She worked twice as hard as anyone Joel knew, and yet she gained no notoriety, no wealth or prestige.
Melody had wondered where his mother’s money went, and it was a good question. His mother worked long hours. So where did their money go? Was his mother saving it all?
Or was there something else? An expense Joel had never considered.…
He sat upright, feeling a chill. “The principal didn’t really give me free admittance to Armedius, did he? That’s just what you tell me, to keep me from feeling guilty. You’re paying for me to go here.”
“What?” his mother asked, still scrubbing. “I could never afford that.”
“Mother, you work double shifts most days. That money has to be going somewhere.”
She snorted. “Even with double shifts, I couldn’t afford this place. Do you have any idea how much in tuition most of those parents pay?”
Joel thought for a moment, remembering that Melody had spoken of a student who got ten dollars a week in allowance. If that much was simple spending money, then how much were they paying for the students to go to Armedius?
Joel didn’t want to know.
“So, where does it go?” he asked. “Why work all these extra hours?”
She didn’t look up. “Your father left more than a family behind when he died, Joel.”
“What does that mean?”
“We have debts,” she said, continuing to scrub. “It’s really nothing for you to worry about.”
“Father was a chalkmaker,” Joel said. “His workroom was provided by the school, as were his materials. Where did he get debts?”
“From a lot of different things,” she said, scrubbing a little bit harder. “He traveled a lot, meeting with Rithmatists and talking about their work. The springrail wasn’t as cheap then as it is now. Plus there were the books, the supplies, the time off to work on his various projects. He got some from Principal York, but he got the greater part from outside sources. The type of men who would lend money to a poor craftsman like your father … well, they aren’t the kind of men you can ignore when they come asking for payment.”
“How much?”
“It doesn’t matter to you.”
“I want to know.”
His mother glanced at him, meeting his eyes. “This is my burden, Joel. I’m not going to have it ruining your life. You’ll be able to start fresh and clean with a good education, thanks to Principal York. I’ll deal with your father’s problems.”
Obviously, she considered that the end of the conversation. She turned back to her scrubbing.
“What did Father spend all that time working on?” Joel asked, attacking a section of floor. “He must have believed in it a lot, if he was willing to risk so much.”
“I didn’t understand a lot of his theories,” she said. “You know how he would go on, talking about chalk composition percentages. He thought he was going to change the world with his chalk. I believed in him, Master help me.”
The room fell silent, save for the sound of brushes against stone.
“It was his goal to send you to Armedius, you know,” she said softly. “He wanted to be able to afford to send you here, to study. I think that’s why Principal York gave you the scholarship.”
“Is that why you always get so mad at me for not doing well in my classes?”
“That’s part of it. Oh, Joel. Don’t you see? I just want you to have a better life than we did. Your father … he sacrificed so much. He might have made it, too, if his blasted research hadn’t ended up costing his life.”
Joel cocked his head. “He got wounded in a springrail accident.”
She paused. “Yes. That’s what I meant. If he hadn’t been out traveling on one of his projects, he wouldn’t have been on the train when it derailed.”
Joel eyed her. “Mother,” he said. “Father did die from a springrail accident, didn’t he?”
“You saw him in the hospital, Joel. You sat with him while he died.”
Joel frowned, but couldn’t dispute that fact. He remembered the sterile rooms, the physicians bustling about, the medications they gave his father and the surgeries they did on his crushed legs. Joel also remembered the forced optimism they’d all displayed when telling Joel that his father would get better.
They’d known he would die. Joel could see it now—they’d all known, even his mother. Only the eight-year-old Joel had hoped, thinking—no, knowing—that his father would eventually wake up and be just fine.
The accident had happened the third of July. Joel had spent the fourth—the day of inception—at