Tin Camp Road by Ellen Airgood

Author:Ellen Airgood [Airgood, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Mrs. Fox looked up when Laurel knocked, then glanced at the clock. “You’re Skye’s mother? Laurel?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Laurel rubbed at a smudge on her sweater, a dollop of coffee from the cup she gripped in her other hand. She’d had to stop for gas or run out and had bought the coffee at the same time. She shouldn’t have brought it in with her; it screamed careless, selfish, and sloppy, as if she cared more about her own pleasure and convenience than wasting someone else’s time.

Mrs. Fox waved her forward. “Please, come in.”

The teacher wore her mahogany hair twisted into a smooth bun that made Laurel wish her own wasn’t hanging loose and stiff from the sweat she’d worked up shoveling the car out. She’d dug and dug, sweating until she was damp and bedraggled. She wound a hank of curls around her hand and squinted apologetically.

“Thank you for coming. Though with this weather, I’d have preferred to reschedule.”

Laurel’s face heated. Skye had appeared at the door at two instead of three thirty, but that the weather might affect this meeting as well as the children’s schedule hadn’t occurred to her.

“I tried to call several times. Is the number in your file correct?” The teacher read the number from the form Laurel had filled out when she enrolled Skye in school.

Laurel set her coffee cup on the floor; her coat slipped from her arm and knocked it over and the last sips dribbled onto the tile. She blushed and draped the coat over the chair, blushed deeper when it slid off again. “Yeah, yes, that’s right,” she said as she fussed with the parka. “It’s a cell phone, we don’t have the best reception back at—back where we live. I should have turned it on. I don’t leave it on much, I hate to drain the battery, since we don’t—” She managed not to say have electricity. Her cheeks burned. “I guess it didn’t dawn on me.”

“I see.”

Laurel suspected Mrs. Fox did see, that she saw all kinds of things Laurel would’ve preferred her not to. She sat and wove her fingers together.

“Another time, check in if at all possible, please. You don’t have a landline?”

Laurel shook her head.

“Well, try to make it a habit to turn your cell on if you get into an area that has reception during the school day. I feel better if I can reach a student’s parent in case of emergency.”

Laurel swallowed and nodded.

Mrs. Fox let a beat of silence pass. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry if I messed you up. It’s just, you know, you set a time, I signed the paper.”

Mrs. Fox narrowed her eyes. “It’s a parent-teacher conference, not a summons.”

“I know. I just—” The old Lakeshore-crew phrase ricocheted in her head. “Just” was a slippery, undefinable word and justice uncertain, though neither was anything to cry about. Life dealt cards; you played them. Laurel cleared her throat. “I assumed I had to come.”

“And was that a problem?”

“No.”

“Good.” Mrs. Fox flipped a folder open and rested her hand on the papers within.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.