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On the contrary, the meeting is to inform me that the school’s counsel will be taking on my case.
I protest to the trustees. “I’ve created this mess and I’m determined to do this on my own.”
Mr. Rushmore shakes his head, as does everyone else up on the dais in front of me. “Ms. Moody, you are not going to do this on your own.”
“I can make it go away. I don’t need you to swoop in like you always do. All due respect.”
Rushmore narrows his eyes at me and repeats my phrase back to me. “All due respect, you routinely take on too much. I did not get where I am today by refusing help.”
“Sir,” I start.
He shakes his head. “We pay a lot of money for the school lawyers. And they are here to cover my ass as well as yours. I don’t want to hear any more from you about this. End of discussion.”
Immediately after this board of trustees meeting, Rushmore introduces me to the school’s retained lawyer, who introduces herself as Ms. Degrassi, yet another parent of a student at my school. She steers me into a corner for a quick meeting.
She is cold and serious and not at all the balm that I was expecting after having spoken to Rushmore.
“I don’t want to waste a lot of the school’s time, but take my advice. For the sake of your job, for the sake of the school, for the sake of saving us all a lot of bad press, and to make the Chamberlains go away, I’m asking you to leave the statue up.”
Well, that didn’t take long for things to go sideways with my own attorney.
I stare at her for a long moment. This woman is so brusque and bossy and so assured that she’s right, I don’t have time to react. So, out of nowhere I blurt out a laugh. I have to. I’m so tired and emotionally wrung out, I’m punch drunk. It bubbles in my belly and then pops its way up my throat and soon I’m feeling a tickle in my throat.
“What’s so funny?” she asks.
I shake my head and my shoulders tremble because I can’t speak my words yet. Finally, I ramble through my thoughts while fighting off the giggles. This is very unlike me, but goddamn, I’m so tired. “I just think it’s funny that you, the attorney who’s here to protect me, might be just as big of an asshole as the people suing me…and the opposing counsel…well he’s a very nice man who used to be a student of mine…and he’s been the kindest to me through this entire ordeal. Maybe it’s stress, I don't know…but it’s all very ironic, don’t you think?”
Ms. Degrassi puts her hands up in a gesture of exasperation and tells me she’ll be in touch.
I’m so wrung out by the time I reach my car that I realize I’ve completely forgotten about Miles’s text to me.
I finally look at it and it says, Hope you have a good day. Stay strong.
But I’m not strong. I’m completely done.
Sitting in my car, the same car I sat in eight years ago and allowed a student to kiss me and touch me and…oh lord what had I been thinking? I text him back.
Terrible day. Tired of being strong.
His reply comes in seconds. Go home. Some pampering is coming your way.
10
Miles
I arrive in the middle of a thunderstorm, thankful that it’s dark enough and stormy enough that nosy neighbors most likely won’t be watching.
Martha looks at me through the glass on the side of the front door, the small overhang on the porch keeping me from getting any more soaked than I already am. Her arms are crossed in front of her, and she looks apprehensive. Finally she opens the door and looks at me hard.
“Are you going to let me in?”
She bites her lip. “This is probably not okay, you visiting me like this.”
“No, it’s not. But that makes it even harder to stay away.”
She doesn’t say anything and for a few seconds I think this is it. I should just go home.
But then, she holds the door open and I step inside.
