The Education of Brian, III: a room of his own

My office is on the top floor of the building. It just so happens that the other people on this floor are pretty relaxed and understading, and there aren't that many of us, and there are some extra offices.

So we have taken one over for Brian. It is down at the end of the hall, next to the door to the back stairs that few people use. I don't know how much time he will spend there. Maybe just a few hours a couple days a week. Maybe every day after he gets out of school. We will see how well he works during the hours he stays home.

An hour ago I would have told you that it would just be two afternoons a week but I just called Brian at home. He said that he hadn't started on his work yet, but he was about to. He thought he would just take a little break. "Brian, you've been home for four hours." "Oh. I guess I lost track of time!"

So maybe he will have to be here on the afternoons I teach too.

In any case, Tuesday evening Hubby, Brian and I came up to clean up the office. Since he will probably bring his puppy up some of the time, we decided to roll up and move the carpet that my colleague had left behind when he moved to the office down the hall several years ago. We found a small envelop under it -- the sort that thank you notes and invitations come in. It had my colleague's name on it, so I walked down the hallway and stuck it on his door. I forgot to mention it to him.

Today, I stopped by to ask him if he had seen it. I guess I was wondering if it was fun for him to get that "blast from the past."

Um...fun might not be the best word for it. See...the note wasn't dated and it didn't LOOK old. In it the student said she was sorry about dropping his class and that everything turned out the way it did, but that she really appreciated everything he had done for her and was looking forward to taking another class. She would talk to him soon.

And it was weird for him because he did not have a student by that name. There was no one who was dropping his class.

There had been a student, years ago with that name. This even looked like her hand writing. Except it couldn't be from her.

She died three years ago.

He was very relieved when I told him that I found it under his carpet. It was more than a little creepy getting a note from a dead woman who said she hoped to talk to him soon.