Page 3 of Engulfing Emma

“You’d better,” I say sarcastically. “It’s not like you won’t be seeing them every Tuesday this summer.”

“I know. I’m just going to miss you guys so much. And I’m not going to see youeveryTuesday.”

“That’s right. You’ll be busy traveling the world with that hot husband of yours. Where is he taking you this time? Paris? Rome? Morocco?”

She looks embarrassed. “Yeah.”

My jaw drops. “All three?”

“And Dubai.”

I push her toward the door. “What are you waiting for, girl? Start packing.”

She leans in for one more hug. “Have a great summer, Emma.”

“I plan on it.”

After watching Lisa walk down the first-grade hallway, I duck back into my classroom and pack up the rest of my stuff. We’re not allowed to leave anything. The school provides us with boxes, and they have people to haul them down to the basement for storage. The school is leased out for other purposes during the summer, and they don’t want our belongings cluttering up the classrooms.

I think about the coming summer. I don’t travel much, like some of the other teachers. I don’t like to fly. My summers are flexible, as I teach an online English class for high school students, so I could travel if I wanted to. I even got my passport a few years ago, intending to take a vacation to Bermuda. But I chickened out at the last minute, refusing to get on the plane. My daughter, Evelyn, doesn’t seem to mind that we don’t travel, however. She hates leaving her friends for too long, and she loves her summer camps—both the sleep-away and the one here in the city. And then there’s Mom, who probably has a thousand vacation days saved up, but she never takes them except at Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, when we do travel, it’s usually limited to long weekends.

Last summer we spent a few days at Niagara Falls. The summer before that, we rented a little cottage in Vermont for five days. The one before that, we took Evelyn to a few amusement parks along the East Coast so she could ride roller coasters.

Not exactly world travelers. But I like my life. I like the way the three of us support each other. Evelyn and my mother have always been my best friends.

I hold back more tears as I tuck the last of the drawings into my bag. My first-graders colored pictures of what they will miss the most about school. Bobby Riggs drew the jungle gym in the courtyard behind the school. Of course he did. He hates school.

Karly Hilliard drew a picture of Bobby Riggs. Poor girl has a thing for bad boys, and she’s only six years old.

Most of the other students drew pictures of a woman with long brown hair and hazel eyes.Me. They drew pictures of me when I asked them to draw what they would miss the most.

I scan the room once more before I turn off the light and shuffle slowly down the hallway.

The school is almost deserted, most of the other teachers having already cleared out their things over the past few days. I think about heading around the corner to see if Becca and Kelly are still in their classrooms, but I know that would just be prolonging the inevitable. I have to leave my favorite place on earth eventually. I might as well do it now.

When I reach the front, I look back at the long empty hallway. “Goodbye,” I say loudly, my voice echoing off the cement floor and walls. Nobody says it back, and that makes me sad.

I struggle to get my rolling cart through the front door, being careful nothing falls off inside because the doors will lock behind me and there’s nobody left to open them. It gets hung up on the floor mat. I’m leaning down to free it when I hear a commotion in the street.

Sirens are coming from both directions, and people are yelling and running. I leave the rolling cart where it is and walk down the front steps.

That turns out to be the worst decision of my life.

A guy wielding a gun walks around the corner. A few people surround him. People who look terrified.

“Do what I say, motherfucker, or I’ll shoot you,” the gunman says.

The thin man on the other end of his words holds up his hands in surrender.

The sirens get closer and the guy with the gun panics. I turn to run back up the stairs into the safety of the school. But it’s too late.

“Stop right there, lady!” he shouts.

I turn around to see him dragging his entourage of hostages closer to me. I say a silent prayer, hoping my daughter will not have to go through what I did when I was a child.

I hold my hands up, showing him I have no intention of fighting. “W-what do you w-want?”

He waves his gun at the door that’s still propped open by my cart. “Is there anyone in there?”

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