The couple’s eyes met, and Annette conceded the point with a silent sigh.
“Still, I think we’re all in agreement that our Rosie has”—she blinked at Alfred—“how did she put it?”
“Fucked up,” Alfred supplied.
“Ah, yes. Fucked up.” Annette scrunched her powdered nose. “Normally, I don’t approve of such crude language, but the phrase does seem to fit her present situation.”
How comforting.
“How are you going to fix this, my dear?” Alfred sounded entirely convinced that Rose would, simply curious about the means she’d employ. “Do you need our assistance?”
Slowly, the bare outlines of a plan were assembling themselves for her.
It would have to be heartfelt.
It would have to be—goddammit—public.
And given the circumstances, it would have to be soon.
“Thank you for the offer.” She squeezed Alfred’s hand, then Annette’s. “But I think this is a problem I have to solve on my own.”
They seemed unsurprised.
“Let us know if that changes,” Annette said.
“However…” Rose gulped, pushed through the panic, and continued. “I may need your help with something else.”
Annette’s eyes went as round as the asparagus tarts they’d consumed several minutes before, even as her face crinkled into a huge smile. “Really?”
“Really. But that can wait until our conversation tomorrow. When I call you.” Rose got to her feet. “I need to head home now and make some plans. But thank you for welcoming me tonight. Thank you for listening and supporting me. And—”
Annette and Alfred had risen as well, and they both lunged for the tissue box as Rose’s tear ducts proved functional once more.
She choked out the rest of it. “And th-thank you for loving me.”
Annette’s arm around Rose’s waist provided support in multiple ways. So did Alfred’s loving kiss on Rose’s forehead.
“You may not have gotten a penny from our son in the divorce, but you kept us.” Annette blinked back her own tears. “We’re not going anywhere.”
During all her years as Barton’s wife, Rose had never felt so rich.
Not once.
Nineteen
As his studentslabored quietly on their end-of-year research projects, Martin checked his work e-mail for any procedural updates, which tended to arrive regularly as summer break approached. When a new message, one sent to the entire social studies department from Keisha, caught his attention, he braced.
The class rosters for each prep next year had arrived.
He and Rose—God, he could barely even think her name without doubling over—had tried their best to convince his honors kids to take her AP class next year, but it wasn’t the same as having her as their teacher for almost ten months, and they both knew it.
The attachment opened with a quiet click, and there it was.
Dale had fucked Rose over, just as he’d intended.
She had enough students for two classes of AP U.S. History next year, rather than three. A handful of Martin’s honors students had signed up, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
She was already missing the emotional connection formed through two years with those kids, the ones who reminded her of herself. The ones whose trust and willingness to push themselves—with her steadfast encouragement—she valued so intensely. The ones whose affection and respect brought meaning to her teaching career in a way that even her love of her other students, her love of her subject matter, didn’t.
