Eleven

After lunch, Denny drove Becca down the street and carried her up the steep stairs, while she held on to the crutches. She could have stayed at Preacher's house and even napped there, but she chose instead to be out of the way for at least a couple of hours. And Denny was thrilled to get her alone in that little one-room apartment over the garage. He barely had the door closed before he pulled the crutches out of her grip, whirled her around and had her on the bed, his lips hot on hers. He rolled with her until he was lying beside her, snuggling her close. They didn't even have their jackets off before his breathing was coming hard and raspy.

"Don't you have to work?" she asked in a breathless whisper.

"I'm thinking of a leave of absence," he said, pulling her shirt away from her neck so he could cover her with kisses.

"I remember this about you... You've always been so passionate. Is this normal?"

"I don't know, but I think you're going to be stuck with this now."

"Poor me..." she whispered, holding him close.

"Okay with you if I just chase you till you're about ninety?"

"Only ninety?"

"You don't know how hard it was to go to work this morning. How hard it is to think about going back this afternoon."

"I'll be here later, too." It didn't seem to be slowing him down. His hands were moving. "Go to work, Dennis."

"Ugh..."

"Do you think you'll ever have time to show me the place you work?" she asked.

He lifted his head from her neck. "Would you like to see it?"

"I would, if your boss wouldn't mind."

"She'd be thrilled. I'll take you tomorrow. Bring a book-after a tour, you'll have to wait for me to get my morning work done." He sat up reluctantly. "I'll go now, but I'll see you later." He closed his eyes briefly. "God, you smell good."

"You'd better leave before you change your mind again."

"Get a nap, Becca. Rest up." He put her crutches by the bed so she could reach them and headed for the door. "I kept you up half the night. Sleep."

That was exactly what she intended to do. She pulled the corner of the quilt over herself and with a smile on her face, she conked out immediately. When she woke, it was almost three in the afternoon. She pulled herself up, stretched and reached for the paperback that was sitting on the bedside table.

It didn't take her long to feel like getting out and the only thing she could think of was Jack's. By the time she got down the street, she noticed Danielle and Megan, walking into the church. Drawn to the kids, secretly hoping there was another activity she could help with, she followed them.

When she was inside the church doors, she heard voices. She had to manage a few stairs to get up to the sanctuary. There, at the front of the church, the pastor's wife was talking to the girls as they were taking off their coats. "Hey," Becca called to them.

"Becca!" they both said, beaming.

She made her way down the aisle. "More after-school projects?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not today," Ellie said. "The bus just dropped them off and I have work to do. I'm Noah's wife and the church secretary. While I finish up in the office, the girls are going to work on their homework in the conference room. Trevor and Jeremy are in the basement, hopefully staying out of trouble."

"I can help with homework," Becca said.

"We don't want to be any trouble, Becca," Ellie said. "You probably have better things to do."

Becca laughed. "Well, I was going to go skiing, but it's a little chilly for me."

"What about Denny?"

"Denny's working. I'll see him at dinnertime. Really, I'd be happy to help with homework. I'm great at math and spelling and reading. Almost as good as I am with crafts!"

Danielle smiled enthusiastically, but Megan's eyes shifted away and she looked unmistakably sad. Becca put a finger under her chin and drew her gaze back. "What? You don't feel like help?"

Megan shrugged. "I'm not so good, that's all."

"At what?" Becca urged.

"Just about anything. I'm not that smart."

"Well, I don't believe that for a second," she said sweetly. "If I help, maybe we'll figure out your best subjects. Almost everything gets easier with just a little coaching and practice!"

"I think that's a good idea," Ellie said. "Go on, girls. Show Becca to the conference room."

"Yay!" Becca said. "Let's play teacher and students!"

Once the girls got their homework spread out and Becca had her leg propped up, it took her about ten minutes to see that Danielle was not just up to speed on her work but perhaps ahead of her class. Megan, a year younger and only in third grade, seemed to be struggling.

Becca tried to keep her attention fairly divided between the girls, but she really trotted out all her tricks to encourage Megan. She showed her a few simple exercises that would help her with the spelling words and her reading. "If you'll copy this word ten times, sounding it out in your head when you write it, I bet when I ask you to spell it, you'll get it perfect." And, "Most of this adding and subtracting is just practice and memorizing." And, "We'll read together for a while, sounding out the words, and it will get easier every day."

There was a problem, however. While Danielle was excited about performing for Becca, Megan was dropping little bombs that didn't bode well. She said she was going to flunk. "Of course you're not-you're doing quite well with this homework!" She said her teacher hated her. "I'm sure you're wrong about that. It would be impossible to hate you-you're so delightful!" Becca said. And the one that killed her-I'm so stupid.

At first, Becca suspected the parents or siblings. It happened-words like dumb and stupid were tossed around the home and it hammered little self-esteems. But then her mind was changed.

Becca asked if she could look at some of Megan's papers. She had a folder with at least a week's worth of work tucked inside. In fact, it was a great deal of work for an eight-year-old. She flipped through the pages and saw something she didn't like. On all the papers that weren't perfect, there were painfully negative remarks from the teacher. You can do better than this! This needs work! Do this spelling test again! This is late! Frowny faces!

And on the pages that were excellent, no comment at all. Just a letter grade. A. B. No pluses, no minuses. No stars, no happy faces, no praise. No effort anywhere to encourage the child when she'd done well. Zero positive reinforcement.

Becca had a sinking feeling in her gut. This was sadly familiar to her. For her, it was fifth grade, then again when she was a junior in high school. A couple of teachers who made their impact on her by being ruthlessly negative. The fifth-grade teacher kept telling her if she wanted to get to sixth grade, she'd better apply herself. It didn't take long before she believed there was a sound chance she wouldn't promote to the next level and her stomach hurt every morning before school. The high school English teacher, who seemed to favor the boys in the class, told Becca's parents that she "wasn't college material." The family joke was that it was lucky Beverly Timm hadn't been armed! Both teachers from hell; both enjoyed long careers even though they were mean as snakes and made no effort to help.

Both times, Becca had believed her teachers hated her. What she eventually learned was that she was right! But the teachers actually disliked almost all their students and they weren't crazy about teaching, either.

Once Becca was a teacher herself, she had a closer view. The great teachers outnumbered the bad, thankfully, but it was hard to get rid of the ones who hurt. Their negative impact was so subliminal, so pervasive. So powerful!

Fortunately for Becca, there had been a few teachers who made major changes in her life with their encouragement and positive reinforcement. At the end of the day, Becca graduated from high school with good grades, though she was nowhere near competing for valedictorian. She left college with a 3.2 GPA-a completely respectable performance.

She'd gotten very good reviews on her teaching, but the feedback that meant the most to her was from the kids, most of whom seemed to strive to impress her. And there were parents of second graders who thanked her. She took that very seriously.