Maestra
By Eileen Lynch
April 15, 2024
April 15, 2024
Rumors around school were Alejandro Morales might not make it. Injured in an illegal street race, his family had to decide whether to keep their eighteen-year-old son on life support. His latest Spanish test sat before Louise Romero, Alejandro’s Spanish teacher and case manager at West Central High. Her mission had been to help him raise his grades enough to graduate high school. Louise shredded his final, adorned with a big red F, and scattered the pieces in a waste basket.
Alejandro argued he and his brother Mateo made plenty of money cutting grass. A fellow grease monkey, Mateo had been his brother’s co-driver, who advised where to turn and the severity of turns.
“I taught him how to perform a muffler delete,” was the last conversation Louise had with Alejandro. “Mateo knows when I’m on the road by the sound my car makes.”
Mateo was not with Alejandro the day he plowed into a cement stanchion.
Stepping into the hall to quiet a couple of boys cuffing each other, Louise noticed Alejandro’s best friend trudging toward Commons. His slumped shoulders told her everything she needed to know.
A sharp slant of April sun backlit yellow daffodils waving from a cement planter at the entrance to Lomas Funeral Home. A drab brown finch turning yellow at change of season flew from a thicket, changed course, and soared. Louise breathed a quick prayer for Alejandro’s immortal soul.
A black-suited man opened the door. In the parlor, a line snaked around the room. Louise spotted Mateo sitting on an upholstered bench trying to restrain a toddler boy from running through a crowd of guests. Mateo and the little one had Alejandro’s chocolate brown eyes fringed by impossibly long lashes.
Taking her place in line, Louise wondered what Alejandro saw in the split second before he crashed -- his mother’s face, God, or bright red F’s preventing his graduation into adult life? Reaching Mrs. Morales, Louise said, “Lo siento, senora.”
The women clasped hands. Mrs. Morales’ red-ringed eyes were sleepless with grief. Mateo guided Louise to the casket. Baggy brown trousers pooled around Alejandro’s legs, eyes closed as they had often been in class.
Louise’s stomach lurched with surprise and grief. An eighteen-year-old laid out in his father’s suit did not conform to the natural order. She willed his long-lashed eyes to blink open.
Mateo gave Louise his arm to steady her. “Would you like a coffee, Maestra?” he asked.
She squeezed his hand. If only she could shepherd Mateo to graduation. “Come see me at school,” she said. Even though local Hispanic families made a living landscaping, Louise taught her Hispanic students how to navigate the white suburban world they inhabited for more options.
Industry and Careers sponsored a car show the week before graduation. During lunch, Louise strolled outside to view student cars. She admired a turquoise Miata, the bright color taking her back to a ride in Acapulco that changed her life. Before she could follow her flashback, the shock of seeing Mateo standing next to the car made her lose her balance.
Mateo came running to help Louise to her feet. “Don’t tell my mother, Mrs. Romero. I race in memory of Alejandro.”
Graduation day Louise was grief struck. She tripped over her gown and ripped the hem. Stepping into the teacher’s lounge, a voice projected from a phone cubby. “People don’t understand what’s going on at the border. This flood of humanity is an economic migration. We are quite literally living through history.” Paul Verdon, a history teacher, finished his call. He emerged from the cubby, his hair a mess of cowlicks.
“My apologies,” he said. “I thought I was alone.”
Louise found a tiny stapler in her bag of school supplies to staple her hem.
“This summer I’d love to volunteer with migrants,” Paul said. “Would you be interested in helping me refresh my Spanish?”
“Sorry, Paul,” Louise said. “My summer is booked.”
Their classrooms were in the same corridor. Even though Louise liked Paul, his intelligence and his concern for others, she didn’t have a desire to launch a tepid middle-aged romance.
Declining his invitation to lunch, Louise returned home, changed into pajamas and cried all day.
Summer vacation was more of the same. She cancelled a Colorado hiking vacation to binge watch shows she couldn’t remember an hour later. At night she listened to mufferless cars returning from street races, worrying about her death tempting students. Her sheets cool as her passion, she did not sleep until she heard the car she thought was Mateo’s returning to their small town.
Never had a student tragedy hit her so hard. Alejandro had not been a good student. Polite and respectful, his manner contained a boyishness that reminded Louise of Fernando Romero, a singing waiter she met in Acapulco.
Mateo had a flair for languages, Spanish and English. Working with Louise, he mastered English grammar. She was relieved he displayed none of the anger that had driven Alejandro’s poor choices.
