{"id":90,"date":"2013-07-20T20:46:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-20T20:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/?page_id=90"},"modified":"2025-05-04T02:54:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T02:54:03","slug":"chapter-4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/story\/chapter-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 4<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Failure is not something I\u2019m used to.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean that in an arrogant way, like I\u2019m just good at everything.\u00a0 Anyone who has ever seen me play sports knows that\u2019s not true.\u00a0 The truth is, I know myself pretty well; I\u2019m an intrapersonal type \u2013 \u201cself smart,\u201d we would call it in my classroom.\u00a0 I know I\u2019m not good at a great many things, but in knowing my own limits, my weaknesses, I also know my own strengths.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always set realistic goals for myself, and I\u2019ve always accomplished those goals.<\/i><\/p>\n

Except for one.<\/i><\/p>\n

As a teacher, I knew I had the power to make an impact on young lives, and it was an amazing feeling.\u00a0 I just never dreamed I would be in the position I am now, where my personal success or failure will impact the entire world.\u00a0 It terrifies me.\u00a0 My life is worth more than it ever was before, and I have a duty to fulfill, an obligation to the human race.<\/i><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t fail again.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Friday, April 6, 2012<\/b><\/b>
\n7 days before Infernal Friday<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, boys and girls, we\u2019re on page four now, the article called \u2018America Overseas.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Gretchen Elliott folded her copy of the weekly Time for Kids<\/i> magazine, creasing along the edge, so that she was only looking at page four.\u00a0 She watched some of her students mimic her actions at their desks and waited until they were all on the right page.\u00a0 \u201cNow, this is a pretty short title, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t give us a lot of information.\u00a0 But what else do you see on this page that could help you predict what the article is about?\u00a0 What inferences can we make?\u201d<\/p>\n

The children looked down at their articles, their eyes scanning the page.\u00a0 Some knew exactly what to look for, while others had learned merely to stare at their magazine, to look busy, when really they had not a clue what they were supposed to be doing.\u00a0 These, she noticed, suppressing a smile, would furtively look up every few seconds, their eyes shifting over to their neighbors to see what the other kids were looking at.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for the first hand to shoot up into the air, followed by a few others.\u00a0 Gretchen offered the early birds an appreciative smile, but waited another minute while she gave the rest of the class a chance to look and think.\u00a0 Then she called on a girl whom she knew had taken the task seriously.\u00a0 \u201cFaith?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s about the war,\u201d was Faith\u2019s matter-of-fact answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd why do you think so?\u201d Gretchen prompted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u2026 there\u2019s a picture of a soldier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, there is.\u00a0 How many of you made the same prediction as Faith based on that picture?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the class raised their hands.\u00a0 \u201cDoes anyone have anything else to add?\u00a0 Let\u2019s see if we can be more specific.\u00a0 What about the war?\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the hands went down.\u00a0 She gave them another few moments to scan the page again before calling on a boy named Chance.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe it\u2019s about the soldiers and their families and stuff?\u201d was Chance\u2019s answer.\u00a0 It was not the one she had been looking for, since the article was about the parts of the world in which the U.S. troops were fighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes you think that?\u201d she asked neutrally.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Cause there\u2019s a little boy with the soldier in the picture; maybe it\u2019s his kid,\u201d Chance explained.<\/p>\n

The soldier was black, the little boy Korean, but no matter, Gretchen decided.\u00a0 Families were so mixed, so untraditional these days, his assumption that they were father and son wasn\u2019t completely out of left field.\u00a0 \u201cIt could be,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cWhere could we look to find out who the people in the picture are?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUm\u2026 that sentence below the picture?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely!\u00a0 Do you remember what we call that, the words below a picture?\u201d<\/p>\n

Chance screwed up his face in thought; he couldn\u2019t remember, but many of the other students did, since they reviewed it every Friday in their weekly Time for Kids<\/i>.\u00a0 \u201cThe caption,\u201d Maddie supplied.<\/p>\n

