Actually Invisible, page 23
“What?” Forgetting I was standing behind a microphone, my loud voice startled me. I crouched down and squinted at his phone screen. “I don’t even know how to use Twitter, so I have no idea what I’m even looking at. Who are these people who are liking and retweeting?”
He laughed. “They’re anybody. Lots of people are coming out—no pun intended, I guess—talking about how they are either gay teachers or students who wish they had gay teachers. You’re kind of an icon right now.”
I reached out my hand. “Do you mind if I look? I’m having a hard time processing this.”
“Not at all.” He handed me his phone. “Take your time. I’ll read at the mike first and then will just ask who wants to go next.”
I took his phone and sat down in the front row as he ascended the stairs to the stage. He wasn’t exaggerating. There really were that many likes and retweets. The headline of the article read “Teacher forced out of the closet by conservative parents,” and the accompanying photo was me from last year’s yearbook. I cringed a little because my face looked chubby, and the striped shirt I was wearing did not do me any favors. Without thinking too much, I clicked on the article link that took me to the Dispatch’s website.
Teacher forced out of the closet by conservative parents
ADELAIDE FOSTER
Mon., March 25, 2019, 11:24 p.m.
Accused of influencing a female student’s sexuality by the girl’s parents, Josephine Rein-Thompson, a tenth-grade English teacher at Benson High School, spoke on her own behalf at tonight’s school board meeting held in the auditorium to accommodate an unexpected number of attendants. The girl’s parents claimed that Mrs. Rein-Thompson “tried to make her a homosexual” by assigning an essay honoring Women’s History Month wherein students were to write about an inspirational female.
The student in question wrote about Mrs. Rein-Thompson because she is “kind, successful and true to herself,” the last part referring to the teacher’s identity as a lesbian. Mrs. Rein-Thompson has a wife with whom she parents a daughter. According to her, she does not discuss her personal life in her classroom because it is “irrelevant” to English class.
School board president Martin Temple dismissed the family’s accusation, calling the essay “lovely” and “flattering.”
“That family had a clear agenda,” Mr. Temple said following the meeting. “When it came out that Mrs. Rein-Thompson is being harassed by a student and his mother—both family to a school board member, no less—it was obvious to me who the victim in the situation is. And it isn’t the little girl with the gay teacher.”
When asked for comments, the accusing parents had none.
Also unreachable for comments were Derek Stoneman and his wife Marjorie Stoneman, who has been accused of ongoing harassment toward Mrs. Rein-Thompson. Mrs. Stoneman had verbally attacked Mrs. Rein-Thompson at the meeting, calling Mrs. Rein-Thompson a “snowflake” and citing her “agenda.”
Without federal legal protection, many LGBT teachers live in fear of losing their jobs, so they live lives of virtual silence. While most teachers hang pictures of their spouses and children in their classrooms, thousands of LGBT teachers shy away from public displays of their private lives. Understandably, Mrs. Rein-Thompson was worried about being fired because of a false accusation.
“She admires me for not trying to be someone I’m not, even though this meeting right now demonstrates why it isn’t easy,” Mrs. Rein-Thompson said tonight, in reference to the essay in question.
Several students attended the meeting to show support for their teacher. Many of them called Mrs. Rein-Thompson “nice” and “dedicated,” and one mentioned that “she never talks about her wife in class.”
But shouldn’t she be able to? In 2019, what are people afraid of?
If you want to show Mrs. Rein-Thompson your support, you won’t find her on social media. Instead, start a conversation with the people around you about love and acceptance.
Josh was done reading at the microphone and had come off of the stage to wait patiently for me to finish reading. When I looked up, he said, “Do you want to read the comments? They are overwhelmingly supportive.” He reached for his phone.
I handed it to him. “No,” I answered. “But thank you for letting me read the article. I’m afraid the comments would be too much, and I’m just not interested in seeing anything negative right now. I’m ready to move past this.”