“Why don’t you tutor younger kids?” Louise said. “They might listen to you better than an old woman like me,” Louise said.
“Maestra,” Mateo said, shining his biggest smile. “You are the best teacher I ever had.”
Without teaching, Louise might have succumbed to a creeping depression. Small successes stayed the existential dread that arose when following the news. Skirmishes morphing into full blown war. Children maimed and killed, separated from their parents.
The Morales invited Louise to a party in their home in honor of Mateo’s graduation with honors. She didn’t want to go as she felt conspicuous in family settings, not having one of her one. She had built her life on the fringes – her youth in another country, her later years with other people’s children.
Mateo stopped by her classroom to make sure she would attend. She could not refuse him.
After a meal of homemade tamales and churros, Louise excused herself. As she entered the yard, she overheard Mateo and his friends talking about carreras callejeras. They were going to race that night.
A protective urge she could only identify as maternal instinct made her follow them in her own car. She had to stop Mateo from participating in the activity that killed his brother.
Staying two cars behind, Louise followed the boys to the interstate. They exited at Lake Shore Drive.
Sun glinting off the waves of Lake Michigan reminded Louise of driving the coastal highway with Fernando Romero. After college graduation, Louise booked a trip to Acapulco with a friend who bailed at the last moment. Louise decided to go alone, not wanting to miss the luxury of the Condesa del Mar Hotel.
Between delivering boat-sized margaritas to sun-dazed tourists, Fernando sang popular songs like El Cielito Lindo and El Rey. Late in the evening, he stopped in front of a table from Cincinnati who had invited Louise to join them. He sang a song that began, con dinero o sin dinero, yo hago lo que quiero. She found him charming. At closing time, they made plans to meet outside the hotel. Fernando took her to a nightclub where locals danced salsa. Long after midnight, they sat at a café table drinking rum and cokes. All the other patrons were Mexican. Fernando held her hand and smiled. He kept a tight hold on her waist and guided her across the floor. American boys danced so tentatively she was forced to lead. There was nothing tentative in the way Fernando held her.
Sharing a margarita after the dancing, Louise asked, “What is your dream?”
Her Spanish was fluent enough that she understood he wanted to open a restaurant in the United States.
Que quieres, she asked again. What do you want?
Te quiero in mis brazos. I want you in my arms.
Fernando escorted her to his car and opened the passenger door. Louise reached for the radio. Fernando slapped her hand.
“I will sing.”
He sang as they drove, turning from the steering wheel to look in Louise’s eyes, swerving when he reached a particularly passionate passage. Dark water sparkled from streetlamps on the outskirts of town. Chest puffed out, proud as a rooster bringing up the sun, Fernando sang the song he had been singing in the hotel lounge. With money and without money, I always do what I want, and my word is law.
Louise envied his lack of self consciousness. A teacher had discouraged Louise from joining chorus, saying her quiet low-toned voice did not carry.
The car stopped before a row of stone block buildings. A tiny viejo sat on a crate. Fernando opened the car window and transferred bills bright as Monopoly money. The man drew open a sheet where a garage door should have been. Louise followed Fernando upstairs to a room furnished only with narrow bed, sheets tucked tightly as hospital corners.
The heat of the day radiated from Louise’s skin as she sank back on the mattress. Fernando traced her sunburned shoulders with his finger. Tienes el piel delicado de los norteamericanos. His gold crucifix brushed her breasts as he kissed her. His embrace erased her fears of floating away.
Having no job or committed relationship at home, Louise extended her vacation, waiting each night for Fernando’s shift to end. She stood in a garden outside the bar as he sang “El Rey” to tourists. Returning to the motel with the white sheet across the garage, she tried to summon the ecstasy of that first night, not experienced enough to know everything changed every minute, facts as well as feelings.
Their marriage took place soon after a positive pregnancy test, their wedding day sunny as every day was. Too soon, the warmth turned searing. Food she loved on vacation sat as heavily as Fernando’s mother and aunts’ disapproval. Sundays after Mass he played music with his cousins in the courtyard behind their apartment building.
Her Spanish was fluent enough to follow the church services where she gazed at retablos, wooden replicas of unfamiliar saints. Taking a walk by herself, Louise longed for rain, even snow. When Christmas came, she missed her family in Chicago, their quiet, modulated voices, their sharp, surgical humor taking her apart with helpless laughter, then tying her up again, safe and secure like the beef roast served every Sunday dinner.
