\u201cIs your mom coming tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold asked me that while I was sitting halfway up our stairs with one crutch wedged under my arm and Nicki\u2019s winter coat stretched across my lap.<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
He was holding a cup of coffee. A full one. Still steaming. He was wearing his good gray suit and the blue tie I bought him for his birthday, and he smelled like the expensive aftershave he only wears on days when he has meetings.<\/p>\n
I was trying to work a stuck zipper with one hand while balancing a seven-year-old\u2019s sleeve over the gray cast that ran from my left ankle all the way up past my knee.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cMy mother is not driving an hour here, taking the girls to school, driving an hour home, and then doing it all over again tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold checked his watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about Linda next door?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLinda has a job.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo do I.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped fighting with the zipper.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarold. They\u2019re your children.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen take them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe school is across town.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo leave earlier. Or work from home once in a while and take them then.\u201d<\/p>\n
He took a slow sip of coffee.<\/p>\n
\u201cScarlett, that\u2019s not practical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicki was standing on the step below me with one arm in her coat and one arm out. She looked from her father to me and back again.<\/p>\n
\u201cMommy\u2019s leg isn\u2019t practical either, Dad,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
From the kitchen, Sasha shouted, \u201cNicki took my blue marker!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not!\u201d Nicki yelled back.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou literally have it! It\u2019s in your pocket! I can see it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold picked up his briefcase from beside the front door.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee?\u201d he said. \u201cMornings are chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then he left.<\/p>\n
I sat there on the stairs and listened to his car start in the driveway. I listened to it back out. I listened to it drive away.<\/p>\n
Nicki pulled the blue marker out of her pocket, looked at it, and put it back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll give it back later,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGive it back now.\u201d<\/p>\n
She sighed the way only a seven-year-old can sigh and stomped off toward the kitchen.<\/p>\n
I got the zipper unstuck on the fourth try. Then I called my neighbor Linda and asked, for the fourth time in two weeks, if she could possibly, maybe, just this once, drive my daughters to school.<\/p>\n
Three weeks earlier, I\u2019d slipped on wet tile outside the grocery store.<\/p>\n
It was raining. I had two bags of groceries in my arms and my phone in my hand, because Sasha had texted me from my mother\u2019s old phone that she needed \u201ca shoebox for science by TOMORROW.\u201d I was typing what kind of shoebox when my left foot went out from under me on the tile by the automatic doors.<\/p>\n
I heard the bone go before I felt it. A sound like a stick snapping.<\/p>\n
Then I felt it.<\/p>\n
A teenage boy in a green apron came running out. He knelt down next to me in the rain and said, \u201cOh my God, ma\u2019am, don\u2019t move, don\u2019t move,\u201d while eggs leaked out of my grocery bag onto the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to pick up my kids,\u201d I told him. My voice sounded very far away.<\/p>\n
\u201cMa\u2019am, I think you need an ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to pick up my kids at three-fifteen.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called the ambulance anyway.<\/p>\n
I called Harold from the back of it. He didn\u2019t answer. I called again from the emergency room. He didn\u2019t answer. I finally called my mother, who answered on the first ring and said, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d before I\u2019d said a word, because mothers know.<\/p>\n
\u201cI broke my leg. I need someone to get the girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m on my way,\u201d she said. She lives an hour away. She was at the school by three-twenty.<\/p>\n
Harold called me back at five-thirty.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry, I was in back-to-back meetings. What\u2019s up?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a pause. \u201cWhat? Why?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI broke my leg. They\u2019re doing surgery tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God. Scarlett. Are you okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m not okay. My leg is broken in two places.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be right there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And to be fair to him, he was. He came straight to the hospital. He held my hand. He talked to the doctor. He was there when I woke up after surgery with a plate and six screws in my leg, and he fed me ice chips and made a joke about me setting off airport metal detectors for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n
He was sweet. He was worried. He was good in a crisis.<\/p>\n
It was everything after the crisis that he couldn\u2019t seem to manage.<\/p>\n
The doctor told me no driving for at least six weeks. Maybe eight. No weight on the leg at all. Crutches everywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have help at home?\u201d she asked me at my discharge.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy husband,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
She nodded and wrote something on her clipboard.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t think about that question again until much later.<\/p>\n
Before I broke my leg, I handled everything in the mornings. Breakfast. Lunches. Finding shoes. Signing permission slips. Brushing Nicki\u2019s hair, which she hates and screams through like I\u2019m pulling out her soul. Checking Sasha\u2019s homework folder. Remembering which day was library day and which day was gym day and which day was pajama day, which only happened twice a year and which I somehow always forgot until 7:45 that morning.<\/p>\n