\u201cBingo,\u201d said Gretchen.\u00a0 \u201cWho can read this caption for us?\u00a0 Kenzie?\u201d\u00a0 She called on a girl who was on the verge of spacing out, bringing her back to the lesson.\u00a0 Kenzie startled, but quickly found her place and began to read.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrivate Aaron Mar\u2026 Marshall, pictured above, bends down to greet Lee Yong\u2026 Sung?\u201d\u00a0 She stumbled over the foreign name, blinking at the page for a moment, then shook her head and continued on, \u201c\u2026 a South Korean boy.\u00a0 Marshall is one of many American soldiers who are sta\u2026 stat\u2026 stationed in\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSeoul,\u201d Gretchen supplied, knowing her third-graders would never get the correct pronunciation of that one.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeoul, the capital of South Korea, where Yong Sung lives.\u00a0 South Korea is an alley-\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlly,\u201d Gretchen corrected.<\/p>\n

\u201c-ally of the United States.\u00a0 An ally is a country that helps another country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you, Kenzie.\u00a0 So Chance, was your prediction correct?\u00a0 Is the boy in the picture the soldier\u2019s son?\u201d<\/p>\n

Put on the spot, Chance looked unsure.\u00a0 \u201cUm\u2026 no?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know?\u00a0 What did we learn from the caption Kenzie read?\u201d<\/p>\n

His eyes dropped back to his magazine.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s just some kid who lives in South Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight.\u00a0 Good example of how our inferences can change as we get more information.\u00a0 Thanks, Chance.\u00a0 Now, before we start to read the article, does anyone else have a guess about what it will be about?\u00a0 We\u2019re pretty sure it\u2019s about the war, but what else?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was nearing the end of the day on a Friday afternoon \u2013 Good Friday, actually, and the last day before a week-long spring break.\u00a0 Almost a third of the class was absent from school for \u201creligious reasons\u201d (reasons which, Gretchen was sure, included an early start to the beach for many families), and the two thirds who were physically present were starting to check out mentally.\u00a0 Gretchen didn\u2019t blame them, and when no one wanted to answer, she didn\u2019t push.\u00a0 She called on a volunteer to start reading the article and walked around the room to observe the students as they followed along.<\/p>\n

She had been teaching for eight years now, though it was only her first at this school. \u00a0Still, the last nine months had been enough to cement her opinion that third grade was absolutely the best grade to teach.\u00a0 The kids came to her with distinct personalities and a delightful sense of humor and were old enough to work independently on increasingly complex skills.\u00a0 Yet they were still so young that they looked up to her with respect and adulation, even when she made mistakes, and they did, as Cosby would phrase it, \u201csay the darndest things.\u201d\u00a0 She had been blessed with a great group of kids this year, and even now, when she could scarcely wait for her week off, she adored her class.<\/p>\n

Gretchen had wanted to teach for as long as she could remember, going back to the days when she had played school with her younger sister; she had always been the teacher, her sister, the student.\u00a0 Real school was something that had come easy to her, as someone who could be described as \u201cbook smart,\u201d and because she was also shy, she had always found it easier to interact with children than adults.\u00a0 Therefore, it seemed only natural that Gretchen follow in her mother\u2019s footsteps to become an elementary school teacher, which she had.\u00a0 She\u2019d done it the quick and easy way, taken the direct path:\u00a0 high school to college, college to classroom.\u00a0 She\u2019d gone away to school, to a four-year university known for producing excellent teachers, and graduated with her bachelor\u2019s degree in exactly four years.\u00a0 To her relief and excitement, she\u2019d landed her dream job three weeks before graduation, teaching fourth grade in the same district where she had student taught.<\/p>\n

\u201cWant me to stop here, Mrs. Elliott, or should I keep going?\u201d\u00a0 The voice of one of her third-graders, who had likely been a newborn during Gretchen\u2019s first year of teaching, snapped her back to the present, and she realized his monotonous reading had lulled her into a daydream.\u00a0 It had been happening all too often lately, whenever she was not standing at the front of the room, directly instructing the students.\u00a0 Gretchen Elliott needed a break like she\u2019d never needed it before.\u00a0 Her emotions, the recent events of her personal life, were starting to interfere.\u00a0 She could keep it together when she was in front of her class, too busy to stop and think about what had been troubling her, but in moments like these, she found her mind wandering, the thoughts that kept her awake at night creeping in.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo ahead and call on a new reader, Jeidyn,\u201d she said, glancing down at her magazine to check where he had left off.<\/p>\n