A miscarriage ended the pregnancy. Fernando cried in their tiny bedroom. Louise had been waiting for the three-month mark to tell her family back home.
Louise asked Fernando if he wanted to move to Chicago. “My city has many beautiful restaurants where you could work your way from waiter to owner.”
“Too cold,” he said.
“You told me running a restaurant in the U.S. was your dream.”
“Why do you have to remember everything people say?” he said, strumming his guitar.
At Randolph Street, Mateo turned down a ramp to lower Wacker. Underground was a different scene from elegant retailers lining the wide boulevard of Michigan Avenue. A shriek of tires directed them to the races. Gray light overlaid with thick dust clouds created by shredded tires created an otherworldly pallor. Hoodie-wearing drivers saluted each other. Hip-hop beats escaped open windows. A primal surge Louise had not felt since her younger days kept her on her feet and watching.
She crossed Wacket to buy StreetWise from a vendor named Lonzell. Handing back her change, he smiled wide from a baby face framed by tight gray curls.
Sirens interrupted their exchange. Two Chicago police squad cars corralled a Nissan Sentra. Suddenly, Mateo was at her elbow.
“Vamonos, Maestra.”
She gripped the sleeve of his jacket.
“Follow me.” Mateo drove south. They stopped at White Castle for a bag of sliders. Stretching her legs in the parking lot, Louise eavesdropped on hoodie-clad drivers, amazed by the respect and politesse they showed each other.
Next stop was Lumber Street. Cars gathered near an industrial area where Ozinga concrete mixers awaited their next assignment.
The dashboard clock showed midnight as the cohort returned to lower Wacker. Races continued until 3:00 am when police officers threatened arrest for drivers who failed to vacate the area. As the sun rose over their return trip, calm rectangles of white separated an orange-streaked sky. Louise wondered when she would slip into the space between the brilliant orange and purple of dawn.
Older colleagues succumbed to illness and infirmity as soon as they retired. Louise recently attended a funeral for her department chair. Where was it written that she had to go quietly?
The second time she attended the races, Louise sorted and purged her belongings before leaving the house. If something happened, she did not want her family to read her diaries particularly descriptions of her failed marriage.
As summer turned to autumn, Louise had to admit that her original motivation of protecting Mateo had turned into a fascination with street racing. The outlaw pageantry made her feel alive.
The week before school started, Louise asked Mateo if she might ride in the passenger seat while he raced. “Just once,” she asked.
Seeing that his teacher did not scream or fidget, Mateo asked her if she wanted to drive.
She wanted to very badly, so badly, she bought her own car.
The night she was to race, Louise followed Mateo downtown. At Stetson, he opened the door for her. “Hola maestra. Esta lista?”
Louise stretched leather driving gloves over fingers becoming more arthritic every year.
Hip hop bounced from cement canyons where hundreds of racers awaited their turn. Camaros, Civics, Dodge Challengers. Louise memorized the names of cars as she once conjugated Spanish verbs. Her pink Nissan Sentra, perfect in the intense light of Acapulco from where she had it shipped, did not translate to Chicago’s muted skies.
“What is your running song?” Mateo teased. “Every good driver has one.”
Thinking for a moment of Fernando, the coastal highway, his beautiful voice. She said, “My song is La Reina – like El Rey by Vicente Fernandez, but for a woman.”
Starting her engine, Louise realized it was too late for wedding bouquets, 2:00 am feedings, pushing a stroller. She pulled next to a Honda Civic. The music had been playing the whole time, the party of her life in full swing. It was not too late to open the window and sing.
At the end of the first day of the new school year, Louise crossed the corridor to find Paul Verdon stapling a timeline of the Civil War on a fabric-backed bulletin board in his classroom.
“Did you make it to the border?” she asked.
He nodded. “I noticed your nameplate changed from Romero to Larkin.”
“My maiden name. Let me show you what else is new.”
She gestured toward teacher parking. Paul followed, slipping into the passenger seat.
Louise headed for a country road, accelerating uphill. Hitting a straight stretch she gunned the engine, her blood warming as the speedometer hit 120 mph. Paul tightened his seatbelt. Louise drove toward the sun singing at the top of her lungs, con dinero o sin dinero, yo hago lo que quiero.