And then the drive. Twenty-five minutes across town, in traffic, to a school we picked because it had a good art program and because Sasha\u2019s best friend Priya went there. I dropped the girls off at 8:10 and then drove to my own job at the insurance office, where I work part-time, four days a week.<\/p>\n
Now I couldn\u2019t drive. I couldn\u2019t even work. My boss put me on leave.<\/p>\n
Harold never actually said the mornings were my job. He never said, That\u2019s your responsibility. He never said anything at all.<\/p>\n
He just became busy at exactly the right moments.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d be in the shower when Nicki needed help with her shoes. He\u2019d be on a work call when the lunchboxes needed packing. He\u2019d be looking for his keys when the permission slip needed signing. And by the time he found his keys, I\u2019d already done it.<\/p>\n
It happened so slowly, over nine years, that I never noticed it happening at all.<\/p>\n
Until I couldn\u2019t do it anymore.<\/p>\n
The first week after my surgery, my mother came.<\/p>\n
She drove in every single morning at six-thirty. She made the girls pancakes, which I never do on weekdays because who has time. She brushed Nicki\u2019s hair without any screaming, which I still don\u2019t understand. She drove them to school, drove back to our house to check on me, made me lunch, drove back to pick them up, made dinner, and then drove an hour home.<\/p>\n
She is sixty-eight years old.<\/p>\n
On the fifth day, I found her sitting in her car in our driveway after dropping off the girls. The engine was off. Her eyes were closed.<\/p>\n
I crutched out to the porch.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom? Are you okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
She opened her eyes and rolled down the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fine. Just resting my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sixty-eight, Scarlett. I\u2019m always exhausted. It\u2019s my natural state.\u201d<\/p>\n
I crutched down the porch steps, very slowly, and leaned against her car door.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom. You can\u2019t keep doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked at me for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u2019s Harold?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know he\u2019s at work. I mean in the mornings. Where is he in the mornings?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe leaves at seven-fifteen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the school is on his way?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. It\u2019s the other direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo he can\u2019t take them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says he can\u2019t be late for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother\u2019s mouth went into a thin, flat line. I know that line. I\u2019ve known that line since I was four years old and got caught drawing on the living room wall with lipstick.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t say anything else. She didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll figure something out,\u201d I told her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you will,\u201d she said. \u201cYou always do.\u201d She paused. \u201cThat\u2019s sort of the problem, honey.\u201d<\/p>\n
After my mother, Linda from next door helped for three mornings.<\/p>\n
Linda is a nurse. She works twelve-hour shifts at the children\u2019s hospital. She rearranged her whole schedule to drive my girls to school on her days off. She wouldn\u2019t take any money. She wouldn\u2019t even take the banana bread I tried to bake her, standing on one leg in my kitchen, which came out flat and slightly burned.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep it,\u201d she said. \u201cYou need the calories. Crutches burn a lot of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the third morning, she brought the girls back to the car after drop-off because Nicki had forgotten her lunchbox. She came to the door holding it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll run it back,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLinda, you don\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fine. Honestly.\u201d She hesitated on the porch. \u201cScarlett, can I ask you something?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Harold okay? Is he sick or something?\u201d<\/p>\n
I blinked. \u201cNo. Why?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just\u2014\u201d She shifted Nicki\u2019s lunchbox from one hand to the other. \u201cI see him leave every morning. He\u2019s fine. He\u2019s got his coffee. He waves at me.\u201d She looked uncomfortable. \u201cI just thought maybe there was something going on. Some reason he couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says he can\u2019t be late for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linda looked at me for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d she said. And she went to drive the lunchbox across town.<\/p>\n
I stood in the doorway and felt my face go hot.<\/p>\n
On the fourth morning, when neither my mother nor Linda could come, I paid for a car service. Forty-two dollars one way. I stood on the porch on my crutches and watched my daughters climb into the back seat of a stranger\u2019s black sedan with their backpacks on, and Nicki waved at me through the window with a scared little face, and I waved back and smiled and then went inside and cried in the downstairs bathroom.<\/p>\n
The whole time, the other parent in my house drove to work alone every morning in his blue car with two empty seats in the back.<\/p>\n
Every time I asked Harold, he said the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t be late for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
If I pushed him, he said it again. Slower. Like I hadn\u2019t heard him the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cScarlett. I can\u2019t be late for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
