different about her clothes, too, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. She wore a pair of fitted dress pants and a loose pink blouse, with a belt cinched at her waist. She didn’t look like she was hiding in her clothes anymore. She stood out.
“Hi!” she said, rising to her feet. “Poppy, I have a hook all set up for you with your name. This is where you’ll hang your backpack and your coat and your snow pants—”
“We, uh, don’t have those yet,” Billy said. “I’ll pick some up tonight.”
“I do have an extra pair she can borrow,” Grace said. “She’ll need them for recess. We have a special nature walk today, too, so...”
“Thanks.” He nodded quickly. “And I’ll make sure she has her own for tomorrow.”
Billy already felt like he was falling behind as a dad. The other little girls were wearing matching outfits in pink and purple. He looked down at Poppy with her red-and-green sweater, the pink dress poking out the bottom, and he felt a wash of regret. He should have fought harder when she was getting dressed this morning. The kids were going to be cruel.
“You dressed yourself!” Grace said, looking down at Poppy with a big smile. “Didn’t you?”
“Yep,” Poppy said quietly.
“You look wonderful. I can always tell a kid who likes to choose her own clothes. That’s great!”
Billy looked at Grace uncertainly. Was it great?
“I should have put up a bigger fight about that,” he murmured, and Grace shook her head.
“They’re four. The others won’t notice. And when I see a kid who insists on choosing her own clothes, I know that she’s got a strong spirit. That’s a good thing, Billy.”
“I hope so.”
“Relax. It’ll be fine.” Grace put her hands on her hips and regarded him for a moment. “Are you going to stay for a few minutes, or leave now?”
Billy looked down at Poppy and saw she was glancing nervously at the other kids. “You ready for me to go to work, Poppy?” he asked quietly.
“Nope,” she said with a shake of her head. “I don’t know these people.”
Grace smiled. “Your dad can stay for a little bit until you feel better, Poppy. Let’s go inside and I’ll introduce you to the other kids. Okay?”
Grace was different now, he realized. Maybe it was that she was the sun and the moon to a roomful of four-year-olds, but it leant her a certain air of confidence that she hadn’t had in years past. He hadn’t expected her to be any different from the pal he remembered when he heard that Grace Beverly was teaching this class, but his memories of her weren’t like this. Grace had blossomed.
As she started the day with her students, Billy found one adult-size chair next to a window and took a seat. Grace walked Poppy around the room, introducing her to the students individually and keeping her hand in the little girl’s the entire time. Poppy looked up at Grace with a flicker of a smile and big, adoring eyes. It looked to Billy like Grace was winning Poppy over.
“Good morning, friends,” Grace said. “We have a new friend joining us today. Her name is Poppy, and I already like her! Don’t you? Now, let’s all come to the story carpet, and we’ll get ready for the daily announcements and the pledge of allegiance.”
The kids spun in their places, dug toes into the carpet and a couple sat down during the pledge of allegiance. Grace went around, gently tugging them back to their feet and putting small hands over their chests. As she helped the children into the proper, respectful position, she was saying the words aloud with the principal over the loudspeaker.
“...and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible...”
Along the wall under the window, where Billy sat, there were letters of the alphabet on separate laminated sheets. Q. R. S. T. Large letters, separated by inches of wall, made the letters distinct and different in his mind. They didn’t jumble up like they did on a page, and Billy eyed them for a moment, mildly intrigued by his ability to differentiate them.
He understood the basic concept of letters, sounds and the combination turning into words. He looked around at the kids as Grace sat down in front of a large picture graph with different weather symbols on it.
“This morning is sunny,” Grace was saying. “Who can find the picture that tells us that it’s sunny?”
Most of these children wouldn’t even know their alphabets yet, but they would be introduced to the basics this year. An idea was forming itself in his mind. He wasn’t sure if he was crazy to even be considering this, but maybe he could start over.
Billy had given up on school and put his energy into avoiding the embarrassment. But maybe as his daughter learned, he could catch up on a few basics he’d missed, too. Maybe, just maybe, he could learn to read.
Billy pulled off his hat and looked down at it for a moment, trying to hide any expression that might be betraying his thoughts right now. He hadn’t changed in his desire to hide his illiteracy, but if he could really buckle down and learn how to read at long last...
It could change everything! He could apply for higher positions at the ranch. He’d figured he’d never be anything more than regular labor, but if he could read, he might be able to work his way up to ranch manager eventually. A whole new world would open up to him, a world of instructions, information and upward mobility.
And at the end of a long day, he could sit down with Poppy and he could read her a book. Instead of pretending that he was teasing her, making up stories that only frustrated her because she wanted him to read the book properly, he could do just that—read his little girl a story.
Billy’s heart hammered in his chest, and he realized that he’d zoned out there for a minute, because the kids were moving off to different corners of the room now, and Grace was coming toward him. Billy stood up, scanned the room and found Poppy at the puppet theater with another little girl, hand in hand.
“You could probably leave now,” Grace said quietly. “Poppy has a friend. She’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, of course.” He cleared his throat, feeling a little embarrassed not to have been the one to come to that conclusion first. “Sorry, I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Sometimes this is harder on the parents than the kids,” Grace said, putting a hand on his arm. In that moment, she was the old Grace again—the confiding pal who always saw the best in him.
“I’ll be back at three,” he said with a small smile.
Poppy didn’t even look up as Billy made his way out of the room, and he glanced back to see Grace turning toward her class, her figure outlined in the doorway. The same old Grace in so many ways, and yet she wasn’t. Then the door shut with a decisive click, and he heard Grace’s voice filtering out to him in the hallways.
“Michael P., let’s keep our hands to ourselves, please!”
Maybe Billy was crazy to think he could learn how to read, because that classroom door had just closed on his opportunity. Who was he fooling? He wasn’t a kid anymore,