At twenty-two, Gretchen Millworth had found herself right where she\u2019d wanted to be in life:\u00a0 graduated, teaching school, living on her own.\u00a0 By twenty-five, she was searching for more.\u00a0 Her career, up to that point, had played out exactly as she had hoped, but her personal life was at a standstill.\u00a0 For three years, she had used her job as an excuse, a crutch to fall back on when people asked her about her nonexistent love life, the reason she hadn\u2019t been dating.\u00a0 She was too busy, she would claim; she didn\u2019t have time for a boyfriend.\u00a0 And anyway, she was happy being single.<\/p>\n

It had been partially true, but of course, not totally.\u00a0 The truth was, even though she\u2019d been happy with her life, she wasn\u2019t completely satisfied.\u00a0 She was halfway through her twenties, with no immediate prospects of finding \u201cthe one,\u201d and that had made her nervous.\u00a0 She had always wanted a family, even more than she had wanted to be a teacher, but with no man in her life, she had started to worry that her most important goal in life would never be fulfilled.<\/p>\n

And then she had met Shawn Elliott. \u00a0He was her age and from a similar background, having grown up in a Midwestern, middle-class family, the same as she.\u00a0 While she had been immersed in her career for three years, he had been finishing up medical school, with aspirations to be a military doctor.\u00a0 The U.S. Army had paid for his education, in exchange for two years of service, minimum, upon his graduation.\u00a0 Having watched her classmates from high school enlist and be deployed to Afghanistan following September 11, 2001, having consoled her college friends whose boyfriends served in Iraq during the War Against Terror, Gretchen had sworn never to fall in love with a soldier.\u00a0 The life of a military wife was not one she wanted for herself.\u00a0 But she\u2019d soon learned that the reason it was called \u201cfalling\u201d in love was that it happened suddenly, accidentally.\u00a0 She\u2019d had no control over it.<\/p>\n

She had fallen in love, and now here she was, Mrs. Shawn Elliott, teaching not in the Midwest, but in Atlanta, Georgia, after two years of tutoring military brats on bases across the nation and one as a first grade teacher in Maryland, where Shawn had taken a job as a researcher for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases after finishing his tour of duty.\u00a0 A year later, he\u2019d been offered a better position at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.\u00a0 They\u2019d married over the summer and moved to Georgia, where Gretchen had been lucky enough to land her current teaching position due to a last-minute opening in the district.<\/p>\n

Gretchen loved the job, loved her school and her class, but was all too relieved to say goodbye to both when 3:30 came and she was allowed to leave.\u00a0 Unlike most of the teachers, who left empty-handed, insistent on enjoying a duty-free week away from school both in body and in mind,\u00a0 she took with her a tote crammed full with papers to grade, hoping the work would help take her mind off what had been bothering her at home.\u00a0 As much as she was looking forward to the time off, she feared it would be too much time to think and worry and feel sorry for herself.<\/p>\n

At home in the modest, two-bedroom bungalow she and Shawn had purchased together, Gretchen sighed with relief as she changed out of her teaching clothes and into a pair of pajamas.\u00a0 She lived in pajamas around the house, especially now that she was pouring herself into her old clothes to go to work everyday.\u00a0 She refused to dress in maternity wear anymore, even though it was far more comfortable than the clothes which were now a size or two too small.\u00a0 If the kids had noticed this change, they hadn\u2019t said anything, though she dreaded finding a way to tell them.\u00a0 She wished the school year were over now, but it was only the beginning of April.\u00a0 They still had another two months to go.<\/p>\n

She had been twice that far along when she had told her third-graders what her friends and family had already known for a month:\u00a0 she was expecting a baby.\u00a0 Her first trimester was over, and she\u2019d gained enough weight to be showing beyond the point of hiding it anymore.\u00a0 Not that she had wanted to. \u00a0She\u2019d been bursting with excitement since finding out; it was her first pregnancy and the culmination of her dream to one day have a family of her own.\u00a0 A nurturer by nature, Gretchen was the type of woman who had been born to be a mother.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d been a little nervous about the pregnancy, of course, but hadn\u2019t anticipated any real problems.\u00a0 None of the women in her family had ever had trouble conceiving or carrying babies; they all had more than one healthy child.\u00a0 When Gretchen had realized she was pregnant at the start of the new year, after seven months of marriage in which she and Shawn had not really been trying to conceive, the two of them had joked that she must be blessed with the same fertility.<\/p>\n