One night, after the girls were in bed, I tried again. I was lying on the couch with my leg up on three pillows. He was on the other end of the couch, scrolling through his phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat if you just left fifteen minutes earlier?\u201d I said. \u201cYou\u2019d drop them off at 7:50, and you\u2019d still be at work by 8:30.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe school doesn\u2019t open the doors until 7:55.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they wait five minutes on the steps.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy themselves? Nicki\u2019s seven.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a teacher on the steps. There\u2019s always a teacher on the steps.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t look up from his phone. \u201cI have a lot going on right now, Scarlett. We\u2019ve got the Henderson account. Everybody\u2019s watching.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s watching you arrive at 8:30 instead of 8:15?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen explain it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He put his phone down on his chest and sighed. That long, patient sigh, like I was a customer who kept asking the same question.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just can\u2019t be late for work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I gave up.<\/p>\n
And then came my hospital appointment.<\/p>\n
It was a Tuesday, three weeks after the surgery. A follow-up with the orthopedic doctor to check on the plate and the screws.<\/p>\n
Linda had already agreed to drive the girls that morning. She\u2019d switched a shift. I felt terrible about it.<\/p>\n
I took a taxi to the hospital.<\/p>\n
The doctor checked my leg. She took an X-ray. She pointed at the screen, at the white lines of the screws in my bone, and told me the healing looked good.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetter than good, actually,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re ahead of schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I can drive?\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughed. \u201cAbsolutely not. Don\u2019t get overconfident. You\u2019re still on crutches for at least three more weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
I crutched out through the big glass doors of the hospital entrance, into the cold morning air. I was looking for my taxi.<\/p>\n
And I saw Harold\u2019s car.<\/p>\n
It was right there. His blue sedan. With the dent in the back bumper from when he backed into a pole at the gas station last spring, and the little stick-figure family decal Nicki put on the rear window. Four stick figures and a cat we don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n
For one second, my heart jumped.<\/p>\n
I thought something had happened. Something with the girls. Or maybe he\u2019d come to find me. Maybe he\u2019d moved a meeting and come to surprise me at my appointment.<\/p>\n
Then I noticed he wasn\u2019t parked at the hospital.<\/p>\n
He was across the street, in front of an apartment building. A tall brick building with a green awning over the door.<\/p>\n
And a woman came hurrying out.<\/p>\n
She was carrying a laptop bag and a travel mug. She had long, dark, shiny hair that swung when she walked. She was wearing a cream-colored coat and black heels.<\/p>\n
Adele.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d met her once. At Harold\u2019s company Christmas party the year before. She\u2019d been standing by the punch bowl, and Harold had introduced us. This is Adele, she just joined our team. She was twenty-something, maybe thirty. Pretty. The kind of person who somehow looks put together at eight in the morning, when the rest of us are wearing yesterday\u2019s mascara and a sweatshirt with a yogurt stain on it.<\/p>\n
Harold got out of the car.<\/p>\n
He walked around to the passenger side. He opened the door for her.<\/p>\n
She smiled at him and said something. He laughed.<\/p>\n
She got in.<\/p>\n
He closed her door, walked back around, and got behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
And they drove off together, toward his office.<\/p>\n
I stood there on the sidewalk on my crutches and watched his taillights disappear around the corner.<\/p>\n
The taxi driver pulled up next to me and honked twice before I noticed him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMa\u2019am? You Scarlett?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou getting in?\u201d<\/p>\n
I got in.<\/p>\n
For about ten minutes, on the ride home, I let myself imagine the obvious.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not proud of it. But I\u2019d just seen my husband open a car door for a young, pretty woman at 8:05 in the morning outside her apartment building. My mind went exactly where you\u2019d think it would go.<\/p>\n
I imagined texts I hadn\u2019t seen. Lunches I didn\u2019t know about. Late nights at the office.<\/p>\n
Then, somewhere around the third red light, I remembered something.<\/p>\n
At that Christmas party, Adele had talked to me for twenty minutes by the punch bowl. And almost the whole time, she\u2019d talked about her boyfriend. His name was Marcus. He was a firefighter. He\u2019d just gotten promoted. She\u2019d shown me pictures of their dog on her phone, a giant fluffy thing named Waffles. She\u2019d said, I think he\u2019s going to propose this spring. Don\u2019t tell anyone.<\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t prove anything.<\/p>\n
Neither did Harold opening a car door. Harold opens doors for everybody. He opens doors for old men at the post office.<\/p>\n
But it proved one thing. One thing I couldn\u2019t explain away, no matter how many times I turned it over in my head in the back of that taxi.<\/p>\n
He had time.<\/p>\n
He had time for Adele.<\/p>\n
He just didn\u2019t have time for us.<\/p>\n
That evening, I waited until the girls were upstairs.<\/p>\n
Sasha was in the bath. Nicki was supposed to be brushing her teeth, but I could hear her singing to herself in the mirror, which meant she wasn\u2019t brushing her teeth.<\/p>\n
Harold was in the kitchen, opening the refrigerator.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw you this morning,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He looked over his shoulder. \u201cAt the hospital?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNear it.\u201d<\/p>\n
His hand stopped on the milk carton.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdele got into your car,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
