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There's an agonizing pause, both standing by the newly opened windows, taking in the fresh air. Mary tilts her head, then looks towards her desk, the piles of maps still there. Laid out and pinned or weighted down by some odd paperweight or another...
"Isn't it strange?"
Theo shakes his head. Not because he disagrees, but because he doesn't understand. They’d been having his annual advising meeting... and Theo had, although he hadn’t meant to, expressed a fear that he hadn’t been wanting to share with anyone. Not Sabrina or Harvey or Roz.
Ms Wardwell smiles, and makes her way over to the desk, taking a handsomely weighted pen from her stationery stand...
"Can you name this place, here?"
She's pointing at a city in China, the name clearly printed under the tip of the fine tip pen...
Theo looks up at her, curiously, before answering, uncertainly, "Shanghai?"
It's said with such an American sound... and quite the one Mary had used up until she'd gone to university in a nearby city. Her one, not-quite complete year in the city... And even then... it took Adam's trip to Shanghai to convince her she hadn't been tricked all her life...
"Yes. Why do you sound so unsure?" It isn't scathing or rude. Theo would never expect Mary to be rude... unlike some of his other teachers, Mary was the sort to try to work things out...
"I suppose," Theo begins, "because it looks so obvious."
Obvious.... if there was something each of them knew, *obvious* was a dangerous assumption.
Mary accepts it, nods... "I see. Well, what about here?"
The pen tip is right at Moscow, and Theo says as much. Then she pulls the large map away and reveals a more detailed map of Europe. "Here?" It's Munich. And then it's Florence. And then there's another map and it gets to Haiti. And Cusco. And Quito...
And finally, Theo looks up at Mary, who seemed so focused in her asking, that she seemed to have lost the thread of the conversation. But before he can ask, Mary reveals the last map... the old map of the United States that used to hang in Mary's classroom... before Lilith. Before... that...
But this time... Mary doesn’t point to a place with a clear label. She doesn’t even move for a moment. Her fingers trace the bottom of the thick cardstock, near the bottom-most right corner, where holes from the push pins had formed, over and over. And Theo realizes that Mary’s closed her eyes.
He holds his breath as Mary traces the tip of the pen from the bottom right corner... all the way up... the coast, nearly a perfect outline. It was almost remarkable that her pen was not remarking that line...
And when she reaches the east coast, her line wavers... and finally... lands on an unmarked town in Massachusetts. Probably, by the map’s key, a good hour from Salem... Westward. As to go East may lead you into the ocean...
“Greendale.”
Theo looks up sharply to see Mary’s face, more focused, but her eyes still closed. When she finally does open her eyes, they look watery, without there even being any tears. Like they’re flooded by memory or thought... and Theo wonders what private moment he’s witnessed.
She looks down, and even though she had been correct, there was something almost sad in her eyes for the fact...
“Hmmm, still hopelessly accurate,” she mumbles to herself, before shifting her grip the tiniest bit... and pointing upwards a half centimetre on the page... “Eden, I suppose.”
Eden... that’s right... just north of Greendale, now home to one of the most beautiful orchards that Mary had ever seen. She feels that it’s almost sacrilegious of her to have ever climbed the apple trees there... those many years ago as a young girl.
Theo looks at where her aim has gone, and realizes that must be the orchard that everyone in Greendale had visited all those many times.
As if reading his mind, Mary nods. “Eden, wasn’t it? I have to say... it must have been quite a shock for Lilith? Hearing, on her second day, that Sabrina -- the bringer of the end of days -- was going to Eden of all places to try to circumvent the issue... she may not have known but...”
Without realizing why, Theo reaches out to steady Ms Wardwell’s wrist, having seen it begin to tremble and her grip slip on the brass pen. And Mary is surprised at the kindness afforded to her. But, why should she be? Theo Putnam was one of the kindest souls she’d even met... why not his kindness?
“Greendale’s always been my home,” Mary murmurs, almost inaudibly... “but I suppose home means something different to everyone...”
And the solemn tone makes Theo smile, sadly as it was. For Theo... who would always have roots, for better or for worse... as someone who he was not. For Theo’s friends... for Harvey, whose mother and brother would never welcome him back the way he did not remember... for Roz, whose crisis of faith was present in the homes of every family who shared her father’s house of worship... for Sabrina, who would always be surrounded by the families she was never supposed to have known...
And for Mary Wardwell, he realizes, as he feels the muscles in Mary’s wrist shift as she takes up her pen from the paper again -- who knew this town as something so different from what it was and may never know the same home again.
Theo takes back his hand, remembering the times that Mary had clasped his with a kindness... Theo later realized that Mary had started doing so less often since she’d met the real Theo.
“You can always start over, but you can always have a home if you want one...” Mary says, regaining her composure. Her face had turned somewhat red, realizing how her tone had changed when speaking to Theo -- how it was unprofessional... but Theo’s eyes held no judgement, and instead, offered understanding.
