Previously: Retired teacher Lucinda remembers her favorite student Vernon. Reality interrupts when another boarder Nancy scolds her for talking to her daughter Shirley. She remembers letting it slip to Vernon that she didn’t like Nancy.
“Well, she lies. I caught her in several lies when she was in my English class.” Lucinda wagged the piece of chalk at him. “She was very irresponsible about homework.”

“I don’t believe this.” Vernon stood. “Just because someone doesn’t turn in their homework you think they’re evil?”

“I didn’t say she was evil. But other teachers have told me—“

“Here this poor girl is carrying a baby out of marriage and all you can talk about is what kind of student she is?” He shook his head in disbelief.

“It’s more than that.” Lucinda noticed how she was using the chalk and put it down. “I just began with that.”

“When I came in here I thought you’d give me some good advice. Some help.” Vernon turned toward the door. “I never thought you’d attack Nancy.”

“I’m not attacking Nancy.” She pounced on the word “attack” to giver herself a platform for her defense. “She’s always been civil to me. It’s just what I’ve heard—“

“I never thought you’d stoop to petty gossip.” He kept walking out.

“This is a hard question for me to ask — but are you sure you’re the only one she’s been to bed with?” Lucinda lurched toward him. “Are you sure you’re the father?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cambridge.” He turned to assess her with a cold eye. “I didn’t know what to do until I came in here.”

“Vernon—“

“I didn’t know if I wanted to marry her or not. Now I know I have to marry, if for nothing else than to protect her from vicious gossips — like you.” The last words he spat with hot anger.

“No, Vernon—“

“So now I know what I’m going to do. I’ll take nine hours next spring. That will leave time for a full time job to support my wife and my baby — yes, my baby.”

Lucinda noticed his voice was fading back into her memory. Vernon’s image floated between the classroom of ten years ago and her boarding house room of today. “Vernon! Don’t do that! It’s a mistake! Vernon!”

“I have just one last thing.” He pointed out the door into the boarding house hall. “Nancy’s little girl. She’s mine, ain’t she?”

“Isn’t, not ain’t,” she said, slipping back into her old ways.

“I’ll say ain’t if I damn well want to!” For the first time in front of his teacher, Vernon raised his voice in rage.

“Please, Vernon—“

“She’s my little girl, ain’t she?”

“Legally—“

“Ain’t she!?” He lost all control of his emotions.

“Yes.” Completely depleted, Lucinda collapsed into her rocking chair, now firmly affixed to the present. Her hand went to her chest.

“I’m a daddy.”

“She’s lovely — and smart.” Lucinda closed her eyes and smiled. “She has this way of seeing the world clearly, like you.”

“She’s smart.” His voice was fading like an echo.

“Very.” She rocked slowly, comforted by her mind’s images of Shirley.

“And good. I want my little girl to be good.” His voice was hardly discernible.

“No sweeter child ever lived.”

“I wonder what she thinks of her goofy old daddy.” Vernon laughed.

Lucinda’s eyes opened, her consciousness jostled to harsh reality. “Well . . . .”

“What?” His laugh evaporated.

“She doesn’t know.”

“Who does she think her daddy is?”

The very absurdity of the words caused Lucinda’s breath to become labored. “Nancy told her Warren Beatty, but Shirley doesn’t believe it.”

“Shirley?”

“Nancy named her after Beatty’s sister, Shirley MacLaine.” She covered her mouth with her hand to hide her quivering lips.

“That’s an old lady’s name.”

“That’s what Shirley says.”

“So she doesn’t know about me?”

Lucinda closed her eyes again and shook her head.

“You live in the same house, and you haven’t told her?”

His voice invaded her being and was intolerable. With all her strength she whispered, “It’s not up to me to tell her. I keep hoping Nancy will explain it.”

“The only thing I ever made that turned out good, and she doesn’t know I even existed?” Vernon’s voice weakened again, going down into the darkness of unpleasant memories.

“It’s not up to me.” All she could do was to repeat herself.

“I don’t exist for my baby.”

Lucinda’s native, irrational optimism gave her strength. “She’ll know someday. You’ll see.”

“Maybe I won’t.” His voice was almost gone. “Maybe Nancy will forget all about me before she tells Shirley. Then I’ll really be gone. Nobody will care.”

“I care.” Lucinda more than cared, but she did not have the courage to admit her feelings to Vernon.

“No, you don’t. Nobody cares.”

The words were vaporous, and she almost did not discern them. When she opened her eyes, Vernon was gone, and someone was knocking at her door.