The School Kitchen Job I Took to Stay Insured

The Kitchen Crew

Ron went to Dale’s office the next morning and signed the changes. I was back on his plan from October first. I never had to buy the marketplace month.

He sold the Chevy to Leroy the following Monday. Ron stood in the yard and watched it go until it was out of sight past the section line.

I could have quit the school then. I would not need the district’s insurance once Ron’s plan was set. Joan said as much when I told her.

“You don’t owe us a thing, hon,” she said. “You came here for the insurance. Now you’ve got insurance.”

“I’d like to stay through the chemo,” I said. “If you’ll have me. I’ll work what I can.”

She looked at me a long time. Then she said, “Tammy, I’ve got a schedule to write,” and walked off, and I saw her wipe her glasses on her apron again.

What that kitchen crew did for me the next five months, I will never be able to pay back.

Joan wrote me a schedule around my treatments. She cleared it with the district office and never told me what she had to say to get it cleared.

On my bad days the crew covered my line. Deb took my scoops. Amy took the register. Karen kept a stool by the dish window for me so I could rinse trays sitting down, and she hummed louder when I looked green.

They never once made me feel like charity. Deb would say, “Albrecht, sit down, you’re in my way,” and hand me a stack of napkins to fold. That was all. That was how they did it.

When my hair started to come out, it was a Tuesday, day nineteen. I was pulling off the hairnet in the back and a whole handful came with it. I stood there holding it.

Karen stopped humming. Deb turned off the oven timer. Joan came over and took the hair out of my hand and put it in a paper towel and folded it up, careful, like it was something worth keeping.

“Ron’s got clippers?” she asked.

“In the barn,” I said. “For the dogs.”

“Then you go home and have him do it right,” she said. “Tonight. Don’t wait for it to go patchy. It’s worse when you wait.”

The Clippers

Ron did it that night on the back porch, under the yellow bulb, with a towel around my shoulders. He was so careful. He went slow and kept stopping to brush the hair off my neck with his big rough hand.

“Am I hurting you?” he kept asking.

“No,” I kept saying.

When it was done, he set the clippers down on the porch rail and stood behind me with both hands on my shoulders. I could feel him shaking. I thought he might be crying again.

“Tam,” he said. “I wouldn’t have let you go without. You know that, don’t you? I would have found the money for the treatments somehow. I would have sold the place.”

“I know that now,” I said. “I didn’t know it then.”

“That’s on me.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

He kissed the top of my bald head. Then he swept up the hair and put the broom away without being asked, which I had not seen in about ten years.