And he relaxed. So much, and so fast, that I almost laughed. His whole body let go. His shoulders dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d he said. \u201cThat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. That.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHer car broke down.\u201d He pulled out the milk and closed the fridge. \u201cTransmission. It\u2019s been in the shop for two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019ve been giving her a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it like it was nothing. Like he was telling me he\u2019d picked up milk on the way home.<\/p>\n
I shifted my crutches against the counter so I could lean on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou told me,\u201d I said slowly, \u201cyou can\u2019t take Sasha and Nicki to school because it\u2019ll make you late.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut picking up Adele won\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHer apartment is closer to the office.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nowhere near our house, Harold. It\u2019s on the complete other side of the river.\u201d<\/p>\n
He poured the milk into a glass. \u201cIt\u2019s not that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
For eleven mornings, my sixty-eight-year-old mother had crossed half the city. Our neighbor had rearranged her hospital shifts. I\u2019d paid a stranger forty-two dollars to put my daughters in the back of a black car. I\u2019d been balancing cereal bowls against my cast every morning because standing at the counter on one leg made my hip ache.<\/p>\n
And Harold was standing in our kitchen explaining that his coworker\u2019s neighborhood wasn\u2019t that bad.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d rather drive across town for Adele,\u201d I said, \u201cthan take your own daughters to school.\u201d<\/p>\n
He frowned. \u201cDon\u2019t make this weird.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not making anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHer car\u2019s in the shop,\u201d he muttered. \u201cWho else is supposed to give her a ride?\u201d<\/p>\n
I blinked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently,\u201d I said, \u201cthe same mysterious person who\u2019s been taking your daughters.\u201d<\/p>\n
He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cScarlett. Come on. You have your mom. You have Linda.\u201d<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
You have your mom.<\/p>\n
You have Linda.<\/p>\n
Not we. Not us. Not our kids.<\/p>\n
You.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoworkers need help too,\u201d Harold said.<\/p>\n
I looked at him for a long moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course they do,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Something in my voice made him frown. He looked up from his milk.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
And for once, I stopped arguing.<\/p>\n
I crutched out of the kitchen and went upstairs to make sure Nicki was actually brushing her teeth.<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t sleep much that night.<\/p>\n
I lay in bed next to Harold, who was snoring lightly, and stared at the ceiling. My leg throbbed under the cast. The plate and the screws ached when the weather changed, and it was supposed to rain.<\/p>\n
I kept thinking about his face in the kitchen. How relieved he\u2019d looked. How easy it had been for him.<\/p>\n
Her car broke down.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that bad.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t make this weird.<\/p>\n
Around two in the morning, I started thinking about something else. About how I\u2019d gotten here. About how many years I\u2019d been doing the mornings. About how I couldn\u2019t actually remember the last time Harold packed a lunch.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered.<\/p>\n
It was three years ago. When Nicki was four and Sasha was six. I had the flu, a bad one, and I couldn\u2019t get out of bed. Harold packed their lunches.<\/p>\n
He gave Sasha a whole jar of peanut butter and a spoon. No bread. Just the jar.<\/p>\n
He gave Nicki three string cheeses and a single, unpeeled orange. Nicki couldn\u2019t peel oranges. She was four.<\/p>\n
I found out when the school called me at noon.<\/p>\n
The next morning, sick as I was, I got up and packed the lunches myself.<\/p>\n
He never packed another one.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember him ever offering. And I don\u2019t remember myself ever asking.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Sasha was working at the kitchen table while Harold got ready for work.<\/p>\n
She was doing her school project. The first draft of it covered half the table. A huge piece of white poster board, with markers scattered everywhere. Mostly blue. Nicki had apparently returned the marker.<\/p>\n
The assignment was about community. Every kid in the third grade had to make a poster about the people who help them.<\/p>\n
At the top of the poster, in purple marker, Sasha had written in big bubble letters:<\/p>\n
PEOPLE WHO HELP MY FAMILY<\/p>\n
There were drawings underneath. Lots of them.<\/p>\n
On the far left was Grandma. Sasha had drawn her with gray curly hair and a steering wheel. Underneath, she\u2019d written: Drives a really long way. Makes pancakes.<\/p>\n
Next to Grandma was Linda. Sasha had drawn her in blue scrubs with a stethoscope. Our neighbor. Is a nurse. Takes us to school on her day off.<\/p>\n
Then the car service driver. Just a black car with a man inside wearing sunglasses. A man named Kevin. We don\u2019t know him.<\/p>\n
And then me.<\/p>\n
I recognized myself right away by the long red hair and the enormous gray cast. Sasha had drawn the cast about the size of my entire body. It looked like I was dragging a canoe.<\/p>\n
Under MOM, Sasha had written:<\/p>\n
Takes us to school.<\/p>\n
Makes lunch.<\/p>\n
Knows where everything is.<\/p>\n
And squeezed in underneath, in Nicki\u2019s messy block letters, crooked, going uphill:<\/p>\n
EVEN WITH THE GIANT LEG.<\/p>\n
I laughed out loud.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you,\u201d I said. \u201cI think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicki was sitting across the table, eating cereal. She grinned at me with milk on her chin.<\/p>\n
Then I looked at the right side of the poster.<\/p>\n
DAD.<\/p>\n
Harold was drawn inside a blue car. Sasha had even drawn the dent in the bumper.<\/p>\n
