Page 18 (1/2)

ONE

"Mo, so I need to call you back," Mia said, looking around as she navigated the right turn out of the high school parking lot

"You should have said sohs

"I know," Mia said, trying to keep her voice level and patient "I'll call you as soon as I get back home, Maoodbye before ending the call Mia set her phone down on the seat next to her and turned the stereo up She could feel fatigue in every muscle of her body "I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of time anomaly that only exists at that daht It seeer, every weekend just a little bit shorter

Mia yawned, blinking her eyes a few ties of her vision It see that she had to do next; if she wasn't rushing to get papers graded during her lunch break, she was hurrying to the store to pick so by the old house towas okay there She barely even spent tih the teeth for

"Just a few et hoet laundry in the washer, and call her mom back Then she would park herself on the couch, unload the papers she had stuffed into her backpack to grade, and catch up on the series she was following If she was lucky, she ht Mia yawned, longing for the coffee she had left behind at her desk

As she slipped into the routine drive hoh attention to the world around her toto run into anyone, but she couldn't help going over the list of things she had to get done that week-especially those she had to do over the weekend Three years before, when she had graduated college, Mia had thought that the best possible use of her talent would be to work at an underprivileged school; there was a prograiven if she taught for five years at a school that was registered on the program, and at the time she had been convinced that it would be the best way for her to put her degree to use

At first, her decision seemed vindicated The students responded to her, and she had won an award at the end of her first year for bringing up the test scores for her classes over the course of the school term Her mother had come to the cereood work Knowing that in four more years her student loans would be paid off, Mia had enjoyed her su development classes happily

But as she started into her second year, Mia's responsibilities had piled up She had moved out of her mother's house over the suo quite as far as she needed thee, or some extra cost on her bills No matter how she tried to save on her electricity, it went up inexorably Mia had taken refuge in her work, but had quickly discovered that anyone who had performed well in their first year as a teacher was invariably asked and pressured into doing as much as possible

She started spending longer days at school, taking part in co volunteered for this or that task, this or that group Her students in her second year were not as easy as her first; sothe material, and Mia had had to keep a sharp eye on the papers they turned in-more than half of the first-week papers had been co to copy-paste an essay about how they spent their su to do when it co?

Late in the year, her mother had fallen ill At first, it had just been flu-like symptoms She had been tired all the time, with headaches that came and ith little rhyme or reason One appointment after another with one doctor after another resulted in nothing; and Mia had found herself sucked into heralmost as much time at her parents' old hoed to keep up with her work as the spring se her break, she had been with hercare of her, cooking for her

Finally, as sunosis The disease wasn't in and of itself deadly, but it was progressing unusually fast, and Mia'swith it poorly More than once, Mia had wished- else before in her life-that her dad could somehow still be around, still be alive for her mom If her dad were there, the burden wouldn't be so ht be able to bear her deteriorating health better