Chapter 57 – The Blind Guardian – Holly Hayfield

Ms. Hoffman was neither happy nor eager to allow us into her home, but she did allow us in. She merely slunk away from the entrance enough to let us to squeeze through. She pointed us at her living room couch, and then left us there while she went into the kitchen. Val and I awkwardly sat down on the aging couch and stared at her characterless living room. The only sound to be heard in this joyless living room was a malfunctioning grandfather clock which almost seemed to tick at random.

It hadn’t occurred to me how haphazard her entire property was until I was on the inside. The house from the exterior seemed almost like a drunken 1950s haze of what an American household should look like. It had a white-picket fence that seemed to be under repair after damage. The fence didn’t even wrap the entire front yard. The gray vinyl siding that covered the house’s exterior was spotted like an exotic animal. The paint was chipping off in a way that made the house stand out like a sore thumb amongst its neighbors.

I had given the home’s owner the benefit of the doubt that these were defections based on unfortunate circumstances. However, after seeing the lifeless interior, I was forced to revoke my earlier opinion. The interior had some alien wallpaper pattern consisting of dark shapes that I couldn’t even make out. The ugly shapes looked almost like insects that were hidden by a mosaic filter. The fact that she didn’t have any sort of television or paintings in her living room brought this hideous wallpaper to the forefront.

The house was large on the inside, but felt gargantuan due to the spaces between the furniture. There were no details, no notable characteristics that could define this sterile environment. It was like a museum time-piece of what a living room was, just some furniture and a coffee table. There was no one else in the house. There were no pets, no TV, no decorations of any sort. There was just silence and the occasional ticking of a broken clock.

Val and I had nothing to say as we waited on Ms. Hoffman to return. When she did, she came back in with a tray of three teacups and sugar cookies. She sat them down on the coffee table in front of us and resigned herself to the chair across from the couch. Val and I took a teacup and took a sip. The tea smelled bad. It tasted even worse. After a single sip I had drank enough and sat it back down where it came from. Val didn’t do the same, perhaps trying to appear respectful.

“We know about Malorie.” Val said.

This was proof that Val wasn’t here to beat around the bush. She was here for answers.

“We also know about Mrs. Duluth and the tape that Malorie recorded.” Val added.

Ms. Hoffman, her eyes listless and unfeeling, didn’t as much as flinch upon hearing these names. She casually took a sip out of her teacup before setting it back on the tray beside mine.

“I see.” She said vacantly.

“That’s it?” Val asked in a laugh, “I’m telling you that I know about the two murders that went on right behind your back and that’s all you have to say?”

Ms. Hoffman opened her mouth to say something in her defense, and then gave up. She picked up the teacup again as though she had no intention of saying anything back. What could she say back? There was nothing that could defend the fact that she failed Malorie, leaving aside Mrs. Duluth. She wasn’t even going to try to excuse her behavior.

Val sat her teacup down back on the tray.

“Listen to me.” Val demanded in a harsher tone now, “You knew about Mrs. Duluth’s murder. You knew about Malorie’s murder. You did absolutely nothing and you don’t have a god-damned word to say about that?”

Ms. Hoffman was completely zoned out. Although she was staring in our general direction her eyes seemed to be staring at something 1000 miles away. When she finally looked Val in the eyes properly the only thing she could do was shrug her shoulders.

“There was nothing for me to do.” Ms. Hoffman said. “What’s done is done. Those people aren’t coming back to life.”

“You should’ve gone to the police!” Val immediately shouted. “You should’ve publicized what you knew! You should’ve dragged these girls out one-by-one and talked to their parents! You should’ve done anything! Don’t you look at me and tell me there was nothing for you to do!”

Val was getting heated. I put my hand on Val’s hand and even that seemed to have no effect. Val’s skin felt warm to the touch. She was letting this entire situation get to her, just as much as Lilith. I couldn’t tell which of them was worse, but at least Lilith felt somewhat controllable. If Val had a meltdown here then I wouldn’t be able to protect Ms. Hoffman. I hadn’t seen her so emotional about something since her confrontation with Erica.

“I know you mean well.” Ms. Hoffman said flatly, “But that was a decade ago. There’s nothing to be done now.”

“Now…!” Val huffed. “Now is the perfect chance to do something about it! Don’t you want to make amends for the past? Don’t you want justice for Malorie and Mrs. Duluth?”

“Justice…” Ms. Hoffman echoed. “There’s no such thing as justice at that school. There never has been and there never will be. You should know that by now, considering that you’re in the student council.”

“I joined the student council to try to change the school!” Val said. “Aren’t you interested in seeing the school you used to teach at become a better place?”

“That’s not going to happen.” Ms. Hoffman said. “That’s a delusion. Get rid of it.”

This was the only topic that Ms. Hoffman was lively on. She was stubbornly self-assured that the school couldn’t change. It was demoralizing to hear from a former teacher. It sounded like she had poured her heart into it, only to give up on it later. I had no doubt in my mind that Malorie’s murder caused it, but I wanted to know why. Why didn’t she do something back then? Val was asking the same thing, but in the wrong way.