And next to him, in the passenger seat, sat a stick figure with long, black, swooshy hair.<\/p>\n
Underneath, Sasha had written, in neat third-grade handwriting:<\/p>\n
Takes Miss Adele to work because her car is broken.<\/p>\n
And below that, in Nicki\u2019s big, crooked, unmistakable block letters:<\/p>\n
OUR SCHOOL IS TOO FAR.<\/p>\n
I looked at that poster for a long time.<\/p>\n
Apparently, the girls had heard everything. Every argument. Every I can\u2019t be late for work. Every you have your mom, you have Linda. The one in the kitchen last night, too, even though I thought they were upstairs. Kids hear everything. They hear it through walls and floors and closed bedroom doors.<\/p>\n
I looked at the poster. Then I looked toward the hallway.<\/p>\n
Harold was sitting on the bottom stair, tying his shoes. He was humming.<\/p>\n
\u201cSasha,\u201d I said quietly. \u201cWhere did you hear about Miss Adele?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sasha shrugged without looking up. She was coloring Grandma\u2019s steering wheel.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad told Grandpa on the phone. On Sunday. He said he was helping out a lady at work whose car broke.\u201d She kept coloring. \u201cAnd then you and Dad were talking about it last night. In the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were supposed to be in the bath.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bathroom is right above the kitchen,\u201d Sasha said. \u201cThe vent is really loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you going to put that on the real poster?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just the first draft,\u201d Sasha said. \u201cMrs. Patterson said we could put everything on the first draft and then pick the best ones for the real one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything,\u201d Nicki repeated, pointing her spoon at the poster. \u201cIt has to be true, though. Mrs. Patterson said. You can\u2019t make stuff up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cYou definitely can\u2019t make stuff up.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t add a word to that poster.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t cross anything out. I didn\u2019t explain anything. I didn\u2019t say anything to Harold, still humming on the bottom stair.<\/p>\n
When the girls went upstairs to brush their teeth, I leaned over, one hand on the table and one on my crutch, and I folded the poster in half. Then in half again. I folded it carefully, so all the drawings were tucked inside and only the plain white back of the poster board was showing.<\/p>\n
Then I crutched out the front door, down the porch steps, very slowly, and across the driveway.<\/p>\n
Harold\u2019s car was unlocked. It always is. He says nobody would steal a car with a stick-figure family and a cat we don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n
I opened the passenger door and laid the folded poster flat on the passenger seat.<\/p>\n
Then I closed the door and crutched back inside.<\/p>\n
My heart was pounding. I don\u2019t know what I thought would happen. Maybe I thought he\u2019d see it when he got in. Maybe he\u2019d open it at a red light. Maybe he\u2019d feel a little guilty.<\/p>\n
That was all I wanted, really. For him to feel a little something.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t think past that.<\/p>\n
Harold came downstairs, kissed the top of my head, grabbed his coffee and his briefcase, and walked out the door.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t even look at the passenger seat.<\/p>\n
I watched through the front window as his car backed out of the driveway.<\/p>\n
Then Linda knocked on the door to take the girls to school.<\/p>\n
An hour later, my phone rang.<\/p>\n
I was sitting on the couch with my leg up and a cup of coffee in my hand. I\u2019d just turned on the TV.<\/p>\n
It was Harold.<\/p>\n
I answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cScarlett!\u201d he shouted. \u201cWhat did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
I held the phone a little farther from my ear.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood morning to you too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAdele saw it!\u201d<\/p>\n
I put my coffee down on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaw what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know exactly what! That\u2014that thing!\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled at the window. Outside, it had started to rain, just like the weather said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSasha\u2019s first draft?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe opened it! In the car!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would she open it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause she sat on it!\u201d His voice went up an octave. \u201cIt was folded up with the blank side showing. I thought it was just a piece of scrap poster board. Some junk the girls left in there. So I didn\u2019t move it. And she sat down, and she said, \u2018Oh, what\u2019s this?\u2019 and she pulled it out from under her, and she unfolded it\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
That was unfortunate.<\/p>\n
For him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what happened?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you think happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
He lowered his voice. I could hear the sound of the turn signal clicking.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe read it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a pause. A long one.<\/p>\n
And then I heard a woman\u2019s voice. Somewhere near him. Close to the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell her,\u201d the woman said. \u201cTell her what you told me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adele.<\/p>\n
Harold said something I couldn\u2019t hear. Something low and muttered.<\/p>\n
Adele spoke again. Louder this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarold.\u201c<\/p>\n
I sat up straighter on the couch.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdele?\u201d I said. \u201cWhat did he tell you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Another silence. I heard the turn signal stop clicking. I heard the engine idling. They\u2019d pulled over.<\/p>\n
