Page 37 of Play the Last Card
From somewhere in my car, probably lodged deep in my bag, my last alarm of the morning rings out and breaks us apart.
“I really do have to go now.”
“Okay.” He places a final kiss against my lips before opening the driver side door for me to slide into the car. I take the coffee and the small bag from the roof of the car and slide in. Tapping the push start button in the car, I press down the window and gaze up at him. He leans down, his cap securely back on his head. “I’ll see you tonight.”
I nod. “See you.”
He backs away from the car and I back out of the driveway.
The twenty minute drive to the school is mostly spent sitting in traffic, completely unaware of my surroundings and, once again, my finger tracing my lips with a soft smile.
***
I give up on trying to teach the kids about numbers before lunch. After this morning, I’ve found it difficult to concentrate on anything but Scott Harvey and his lips. The kids won’t stop giggling, the grey clouds have been threatening me with a lunchtime spent inside the classroom and as soon as those first drops of rain run down the windows I officially call it.
The paints come out, the kids are dressed in multi-colored protective plastic smocks, music plays on the speaker, and I slowly trail between the bunches of desks, eyes roaming over the finger paintings they are creating.
I asked them to draw their heroes in an effort to try and make it semi-educational. But as I justified to myself after a lunchtime spent indoors, they are five-year-olds and everything they do is educational.
“Who are you painting, Macy?” I ask bending down to her level. Macy is a quiet girl who sits on a table full of boys. When I’d let them pick their own desks at the beginning of the school year a few weeks ago I found it strange at first, mostly because they all think the opposite gender have cooties at this age, but when I finally met her dad during the first week of school, I understood.
Four older brothers, raised by a single dad and her uncle. Her mom had died a few months ago. Breast cancer. She takes comfort in being surrounded by the boys; they remind her of her brothers.
“It’s my daddy,” she tells me, her little fingers tracing the outline of the stick figure she drew. There is another next to him, smaller, with yellow hair. I know who it probably is, but I ask anyway.
“And who’s this?”
“My momma,” she tells me, chin tucking into her chest.
I twirl some of her hair around my finger, waiting for her to look up. “She’s very pretty. You have the same hair.”
Macy gives me a small smile. “My daddy says I look just like her. He says she was beautiful.”
“I reckon he’s probably right.”
Macy nods in agreement and goes back to her painting. I look around at the drawings of her table mates.
Like Macy, most look to be drawing their parents. An ache spreads through my chest. A memory of my own parents, happy and alive, clouds my mind and for a second I can hear the echo of my dad’s voice in my head. Explaining plays, talking to my mom, talking to me. Words I heard over and over whenever I poured over the home videos they made.
I close my eyes for a moment, inhaling and exhaling a few times.
When I open them, blinking away a tear, I look at the boy next to Macy.
Connor is only painting one very large figure in the middle of his page. The figure has what looks like brown hair, although Connor's mixed it with the blue he’s used for the figure’s shirt so I can’t quitetell.
“Who’s this, Connor?” I squint, leaning my head side to side, trying to make out the emblem he’s drawn on the figure’s shirt. I realize it’s a Broncos logo. It makes me laugh. “Do you know a football player?”
I tap my figure lightly on his page, drawing his eyes to the emblem. Connor shakes his head, brow furrowed as he continues to work on the figure’s hair. Connor, I’ve discovered, isn’t very chatty.
“Do you have an older sibling who plays football?”
“No, Miss Booker,” he replies. His tongue is now poking between his teeth as he works on the figure’s shoes.
“Who are you painting then?” I ask again.
“My favorite football player ever.” He sits back in his chair. I lean back on my heels, still squatting beside their table. “He just got traded to the Broncos. Grandpa says he’ll take me to a home game before Christmas. I’m gonna meet him.”
“And what’s his name?”