Alejandro argued he and his brother Mateo made plenty of money cutting grass. A fellow grease monkey, Mateo had been his brother’s co-driver, who advised where to turn and the severity of turns.
“I taught him how to perform a muffler delete,” was the last conversation Louise had with Alejandro. “Mateo knows when I’m on the road by the sound my car makes.”
Mateo was not with Alejandro the day he plowed into a cement stanchion.
Stepping into the hall to quiet a couple of boys cuffing each other, Louise noticed Alejandro’s best friend trudging toward Commons. His slumped shoulders told her everything she needed to know.
A sharp slant of April sun backlit yellow daffodils waving from a cement planter at the entrance to Lomas Funeral Home. A drab brown finch turning yellow at change of season flew from a thicket, changed course, and soared. Louise breathed a quick prayer for Alejandro’s immortal soul.
A black-suited man opened the door. In the parlor, a line snaked around the room. Louise spotted Mateo sitting on an upholstered bench trying to restrain a toddler boy from running through a crowd of guests. Mateo and the little one had Alejandro’s chocolate brown eyes fringed by impossibly long lashes.
Taking her place in line, Louise wondered what Alejandro saw in the split second before he crashed -- his mother’s face, God, or bright red F’s preventing his graduation into adult life? Reaching Mrs. Morales, Louise said, “Lo siento, senora.”
The women clasped hands. Mrs. Morales’ red-ringed eyes were sleepless with grief. Mateo guided Louise to the casket. Baggy brown trousers pooled around Alejandro’s legs, eyes closed as they had often been in class.
Louise’s stomach lurched with surprise and grief. An eighteen-year-old laid out in his father’s suit did not conform to the natural order. She willed his long-lashed eyes to blink open.
Mateo gave Louise his arm to steady her. “Would you like a coffee, Maestra?” he asked.
She squeezed his hand. If only she could shepherd Mateo to graduation. “Come see me at school,” she said. Even though local Hispanic families made a living landscaping, Louise taught her Hispanic students how to navigate the white suburban world they inhabited for more options.
Industry and Careers sponsored a car show the week before graduation. During lunch, Louise strolled outside to view student cars. She admired a turquoise Miata, the bright color taking her back to a ride in Acapulco that changed her life. Before she could follow her flashback, the shock of seeing Mateo standing next to the car made her lose her balance.
Mateo came running to help Louise to her feet. “Don’t tell my mother, Mrs. Romero. I race in memory of Alejandro.”
Graduation day Louise was grief struck. She tripped over her gown and ripped the hem. Stepping into the teacher’s lounge, a voice projected from a phone cubby. “People don’t understand what’s going on at the border. This flood of humanity is an economic migration. We are quite literally living through history.” Paul Verdon, a history teacher, finished his call. He emerged from the cubby, his hair a mess of cowlicks.
“My apologies,” he said. “I thought I was alone.”
Louise found a tiny stapler in her bag of school supplies to staple her hem.
“This summer I’d love to volunteer with migrants,” Paul said. “Would you be interested in helping me refresh my Spanish?”
“Sorry, Paul,” Louise said. “My summer is booked.”
Their classrooms were in the same corridor. Even though Louise liked Paul, his intelligence and his concern for others, she didn’t have a desire to launch a tepid middle-aged romance.
Declining his invitation to lunch, Louise returned home, changed into pajamas and cried all day.
Summer vacation was more of the same. She cancelled a Colorado hiking vacation to binge watch shows she couldn’t remember an hour later. At night she listened to mufferless cars returning from street races, worrying about her death tempting students. Her sheets cool as her passion, she did not sleep until she heard the car she thought was Mateo’s returning to their small town.
Never had a student tragedy hit her so hard. Alejandro had not been a good student. Polite and respectful, his manner contained a boyishness that reminded Louise of Fernando Romero, a singing waiter she met in Acapulco.
Mateo had a flair for languages, Spanish and English. Working with Louise, he mastered English grammar. She was relieved he displayed none of the anger that had driven Alejandro’s poor choices.
“Why don’t you tutor younger kids?” Louise said. “They might listen to you better than an old woman like me,” Louise said.
“Maestra,” Mateo said, shining his biggest smile. “You are the best teacher I ever had.”
Without teaching, Louise might have succumbed to a creeping depression. Small successes stayed the existential dread that arose when following the news. Skirmishes morphing into full blown war. Children maimed and killed, separated from their parents.