Then Adele answered. Her voice was calm, but it was the calm of somebody who was trying very hard to stay calm.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me,\u201d she said, \u201cthat he already drives the girls to school every morning. Before he picks me up.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the stairs.<\/p>\n
Sasha\u2019s backpack had been sitting there an hour ago, right next to Nicki\u2019s, waiting for somebody else to take them.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold jumped in fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t say every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adele made a sound. It was short and sharp and it didn\u2019t need any translation at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said,\u201d she said, \u201cand I quote, \u2018It\u2019s no problem, I\u2019m already out with the girls anyway.’\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t say every day,\u201d Harold said again, weaker.<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdele,\u201d I said. \u201cDid you ask him to pick you up?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d she said. \u201cGod, no. When my car broke down, I told everybody at work I\u2019d just get a rideshare. It\u2019s like fifteen bucks. It\u2019s fine. And Harold said, \u2018Don\u2019t be silly, I\u2019ll get you, I\u2019m already out doing school drop-off, it\u2019s right on the way.’\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is ridiculous,\u201d Harold said.<\/p>\n
Adele ignored him completely.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been picking me up for two weeks,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery single morning. I thought he was dropping off his kids first. I asked about them. I asked how the girls were doing at school. I asked him how you were doing, with the leg.\u201d Her voice cracked a little. \u201cHe said you were doing great. He said you were really managing.\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed. I couldn\u2019t help it. It just came out.<\/p>\n
Managing.<\/p>\n
Then I heard a car door open.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdele?\u201d Harold said. \u201cWhere are you going?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m getting out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, Harold. I think I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The car door slammed so hard I heard it through the phone.<\/p>\n
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of rain on the car roof.<\/p>\n
Then Harold came back on the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have any idea,\u201d he said, \u201chow embarrassing that was?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked down at my cast.<\/p>\n
Then at the kitchen, where two lunchboxes had been packed and zipped and sent out the door before seven o\u2019clock that morning. By me. Standing on one leg.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarold,\u201d I said. \u201cI didn\u2019t write it. Your daughters did.\u201d<\/p>\n
He let out a long breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou put it in my car.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew she\u2019d see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it was there,\u201d I said. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize your coworker provided complimentary document review with every ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cScarlett.\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the passenger seat was unavailable, I suppose that became a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went quiet.<\/p>\n
For a long time, he didn\u2019t say anything. I could hear the rain. I could hear him breathing.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s walking,\u201d he said finally. \u201cIn the rain. She\u2019s walking down the street. She won\u2019t get back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has a rideshare app.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s not even using it. She\u2019s just walking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen maybe she needs to walk.\u201d<\/p>\n
More silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t be late,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He hung up.<\/p>\n
I expected him to come home angry that night.<\/p>\n
I spent the whole afternoon getting ready for it. Practicing what I\u2019d say. Rehearsing my arguments in my head while I sat on the couch with my leg up and folded laundry into piles on the cushion next to me.<\/p>\n
Instead, Adele called me.<\/p>\n
It was a little after two. My phone rang with a number I didn\u2019t recognize.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi,\u201d said a woman\u2019s voice. \u201cIs this Scarlett? This is Adele. From Harold\u2019s work. I got your number from the emergency contact list. I hope this isn\u2019t inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was sitting on the couch with my leg elevated on three pillows and a basket of laundry beside me that I\u2019d given up pretending I could carry up the stairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday passed inappropriate around 8:30,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
She laughed. A real, surprised laugh.<\/p>\n
Then she stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really sorry,\u201d she said. \u201cAbout this morning. About all of it. If I\u2019d known\u2014I would never have let him drive me. Not once. I would\u2019ve taken the bus. I would\u2019ve walked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t know,\u201d I said. \u201cThat\u2019s not your fault.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI still feel terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you get to work okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked eight blocks in the rain in heels,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then I got a rideshare. The driver\u2019s name was Kevin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKevin?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Black car. Sunglasses.\u201d<\/p>\n
I burst out laughing. I laughed so hard my leg hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d said Adele. \u201cWhat\u2019s funny?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing,\u201d I said. \u201cKevin\u2019s on the poster. Kevin is doing a lot of heavy lifting for this family.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t understand, but she laughed anyway. She had a nice laugh.<\/p>\n