“Excuse me,” I said to interrupt Val before she could shout at Ms. Hoffman again, “I’d like to ask about before the time of Mrs. Duluth’s murder. I want to know how you felt about your students back then.”

Ms. Hoffman gave me a look like she was measuring me up. Any intentions I had behind my question may have not been clear to her.

“I never imagined them to be capable of such things.” She freely admitted. “I didn’t think they were the type of students that I needed to worry about. I thought that my students were so much better than the rest. I was blinded by my pride in them.”

“Does it have to be so black and white?” I asked. “You saw only the good side they presented to you. They probably respected you enough to at least keep up the act until Malorie turned on them. Perhaps we should look at this from another perspective?”

Both Val and Ms. Hoffman looked at me in curious awe. From Val’s perspective this probably sounded like fraternization with the enemy. A glimmer of hope was shining in Ms. Hoffman’s eyes, like she wanted a way out of these dark thoughts. I recognized that reaction in Ms. Logan before. Val was going about things the wrong way. In order to get her to talk honestly we needed to toss her a rope.

“My friend here, Val…” I said and pointed at Val, “For a while I only saw one side of her. It took some time for me to come to some sort of understanding of who she was, but we’ve reached that point. We had a rocky start and conflicting interests but now I can finally consider her my friend.”

Val looked on with personal interest. Although she may have wanted to say something, she held her tongue while I made my point.

“That taught me something. It’s easy to judge your mental image of someone, but until that mental image is a complete one, other information must be considered. I once had an overwhelmingly negative opinion of the student body of our school, just like you. It took becoming student council vice president to see beyond my limited frame of reference.”

“I don’t understand. Are you saying I should withhold judgment on my former students?” Ms. Hoffman asked.

“No.” I said. “I’m saying that Val and I should withhold judgment on you.”

Ms. Hoffman blinked in surprise. She probably wasn’t expecting the compass needle of this conversation to be turned on her like that.

“Neither of us was there all those years ago,” I said to Ms. Hoffman. “Val and I could only speculate as to why you up and changed schools after learning of Malorie’s fate. At first I thought it was cowardice, but I’m starting to get the feeling that isn’t right. I want to hear your perspective, Ms. Hoffman.”

She thought about it for a moment. No doubt she had been burdened alone by all these thoughts, for all these years. She probably was thinking less about how to place her words and more about rather if she should tell us anything at all. Although her gaze was directed away from us I could see glimpses of this internal conflict displayed in the twitches of her facial expressions. She, like Ms. Logan and Vivian Hale, was also in pain caused by a troubled past.

“You have nothing to lose by talking to me.” I said to Ms. Hoffman. “I’ve spent hours of my time offering my counsel to your former student, Ms. Logan. I freely offer it to you as well. I can’t exonerate you of any past wrong doing, but I can offer you a chance to get some things off your chest. You probably have some things you’ve wanted to say for a long time now.”

Ms. Hoffman looked at me with teardrops lensing over her eyes. She wiped her eyes clear before they could fall down her cheek. Val gave me a subtle elbow to the side and nodded at me to let me know this was the right way. Just like with Ms. Logan, this was just as much for Ms. Hoffman. I wasn’t just extracting information from a person. This was to help her heal, if such a thing were still possible.

“I loved them.” Ms. Hoffman said emotionally. “I learned back then that I’d never be able to give birth to children of my own. I never let it get to me because I felt like I already had such wonderful kids. A few of them were with me from their freshman year to their senior year. I loved them so much, and yet…”

Her voice began to trail off as she spoke. She wiped her eyes again, like she was ashamed to cry about this in front of us.

“I know you loved them dearly.” I said. “Malorie wrote about her relationship with you in her diary.”

“She what…?” Ms. Hoffman asked.

“She kept an old school physical diary.” I said. “Her brother Jacob was kind enough to lend it to us. Val here created a website of it to honor her memory.”

Val was freshly angered by this.

“What I don’t understand is why? Why didn’t you stick up for Malorie?”

Val’s voice rose in frustration as she spoke. I put my hand on her knee to give her the signal to let me handle it. Val definitely wasn’t used to being regulated to the backseat of a conversation like this, but this required delicacy. Val had a hot, overly emotional side that she usually kept hidden, and a cold methodical angelic side that she normally presented to the world. Her heart was too invested into Malorie’s story to let her cold side keep control.

“What Val means to ask is what caused you to keep your distance when you learned about what happened to Malorie? Malorie trusted you as the person she could rely on to handle the information about Mrs. Duluth. Did something come between you and your plans to turn them in?”

“No.” Ms. Hoffman said, “There were never any plans to turn them in to begin with.”

“What…?” Val asked.