The Morales invited Louise to a party in their home in honor of Mateo’s graduation with honors. She didn’t want to go as she felt conspicuous in family settings, not having one of her one. She had built her life on the fringes – her youth in another country, her later years with other people’s children.
Mateo stopped by her classroom to make sure she would attend. She could not refuse him.
After a meal of homemade tamales and churros, Louise excused herself. As she entered the yard, she overheard Mateo and his friends talking about carreras callejeras. They were going to race that night.
A protective urge she could only identify as maternal instinct made her follow them in her own car. She had to stop Mateo from participating in the activity that killed his brother.
Staying two cars behind, Louise followed the boys to the interstate. They exited at Lake Shore Drive.
Sun glinting off the waves of Lake Michigan reminded Louise of driving the coastal highway with Fernando Romero. After college graduation, Louise booked a trip to Acapulco with a friend who bailed at the last moment. Louise decided to go alone, not wanting to miss the luxury of the Condesa del Mar Hotel.
Between delivering boat-sized margaritas to sun-dazed tourists, Fernando sang popular songs like El Cielito Lindo and El Rey. Late in the evening, he stopped in front of a table from Cincinnati who had invited Louise to join them. He sang a song that began, con dinero o sin dinero, yo hago lo que quiero. She found him charming. At closing time, they made plans to meet outside the hotel. Fernando took her to a nightclub where locals danced salsa. Long after midnight, they sat at a café table drinking rum and cokes. All the other patrons were Mexican. Fernando held her hand and smiled. He kept a tight hold on her waist and guided her across the floor. American boys danced so tentatively she was forced to lead. There was nothing tentative in the way Fernando held her.
Sharing a margarita after the dancing, Louise asked, “What is your dream?”
Her Spanish was fluent enough that she understood he wanted to open a restaurant in the United States.
Que quieres, she asked again. What do you want?
Te quiero in mis brazos. I want you in my arms.
Fernando escorted her to his car and opened the passenger door. Louise reached for the radio. Fernando slapped her hand.
“I will sing.”
He sang as they drove, turning from the steering wheel to look in Louise’s eyes, swerving when he reached a particularly passionate passage. Dark water sparkled from streetlamps on the outskirts of town. Chest puffed out, proud as a rooster bringing up the sun, Fernando sang the song he had been singing in the hotel lounge. With money and without money, I always do what I want, and my word is law.
Louise envied his lack of self consciousness. A teacher had discouraged Louise from joining chorus, saying her quiet low-toned voice did not carry.
The car stopped before a row of stone block buildings. A tiny viejo sat on a crate. Fernando opened the car window and transferred bills bright as Monopoly money. The man drew open a sheet where a garage door should have been. Louise followed Fernando upstairs to a room furnished only with narrow bed, sheets tucked tightly as hospital corners.
The heat of the day radiated from Louise’s skin as she sank back on the mattress. Fernando traced her sunburned shoulders with his finger. Tienes el piel delicado de los norteamericanos. His gold crucifix brushed her breasts as he kissed her. His embrace erased her fears of floating away.
Having no job or committed relationship at home, Louise extended her vacation, waiting each night for Fernando’s shift to end. She stood in a garden outside the bar as he sang “El Rey” to tourists. Returning to the motel with the white sheet across the garage, she tried to summon the ecstasy of that first night, not experienced enough to know everything changed every minute, facts as well as feelings.
Their marriage took place soon after a positive pregnancy test, their wedding day sunny as every day was. Too soon, the warmth turned searing. Food she loved on vacation sat as heavily as Fernando’s mother and aunts’ disapproval. Sundays after Mass he played music with his cousins in the courtyard behind their apartment building.
Her Spanish was fluent enough to follow the church services where she gazed at retablos, wooden replicas of unfamiliar saints. Taking a walk by herself, Louise longed for rain, even snow. When Christmas came, she missed her family in Chicago, their quiet, modulated voices, their sharp, surgical humor taking her apart with helpless laughter, then tying her up again, safe and secure like the beef roast served every Sunday dinner.
A miscarriage ended the pregnancy. Fernando cried in their tiny bedroom. Louise had been waiting for the three-month mark to tell her family back home.
Louise asked Fernando if he wanted to move to Chicago. “My city has many beautiful restaurants where you could work your way from waiter to owner.”
“Too cold,” he said.
“You told me running a restaurant in the U.S. was your dream.”
“Why do you have to remember everything people say?” he said, strumming his guitar.
