“Worry and wake the ones you love.”
Tuesday, February 6th, 3:22pm
Her phone buzzed. Megan usually switched her phone off of the Do Not Disturb setting during her fourth period planning. After a long day of teaching it was nice to see the odd text during downtime. Unlocking her phone, Megan checked to see what her little sister had sent.
<Can I call you?> Ansley always asked before calling, which bugged Megan. She didn’t know how many times she’d told Ansley just to call and if she could answer, she would.
<In ten minutes when school gets out> she texted her little sister.
Megan continued trying to design materials for her unit on The Canterbury Tales. It was slow going, and she was frustrated. Shortly before the bell rang, she packed her stuff to leave, keeping her phone in hand. She called her sister back as soon as she was able to leave the school.
“What’s up? You wanted to call?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, y’know the growths on my thyroid? The biopsy results are back from Johns Hopkins. They think it might be cancer. They aren’t sure, but they think it might be. They want to cut out that half of my thyroid.”
“Is this the way a toy feels when its batteries run dry?”
Wednesday, February 7th, 2:10pm
“They’re supposed to start The Canterbury Tales tomorrow — that’s what I’ve got planned, anyways — and I don’t want to start it. I can’t focus on anything but my sister. I feel like this is a stupid question, but how do I teach when I’m this… off?” Megan sat waiting for her CT to respond. The classes had gone well enough that day, but she had felt awful and distracted all day and she knew that her teaching had suffered; one student had asked Megan if she was okay three different times.
“You just have to do it. When I was co-teaching, I had a co-teacher tell me it was my job to entertain the kids, which I hated. But in some ways, she was right. A lot of teaching is just acting. You have to act like you’re okay. You have to be an actress, especially when things aren’t going right. Most of our students see crying as a sign of weakness, so you’ve gotta keep your shit together.”
“I submit no excuse if this is what I have to do.”
Thursday, February 8th, 11:35am
Megan dragged the box of old books and newspapers for blackout poetry into the center of the classroom. She had chosen to delay introducing The Canterbury Tales. Her official reasoning was that it would be bad to introduce it and then not be there the next day to work with the text and start reading the prologue. Unofficially, she was still freaked out about her sister, who had had an appointment with the doctor that morning, and she could not focus. Her phone was on vibrate; she wasn’t willing to put it on Do Not Disturb.
She had talked with her CT and decided to spend the day on blackout poetry aligning with the themes that her class had found in Beowulf and Grendel. The next day, they would be doing an anticipation guide for The Canterbury Tales. Megan kept telling herself that if she could just get through this week, she’d be okay. She wouldn’t even have to be there Friday — she was going to a teaching conference! Everything would settle down and she could finally focus on her teaching again. She planned to film for EdTPA next week and take the GACE, so she needed to get her life together quickly.
The class went well. Her students loved the premise of blackout poetry and worked hard on it. Then, they wrote rationales explaining their choices. But Megan still felt bad, like she had cheated them out of “real” instruction.
“Does anybody remember back when you were very young? Did you ever think that you would be this blessed?”
Friday, February 9th, 9:22am
Megan was happy to be on her way to the teaching conference. She had car troubles early in the morning, but it hardly bothered her. She was out of school for the day, she had successfully navigated teaching while totally uninvested, and her sister’s doctor’s appointment had gone well. Ansley would need surgery, yes, and they still weren’t sure about if the tumors were or weren’t cancerous, but there was a plan in place and everything was going to be okay. Megan drove with her windows down, singing along to the radio. She needed to make materials for The Canterbury Tales and that was really bugging her, but she was content to just put that off until Sunday. Megan just wanted to be able to relax for a weekend.
“I am the watch you always wear, but you forget to wind.”
Saturday, February 10th, 10:17am
“Are you going to go to another session?” asked Gina. She and Megan both had finished presenting that morning and they were sitting in the lobby of the hotel.
“No, I’m not. My boyfriend is from Athens, so I’m going to spend the day with him and his family,” Megan paused, “Hopefully we go out tonight. It’s been a really long week. My sister might have cancer and I’m not sure how well I’m coping with that. I feel like it’s messing with my teaching, and that makes me feel so guilty.” Gina nodded, listening quietly. “I’m not sure how I don’t bring that stuff into the classroom.”
“I’m sure you’re doing a good job. And your sister is going to be okay. We’ll all get through EdTPA and GACE this week and it’s gonna be fine.”
“Thanks. Yeah, I really hope so.” Megan looked at her phone. Two text messages: one from her boyfriend asking her to come over, one from her mother asking if Megan could please give her a call. Megan told her boyfriend she was on her way. She said goodbye to Gina and left for her boyfriend’s house. She forgot to respond to her mom.
“A phone call I’d rather not receive.”
Saturday, February 10th, 2:31pm
<Could you please call me?> Megan’s mom had texted her again. She and her boyfriend were driving through Athens; he was showing her where he’d grown up.
