waving frantically. "You have to go to the bathroom
again,
Stuart?"

"No, no, no!" he said impatiently. His eyebrows met across his forehead like the wings of a crow, furrowing his little face into a scowl. "I just can't—" He threw his crayon onto the desk and folded his arms in front of him. "What's a
blessing,
anyway?"

Tish moved to the center of the room and leaned against her desk. "A blessing," she said as a dozen heads lifted to look at her, "is something good in our lives. Something we give thanks for." She paused. "Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, the day we celebrate our blessings. Can anyone give Stuart an example of a blessing?"

Timmy Marshall—in her mind Letitia called him "Timid"—raised his hand cautiously. "You mean, like, we don't have to come to school tomorrow? That's a blessing, isn't it?"

Everyone laughed. "Yes, that's a blessing," Letitia responded with a chuckle. "What else?"

"Our homes are a blessing," Cynthia Tatum chimed in with a toss of her head. She patted her blonde curls in a gesture Letitia recognized all too well. "And the food we have to eat, and our brothers and sisters—"

"My little sister ain't no blessing," someone called.

"Isn't a blessing," Tish corrected automatically.

Cynthia, however, was not to be deterred by the interruption. And our mothers and fathers, and our friends, and the big turkey we'll have for dinner tomorrow, and—"

"Very good, Cynthia. But let's give someone else a chance, all right?"

"My daddy says it would be a blessing if somebody shot that Hitler guy in the head." This came from Mickey Lawhead in the back of the room, a little hoodlum-in-training who was always going on about killing something or someone. It would be nothing short of a miracle, Tish thought, if that boy didn't end up in the federal penitentiary before he ever graduated from high school.

"Yes, Mickey," she said with an exaggerated sigh, "I've heard others say that. But let's try not to talk about killing people, just for today" She looked around the room. "Anyone else?"

"Mama says being a wife and mother is her greatest blessing," tiny Anna Shepherd ventured shyly. "She's going to have another baby in January."

Tish turned back to Stuart. "Does any of this help, Stuart?"

"I dunno." He shrugged. "I don't think I
have
any blessings, and I wouldn't know how to draw one if I knew what it was."

She patted him on the shoulder. "Well, give it a try, okay?"

Tish turned back to the window as her students resumed their artwork. Blessings. How do you communicate to a ten-year-old about blessings and thankfulness? Half these children were so poor that they barely had shoes on their feet and clothes on their backs. A few, like Stuart, came from wealthy homes but didn't comprehend the privileges they took for granted.

Still, every time she laid eyes on Stuart, her heart swelled with a mixture of conflicting emotions. He was so like his father—well-built and handsome, with dark hair and eyes, white, even teeth, and dimples that appeared when he smiled. But the smiles were few and far between, she realized. Stuart Dorn seemed like a very unhappy child.

His unhappiness manifested itself in a number of ways that stymied her as his teacher. He had an arrogant streak—one he came by honestly enough—and tended to bully the other children. And where learning was concerned, Stuart was his own worst enemy. He read well enough, but if he didn't catch on to a new concept right away, he became frustrated, even hostile. She could almost see the walls go up. With very little provocation, Stuart could sabotage the simplest of tasks—like this art assignment, to draw a representation of your blessings. Ever since the beginning of the year she had been racking her brain to find a way to help him, but to no avail.

A voice drew her out of her reverie. "Miss Cameron," Anna said in her whispery voice, "do you have any blessings?"

"Well, yes, I have lots of blessings." She turned to find every eye trained on her.

"Are you gonna have a turkey tomorrow?"

"Yes, we are—a small one. It will be just the two of us—"

"You and your
hus-band?"
Cynthia drew out the word in a singsong voice and grinned slyly, as if she knew all about what husbands and wives did on their days off.

"Me and my mother," Tish corrected.

"Your mother!" Mickey scoffed. "You still live with your
mother!
But you're so
old!"

"Of course she lives with her mother," someone called from the back. "That's what spinster schoolteachers do."

Letitia flinched at the word
spinster,
but she supposed it was true. Just turned thirty-one and still single, she would, to these ten-year-olds, seem like an old maid. A very old one.

"You're not married?" Cynthia pursued the issue like a cat toying with a mouse. "Why not? Didn't anybody ever ask you?"

Letitia considered her reply. She probably should nip this discussion of her personal life in the bud immediately, but something in her balked at the idea of putting a stop to it. Children were naturally curious; she had spent the past ten years defending that curiosity, encouraging it. Former students, now nearly grown, had written letters to her, expressing gratitude to her for teaching them how to think, how to explore for themselves. A few had even come back to thank her face to face.

"No, I'm not married," she said at last. "Some people, both women and men, choose not to get married. But single people can live fulfilling, productive, happy lives, just like married people."

"Not all married people are happy," Stuart muttered under his breath.

Letitia gazed at him, and tears filled her eyes. So that was it. Rumors circulated freely in a town this small, especially when they concerned one of the community's wealthiest and most visible citizens. She had heard the gossip about Philip's drinking, about other women, about shouting matches in the middle of the night and slammed doors and unexplained bruises on Marcella's arms and face. She had even seen Marcella a time or two—thinner than ever and deathly pale, with dark circles under her eyes.

No wonder the child showed up at school dead tired and barely able to focus. And no wonder he couldn't think of a single blessing for his Thanksgiving picture, despite the money and the social status and the big house. None of that mattered to children. What mattered to them was love.

