This wouldn’t be good news, Tom thought. Droog Dragul (not a shock that he was called Dracula, was it?) had the face of a medieval monk—tortured, pale and severe. He looked even more depressed than usual.
“Dee cheeldren of dis school,” Droog said in his thick accent. He sighed. “Dey are so...” Tom winced, fearing the next phrase would be well fed or iron-rich. “Dey are so unfocused.” Phew.
“Most of them, anyway,” Tom said. “I’ve got one or two good students.”
“Yes.” His boss sighed. “And you heff such a vay vith the ladies, Tom. Perhaps we can heff beer and you can give pointers.”
“It’s the accent, mate,” Tom said.
“Mine does not seem to heff same effect, for some reason. Eh heh heh heh heh!”
Tom winced, then smiled. Droog was a good guy. Strange, but nice enough. In the month since Tom had been teaching here, they’d had dinner once, gone out for beer and pool twice, and if the experience had been odd, it seemed that Droog had a good heart.
His boss sighed and sat down, tapping his long fingers on the desk. “Tom, I am afraid I heff bad news. Vee von’t be able to renew your vork visa.”
Tom inhaled sharply. The only reason he’d taken this job was for the work visa. “That was a condition of my employment.”
“I em aware. But dee budget...it is too overtaxed for dee court fees.”
“I thought you said it’d be no problem.”
“I vas wrong. They heff reconsidered.”
Tom felt his jaw locking. “I see.”
“Vee value your teaching abilities and experience, Tom. Perhaps you vill find another way. Vee can give you till end of semester.” He paused. “I em sorry. Very much so.”
Tom nodded. “Thanks, mate.” It wasn’t Droog’s fault. But shit.
Dr. Dragul left, and Tom sat at his desk another few minutes. Finding another job in February was unlikely. Wickham College had been the only place in western New York looking for an engineering professor, and Tom had been lucky to get the job as fast as he did. It wasn’t a prestigious place, not by a long shot, but that wasn’t really the point. This time around, it was all about location.
He couldn’t keep his job without a work visa, though it wasn’t like Immigration would be breathing down his neck; an employed professor was less of a concern than most of their cases. Still, the college wasn’t going to keep him on illegally.
If he was going to stay, he needed a green card.
Fast.
But first to the rather shabby house he’d just rented, and then to the much better bar down the street. A drink was definitely required.
* * *
A FEW NIGHTS later, Tom sat in the kitchen of his great-aunt Candace’s kitchen, drinking tea. Only Brits could make decent tea, and though Candace had lived in the States for at least six decades, she hadn’t lost the touch.
“That Melissa,” Aunt Candace said darkly. “She messed everything up, didn’t she?”
“Well. Let’s not speak ill of the dead.”
“But I’ll miss you! And what about Charlie? How old is he now? Twelve?”
“Fourteen.” His unofficial stepson had been ten when Tom met him. Hard to reconcile that talkative, happy little boy with the sullen teenager who barely spoke these days.
A fleeting pain lanced through his chest. Charlie wouldn’t miss him, that seemed certain. One of those situations where Tom wasn’t sure if he was doing any good whatsoever, or if, in fact, his presence made things worse. Melissa, Charlie’s mother, was dead, and her brief engagement to Tom qualified him as nothing in the boy’s life today, even though Charlie had been just a few months away from becoming Tom’s stepson.
Whatever the case, Tom didn’t have much choice about whether or not he was staying in the States. He’d emailed his old department head in England, who wrote right back saying they’d take Tom back in a heartbeat. There weren’t any other colleges in western New York looking for someone with his credentials. And teaching was what he loved (when the students were actually interested in the subject matter, that was).
And so, Tom had decided to drive to Pennsylvania, visit the only relative he had in this country and start the goodbye process. He’d been in the States for four years now, and Aunt Candace had been good to him. Not to mention delirious with joy when he called after his last class to see if she was free for dinner. He even took her to the mall so she could buy a coat, proving a fact Tom firmly believed—he was a bloody saint.
“Here. Have more pie, darling.” She pushed the dish across the table toward him, and Tom helped himself.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Lovely town, Manningsport,” she said. “I lived near there as a child, did you know that?”
“So you told me,” Tom said. His lovely old aunt could bake, that was certain.
“Finish that pie, you might as well. I’m prediabetic or some such nonsense. Then again, I’m also eighty-two years old. Life without dessert is too horrible to contemplate. I’ll just overdose on caramel corn and die with a smile on my face. What was I saying again?”
“You used to live near Manningsport.”
“Yes, that’s right! Just for a few years. My mother was a widow, you see. My father died of pneumonia, and so she packed my brother and me up and came to America. Elsbeth, your grandmother, was already married, so she stayed in Manchester with her husband, of course. Your grandfather. But I remember the crossing, seeing the Statue of Liberty. I was seven years old. Oh, it was thrilling!” She smiled and took a sip of tea.
“So that’s how you became a Yank?” Tom asked.
She nodded. “We lived in Corning, and she met my stepfather, and he adopted Peter and me.”
“I never knew that,” Tom said.
“He was a lovely man. A farmer. Sometimes I’d go with him to deliver milk.” Candace smiled. “Anyway, we moved after my brother died in the war. I was fifteen then. But I still have a friend there. More of a pen pal, do you know what that is?”
Tom smiled. “I do.”
“A pity you have to leave. It’s beautiful there.” Candy’s gaze suddenly sharpened. “Tom, dear...if you really want to stay in the States, you can always marry an American.”
“That’s illegal, Auntie.”
“Oh, pooh.”
He laughed. “I can’t see myself going that far,” he said. “It might be different if—well. It’s not an option.”
It might be if Charlie actually wanted him to stay. Needed him. If Tom were anything but a thorn in Charlie’s