At Randolph Street, Mateo turned down a ramp to lower Wacker. Underground was a different scene from elegant retailers lining the wide boulevard of Michigan Avenue. A shriek of tires directed them to the races. Gray light overlaid with thick dust clouds created by shredded tires created an otherworldly pallor. Hoodie-wearing drivers saluted each other. Hip-hop beats escaped open windows. A primal surge Louise had not felt since her younger days kept her on her feet and watching.
She crossed Wacket to buy StreetWise from a vendor named Lonzell. Handing back her change, he smiled wide from a baby face framed by tight gray curls.
Sirens interrupted their exchange. Two Chicago police squad cars corralled a Nissan Sentra. Suddenly, Mateo was at her elbow.
“Vamonos, Maestra.”
She gripped the sleeve of his jacket.
“Follow me.” Mateo drove south. They stopped at White Castle for a bag of sliders. Stretching her legs in the parking lot, Louise eavesdropped on hoodie-clad drivers, amazed by the respect and politesse they showed each other.
Next stop was Lumber Street. Cars gathered near an industrial area where Ozinga concrete mixers awaited their next assignment.
The dashboard clock showed midnight as the cohort returned to lower Wacker. Races continued until 3:00 am when police officers threatened arrest for drivers who failed to vacate the area. As the sun rose over their return trip, calm rectangles of white separated an orange-streaked sky. Louise wondered when she would slip into the space between the brilliant orange and purple of dawn.
Older colleagues succumbed to illness and infirmity as soon as they retired. Louise recently attended a funeral for her department chair. Where was it written that she had to go quietly?
The second time she attended the races, Louise sorted and purged her belongings before leaving the house. If something happened, she did not want her family to read her diaries particularly descriptions of her failed marriage.
As summer turned to autumn, Louise had to admit that her original motivation of protecting Mateo had turned into a fascination with street racing. The outlaw pageantry made her feel alive.
The week before school started, Louise asked Mateo if she might ride in the passenger seat while he raced. “Just once,” she asked.
Seeing that his teacher did not scream or fidget, Mateo asked her if she wanted to drive.
She wanted to very badly, so badly, she bought her own car.
The night she was to race, Louise followed Mateo downtown. At Stetson, he opened the door for her. “Hola maestra. Esta lista?”
Louise stretched leather driving gloves over fingers becoming more arthritic every year.
Hip hop bounced from cement canyons where hundreds of racers awaited their turn. Camaros, Civics, Dodge Challengers. Louise memorized the names of cars as she once conjugated Spanish verbs. Her pink Nissan Sentra, perfect in the intense light of Acapulco from where she had it shipped, did not translate to Chicago’s muted skies.
“What is your running song?” Mateo teased. “Every good driver has one.”
Thinking for a moment of Fernando, the coastal highway, his beautiful voice. She said, “My song is La Reina – like El Rey by Vicente Fernandez, but for a woman.”
Starting her engine, Louise realized it was too late for wedding bouquets, 2:00 am feedings, pushing a stroller. She pulled next to a Honda Civic. The music had been playing the whole time, the party of her life in full swing. It was not too late to open the window and sing.
At the end of the first day of the new school year, Louise crossed the corridor to find Paul Verdon stapling a timeline of the Civil War on a fabric-backed bulletin board in his classroom.
“Did you make it to the border?” she asked.
He nodded. “I noticed your nameplate changed from Romero to Larkin.”
“My maiden name. Let me show you what else is new.”
She gestured toward teacher parking. Paul followed, slipping into the passenger seat.
Louise headed for a country road, accelerating uphill. Hitting a straight stretch she gunned the engine, her blood warming as the speedometer hit 120 mph. Paul tightened his seatbelt. Louise drove toward the sun singing at the top of her lungs, con dinero o sin dinero, yo hago lo que quiero.
Eileen Lynch is a writer, editor, and teacher who has lived in New Mexico and Illinois. After managing an ethics program for an international association, she switched careers to teach in a suburban Chicago high school. She has participated in writing workshops at the University of Chicago, Albuquerque, and Taos, New Mexico. The city of Chicago and surrounding suburbs are a backdrop for her work.
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Author's Note:
“Maestra” is a work of fiction inspired by my time working one-on-one with at-risk high school students. While completing coursework for graduation, one student told me his whole family attended street racing events as a celebration of their culture. Another was involved in a wreck but recovered and graduated. Their stories educated me about alternate worlds outside the classroom.