Tessie D

I told Momma and Daddy last night that I’d head over after school today to see about the job at the diner. They both seemed relieved. As if I’d lifted something heavy off their chests.

They were talking to each other this morning. Momma said something about going out this weekend just the two of them and Daddy said that was okay. The phone is still ringing off the hook and the creditors are still calling but I guess they see a way out now. Daddy got up from the table this morning and went out to the barn to work a little bit on the tractor. He’s trying to get it going again. Now that we’ll be able to afford fertilizer for the field.

I just feel frustrated. Where is all of this…momentum… when we need it? Before we need it? 

I’m probably being too hard on them. It’s not that they don’t try. 

Momma does the best she can to take care of us, to make enough money. But, there are only so many hours in the day. She can only work so many shifts before she must physically stop to rest and sleep. I know that she’d work more if she could. But, there’s never enough time or energy to make enough money. 

It’s more than that, though. 

Why couldn’t Momma have become a doctor instead of a nurse? She was smart enough for it. But, when I asked her about it when I was younger, she told me that she couldn’t got to medical school because she wasn’t good enough at math and science to be a doctor. 

I don’t know if that’s entirely true. I don’t know what my grandfather or Momma’s teachers told her when she was growing up.

But, I know what my teachers tell me.

I know, that when I was in Physics last year, there were four girls and sixteen boys.

I know that the girls sat on the front row and that James sat behind me, and when nobody was looking, he popped my bra strap like we’re in fourth grade again. Or, that when I got my period and bled through my sweatpants, he pointed it out. I didn’t know why they were pointing and laughing until I got to the bathroom a few hours later.

Or, when I got a problem wrong, he whispered into my back that I need to be quiet and let the men do all the thinking. And, I got a lot of problems wrong. I had the worst grades in the course. But, I didn’t have a calculator because it cost $75, so I was doing all of the problems by hand. I made a lot of mistakes, and it took me twice as long to do the homework. Mrs. Andrews, our Physics teacher, got frustrated with me when I was the last to leave since it was right before lunch.

She never called on me in class, but she did give me detention once for giggling too loudly. She also called me out into the hall one day during class to tell me that my shirt too tight and that I should be ashamed of myself showing off my large breasts. She said that I would have to wear a sweatshirt in her class for the rest of the semester if I was going to distract the boys like that.

She is the only advanced science teacher we have at the school, but I was so embarrassed that I dropped the class at Christmas.

So, I guess as long as I don’t have to do any complicated math without a calculator at the diner, it shouldn’t be too bad.