The Book of Lost Friends - Lisa Wingate Page 0,148

your head clear. I’ve called in a sub for your classes.”

I mumble something, the bell rings in the hall, and I wander from the office. Halfway back to my classroom, I stop and stand, shell-shocked. I realize I’m not supposed to go back to my classroom. I’m being sent home in the middle of the school day.

Kids flow past, parting around me in a strange, raucous tide, but I feel as if they’re far away, as if they don’t even touch me, as if I’ve disappeared from the world.

The halls have cleared and the tardy bell sounds before I come to myself and continue toward my classroom. Outside the door, I gather my wits before slipping in to grab my things.

There’s an aide watching my kids, I guess until the sub can arrive. Even so, they fire off questions. Where am I going? What’s wrong with me? Who will take them over to the library?

We’ll see you tomorrow. Right? Right, Miss Pooh?

The aide gives me a sympathetic look and finally starts yelling at them to shut up. I slip away and arrive home and don’t even remember how I got there. The house looks forlorn and empty, and when I open the car door, I hear the phone ring four times, then stop.

I want to run inside, rip it from the cradle, choke it with both hands, and scream into it, “What is wrong with you? Leave me alone!”

The message light is blinking on the answering machine. I touch the button like it’s the sharp end of a knife. Maybe this thing is escalating and now…whoever…is issuing anonymous threats on tape. Why would they bother when they can do their work right out in the open via the school board and Principal Pevoto?

But when the message starts, it’s Nathan. His voice is somber. He apologizes for the delay in getting the messages I left on his machine—he’s at his mother’s in Asheville. The last few days have been both his sister’s birthday and the anniversary of her death. Robin would’ve been thirty-three this year. It’s a tough time for his mom; she ended up in the hospital with blood pressure problems, but everything’s all right now. She’s back home, and a friend has come to spend some time with her.

I dial the phone number and he answers. “Nathan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” I blurt out. I don’t want to heap an additional worry on his shoulders. My job catastrophe and the school board hatchet job seem less consequential when I think of Nathan and his mother, mourning the loss of Robin. The last thing he needs right now is a Gossett fight. I’ll muster other forces. Sarge, the New Century ladies, the parents of my kids. I’ll call the newspaper, start a picket line. What’s happening is wrong.

“You okay?” he asks tentatively. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Tears grip my throat, tighten it like a vise. I’m frustrated. I’m sad. I swallow hard, pummel my forehead with the palm of my hand, thinking, Stop. “I’m fine.”

“Benny…” An undercurrent says, Come on. I know you.

It breaks me open and I pour out the story, then end with the morning’s heartbreaking conclusion, “They want to shut down the Underground project. If I don’t cooperate, I’m out of a job.”

“Listen,” he says, and I hear thumping noises in the background, like he’s in the middle of something. “I’m heading to the airport to try catching a standby flight. I’ve got to run, but Mom told me Robin was working on some kind of project before she passed away. She didn’t want my uncles there to find out about it. Don’t do anything until I get back.”

CHAPTER 25

HANNIE GOSSETT—FORT MCKAVETT, TEXAS, 1875

It’s hard to know the man sunk down in the mattress as being Mister William Gossett. Plain white sheets rumple round his body, sweated down and wrinkled in tight bunches where his hands been grabbing on and trying to wring out his pain like dirty wash water. His eyes, once blue as my grandmama’s glass beads, are closed and sunk down in sallow pits of skin. The man I remember