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it’s like ancient history, and you lived it. Wow!”
    Over the past weeks, Victoria had warmed to Jodi despite her off-putting tattoos and body piercings.
    Jodi closed her notebook. “Thanks, Mrs. T.”
    â€œHow do you like your graduate advisor?” Victoria asked after Jodi had stowed books and notes into her backpack and was about to leave.
    â€œProfessor Chadwick? She’s great. I call her Roberta now. You know her, don’t you, Mrs. T?”
    â€œBy reputation only. I’ve never met her.”
    â€œShe’s never married. She says her students are her children.”
    â€œI saw your boys this morning at the school bus stop. They have lovely manners.”
    â€œThanks. Jonah can be kind of strict with them, but he wants them to grow up right.” She buckled the straps on the backpack. “Roberta is just wonderful. She’s interested in my research on signing, and asks lots of questions that get me thinking in new directions.”
    â€œI’m glad she’s giving you that kind of support.”
    â€œIt’s exciting, Mrs. T. You know, I dropped out of school in eighth grade, got into drugs, married a loser, had three kids, got divorced, got clean, met Jonah, and had Matthew. Jonah made me get my high school equivalency.”
    â€œI’m not sure I could pass the test.”
    â€œIt was pretty hard. Then Dr. Wilson, Thackery Wilson, encouraged me to get my degree at Ivy Green College, and”—she flung out her arms—“Ta, dah! The rest is history. Here I am. Thinking graduate degree and a future.”
    â€œWonderful,” said Victoria. “Thackery Wilson tells me you’re setting an example for the college, a pioneer.”
    â€œWell, anyway. Roberta Chadwick. I just love her. She’s almost like a big sister.” Jodi hoisted her heavy backpack onto her shoulder. “I gotta go. And let you get back to work. Again, thanks a million, Mrs. T.”
    *   *   *
    The day after the decomposed body was identified as Professor Harlan Bliss, the Ivy Green College Oversight Committee convened an emergency session to appoint a new member to replace the deceased professor.
    Five of the six remaining members of the committee, known as IGCOC, had come over on the eleven-thirty ferry from Woods Hole. On the ferry, they discussed, at length and with no consensus, the meaning to them of the untimely death of Professor Bliss. They were now walking the short distance from the ferry dock to the Ivy Green campus.
    Hammermill Jones and Dedie Wieler, both brisk walkers, had outdistanced the other three professors.
    â€œIt’s good to get away from the university for a few hours,” said Dedie Wieler, assistant professor of engineering and the lone female on the oversight committee, which she privately called BIGCOCK.
    â€œFrankly, Dedie,” said Hammermill Jones, professor of business administration, “this college is a joke. A waste of our valuable time.”
    Hammermill was a thickset man, six foot one, a former linebacker for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks. Dedie, also six foot one, had been a rower at Williams College. Unlike Hammermill, she had kept herself in shape.
    â€œIt seems to me, Hammermill, this college is doing exactly what I, for one, dreamed of when I went into teaching. Making higher education available to everyone.”
    â€œAt the risk of sounding politically incorrect, my dear Dedie, not everyone deserves a higher education. This so-called college”—he gestured in the direction they were walking—“Ivy Green whatever, is wasting your time, my time, and your ‘everyone’s’ time and money. Raising unrealistic expectations.”
    Because she had less than one year to go before facing the dreaded tenure committee, Dedie said nothing further. Hammermill might be on that committee, she couldn’t be sure. She had already alienated two of the six men