Tish took a deep breath and composed her thoughts. "All right," she said at last, "let's talk about it." She fixed her eyes on little Stuart, who gazed up at her with an expression of unutterable pain and hopelessness. "When I was very young—"

The class came to immediate attention, and she smiled. She didn't know whether it was because they couldn't imagine her being young, or because they simply liked to be told stories, but they waited eagerly, as if they were sure this was going to be interesting.

"When I was very young," she repeated, "I was engaged to be married." A gasp went through the room. "Really?"

"Really" Letitia slid up onto the desk and sat quiet for a moment. "I thought the most wonderful thing in the world would be to marry this young man and have children."

"Like my mama," Anna interjected.

"Like your mama." Tish nodded. "But then some very bad things happened. My father died, and life got difficult for my mother and me." She shrugged. "We didn't have a lot of money, and we both had to work very hard. The marriage never happened."

"Did your heart get broken?" Cynthia asked.

"My heart hurt for a while," Tish admitted. "And I was very angry at God. I had prayed, you see, that my dreams of marrying this young man would cometrue. When they
didn't
come true, I blamed God. But later on I found out that God had something even better in mind for me."

"Somebody even better to love you, like the prince riding up to rescue Sleeping Beauty?" Cynthia, a confirmed romantic, was totally absorbed in the story. Clearly she wanted it to come out happily ever after.

"Yes, but not the way you mean." She looked toward Stuart and smiled.

"Life doesn't always turn out the way we hope," she said softly. "Stuart is right: Sometimes married people aren't happier. I discovered that I could be happier unmarried than married, that even when bad things happen, there are blessings to be enjoyed and appreciated. We just have to open our eyes to see them."

"But you never got to be a mother," Anna protested.

"I never had the opportunity to have children of
my own,"
Letitia corrected. "But look around. How many children do I have, right here in this class?"

"Twenty," Timothy answered. "I counted."

"Yes, twenty. And I've been teaching for ten years. How many does that make?"

Tish could almost see the calculations going on in little brains. A few students even scratched the numbers in crayon on the side of their art paper. At last Mickey Lawhead called out, "Two hundred!"

"Very good, Mickey. Two hundred children. That's a lot of blessings."

Stuart looked up at her, and tears stood in his eyes. "We're your blessings?"

"Oh, yes, Stuart." Letitia swallowed against the lump that had formed in her throat. "You're my blessing. All of you—and you're the best blessings anyone could ever want."

The three o'clock bell had rung, signaling the end of the school day. Letitia had said her good-byes and wished them a Happy Thanksgiving, but now, as she erased the blackboard with her back turned to the desks, she could feel a presence in the room.

She turned. Stuart Dorn still sat at his desk, his little feet banging against the legs of the chair.

"Stuart? It's time to go."

"I know."

She came to him and perched on the back of a chair. "Is something wrong?"

"Did you mean it when you said we were your blessings?" His eyes searched hers, looking for something.

Tish squeezed his arm. "Of course I meant it, Stuart. I became a teacher because I love children. At the time, I thought I would teach for a few years and then get married and have children of my own, but as I told the class earlier, that just didn't happen for me. Still, it turned out even better than I could have dreamed. I have so many children, and every one of them a blessing."

She watched his face for some sign of understanding, and her heart wrenched with love and pity. She couldn't tell him, this bright, anxious child, that he might, under different circumstances, have been her own son.

And what would she do if he were her own son, if she were the one married to Philip Dorn instead of poor Marcella? Would she have the courage to take him away, find a safe place for him and for herself, leave behind the terror and security of Philip's big house and the Dorn fortune? She'd like to think that she would protect this fragile child, that she would be the mother he needed, a tigress of a mother who would defend him and shield him from harm, no matter what the cost.

But to be perfectly honest, Letitia wasn't sure. Fortune and social status and financial security were powerful, seductive forces. Had she married Philip, she might have allowed him to browbeat her into silence and submission, as he obviously had done to Marcella. And even without the money, she might have stayed just to spare herself the humiliation of admitting the truth.

She couldn't lay the blame at Marcella's feet. And she couldn't do much about the fear and hopelessness that haunted this poor child's young life. All she could do was be his teacher—and, perhaps, his friend.

"Things are pretty tough at home, aren't they, Stuart." It wasn't a question.

His eyes widened. "It was him, wasn't it? My father. The man you almost married."

How could he have known that? Had Philip said something, in an argument with Marcella, perhaps, that the boy had overheard?

Stuart answered the question before she had a chance to ask it. "Mama said so. They were yelling, and she said that if he wanted a pretty wife, he should have married you when he had the chance." He looked up at her, and tears pooled in his big brown eyes. "Is it true?"

Letitia hesitated, but she knew what her answer had to be. She would be honest with this child if it tore her heart apart. "Yes. It was a long time ago."

A tear rolled down his cheek. "I wish—" He paused, obviously apprehensive of speaking his mind.

"Wish what?"

"I wish you were my mother." He frowned and swiped at his eyes. "Well, sort of wish it. For me, not you. It would be awful for you."

Tish put her hand under his chin and lifted his face to meet her gaze. He Wasso like Philip in some ways—when he grew up he would be handsome and charming, the most eligible bachelor in three counties. But he was unlike his father too. He was sweet and sensitive and sad. Even at this young age he worried about other peoples feelings.