Winter Jacket

Prologue

It's funny how seemingly unconnected events can come together like a perfect storm and change the entire trajectory of one's life. In my case, none of this would have happened if not for a broken space heater.

It was winter in the upper midwest, and I was starting a new semester of teaching academic writing at a university where I'd been hired a few years prior. I liked the school; it was similar to the university where I'd received my own undergraduate degree not that long ago – a small, intimate, private, liberal arts teaching college. I liked teaching at these kinds of schools because the students always seemed so bright, polite, and hard working. This school was no exception. I taught the core writing class in the English Department and sections were capped at a dozen and a half students. It made for a congenial environment where you got to know the students well and they you in return. Students didn't have the luxury of hiding in the anonymity of a large lecture hall, but that was part of the attraction of the college.

Despite the small classroom size, students could still fly under the radar if they really wanted to. Being absent from class or never making eye contact were a few ways to do so. I had a handful of students who regularly participated in each section, and during the 50-minute class period my attention was divided amongst the more active students. I certainly knew and was friendly with the other, more silent students, but not to the extent of those who eagerly and regularly participated. And if not for a broken in-room heater, I probably wouldn't have even noticed her.

Her name was Hunter. And she was lovely.

I knew from introductions on the first day of the new semester that she was a student in the nursing program and that she'd grown up in a nearby suburb. Her name was a bit of a misnomer. I had learned years ago during grad school not to make any preconceived judgments about students based on their names, but I still found myself doing it at the beginning of each semester. Hunter could either be a male student with shaggy hair and a star on the university baseball team, or one of those undergraduate women who predictably wear UGGs every day and pink sweatpants with something equally obnoxious scrawled across their ass. The Hunter enrolled in my class, however, was neither of these people.

She was one of the more quiet students, reticent to volunteer an answer in class discussion, but I was struck by how when I did call on her, even if she didn't have her hand raised, she was ready with a thoughtful answer and spoke in a confident, even tone that surprised me. Most undergraduates stumbled over themselves if they weren't voluntarily participating, too nervous or too shy to put themselves out there for fear of being wrong in front of their peers. But not Hunter. It was as if she knew what question I was going to ask even before I asked it. As if she knew I was going to call on her, and was thusly prepared, even before I knew myself that I was going to ask her to participate.

But these were all things that I only took stock of after the heater in the classroom broke.

We'd been having typical midwestern, winter weather – snowy, cold, and blustery. I was born in this part of the country, so the harsh weather was certainly no stranger. The building where I taught was one of the oldest on campus and hadn't been updated in decades. There was no central heating or cooling in the building either, so each room was equipped with its own wall unit that controlled the temperature in each individual classroom. Unfortunately, the units were never that reliable and had the tendency to break, either leaving us to deal with the cold or suffer through excessive heat. The windows were painted shut, too, not affording the opportunity to at least regulate the temperature with outside air if the heater was on the fritz again.

On this particular winter day, we were dealing with a hot, muggy, sauna-like classroom. As soon as I walked into the small room, I was hit by the stifling heat wave. The students who had arrived early to class were already seated in the U-shaped table configuration, each stripped down to t-shirts and tank tops and fanning themselves with the homework for that day. They looked at me forlornly, their eyes collectively begging that I do something. But we all knew that I was powerless to the University Physical Plant. Numerous calls and work orders to the college's maintenance department had gone unanswered. We'd all have to suffer.