Miss Pruitt and Broken Dreams

    Miss Pruitt was a math teacher at the local high school and wasn’t focused as she once was. Recently, she would sit at her desk and daydream while her students busily worked on their classroom assignments.  In the afternoons, she walked through the same hallway as she had almost every school day for the past forty years. Moving with a limp due to arthritis, she frequently reminisced about her favorite students throughout the years and wondered about their whereabouts. They're probably living full lives with careers and perhaps married too, I’m sure, she thought to herself. She reflected on her own life and how she never married. She stopped walking when she approached room 203.  She stared at the numbers over the door, and old memories began racing through her mind. When I walk by that room, I feel alive! She fought back the tears as she remembered her first year at the school in 1925.

   She was still a student teacher and taught in that very same room.  Mark Summers, assistant coach and the heartthrob among teachers at Alexander High, stopped in the hallway and smiled at her. She returned the smile as she stood behind the podium in that same room. They soon started dating, and Miss Pruitt found the love of her life. Both of them were filled with promise and excitement for the future. She remembered wearing flapper-style dresses to dance with Mark on Saturday nights. They would do the Charleston and the Foxtrot and had their first kiss while they danced the Waltz. They began seeing each other daily, and their love blossomed. They would talk about their career goals, and Mark brought up the subject of marriage.  Miss Pruitt was shocked with delight so much it made her giddy at the thought of the word. 

     One morning during class, Mark became unusually tired. He thought about going home for the day but worried his students would be without a teacher. However, he didn’t report to school the next day because of a fever. Ultimately, he was examined by a doctor who admitted Mark to the local hospital. After only three weeks, he died of leukemia.

   That was long ago, but it seemed like just yesterday. Miss Pruitt recollected as she stared at the number 203 over the door. Broken dreams of long ago. She would repeat out loud the name Mrs. Mark Summers. She loved how it sounded, but she was not Mrs. Mark Summers. Her name was Faith Pruitt, as it had always been. She was the spinster of Alexander High, as some would say when gossiping behind her back. 

    As she walked home, Miss Pruitt thought about the school day and how the students would look at her. They knew she was daydreaming, but that was beginning to last too long.  She thought about retirement, as she had been doing lately but feared she would be lost if she could no longer teach. She had been doing it for so long. She really had no life besides a bit of gardening when not at school. Would she really miss classes, or was it the school building? Was it really room 203 that she could never part with? She knew she lived in the past but seemed helpless to overcome and keep her mind in the present. Do I really want to? She momentarily erased that thought from her mind.

    When she arrived home, Miss Pruitt went straight to her bedroom and lay across the bed with a framed photo of Mark. She gazed at his image as she did when she was young. She only had the one picture of him that she treasured, but she wished she had more. She got up from her bed, walked to her closet, and pulled out a wedding dress with a frothy look, complete with a voluminous skirt. She wanted to look like a Gatsby girl and break all the rules, as Gatsby's of the 1920s had a reputation for doing. It was the very one she was to wear if she had married Mark. She also kept a 1920s headpiece that was fashionable for that day. She placed it on her head along with flapper style beads. She put on the dress and admired herself in a life size, stand-up mirror.  She danced slowly as she caressed the photo as her thoughts went back in time. When she came back to reality, she looked at the time. She was shocked to discover she had been in a nostalgic daze, standing in the same spot in her room for hours and it was past her normal bedtime. 

   The following day, as she sat in the teacher’s lounge, her memories flooded back again. Lately, not all were actually memories. Some thoughts were wishful thinking or what ifs. What if Mark had lived? What if they had children? What would be the name of the first born? She had decided if a girl, her name would be Rainn, meaning abundant blessings from above. If a boy she would name him Gabriel, meaning strong man or hero.

     After her break in the lounge but still in deep thought of her memory, Miss Pruitt turned the corner in the hallway and collided with a student. The teacher fell backward and hit the back of her head on the floor.

     Miss Pruitt regained consciousness in the Morris General Hospital. She had serious injury to her skull and fractured a femur from the fall.  The doctor quizzed her about the events that led up to the incident to make sure it was an accident and nothing more.  However, she had no memory of what happened. 

     She was bedridden for months and depended on the orderlies, who rolled her over daily to prevent bedsores and infection. She eventually slipped into dementia and her delusions were frequent. She stared at the ceiling, imagined being with Mark and how he was full of life. In her mind they would dance and talk about their future. They would spend days after heavenly days together. She imagined they were at their wedding while both were dressed in their best attire. They repeated their vows and said I do. Then they kissed as she succumbed into eternal rest.