“For months back then I had been fighting calls to reduce funding to our club.” Ms. Hoffman said. “There were other teachers that had plans for extracurricular activities. We knew that another funding cut would be the death knell of our ability to put on shows. The shows that we had weren’t selling many tickets and relied heavily on the school subsidizing our operations.”

“That’s why Mrs. Duluth got involved, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes. She was the one leading the charge against our club, calling it a white elephant. She said that if we couldn’t afford to continue funding by selling tickets then we had no right to exist. For example, the basketball club was able to self-fund itself by selling tickets to games. The photography club was able to keep itself funded by selling pictures and prints. The Art and Theater club… We were falling far short of our needs.”

“So,” Val said, “The girls thought that if they could remove Mrs. Duluth then they could remove the problem?”

“In essence, I suppose.” Ms. Hoffman said. “There were other teachers that were critical of our program but none of them had the power to shut us down single-handedly like Mrs. Duluth. Their decision to poison her may have been influenced by me. I was feeling unusually upset one afternoon after a heated argument with Mrs. Duluth. I went on a long-winded rant about Mrs. Duluth in front of my club members. I never suspected that my students would take matters into their own hands.”

“When Malorie revealed all this to you what was your reaction?” I asked.

“She let me listen to the tape she made personally. I couldn’t even believe my ears. It was no secret that I didn’t like Mrs. Duluth, but I never wanted her to be harmed. I felt like I had been betrayed by the students I loved and cared for very much. Their fight to keep the club alive had crossed a line of no return. It was at that point that I decided I’d fall on my sword and shut the club down myself.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Val asked promptly.

Ms. Hoffman shrugged and shook her head.

“I still loved them. Despite everything they had done, I loved them. They were all troubled girls, I knew for a fact, but I wanted them to move on from Meredith’s High School for Troubled Girls and become functioning members of society. I naively thought that once I shut down the club then that would be the end of that. Never did I imagine that they would take out their frustrations on the one who alarmed me to their behavior.”

“You were defending them?!” Val shouted exasperatedly. “They got away with fucking murder and you stood up for them, hoping it wouldn’t happen again?”

I pressed down on Val’s shoulder to keep her from getting up. It felt like she wanted to leap across the table and choke the life out of Ms. Hoffman.

“You couldn’t bring yourself to ruin their lives with a ruinous arrest and conviction.” I said.

Ms. Hoffman finally let the tears she had been holding back roll down her face.

“I know it was wrong!” She said. “I know it was wrong! I don’t need anyone to tell me! I just wanted them to move on!”

“At the cost of another person’s life,” Val shouted, “And you just up and walked away?”

“They killed Malorie for telling me about what happened.” Ms. Hoffman said, “What then, would my former students have done to me if I had stayed? Walking away was the best choice that I had back then.”

“Even after all that…” Val hissed, “After all that you could’ve gone to the cops and begged for help. You had the tapes. You had a witness account from Malorie. You had teenage students that would’ve cracked under a real interrogation, but you just walked away…”

Val was shaking, trembling out of control. I could see that she was about to snap. I put both of my arms around her to keep her calm. She fought me, but not enough to loosen my hug.

“I can’t believe you.” Valentina said. “I can’t believe that a person would do such a thing. Malorie put her faith… Malorie put her heart into you and you just…”

Valentina pushed free of me and stood up. At first I thought she might walk around the table to attack Ms. Hoffman. Instead, she robotically turned towards the door and slowly made her way to it. She walked out of the house, slamming the door closed behind her. Ms. Hoffman and I were left alone.

Ms. Hoffman had finally let herself fully breakdown. Tears, emotions she had been suppressing with such vigor were finally flowing freely. I got up to walk around the table. I got down on my knees beside her and took Ms. Hoffman by one of her wet, tear-soaked hands. As I offered such affection to her she broke down even harder. She was just like Ms. Logan in the sense that she felt unworthy of sympathy.

“I’m sorry!” Ms. Hoffman cried at the top of her lungs. “I’m so sorry! I’m a horrible person!”

She didn’t seem to be apologizing to me or Valentina. It was like she was trying to apologize to Malorie herself.

“My experience doesn’t compare to yours,” I said, “But I’ve been through a lot myself, even at such a young age. Valentina is the same. She’s arguably gone through a more traumatic life experience than I have. At the center of her struggle was a person whom she trusted fully with her heart. This person deceived her and damaged Valentina to her core. I have no doubt that when she hears Malorie story she self-inserts herself in the center.”

“She’s right though.” Ms. Hoffman said. “I failed Malorie! I failed them all.”

She used the sleeves of her long-sleeved shirt to wipe her face.

“It’s not for me to say.” I said. “All that I can say is that Malorie may have died, but her legacy isn’t dead yet. There are people, many people still alive that know about what really happened back then. All the former members of the Art and History club can still testify if you help us.”

“Help you with what…?”

“When the time comes, we plan to get the police involved with Malorie’s story.” I said. “When that time comes I need you to be brave. I need you to tell the police everything that you know. Do you think you can do that, for Malorie’s sake?”