Rolling in the Deep by Maher Rebecca Rogers

Author:Maher, Rebecca Rogers [Maher, Rebecca Rogers]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-11-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Holly

The walls outside the main office are brightly decorated with quilts the students have sewn themselves. It’s a point of pride for Drew’s private school that the children use real sewing needles. They like to give their students authentic experiences, the principal says—an irony that always makes me laugh. In almost every meaningful way, the lives of the privileged children here are vigilantly protected against the vagaries of the real world.

As much as I’ve wanted Drew to have the opportunities a school like this provides, I’ve worried, too. That it’s sheltered him. Encouraged him to feel like he’s better than the kids who go to public school. Like he somehow deserves more than they do. I’ll have to guard against this more than ever now that we’ve experienced this windfall of money.

Brett says he’s already told Drew about the Powerball win. I was angry at first, because I’d wanted to tell him myself, but in a way I’m glad that he knows. It means he’s had a few days to adjust to the idea that things are going to change for us. We’ve talked about it a little over Skype already, but since I never know when Brett is listening, I’ve kept the conversation very vague.

It won’t just be Daddy’s house now where he’ll have everything he needs, and I have to admit there is some satisfaction in that for me. Shallow as it is. Brett has always known exactly how much the disparity between Drew’s homes has bothered me. He never passed up an opportunity to point out those differences. But he won’t be able to hold his lifestyle over me anymore. If anything, I’ll be the wealthier parent now.

At this time of day, the hallways are hushed and quiet. All the students are in Mandarin class, or animation—the kinds of activities I never would have dreamed of as a kid.

When I was Drew’s age, nobody was available to pick me up from school. My mom worked twelve-hour shifts at Vassar, cleaning dormitory bathrooms for minimum wage. Most days, I’d walk home from school alone. I’d make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and do my homework on my own until Mom came home.

I remember the first time I went with her to work. It was a minor holiday and she had nobody to watch me. I was eager to see where she spent her day, excited at the idea of a place where learning was taken seriously. In my class, the children who worked hard were ridiculed for caring enough to try. My mother was always telling me I just needed to keep striving, that one day I could go to a school like Vassar, where hard work and studying were celebrated.

But as I shadowed my mother that day, I saw something she hadn’t prepared me for. Something maybe she was trying not to see. She had to get through the day, after all, and always said she saw no point in dwelling on the negative.

What I saw was that she was invisible to them, this woman who scrubbed their toilets.

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