“Do you mind if I call my mom real quick? She keeps texting me.” Noah wouldn’t mind, Megan was sure of it, but she still wanted to ask. She always worried about using her phone on dates, even if this was a very casual date (if a date at all).
“Oh, sure, yeah. Go ahead. I’m gonna start driving towards my high school. This is the scenic route, so it’ll take longer.” Megan dialled her mom’s number. She answered on the first ring.
“Hi honey! How was your presentation?”
“It went really well, I think. I was pleased with it and people came to see it, so that was good. Noah and I are just exploring Athens now. What’s up?”
“Megan, your daddy and I need to talk to you about something.” Immediately, Megan felt defensive. What lecture was she about to receive?
“Okay. What’s up?”
“We need to talk to you… we need to talk to you face to face. Can you come home?”
“From Athens? Like, to Alpharetta?”
“Yes.” Megan stopped feeling defensive and started feeling scared.
“Mom, what’s going on that you need me to drive an hour and a half to hear it?”
“We just need to talk to you face to face.”
“Is Ansley okay? Is Ansley dead? What’s wrong?” Megan’s voice started cracking; Noah kept driving.
“She’s fine. Everything’s fine. You just need to come home. We need to talk to you.”
“Did Dad lose his job?”
“No, Megan. Everything is fine. Just come home.” Megan felt like she was going to be sick. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted everything to be fine. This was supposed to be her relaxing weekend. Now something was very, very wrong and her mom wouldn’t just say what it was.
“Noah, pull over.” Noah pulled into the parking lot of a playground. Megan got out of the car and started pacing in the wet grass.
“I didn’t realize you were with him right now.” Megan’s mom sounded embarrassed.
“I didn’t think it would need to be a private phone call. I didn’t think anything was wrong. You need to tell me what’s wrong.” Megan had started crying and she was having trouble breathing. She took medication for anxiety, but hadn’t packed any. She had been so sure that this would be a good weekend.
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s okay. I don’t want you driving like this. You need to calm down. Your dad and I are going to come to Athens.”
“How am I supposed to calm down?! You say everything is fine, but something is not-fine enough that you wanted me to drive home and now you’re coming here to talk to me about it. You need to tell me what’s wrong!” Megan could hear her mom whispering to her dad on the other side of the phone.
“We’re going to leave for Athens in a few minutes. I’ll let you know when we’re close and we’ll figure out where to meet.”
“You know that as soon as I get off the phone with you, I’m going to call Ansley and ask her what’s going on.” Megan’s mom paused and exhaled.
“I think she’s working. I’ll see you in an hour and a half.”
“Okay, bye.”
Megan walked back over to the car. She wanted to punch one of the trees nearby. She wanted to scream. Something was wrong, something was wrong. She opened the car door and sat down, trying to think of options for what could possibly be happening. Noah looked at her expectantly, waiting for Megan to tell him what was going on.
“I think my mom has breast cancer and she won’t tell me.” Megan hadn’t known she knew until she spoke. But it made perfect sense. Her maternal grandmother had breast cancer twice, her mom’s sister had it once — both of them got it before they were fifty. Her family had always talked about how her mom would probably get it some day. Her mom had spent the past summer looking into preventative mastectomies. “I’m going to call my sister.”
To Megan’s surprise, Ansley answered her phone.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“You’re not at work?”
“No, I’m at lunch with Sophie. What’s up?”
“Mom called me and she said she needed to talk to me and so I asked her to talk to me and she just kept saying to come home so I got upset and she said that she and dad were gonna come to Athens because we have to talk face-to-face. I told her I was gonna call you and she said you’d be working, but you’re not, so, Ansley, does Mom have breast cancer? Yes or no.”
Ansley hesitated before responding. “I think you need to talk to Mom.”
“You wouldn’t say that if I wasn’t right.”
“She wanted to tell you in person. She wanted you to have the weekend to process it, but she didn’t want to mess with your presentation. She wants you to come home so you can have some time to digest it all before you have to go teach on Monday.”
“Fuck teaching.” Scared and angry, Megan said goodbye to her sister and explained the situation to Noah, who had sat patiently, waiting. He stroked her hair and went to get toilet paper from the park bathroom so that Megan could blow her nose. She was crying hard and she called her mother back.
“Nobody plans to be half a world away at times like these — so I sat alone and waited out the night.”
Sunday, February 11th, 11:45am
Megan was about halfway home from Athens. She had decided to stay and try to salvage what was left of her weekend. When she had called her mom back Saturday, they had agreed that was best. And truthfully, Megan had been scared of the the time alone on the drive home.
She didn’t know what to do. She was driving back to her parents’ to go talk to her mom about cancer. Megan felt very alone and overwhelmed. After she finished talking to her mom, she would have a lot to do. She had planned to film EdTPA that week. She needed her supervisor to observe her that week. She was scheduled to take the GACE that week. She still hadn’t made her materials for The Canterbury Tales.
But Chaucer didn’t seem that important at the moment.
Brand New’s “Guernica” played through her car stereo on repeat.
Teaching as Storytelling 