He nodded. “I get it.”
Kate was sitting quietly in the row behind me, down about ten seats. I glanced back at her, feeling thankful that Adelaide had chosen not to mention her specifically or to even mention her parents’ names. She had been to all of our poetry practices but hadn’t read anything of her own yet, so I thought that maybe she was just hanging out to support her friends. Suddenly, I knew what I had to say.
“My wife is going to be so happy the article is positive.” I was looking at Josh but hoping that Kate was listening. Adelaide was right. It’s 2019, and it’s time to normalize something that is undeniably normal for so many people.
Kate looked over at me quickly and then looked away. Madison had just finished reading her poem, and kids were snapping. I stood up and said, “Who’s next? Wait until you hear your voice carry throughout this entire room. Isn’t it awesome?” I looked at Madison as she jumped down from the stage, grinning.
“I’ll go.” Kate was sitting up straighter and looking at me. Was that a new sense of confidence in her eyes? I hoped so.
“Sure, Kate.” I smiled. “I was hoping you were going to speak up.”
She stood up, and the weight of my words floated in the air, traveling with her up the stairs and to the microphone. Adjusting it to her shorter height, she spoke into it, “Hello.” When she heard her own echo, she smiled and took a deep breath.
“Every sunrise has its own beauty,
even when no one is awake to see it.
The colors mingle in the sky,
swirling like paint on a canvas.”
She was focused on the back of the auditorium.
“Sometimes the moon sticks around
to see the sun’s show,
feeling envious
and forgetting its own beauty.”
Her eyes drifted toward the ceiling.
“Moon, you are alone,
but you are not lonely.”
She shifted her gaze to the other side of the ceiling.
“Sun, remember each morning
that the moon has come before you
to remind the world how bright you are.”
Her eyes dropped back to the audience.
“I am the sunrise,
but I used to be the moon.”
She looked right at me.
“I am a new day filled with color.”
Smiling softly, I snapped my fingers along with everyone else, impressed by her nerve and her figurative language. She had clearly been practicing on her own because she had the piece memorized.
Not only was she going to survive this time in her life, but she was also going to grow up and be just fine. Maybe her parents would come around; maybe they wouldn’t. The important thing in that moment was she was owning her transformation, and she wasn’t afraid to show it.
- 59 -
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
I was running late in the morning because Liesel had a cough and had struggled to sleep, so Cam and I had played what we like to refer to as “musical beds” throughout the night. By 2:00, and the third time I’d been awakened, it took me forever to fall back to sleep. You know how all of your small daytime worries turn into huge nighttime fears? My heart was pounding at the thought of Sweet Treats forgetting to drop off the cookies, and that led me to repeat my performance poem over and over in my mind, making sure I had it memorized.
I hadn’t told anyone—not even Cam—that I was planning on performing a poem. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I would actually have the nerve to do it when the time came, so I kept it to myself. I wondered if Kate’s parents would be there or if Brandon would be staring me down from the front row. There were too many variables for me to be certain.
At some point, I drifted into a restless sleep and then had a terrible time waking up with my alarm, uncharacteristically hitting snooze a few times. When I walked into school fifteen minutes later than usual, I could see from down the hall that there was a piece of paper taped to my door. Deciding it was probably a note from Jim, the awesome custodian who cleans my room each night, I didn’t think much of it until I got closer. Written in all capital letters on jaggedly-ripped lined paper, it read:
JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE NICE TO YOUR FACE DOESN’T MEAN THEY DON’T THINK YOUR DISGUSTING BEHIND YOUR BACK
I tore it off of the wood and looked around to see if anyone else was looking.
Flooded by snapshots of my high school’s cafeteria, Naomi’s red face, bright purple stretch marks on my sides, Tara’s tweezers, kids calling out rhinoceros in the endless hallways—which at some point turned into “dyke-oceros”—I had to steady myself against the doorframe, feeling light-headed. Shame and self-doubt filled my blood and pumped to every part of my body.
