like me
by Andrea McCullough

When my daughter Alice was two, and my husband had been gone for about eight months, I went to work at a new school. I couldn’t return to Hillside Elementary after he died. I couldn’t face the kids and the families, and my colleagues. They looked at me full of pity and tilted their heads to the side. I needed a fresh start where no one knew of my loss and grief—a place where I could pretend.