The Choices They Chose

Preface

I have long considered publishing this story. Should I? If I do, feel I need to open with a warning. Why? This is not a feel-good story. I have removed identifiers, but it is true. Some may connect, relive an aspect of their lives they wish to bury in the past. I apologize.

I asked several if I should post and all, oddly, responded with a question, “why?” To me, the answer is obvious. First, it is a story about how decisions, a decision, can influence the moment, and I suspect one’s future. Second, teachers do more than create lesson plans, present materials, and grade. Simplistic, I realize, but there is an “underbelly” to our world. A great deal of joy, satisfaction as we “educate” our students, true but also sadness. There are moments we take home, those that wake us, me during the night, and some we carry with us for years and we hold on to, think about. I do. Some teachers may compartmentalize, true, but those Voices In My Head are nearby floating to the top. I have several such stories. This is but one.

I may be retired, still. As school years culminate, the Voices In My Head begin to rattle-about, the good, the bad, and the upsetting. I have avoided the following account multiple times because, in reality, I know not how it concludes. You soon will understand my plight, my vexation. Consider this a warning. This story is NOT for the faint of heart.

There arrives a time when we all realize the school year is coming to a close, students, parents, teachers, administrators, and specialist. You can feel it. It is a palpable vibrancy.

The first time my uncle took me horseback riding, he warned the last mile was the most dangerous. Why? I probed. Silence.

The end of the ride is approaching. What should I expect? Everything is fine.

Looking back, I would have appreciated a little more input. I turned the corner, exited the woods, and their barn was in sight. Suddenly, the horse went from a genteel walk to a full out gallop. This horse was not the least bit interested in my vocal commands or my feeble attempt to hold him back. My uncle enjoys experiential lessons. Grab the saddle horn, squeeze the horse with all your might. This I heard from afar. The stable hands working at the stables yelling something, waving. They seemed perturbed. Slow down. My uncle trotting in simply noted, “I warned you.”

As school concludes, there are many moving parts to be addressed. Dates and expectation, the what, when and how. Behaviors to be reined in as students see the end approaching. Day 180 nears. End of year stuff piles up. Yearbook signings, parties, way too many movies, final grades, my classes previously warned from Day 1 that on Day 180 there would be a Final Exam which would impact their final grades and mailed home, to their parent during summer break, with summer homework. Greeted with a collective groan. I was that teacher. The one with a silent classroom.

There was a knock on the apartment door and a decision to be made.

It was a sunny day, perhaps on the warm side, backpack slung over the shoulder. The bus bay filled with students, with friends seeking and entering their bus to be transported throughout the west side community filled with homes and apartments. Streets and apartment complexes teeming with residences and strangers alike. All headed somewhere. Adults and now children are homeward bound to be greeted by parents, babysitters, neighbors, some latchkey kids, locked doors.

She would soon be twelve, moving on to 7th grade. Academically and socially mature, quiet but not timid, able to converse with adults and interact with her peers equally well. At the apartment, exited with friends walking, engaged in a last conversation, arrived at her apartment where she entered her residence. A snack waiting, a quick call to let mom know she was home, then to her room to finish homework already started while at school. She knew the rules, stay inside and let no one in.

Each day as mom exited, heading to work, gave her daughter a hug and kiss and reminded her to take care and have a good day at school. An established routine. Saw her daughter off book-bag hung over her shoulder, headed to the bus stop, there greeting neighbor kids, safe, on their way to school. Like many parents in a tough economy, headed to work. That evening to return home, prepare dinner, eat, and share their respective days as day turned to night. Safe behind a closed door. Typical. Lights shining from front windows sharing a clustered community. In a few hours, repeat. Nevermore.

How many times have you given the stranger danger speech?

Surprised, her attention drawn to a knock at the door. Looking through the peephole, the door-viewer saw a young man, well dressed, looking back. His story, I don’t know. Wanted to return mail left at his apartment? Was this her loss kitten? Looking for an address, it does not matter. It all seemed so innocent. People around, middle of the day. And certainly the chain would keep danger out. She makes a spur-of-the-moment decision. She opens the door.

It all happens in seconds. The chain pulled from the frame. She’s pushed back, and he is inside, with a simple threat, make a noise and I’ll kill you! Tell anyone and I’ll come back and kill your parents.

The next day, the team with the principal and counselors were called to the conference room with a police officer. This unknown assailant had raped her.

Details remained sketchy. We sat horrified, tears shed, the future uncertain, each filled with unanswerable questions. If she returned, how do we behave? What should we be aware of? Normal? How will she respond to male teachers?

Absent for several days, we waited until notified…

She will be back on Monday.

She was quieter. She struggled to make eye contact with adults. With the school year ending, her parents withdrew her from school early. Academically, she was fine.

She did not return the following year. And last night, as I tossed and turned, the TV humming in the background felt the sadness I experienced in the conference room that dreadful morning. For most in the profession, we teach because we care. We celebrate the good, handle the bad, but the unsettling we relive.

I dislike open-ended stories, leaving me wondering, feeling empty. A feeling that lingers.

Epilogue

As I edited and reedited realize I made an oversight, a blunder, a careless, blatant mistake involving my original reasoning. Like a fool, I saw her decision as the end of the story. I was wrong. Hers was a beginning, one that could never fade. A memory lodged deep in her soul, a scar never to lessen.

A guilt-ridden mother providing a livelihood for, while unable to protect her child from a predator. Tears shed crowding out the pain, never able to expunge the guilt, wondering silently, if only.

Choices made were a long-time coming, leading to a knock on a door. Someone approached… planned this premeditated encounter, someone lacking character… possessing a seared conscience? This evil is perhaps still present, married with children, a daughter, or clueless to the lives he damaged, or has this become a distant memory he has buried, I can never know this person’s story, why they made the choices they chose.