Once again, I was thrilled when my Weekend College student brought her three little kids to class. None of them won any literary prizes this week though, so they just sat at their desks, perfectly behaved, little brown heads bent over their reading or coloring (the little one in her mama's lap again) for about the first half hour of class. Then, in the middle of a discussion of Hamlet, she took them away.
"Whoa, [her name]!" I said at the break. "Where'd the babies go? I didn't see their handsome daddy come get them like last week."
Her answer: "We got divorced!"
"WHAT?" I gripped her arm, looked into her eyes. "You DID?"
"Yeah, Thursday! Yesterday, actually--it was final!" She seemed jubilant; I was stricken. Some other students were standing around us; she pointed at me and said to them, "Look at her--she's WORRIED!" And they all laughed.
Ashamed, I said, "I guess I just wanted to believe there's such a thing as true love. And that it would produce such children."
"Sure there is," she laughed. "Just not this one."
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