[February]

The marching band was raising money by selling Valentine's Day roses in the school hallway. Eric bought a full dozen, even though they were horribly overpriced. He was happy to support the band. Football wouldn't be quite the same without the thunder. Also, he'd forgotten it was Valentine's Day.

Because it wasn't football season, Eric was home by 4:30. He came through the front door and found his daughter sitting at the kitchen table with some papers and a pencil. "Whatcha doin', Monkey Noodle?" he asked.

"Homework."

"Homework?" She was only in pre-K. He walked over and peered at her papers. She was copying out her ABC's. Another paper had math problems: "1+1. 2+0. 2+2." He couldn't remember when he'd done that, but he was sure it wasn't preschool. He hadn't even gone to preschool. "Where's your mamma?"

"In the bedroom."

They hadn't told Julie she was going to be a big sister just yet. Tami wasn't quite showing, but she would be soon, and they'd been discussing how best to share the news.

He made his way back with the roses, ready to see her delighted smile. It never failed to warm him when she smiled for him. But when he got there, he heard her crying in the master bathroom.

"Tami?" He pushed opened the door with the hand that wasn't holding the roses. "Are you all right?"

[*]

The principal walked into Eric's Shop class at about the same time Jimmy McIntire hammered his hand to a board. Eric had been sitting behind his desk, hands behind his head, staring off into a corner, thinking about the baby that was not to be. It was a couple seconds before he heard the screaming.

Later that afternoon, Eric found himself in the principal's office for the first time since he'd gotten into that fist fight with Mo McArnold his junior year.

"You've got to supervise these boys, Eric," Principal Juarez insisted. "You can't just be – "

"- I know. I'm sorry. I've just got some stuff going - "

"- Stuff? You need to leave your stuff at the front door of this school building."

"Yes, sir."

"You ever teach Shop before?"

"No. I've mostly taught history. "

"Well, I'm putting Coach Erickson in that Shop class. I've got an English teacher that just up and quit on me. Since there are no hammers involved in English, I'm going to have you cover one of her classes for the rest of the year instead of the Shop class."

"English?" English had been his worst subject in high school. "I've never taught English."

"It's not that hard, Eric. You can read, can't you?"

[*]

Tami was crying in bed again, those quiet tears. Eric could only tell by the way her body moved slightly beneath his arm. She probably thought he was asleep by now, but he wasn't. He slid a little closer. "I love you," he said.

"Then why don't you ever talk about it?"

"What's there to talk about?"

She slid out from under his arm, threw on a heavy sweatshirt she'd left on the floor, and went out the bedroom door.

He joined her a few minutes later on the couch in the living room. She had the TV on, tuned to some infomercial, and muted. She was just staring at it.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked. "Tell me, and I'll say it."

"I want you to say what you feel!"

"I…I don't. I don't….feel."

"Fuck you!" She got up and went to the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine.

He came in and leaned against the refrigerator.

"I didn't mean it," she said. "I'm sorry."

He took the wineglass from her hand and set it on the counter top. "I… I guess I feel whatever you're feeling, Tami. I just feel it differently."

She collapsed against his chest, and he held her while she cried.

[March]

Eric turned a page in the grammar book while Tami watched a Seinfeld episode she had recorded. He had his arm across the back of the couch and she was leaned against his side, feet up on the hassock. Julie, thankfully, had finally accepted her bedtime. .They had "adult time" in the evenings now.

"Let's take Julie to the zoo this weekend," Tami said. "I don't want to go any further than that for a day trip."

"Farther," he said. "You don't want to go any farther. Not further. It's okay. It's a common mistake."

She plucked the grammar book from his hands and shut it. She smirked. "Why don't you and me go to bed?"

"You and - " He smiled. "Oh. You're just provoking me now."

"Just so you know, for future reference, it's not sexy when you correct my grammar."

"How about if I quote Shakespeare?" he asked as they stood and began walking to the bedroom.

"That might work, if you weren't teaching them Julius Cesar."

Just inside the door, he put his arms around her from behind, pulled her back, kissed her neck, and whispered, "Passion, I see, is catching."

She laughed. "Is that the best quote you've got?"

"Et tu, Brute?"

Later, when they were lying cuddled together in the aftermath of their lovemaking, he said, "I honestly don't know what I'm doing in this English class. History is easy…but I don't know how to talk about literature."

"You're a teacher at heart, Eric. It's just part of who you are. You'll find a way."

She dozed off and woke briefly when she felt him ease out his arm from under her. She saw his shadow leave the room and went back to sleep.

[*]

Tami glanced down at the play diagram Eric had left on the kitchen counter and smiled. Underneath the usual X's and O's, he'd written, in small letters, various labels – Brutus, Julius, Antony, Cassius, Cicero…

[April]

After Eric took roll in his English class he was covering until year end, he said, "Pack up your backpacks again. We're walking on down to the theatre to see some fifty-minute Shakespeare."

"What?" a girl asked.

"My cousin recently joined a traveling Shakespeare troupe. I talked him into getting the troupe to travel on over to us. They're going to do a condensed version of Julius Ceasar for y'all."

"Cool," she said. "Is your cousin as hot as you are?"

"Just pack up."

[*]

"That one would make a fine actress," John Paul said as he watched Julie perform a melodramatic dance in the living room.

"Jules, honey," Tami said. "Go on and brush your teeth and get in your PJs and start reading. I'll be in to tuck you in in a bit."

When Julie had left the living room, John Paul said, "A fine actress. She's gorgeous, too, like her mother."

"Oh, stop," Tami said, but she didn't really want him to stop. It was always fun to flirt with John Paul, because she knew it didn't bother Eric. Sometimes Eric pretended it bothered him, but today he wasn't even bothering to pretend. He was just drinking his beer quietly. "So, who's the lady of the hour?" she asked John Paul. "Or are you single for a change?"

"Tami," John Paul leaned forward in his arm chair and put his beer bottle on the coffee table, "I am madly, desperately, hopelessly in love."

Tami laughed. "I don't believe it for a second."

"I am. She's an actress in the troupe. Rebekah. Eric met her."

Eric nodded.

"And he can vouch for my adoration, can't you, cuz?"

"You do seem to like her."

"We're going to buy the company," John Paul said. "Rebekah and I. We're going to buy it together, make a half dozen babies, homeschool them, and tour the nation with them. We're going to name the first one Hamlet."

Tami shook her head. "Are you even slightly serious?"

"I'm utterly serious. Eric is going to be my best man in July."

Tami glanced at Eric, who nodded.

"Are you having a big Catholic wedding?" Tami asked.

"Well, no…we're having a Jewish wedding, actually. Reformed. Very reformed. Agnositc."

Tami laughed again. "I'll believe it when I see it."

John Paul rose, "Well, thank you for a lovely dinner, Tami, but I have to be going. My fiance is waiting for me at camp."

"Camp?" asked Tami as she stood up.

"It's an RV park," said Eric as he, too, rose.

"Oh," Tami said with disappointment.

"I know," said John Paul as he walked toward the front door. "You pictured gypsies and tambourines." He turned around. "It was good catching up with you again." He took Tami's hand and kissed it.

Eric nodded. "Thanks for…uh…entertaining my class."

John Paul opened the door. He held one hand on the knob. "Thanks for agreeing to be my best man. One thing I forgot to mention. It's a themed wedding, of course. Shakespeare, of course. So you'll have to wear a cod piece." With that, John Paul shut the door.

Eric, beer clasped in hand, stared at the closed door. "He damn well better be kidding about that."

Tami laughed so hard she had to take a step back.

"What's so funny?" a PJ-clad Julie asked as she wandered out of the bathroom.