Page 15 of Kept By the Devoted Mountain Man
He turns off the lamp. The room goes dark and the tree frogs are loud and the river is somewhere below the tree line, steady and patient, and I lie in the dark in Beckett Hale's bed in a town I arrive in six days ago and feel, for the first time in a very long time, exactly like myself.
Tessa
3 Months Later...
Thethingaboutteachingkindergarten is that September always smells the same, new crayons and anxiety and someone's lunch box that wasn't sealed properly, and this September is no different except that one of my students is currently hiding under the supply table because she does not want to do the name-writing worksheet and has made this known through a series of increasingly creative objections.
"Nora."
"I already know how to write my name."
"I know you do. The worksheet is practice."
"Practice is for things you can't do yet."
I crouch down to her level. She's sitting cross-legged under the table with her arms folded, wearing the yellow shirt she's had since June, a size too small now and she refuses to let me retire it. Her expression is the one she gets when she's committed to a position and waiting to see if I have a counterargument worth hearing.
"The fox has to practice navigation," I say. "Even when he already knows the stars."
A pause. She considers this with the gravity she brings to everything.
"That's different."
"Is it?"
Another pause. Longer.
She comes out from under the table, picks up her crayon, and writes her name on the worksheet with the focused precision of someone doing this under protest and wanting that on record.
Pickup is at three-fifteen.
I hear Beckett’s truck pull into the school loop while I'm still helping Mateo find his second boot, which has ended up in the art supply bin in a sequence of events no one can adequately explain. By the time I get the class outside Beckett is leaning against the hood with his arms crossed and Nora has already found him and is telling him something at speed, gesturing with both hands.
He sees me over her head. The scowl does the thing it does and I feel it in my heart the same way I felt it through a library window. I don't think that's going away. I never want it to.
I hand off the last of my students to their respective adults and walk over.
"How was she?" he says.
"She hid under the supply table, but we figured it out.”
He looks at Nora. She looks back at him with an expression of pure innocence that fools neither of us. "The fox has to practice," she tells him. "Even when he already knows the stars."
Beckett takes Nora's backpack off her shoulders and slings it over his own and she immediately grabs his hand and starts telling him about the paint colours they use in art and the caterpillar someone finds on the playground and the fact that her friend Maya has a dog and wants Nora to come see it, and he listens to all of it with his full attention, his thumb moving over her knuckles as they walk.
His big hand and her small one. The uneven braids. I did them this morning, I'm still not good at it, Nora insists I keep trying. Practice seems to be the theme of the day.
He looks back at me over his shoulder. "You coming?"
"I have to lock up. Ten minutes."
"We'll wait."
He’s been over protective since we found out I was expecting last week. Another little person to add to our untraditional family. We haven’t told Nora yet, but we will soon.
Dinner is Nora's choice, which this week means breakfast for dinner. She sits at the kitchen table doing the worksheet she hides from during the day while Beckett cooks and I sit on the counter and drink herbal tea and watch them both. The smell of coffee makes me nauseous now. That’s what made us buy the test.
I put my hand on my still-flat stomach and look around the cabin.
