Then, before she let herself think too hard about it, she rushed down the hall to the social studies office to see whether Martin had arrived yet.
Just because he hadn’t visited her classroom early in the morning for the first time in months didn’t mean something had gone wrong. That he was out sick with a terrible illness, alone and feverish and delirious. Or that he’d crashed his car on his way to work and was even now lying unconscious and bleeding in some awful emergency room.
Or that he’d simply grown tired of her company. Given up on her once and for all.
She flung open the social studies office door. No Martin.
Another dash back to her classroom, as her gathering students watched her with startled confusion. When she peered out her window, she didn’t see his Subaru in his usual spot. So with two minutes to spare before she needed to start teaching, she rushed to Keisha’s room.
The department chair, standing in the doorway to greet her own students, reared back in surprise at the sight of Rose jogging toward her. “Ms. Owens, what on earth is the matter?”
Damn, running in heels sucked. Rose was panting and possibly even a bit sweaty, which would usually dismay her. But this morning, she had more important issues to consider.
“Is Martin okay?” she gasped out. “I can’t find him.”
Keisha’s eyebrows rose. “He’s having back issues. He’s out today and maybe the rest of the week.”
Thank God.
Although…oh, he must be in terrible pain not to come to school, given the circumstances.
“But…” Rose leaned forward, bracing her hands on her thighs. “But the AP test is coming up in a couple weeks, and I know he’s trying to review as much as he can beforehand. A random sub won’t be able to help much with that. Martin must be horrified.”
“Be that as it may, he’s in no condition to come to school, so we called a sub.” Keisha glanced at the clock on the wall. “There really aren’t a lot of other options.”
Shit. Rose needed to go. Now.
“His AP classes are during my planning periods. I’ll take them. The sub can get everything else.” She hobbled toward the door. “Please e-mail me his substitute lesson plans if you can.”
Keisha’s eyebrows essentially disappeared into her hairline. “I will.”
True to her word, Rose’s supervisor had sent the lesson plans before second period began. So after approximately fifteen minutes of prep—conducted while she had her kids work independently on a review packet for the state standardized test, also coming soon—she stood in front of the AP World History class, introduced herself, and did her best to channel Martin. Then conducted more of her own classes before taking over his other AP class for seventh period.
All told, during the day, she had a twenty-five minute break for lunch. That was it.
By the time the last bell rang, she could barely move. But instead of staying at school to grade and plan, and instead of driving home to stare blankly at a wall for a few hours, she flipped through the staff directory and programmed a new address into her phone’s GPS.
Martin’s home.
She locked her classroom door two minutes after the students left, ran to the parking lot in hopes of beating the buses—because once they started pulling out, no one was going anywhere for a loooong time—climbed into her car, and started the engine.
Then promptly turned it off again.
Bea was probably helping to take care of him after school. Or maybe his ex-wife or his buddies or someone else from the department. Martin wasn’t like Rose. He didn’t isolate himself.
He didn’t need her.
Of course he didn’t need her.
Then again, he’d lived in Marysburg less than a year. He hated to bother people. As far as she knew, he didn’t go get coffee with any of the other teachers. And Bea spent every other week at her mother’s home.
Fuck it, Rose was going.
Once she pulled into his driveway, a glaring omission in her half-assed plan occurred to her. If his back was too painful for him to attend school, how the hell was he supposed to answer the door?
Bea. Bea could help.
She pulled up the girl’s number—at some point during their dinner at Milano, Bea had given it to her “just in case”—and called.