Then there was a pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something else,\u201d Adele said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHarold talks about you. At work.\u201d<\/p>\n
My fingers stopped in the middle of folding one of Nicki\u2019s socks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does he say?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing terrible,\u201d Adele said quickly.<\/p>\n
That sentence has never once, in the history of the world, improved anybody\u2019s afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says you\u2019re very particular,\u201d Adele said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything, I guess? He says he tries to help out at home, but you always redo it. The dishes, the laundry, packing the kids\u2019 bags. So you\u2019ve both kind of learned it\u2019s just easier if you handle the house and he handles, you know. Other stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at the laundry basket.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says it like it\u2019s a joke,\u201d Adele said. \u201cLike, Oh, my wife won\u2019t even let me load the dishwasher. Everybody laughs. I laughed.\u201d She paused. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m telling you this.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t say anything for a while.<\/p>\n
I was remembering things. Not the peanut butter jar. Other things.<\/p>\n
The school bag he packed for Sasha once, two years ago, when I was at a work conference overnight. He\u2019d put in three Barbie dolls, a kazoo, and a yogurt. No homework. No spoon. No library book, on library day. Sasha had to eat the yogurt by drinking it out of the cup.<\/p>\n
The time he loaded the dishwasher and jammed a big wooden cutting board right up against the spray arm, so it couldn\u2019t spin, and every single dish came out dirty and I had to wash them all again by hand.<\/p>\n
The time he folded the laundry, and put all of Nicki\u2019s clothes in Sasha\u2019s drawers, and all of Sasha\u2019s clothes in Nicki\u2019s drawers, and my underwear in with his.<\/p>\n
Each time, I\u2019d fixed it.<\/p>\n
Each time, I\u2019d said something like, It\u2019s okay, I\u2019ll just do it.<\/p>\n
And eventually I stopped asking. Because redoing the same thing over and over took longer than just doing it myself in the first place.<\/p>\n
I never told him not to help.<\/p>\n
I just stopped asking him to.<\/p>\n
And he never, not once, noticed the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe makes it sound like you don\u2019t let him help,\u201d Adele said quietly.<\/p>\n
I picked up Nicki\u2019s sock and folded it in half.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI stopped asking,\u201d I said. \u201cThat\u2019s different.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d Adele said slowly. \u201cYeah. I think it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before we hung up, she said, \u201cMy boyfriend\u2019s going to drive me to work tomorrow. Marcus. He switched his shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe firefighter?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou remember that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou showed me pictures of your dog. Waffles.\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughed. \u201cOh my God. I did. I\u2019m so sorry. I was on my third glass of punch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he propose?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn April,\u201d Adele said. \u201cAt the dog park. Waffles had the ring on his collar.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations,\u201d I said, and I meant it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks.\u201d She paused. \u201cScarlett? For what it\u2019s worth. I think your daughters made a really good poster.\u201d<\/p>\n
After we hung up, I sat on the couch for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then I opened the map app on my phone.<\/p>\n
I typed in our house. Then the girls\u2019 school. Then Harold\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Twelve extra minutes, it said. Twelve minutes out of his way to take his daughters to school.<\/p>\n
Then I typed in our house. Then Adele\u2019s apartment. Then Harold\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five extra minutes.<\/p>\n
I looked at those two numbers side by side for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then I left both routes up on the screen, and I put the phone on the couch beside me, and I finished folding the laundry.<\/p>\n
Harold came home just after six.<\/p>\n
The girls were doing homework at the kitchen table. Sasha had math. Nicki had a worksheet about telling time where she had to draw the hands on the clocks, and she was drawing faces on them instead.<\/p>\n
Harold put his keys in the bowl by the door. He put his briefcase down. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen and looked at me.<\/p>\n
He looked tired. His good gray suit was wrinkled. His tie was loose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to talk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
I picked up my phone and turned the screen toward him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy,\u201d I said, \u201cwas twenty-five minutes for Adele easier than twelve minutes for them?\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold looked at the screen.<\/p>\n
Sasha leaned across her math worksheet to look too.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwelve is smaller,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Nicki looked up from her clock faces. She squinted at the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWay smaller,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Harold closed his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you both,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re welcome,\u201d said Nicki.<\/p>\n
I almost smiled. I held it in.<\/p>\n
Harold pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down across from me. He looked at the phone for a long time. Then he pushed it back across the table toward me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about the minutes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what is it about?\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t answer right away.<\/p>\n
For once, he didn\u2019t have something ready. No I can\u2019t be late for work. No mornings are chaos.<\/p>\n