“I don’t know if it’s best for me to leave... I’ve always wondered if there was anywhere wider than Greendale for me... if there would be a better place for me than... here.”
Mary nods, takes a seat beside Theo in one of the chairs on his side of the desk. That large desk... the one that no one had wanted... Mary offered to take it if someone could help her get it into her office... but once she and Mrs Meeks and two other history teachers and wrestled it in, they swore, with all kind intentions, that they’d never get it out again.
The desk was backwards, even, with her drawer knobs facing the door... but Mary didn’t mind all too much. She was able to work with it, anyhow.
“I’m sure there are other places to go and explore, Theo. If you wanted... I know that it must not be easy for you here... I’d spent a semester away in the city, and I’d... been astonished by what I found.”“That there were no mines to hell?”
Mary laughed at Theo’s private version of a joke, and respectfully nodded her appreciation of him normalizing the experiences she’s had. Reaffirming her. She hadn’t meant to let Theo be this considerate of her... to feel that he needed to take care of her. But Theo had taken it upon himself to treat her with an appropriate amount of familiarity after she’d been enlightened to the nature of Greendale.
Even with the joke, Mary cleared her throat to clarify. “Well, indeed. No mines to hell. But certainly... there was... more. I would never say that I don’t love Greendale... but I would also say that those who never leave Greendale may never know what it’s like somewhere else. There may be people you may be able to learn about... your experiences from. As much as I try, I fully admit that I’m not the most well-versed in your experiences. Your... identity. Perhaps you’ll find it thrilling to go elsewhere to college... or perhaps you’ll find it stifling. But the decision is really up to you, you know.”
Theo smiled, more broadly this time. Freckled cheeks affected by dimples. “So you wouldn’t think I was running away?”
“Me?” Mary laughs, shakes her heads. “Goodness, no. No, no... perhaps you’ll find something new out there?”
“I don’t really know the first step to... to learning about what’s out there, though?” Theo admits. “I’d... I’d always thought I’d go to North Greendale...” He eyes the certificate on Mary’s wall, and Mary doesn’t need to follow his gaze to know exactly what he’s staring at.
“Well, perhaps you will,” Mary says, reassuring. “It’s certainly not a bad university. I’m biased towards the English department... but if you are considering other options, I could very easily write you some recommendations. Recommendations of schools to look towards, and recommendation letters to those schools for you.”
He doesn’t know what to say. Theo... doesn’t know what to say. He glances at Ms Wardwell’s kind blue eyes and wonders what it was about her -- after everything that had happened to her, she was still so kind.
There’s a noticeable murmur in the hall, and with a glance at the small clock Mary kept on her desk, Theo notes with disappointment that it was about time for both of them to head off to homeroom.
He stands, goes to the maps on the floor, and begins to straighten them, having given Mary a cheerful smile to let her know that he most certainly didn’t mind. She begins gathering her papers for the day... the attendance papers and worksheets... when...
“Miss W... where did you get all these maps? You have... dozens of them in here...”
And it’s asked with pure curiosity, which only makes Mary’s eyes sparkle. “Most of the older ones were mine... from when I had a secondary major in History... and when I taught the freshman world geography course... but later on, I started getting them from Adam...”
“Oh. Dr Masters...”
Theo had heard of him a few times, before he knew Dr Masters was Mary’s fiancé. Actually, Theo hadn’t even known until Mary had spoken of him... a month or so ago while he had come to ask her questions about the reading assignments.
“Yes. He was astonished that I could know so much about one place, and never travel anywhere else...”
“You’ve never... travelled?” The very thought astonished Theo... Ms Wardwell seemed to know so much about everywhere. Even with her preference for local history... she always seemed to intimately knowledgable.
“Oh... well... I’ve never been on an airplane... never really left New England, even. Only ever have gone to New York once for college... I miss it, but I like my time here. I do, really,” Mary says... and even with that, there was something in her voice that sounded heavier.
Theo didn’t answer immediately, only going about spreading the maps back out across her desk, weighing them down again with her clocks and paperweights...
He’s grabbed his book-bag and slung it over his shoulder, about to leave, when he turns suddenly in the doorway and asks...
“If you’re... if you’re offering... do you think... you might look into a school in New York State for me?”
Mary’s eyes widen, but there is nothing but enthusiasm in it. “Of course, Mr Putnam. I’d be happy to. It really is a lovely place.”
She grabs a few more files, and another book for the stack, only to look up, Theo still in her doorway...
“And... if you’d be willing... would you come to my graduation? I think it would be great to have my favourite teacher there, right?”
If she hadn’t had a homeroom to teach two minutes ago, she may have cried. Wordlessly, she nods, and mouths, smiling, “of course.”