Dear Mrs. Hines

That day we went on a field trip, you forgot your hat. We watched you run inside a small yellow house.

Such a secret, to see a teacher’s house!

I sat in front, my hand on the seat, saving it for you. Not that anyone would have sat next to me.

This was Chicago in the 1980s, winter was coming. "Please, Mr. Vic, can you swing by my house? I forgot my hat."

Of course he would swing by. He would have moved the sun a little to the left, a mountain a bit to the right, had you asked.

Bounding back onto the bus, you slid next to me and whispered, "Look! That's my little dog in the window. If I tell you his name, promise not to tell the others?"

I never told.

Mr. Vic turned toward the city. "Won’t this be fun?" you said, hugging me close.

It would not be fun.

The kids had partnered and none had chosen me. I feared lunchtime the most. The girls sat together, huddled and laughing, always laughing.

To them, I was a wall for slings and arrows and ugly words. To you, I was something I could not yet see.

Years later, when I'd grown old enough to leave the laughing girls and the warzone of home behind, I named my own little dog the same as yours.

But I never told.

Mrs. Hines, wherever you are, in this world or the next, I remember...

We ate lunch together near the stairs of the aquarium, far from the laughing girls. The wool of your coat warm against my shoulders.

It's been forty years, and still, your kindness finds me.