2: 2
2
The Westside preschool wasn't far from home, ten minutes or so on foot.
I'd chosen it carefully back then. Close to the house, nice grounds, and bilingual classes on top of that.
Barret didn't try to stop me. He just followed a step behind, matching my pace the whole way.
By the time I got there the school day was long over, and I hurried straight to my son's classroom.
The children had all gone home. Three teachers were tidying up the scattered toys and the crooked desks and chairs.
One of the women looked up as I rushed in, and asked, puzzled,
"Hello. May I ask who you are?"
The question nearly broke me.
For two years now, this same Teacher Finch had taught my son. She was his homeroom teacher.
Barret was always busy with work, so except on special days like today, I was the one who picked Jerome up. How could Teacher Finch not know who I was?
But this wasn't the time to press her on that. I grabbed her by the arm.
"Teacher Finch, have you seen Jerome? Did his grandparents come and take him home?"
She frowned, confused.
"Jerome? There's no child by that name in our class."
I wouldn't give up. My grip on her hands tightened.
"How can there not be? Jerome Fox, his name is Jerome Fox. You've had him since the youngest group."
"Teacher Finch, you've taught him for two years. How could you not know him?"
Maybe it hurt, because she winced and pulled her hands free.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, we have twenty children in this class, and none of them is named Jerome."
"Are you sure you've got the right classroom? Would you like me to go ask around for you..."
I couldn't listen anymore. I looked up, swept my eyes around the room, then went straight for the bulletin board at the back.
"How can he not be here? Jerome is a child in this class."
"Look at the big group photo at the back. Jerome has to be in it..."
When they'd started, every class's teacher had posed with all the children for a group photo, and it had hung on the back wall ever since.
But when I looked at that photo, the same wrongness from home was there.
The picture was so familiar. I knew every child and every teacher in it.
Except there was no sign of Jerome anywhere on it.
Still I wouldn't give up. I started searching the watercolor paintings and the crafts pinned to the classroom walls.
The preschool was always assigning craft projects, and every time, Jerome and I made them together.
The next day, after he brought them in, the teachers would smile and pin his work up on the wall.
I went around those walls again and again.
Nothing. Nothing. There was nothing.
Not one piece of work with my son's name on it, and no place for him in the group photo either.
My legs gave out, and I caught the edge of a desk just in time to stay standing.
Only when I stopped searching did Barret step into the room to apologize to the teacher.
"I'm so sorry about this. My wife has probably been under a lot of stress lately."
"We don't have any children. You don't need to look anymore. I'm truly sorry to have troubled you today."
Teacher Finch let out a breath.
"As long as everything's all right. I thought a child had gone missing, which would be serious."
"It's fine, sir. Your wife probably wants a baby. You're both still young. I'm sure you'll have a lovely little one."
Barret nodded and let it go, then led me, hollow and shattered, out of the preschool.
"Can we go home now?"
"Jocelyn, can you please stop this."
I lifted my head and fixed my eyes on his, and the man in front of me felt terrifyingly like a stranger.
We had a son. And he'd been lying to me all along.
I didn't believe him.
"I want to go to my parents' place."
