A Vow to Cherish Read Online Free Page B

the teacher was staring after her. Ellen walked straight to her room, everything suddenly set right.
    The rest of the day went fine, but the incident left her unsettled. She was too embarrassed to mention it to John that evening.
    She had a larger class than usual this year, and the next days were full, trying to establish classroom rules and a routine for twenty-seven excitable second graders.
    The weekend came and Ellen found herself exhausted. “Boy, I must be getting old,” she told John as she dumped spaghetti in a pot for Friday night’s supper. “I am beat.”
    “Well, it happens to the best of us.” John was preoccupied, searching the kitchen for something. He sifted through a stack of magazines on the telephone desk. “Ellen, didn’t you bring the mail in?”
    “Yes. I thought I laid it on the desk. It’s right there, isn’t it?”
    “No. It isn’t. I looked there and everywhere else in the house.”
    “Well, I know I brought it in.” She turned down the burner on the stove and joined the search. Ellen even went back out to the mailbox to see if maybe she’d only imagined bringing it into the house. When ten minutes of hunting hadn’t produced anything, they gave up.
    John’s tight-lipped silence told her how irritated he was with her. He was Mr. Organization and they often squabbled over her haphazard ways.
    Ellen shrugged off his attitude and went to the kitchen to try to decide what to fix for dinner. She opened the refrigerator and reached for the crisper drawer. She couldn’t remember if she had salad makings or not. But as she bent to pull out the drawer, she gave a little gasp. There, on the shelf in front of her, limp with moisture, was the stack of bills and letters. They sat accusing her.
    “Good grief!” She rolled her eyes, knowing immediately that she was the culprit.
    John appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, a question in his eyes.
    She stood in front of the open refrigerator door holding the droopy envelopes. “Well…I found the mail.”
    “It was in the fridge?” He tipped his head. “Are you losing it, Ellen?”
    She laughed, embarrassed. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought.”
    He shrugged with that half-disgusted air she knew too well, and took the mail from her hands. After raising a skeptical eyebrow in her direction, he headed down the hall toward the den.
    That night, when they were getting ready for bed, she tried to soothe his testiness. “I just thought all those bills needed to be put on ice for a while,” she said, forcing a laugh.
    No response.
    “It’s a joke, John.”
    But he apparently didn’t see the humor. The corners of his mouth turned down as he studied her intently. “Are you okay, El? You’ve been so preoccupied lately. It’s not like you to be so…so flighty.”
    She shrugged. “I guess I’m just tired. Work is kind of wearing on me this year for some reason. I’ve got a bigger class than I’m used to and—”
    “Well, get some sleep.” He cut her off, sounding unconvinced. “You need it.” He turned out the light and rolled over.
    Ten minutes later, she heard the soft snuffling that told her John was asleep. But she lay awake a long time, mulling things over. She finally entered a fitful, restless sleep, punctuated by a bizarre dream.
    In her dream, she was lost in a long dark hallway. She shouted for help again and again, but no one came to rescue her. She walked on and on down the ever-narrowing passage, never finding a doorway, meeting only strangers who were as lost as she.
     
    The next weeks were too much like the nightmare. Ellen started to seriously fear she was having a nervous breakdown. Many days she felt her old self, perfectly in control. But just when she started to put the disturbing incidents out of her mind, that disoriented, on-edge feeling would steal upon her, as it had that first frightening day of school. On those days she couldn’t find any orderliness to her teaching. She would