Chapter 22
My shoulders shook.
Tears stung my eyes.
* * * *
I went to work that morning after my father’s body was picked up by Wheeler & Sons funeral services and driven away for cremation. Five hours later, I was standing in front of my creative writing students, waiting to discuss today’s reading assignment.
Papers rustled, and the spines of students’ textbooks cracked open for the first time that semester. I scanned the dozen faces staring back at me. I smiled demurely, walking around from behind the podium, and sitting on the edge of the table. My eye caught an arch of white light glinting off a pocket of glass from one of the windows in the back of the room. As if it was winking back at me, it felt like a small hope of faith that it was my father’s spirit.
I turned my attention to the room and noticed Robert Gallagher sitting upright in his chair in the second row, nodding at me, holding a pencil in his left hand, his notebook opened to a clean sheet of paper, ready to take notes.