The Specialists
an excerpt

I knew I was supposed to be upset that my mother lost her job for some completely ridiculous reason, but the only thing I could think of was that I had lost my ride to school. This realization hit me when I came downstairs the next morning and my mother was sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas. She truly was not going to be teaching anymore; not at Mount Hope, at least. And now that it was the middle of the year it would be a miracle if she managed to find a teaching position at another school. My mother, determined not to become a suburban housewife, would refuse to drive me to school, I knew. “I have better things to do with my time!” she’d say. And she wouldn’t let me take the car either, because she’d need it during the day. So I would be stuck trudging a mile to school through the elements day in and day out. How wonderful of the principal to fire my mother at a time like this.