No. Like my interaction with Trevor in the gas station, I was going to ignore the note and move on with my life. Whoever wrote it—who probably was not Trevor because he had made it clear that I did the opposite of “disgust” him—wanted to make me feel paranoid, and I was not going to let them.
In fact, I decided at that moment I was going to do the opposite. I was going to speak my poem on stage that night, no matter who was in the audience.
Taking a deep breath, I crumpled the paper in my hand, picturing its incorrect usage of “YOUR.” Inside my classroom, I tossed it into the green recycling bin and promised myself I wouldn’t take it back out.
In my classroom, the voicemail light was blinking. Sighing, I dropped my bag to the floor and picked up the receiver. A robotic female voice stated, “Message received at seven-oh-eight PM on Tuesday, March 26th.”
“This is Brian Anderson. Regardless of what the board decided last night, my wife and I do not want our daughter to have any unnecessary contact with you. It has come to our attention that you recruited her to read some kind of poem on a stage tomorrow, but she is not permitted to do so.” Click.
Not permitted? I hadn’t thought to get parents’ permission to participate in the poetry slam. Did Kate know her parents had forbidden her? Was I supposed to stop her from getting up onto the stage? Did her parents know about her TikToks that were getting more views than could possibly fit into the auditorium to watch her read a poem?
A thought struck me: Don’t acknowledge the message.
A twinge of guilt appeared in my stomach but was quickly replaced by a protectiveness for both Kate and for myself. What would I say to him, anyway? Surely they had told Kate themselves and weren’t relying on me to tell her.
If she showed up at the slam to read, she was disobeying them. And that wasn’t any of my business.
- 60 -
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Cam started having contractions—big, painful, regular ones—while we were watching TV in our living room. I had just known the answer to Double Jeopardy and was about to do a triumphant dance when she grabbed her belly and looked at me, wide-eyed.
“Our suitcase is packed and in the car,” I said, literally jumping into action. “We have our birth plan printed out, and we will play our Jann Arden playlist on my laptop. Let’s call the doctor’s office to let them know.”
We were told to come to the hospital as soon as we were ready since the contractions were already so close together. Driving down the highway, I called Amanda and told her to call our mom, and then I called Cam’s mom to meet us at the hospital. When I put my phone down and looked at Cam, she was smiling.
“It’s happening, babe.” She grabbed my hand, immediately squeezing it hard and grimacing to get through a contraction. I squeezed back and reminded her to breathe. The windows were down, and the loveliest spring breeze was washing over us, the sun making its way slowly toward the horizon, even though it wasn’t quite dusk yet. I wondered if this was what photographers often referred to as “the golden hour” because everything around us seemed illuminated by a pure yellow glow. Cam had never looked more beautiful to me.
At the hospital, they quickly took us into triage to check both Cam’s and the baby’s vitals. She was already five centimeters dilated, so they admitted us right away, leading the way to a labor and delivery room, where an anesthesiologist arrived within about twenty minutes to administer Cam’s epidural. After that, her hand squeezing lessened significantly, and she spent the next hour or so with her eyes closed, breathing consciously. I set up the music and made sure that the songs—our songs—would play on repeat for however long it took.
At about ten o’clock, our favorite doctor—Dr. Thomas—walked in the door. “Ahhh, the Thomas once again meets the Thompsons!” He was grinning, and his sandy brown hair looked a bit messy like he had just been taking a nap.
Dad’s name was Thomas. Dad, I know you’re here.
“Hi! Oh, we’re so glad it’s you.” I returned his smile.
“You’re in luck, ladies.” He sat down in front of Cam’s stirruped legs. “I’m leaving for vacation tomorrow morning, so your timing couldn’t be better.”
Something about the twinkle in his eye reminded me of my dad, and I had to hold back tears. Dad had barely been gone a month, so I was still prone to unexpected bouts of weeping. There were even times when I would be teaching, and I’d have to turn away from the kids for a minute and pretend like I was looking for something, just so I could let out a few tears. Honestly, that still happens to me sometimes now.
