Who is the third who walks always beside you?

The Waste Land. V, What the Thunder Said

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers….There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance or death.

Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor V, I, 1.2

After fourteen years teaching high school, year fifteen will be my first under a new department chair.  That this was unusual hadn’t sunk in until I told a peer who laughed and said it would be his sixth, no, no, seventh in twelve.

She had hired me, given me my chance in education and come to be a good friend.  She was respected within the department and throughout the school for her work ethic, mentoring, leadership, money spent out-of-pocket, and sacrifice of personal time.  Or so I’d thought.  I’d learned of her departure Memorial Day weekend in a hotel in Highlands, N.C., a favored mountain getaway where my wife and I hike the Nantahala Forest, stroll the shops, and dig in to sweet and savory breakfasts.  We’d just checked in, late afternoon.  I was looking forward to the unwind after weeks of proctoring exams and finalizing grades.  I can still picture the view from the warm concrete balcony – one of those “where were you when you heard” moments – feet on the iron rail, sun sprayed through the treetops, a honeysuckle perfume mixed with orange light sifted through a flurry of helicopter seeds, the sycamores channeling traffic sounds of Highway 64, chugging choppers and campers and grinding trucks magnified up the mountainside.  I cupped my hand to the phone straining to hear, parsing the unfathomable.  That night, I slept in a fit.  The only boss in education I’d ever known had resigned abruptly under circumstances one might call sub-optimum.

At least summer vanished as expected.

First day of school commute, 2019.  I lock the front door, step into the dank air between geraniums craning from two rotund planters guarding our porch like marble lions, past the mailbox, flap open, and onto the street where I’m startled by a stranger.  Practically walk into him.  He’s hooded, dead center of the street, backlit by a lone streetlamp.  A cavity where his face should be.

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