She stirred the pasta with one hand,
red pen in the other,
marking fragments of thought while her own scattered across the stovetop.
The dog barked. The toddler cried.
She whispered encouragement to both.
Later, long past the hour of rest,
she sat beneath the glow of a weary lamp,
rewriting tomorrow’s plan to fit admin’s latest decree—
“must include,” they said,
as if hearts could be scheduled between bell rings and bathroom breaks.
She wakes before the sun,
coffee cooling beside a stack of ungraded dreams.
Her child’s fever still lingers in her thoughts,
but she buttons up her smile, packs extra patience in her bag,
and walks into the storm with open arms.
They don’t see the cracked windshield,
the sleepless night, the ache behind her eyes.
They see the warmth in her voice,
the way she remembers their names,
the way she believes in them even when she’s forgotten how to believe in herself.
She almost missed it—
a folded scrap slipped into her palm like a secret handshake from grace.
No fanfare, no eye contact,
just graphite scrawl on lined paper:
“I love you. You’re the best teacher ever.”
And just like that,
the exhaustion softened,
the doubts dissolved.
She breathed in the quiet truth: this is the work of angels—
and today, she remembered she is one.