Cam was looking at me, steadily breathing. “Are you okay, Jojo?”
I looked down at her and smiled, crinkling my eyes. “Me? You’re about to give birth, honey. I am absolutely fine.” I sniffed as subtly as I could.
She nodded and put her head back, closing her eyes again. Dr. Thomas looked at me and said calmly, “I think she’s ready to push.”
I took a deep breath and then leaned over to kiss her shiny forehead, whispering, “Are you ready, baby?”
Eyes still closed, she nodded. Two nurses I didn’t recognize walked in and erased the names that were on the whiteboard. “Hi, girls!” one of them said pleasantly. “I’m Caroline, and that’s Robin.”
My eyes shot toward the woman who was helping Dr. Thomas prepare for the birth. She had a dark brown bob and looked to be about twenty-five years old. Cam giggled breathlessly and looked at me. “Robin? Okay, Josie, now that is more than a coincidence.”
Robin looked at me and raised her eyebrows. I said, “It’s a long story, but Robin will be our daughter’s middle name.”
I hear you, Dad. Hang out here for a while please.
“Well, how about that?” she said, smiling.
Cam was shaking. I moved her hair away from her face and said, “It will be over soon. You totally got this.”
She started pushing. The first visible sign of Liesel was a little spike of blonde hair at the top of her head about a half hour later, and I was already in love. Cam was so strong and pushed her out within forty-five minutes, when Dr. Thomas announced that she had been born at 12:05am on May 6th, 2016.
I was already sobbing with joy, but when I realized that Liesel had been born on my dad’s birthday, my tears turned bittersweet. She would never know him except through stories. He would never know her.
Are you still here, Daddy? Please watch over her always.
They moved us to a more comfortable room and told us to try to get some sleep with Liesel in her little see-through bassinet. She slept most of the night, and we tried to do the same amid all of the beeping and talking and babies crying. I sat up in a panic at least three times throughout the night to make sure Liesel was still breathing, and all but once, Cam was sitting up in bed, watching over her, too.
“She’s amazing. You’re amazing,” I said, getting up from the pullout chair to sit on the edge of the hospital bed and lean my head on her shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
She sighed and kissed my messy hair. “I’m fine. I can’t seem to stop looking at her, though.”
“I understand, but I guarantee we’re going to have visitors in the morning, so you need to rest.” She nodded, and we lay still and silent together for a while until we both fell asleep.
Cam’s parents came to the hospital as soon as visiting hours started in the morning, and although we were both exhausted, it was wonderful to see the joy on their faces. Any fear I had about them not loving our baby was wiped away, replaced by a fear that they didn’t see me as an equal parent to Cam, but I tried to push that away to reflect on later. Dana stopped by in the afternoon, followed Cam’s friend Serena from school, and Amanda a little after that.
I was just starting to tell her about all of the coincidences the night before when I saw that our mom was trying to FaceTime me. When I answered, she was in purple scrubs with a big smile on her face. “Let me see my beautiful granddaughter! I’m flying in over Memorial Day weekend. Did I tell you that?”
Cam was still nursing, so I said, “I’ll show her to you in a minute. She’s absolutely perfect, Mom. Are you at work?” I tried to figure out what was behind her.
“Yep. I’m on my lunch break. Sam booked my flight for Saturday the 28th. Will you be around to pick me up?”
“Of course. Do you want to stay with us?” I looked over at Cam to see her burping Liesel by holding her little face and patting her back, and I said, “Oh my goodness, look at that face!”
“Show me! Show me!”
I turned the phone to show her Liesel’s squished cheeks, just as she let loose the biggest burp of her life so far. All four of us laughed hysterically, but Liesel wasn’t amused—more like very sleepy. Amanda leaned in front of my phone and waved.