Now, looking sadly at the pooch of her belly in the dresser mirror, Gretchen wondered if she had jinxed herself.<\/p>\n

The spotting had started two weeks ago, followed by heavier bleeding.\u00a0 Sick with panic, Gretchen had gone to her doctor, only to have her worst fear confirmed:\u00a0 she\u2019d had a miscarriage.\u00a0 No one knew what had caused it to happen, and Gretchen couldn\u2019t think of anything she had done wrong, yet of course she felt to blame.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Shawn didn\u2019t blame her; he had been wonderful.\u00a0 Of course he was devastated; he had been looking forward to the birth of their first child as much as she had.\u00a0 But he kept assuring her that there would be more chances, more babies.\u00a0 She just wasn\u2019t sure when she would feel up to trying again.<\/p>\n

Gretchen filled the two hours between school letting out and the end of Shawn\u2019s shift by preparing an indulgent dinner for the two of them to share.\u00a0 The only time she liked to cook was when she was bored or wanting to take her mind off something, though being a wife had brought out her domestic side.\u00a0 She timed it just about right, so that dinner was almost ready when Shawn walked in the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy spring break,\u201d he greeted her with a kiss.\u00a0 The loving gesture brought a genuine smile out of her, and she hugged her husband tightly, hoping this week would be a chance to heal for them both.\u00a0 She knew he\u2019d been hurting too and, like her, working through the pain of losing their unborn child.\u00a0 He planned to use some of his vacation days next week, while she was off, so that they could be together.\u00a0 Grieve together, she thought.\u00a0 They could share the grief the way they\u2019d shared so much else.<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201copposites attract\u201d didn\u2019t apply to Shawn and Gretchen.\u00a0 They were soulmates, in that it truly seemed as if they shared the same soul; they were alike in so many ways.\u00a0 Both were shy, reserved; they took a long time to get to know people.\u00a0 At their wedding reception, Shawn\u2019s best man had joked that he couldn\u2019t imagine what their first date had been like, with only scraping forks and chirping crickets to form conversation.\u00a0 It was a good thing they had gone to a movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always the quiet ones,\u201d their friends liked to tease them, but underneath their quiet exteriors, Gretchen and Shawn shared the same wicked sense of humor and a love of rock music.\u00a0 He was intelligent and bookish, like her, with a fair complexion, a thin, studious face, and wire-rimmed glasses.\u00a0 Everyone had always joked that if the two of them had children, they could already predict what they would be like:\u00a0 blue-eyed, brown-haired, left-handed, and incredibly near-sighted.\u00a0 Both Shawn and Gretchen were.<\/p>\n

With sadness, Gretchen wondered about the child she had lost.\u00a0 Would it have turned out like they said?\u00a0 She watched her husband push his glasses up the bridge of his nose and wearily rub at his eyes and felt her sorrow shift to him.\u00a0 He had been working long hours lately at the CDC; the government feared the use of biochemical weapons by the enemy countries in the war, and Shawn was part of a team assigned to investigate, experiment, and develop antidotes.\u00a0 Gretchen was glad he\u2019d been granted a few days off; he needed the vacation as much as she did.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo change your clothes,\u201d she told him, loosening his tie and undoing the top button of his shirt.\u00a0 \u201cDinner will be ready by the time you\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiled, a tired but grateful smile.\u00a0 \u201cWhat did I do to deserve a wife like you?\u201d<\/p>\n

His rhetoric, intended to be romantic, made her smile back, but once he had left the room, the smile faded from her lips.\u00a0 A wife like me<\/i>, she thought.\u00a0 What kind of wife would she be if she could not give him the one thing the two of them had always wanted?\u00a0 The answer came in the form of a word she had always hated, a word she had always feared.<\/p>\n

A failure.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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Chapter 4 Failure is not something I\u2019m used to.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean that in an arrogant way, like I\u2019m just good at everything.\u00a0 Anyone who has ever seen me play sports knows that\u2019s not true.\u00a0 The truth is, I know … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90\/revisions\/91"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}