Stories for Second-Grade Teachers

I notice Louisa staring out the classroom window at the remaining leaves. She’s looking forward to recess, or maybe she’s remembering her mother. Frowning, she raises her hand. “Mrs. Kryzanowski,” she says. “Do you love your daughter?”

“I do.”

“Tell us.”

I’m back at work. We’re viewing paintings of the Madonna and Child. Last week we learned about autumn festivals; today I’m teaching about winter celebrations, being careful not to emphasize Christmas. In one picture, as I page through the book, I see El Greco’s Holy Family, the baby Jesus breastfeeding. He’s propped up in Mary’s arms, his legs dangling. How beautiful her breast is.

I cough. The pain isn’t bad. “Oh, Louisa, you’re trying to distract me from the lesson.” Someday she will be a doctor or actress or maybe a psychologist, I think.

She blinks and exhales the faintest of flowery sighs, puts her chin in her hand, already awaiting a story.

Shyleen sits up. “Mrs. Kryzanowski, tell us about your first date. Was it . . . magical?”

Louisa lifts her head. “What did your mother say?”

“My mother approved.” A lie. “She was a lovely woman.” True.

“Certainly,” she says, sounding like an adult, like my mother.

I tell them instead about my cat, Reginald, who has half an ear sheared off.

“Tell us that story!”

“I don’t know. He appeared on my front step. He said I should love him.” Louisa puts a hand up to her frizzed hair, questioning it. Of course, the hair has no answers. Louisa’s middle name is Rainbow. She looks like a black-eyed Susan. Dark and pretty with her transparent brown eyes.

Joey gapes; Eva smiles; Tyler squirms; Annunciata becomes tearful. She is empathetic and foresightful.

“My story is about your life.” Now they all look puzzled. “My cat survived. He wandered up to our porch and insisted on coming into our family. He curls up in my lap when I’m reading your paragraphs. He’s big and warm.”

“Does he like my writing?” Louisa asks impishly.

“He likes your papers about Cinderella and your drawings of your father laughing and your baby brother.”

“My brother is a pain.”

“You don’t always think that. Sometimes you tickle him.”

“Sometimes.”

Tyler nods. His older brother has autism. Eva also nods. Her father came back from deployment with PTSD.

Eva raises her hand to go to the bathroom, stumbles against Louisa’s desk, and Louisa’s notebook falls to the floor. They bump their heads as they try to pick it up. Louisa shrieks, “You’re clumsy.”

“You’re ugly.”

Louisa smacks the pencil on her desk. “Shut up.”

“Your mother hated you and left.”

Louisa smacks the pencil again. “Your father’s crazy.”

The burn in my chest shoots to my throat. “Girls! Stop.”

“I don’t like you!” Louisa yells to Eva, who walks out the door. “I could pee on you!”

Annunciata covers her eyes. Shyleen walks over to Louisa and gives her a hug. I take a breath. I ask the students to adjust the window shades. Eva comes back and pats Louisa’s hand, whispers in her ear. Louisa smiles.

That’s when Joey asks for another story. I ask him to tell us a story, but he says he doesn’t know any. Only Fake Butt stories. “What are those?”

He shrugs. He doesn’t know.

Eva curls her nose. “They smell bad.” Joey agrees and laughs.

Yesterday I told them the story of Scheherazade, how she saves her life by telling stories to the sultan, who is trapped in pain and memory.

Today I tell my second-graders the familiar story of Cinderella. Perhaps I should sanitize it, but I tell them that in the Grimm brothers’ version the evil sister cuts off a toe to fit into the narrow slipper. They are horrified. “Cinderella had a lot of problems, but she surmounted them.”

“What is surmounted?”

“She got on top of them and climbed higher.”

“You have problems, Mrs. Kryzanowski, now that you have cancer.”

“No, my dears, I’m a survivor. My life is good. I have you and I have stories.” They’re fascinated about my mastectomy, that pieces of the body might be cut away. I explain I’m not leaving them, that I’m fine. “The prognosis is good.”

“Are you pregnant?” Louisa asks.

“Prognosis means a guess of what will happen,” I explain.

“This will have a happy ending?” Her eyes are urgent.

Outside, the wind is rising and promises to bring snow this evening. The few dried and yellow leaves swirl against the window. “Yes.”