A Mother's Just Deserts

In the morning hush before they descended, Judy practiced being kind. It didn't come naturally. She focused on breathing and meditation and the positives the day would bring. Judy prided herself on not raising her voice or using sarcasm with her students, so she could always make the claim "I don't speak to you disrespectfully, so please don't answer me that way" without earning a snigger.

Which was why she found Connor's eye-rolls and knowing glances so irksome. It was as though he understood perfectly that it was all a veneer. That there was something else hiding beneath her calm demeanour.

She was growing impatient with his precocious habits, until that Monday morning group where she overheard him tell the others "Well my mum said I'm a little bastard. She's always saying that." With a giggle, to mask the uncomfortable silence. And then Lucy, bless her heart, had moved the conversation along.

Judy thought of roots and of branches; of apples and trees.

On the morning Connor came to class limping, she decided to have a little chat with his mum, asking her by polite email to make a time after class the next day. She was, by design, out of sight when Leah arrived. "You little bastard" came the hiss "I had to miss my fucking shift for your shit".

Judy briefly closed her eyes, took a breath, and practised her smile before entering the room.

Judy sent the laptop home with Connor with a special surprise gift. An embedded program that picked up enough footage for her to know she wasn't wrong. Well, so far, she never had been.

She pondered, sipping a soothing blend of tea, musing over a sight that always lifted her grateful heart - her own little orchard, nurtured with care on the small farm her own dear dad had left to her.

A little parcel of independence allowing important choices that would have been otherwise impossible.

She bumped into Connor's mum at the neighbourhood bar. In a small town it's rarely difficult to unearth people's hobbies and habits. As Judy had expected, Leah's socials were plastered with "cocktail mommy" posts and other not quite funny, slightly brittle parenting memes, and there were several tagged pics from her favourite establishment.

Leah was surprised, but friendly, as so many of these parents were when they recognised her. Keen to impress upon Judy what a normal, pleasant and caring mother she really was; but happy to have a bit of a rant about her little bastard, when gently encouraged by Judy. It was rarely difficult to coax an outburst and subtly allow them to believe she was on team mum. It was rarely hard to build a swift, trusting rapport.

One of the benefits of being a teacher is that few people think twice about leaving their glass of wine unattended in your presence. So that night, Judy helped a surprisingly inebriated Leah reach her destination.

Connor's dad came back to fill in the parenting gap from his job interstate. He seemed, on the surface, decent enough and a big improvement on Leah. Connor, though subdued and pale, behaved each week less like an abused child and more like his peers, upon his return to school.

But Judy would be watching. Watching both of them. 

Judy buried Connor's mum in a corner of her little orchard. The fruit there reflected the quality of the rich, loamy soil, which was the envy of her neighbours. What was her secret?

One of Judy's hobbies was making apple pies from the bounty from her generous garden, and she also enjoyed bringing the fruit to school to share with the other teachers, and sometimes even the parents. She didn't offer the apples to her children. They didn't seem to mind receiving lollipops instead.

It was her turn again to bring dessert for morning tea. As they cheerfully tucked into a warm, succulent apple pie, with just a hint of cinnamon, one of her colleagues took an appreciative bite and thanked her cheerily with a well-worn compliment.

"I love it when it's your turn, Judes. An apple from the teacher. You're the best."

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Copyright Alison Tennent, all rights reserved