Sasha erased something on her worksheet. Nicki counted on her fingers.<\/p>\n
The kitchen clock ticked.<\/p>\n
Finally, Harold said, \u201cAdele appreciated it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
He rubbed his thumb slowly along the edge of the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery morning,\u201d he said, \u201cshe\u2019d get in the car and say thank you. Every single day. She called me a lifesaver. She brought me a coffee on Friday. She told everybody at work what a nice guy I was.\u201d He was quiet for a moment. \u201cIt felt good. I felt\u2014I don\u2019t know. Like a hero. Like I was doing something nice for somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd your daughters?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
He stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t what?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
He looked at Sasha, bent over her math.<\/p>\n
Then at Nicki, drawing a face on a clock.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t thank me,\u201d he said quietly, \u201cfor being their father.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat back in my chair.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Harold,\u201d I said. \u201cThey don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked almost relieved. Like he\u2019d finally explained himself and I\u2019d finally understood.<\/p>\n
Then I finished.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause fatherhood isn\u2019t customer service.\u201d<\/p>\n
His eyes dropped to the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody thanks me either,\u201d I said. \u201cNobody thanks me for packing the lunches. For finding Nicki\u2019s other shoe. For remembering pajama day. For signing the permission slip for the field trip to the aquarium that\u2019s next Thursday, which you didn\u2019t know about.\u201d I shrugged. \u201cThey don\u2019t thank me because that\u2019s not what it\u2019s for. It\u2019s not a favor. It\u2019s just what you do. Because they\u2019re yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
I tapped my cast with one finger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI shouldn\u2019t have had to break a bone,\u201d I said, \u201cfor you to notice mornings existed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody said anything for several seconds.<\/p>\n
Even Nicki had stopped drawing.<\/p>\n
Then Harold asked, very quietly, \u201cWhat do you want me to do?\u201d<\/p>\n
That question.<\/p>\n
That question used to make me start assigning jobs. I\u2019d get out a piece of paper and make a list. Okay, you do the lunches on Tuesday, and I\u2019ll do Wednesday, and you check the backpacks, and here\u2019s where the permission slips go. And I\u2019d explain everything. And he\u2019d nod. And then two weeks later, I\u2019d be doing it all again.<\/p>\n
This time, I didn\u2019t make a list.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow morning is yours,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He looked up. \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBreakfast?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLunches?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSchool bags?\u201d<\/p>\n
I picked up my coffee.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re getting warmer,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Sasha raised her hand. Like she was at school.<\/p>\n
Harold stared at her. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI need poster board tomorrow,\u201d Sasha said. \u201cFor the real poster. The final one. It\u2019s due Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold\u2019s eyes moved to me. Automatically. Just like they always did.<\/p>\n
I took a slow sip of coffee.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t look at me,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He looked back at Sasha.<\/p>\n
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Sasha smiled.<\/p>\n
And for the first time since I broke my leg, maybe for the first time in years, Harold took out his phone and typed a note into it before anybody asked him to. Before anybody thanked him.<\/p>\n
Poster board. White. Big.<\/p>\n
\u201cGlitter,\u201d Sasha added.<\/p>\n
He typed glitter.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd markers,\u201d Nicki said. \u201cNew ones. So nobody has to steal anybody\u2019s blue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t steal it,\u201d Nicki added, to nobody. \u201cI borrowed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold typed markers. Then he looked up at both of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything else?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sasha and Nicki looked at each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cPancakes,\u201d Nicki said. \u201cGrandma makes pancakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t look at me,\u201d I said again.<\/p>\n
He typed pancakes.<\/p>\n
At 6:35 the next morning, Harold appeared beside our bed.<\/p>\n
He was wearing his suit pants and an undershirt. He had a spatula in one hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are Nicki\u2019s sneakers?\u201d<\/p>\n
I opened one eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsk Nicki.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe says she doesn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you\u2019re both having an exciting morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me for a second. Then he left.<\/p>\n
I lay in bed and listened.<\/p>\n
Ten minutes later, Sasha yelled from her room that nobody had woken her up.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have an alarm!\u201d Harold called from the bottom of the stairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI turned it off!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would you turn it off?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it was loud!\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicki shouted from the kitchen, \u201cWe\u2019re children!\u201d<\/p>\n
I pulled the blanket over my face.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, I smelled something burning.<\/p>\n
Then I heard the smoke alarm.<\/p>\n
Then I heard Harold say a word he\u2019d told the girls never to say, and then Nicki said, \u201cDaddy! Language!\u201d and Sasha said, \u201cThat\u2019s a quarter in the swear jar,\u201d and Harold said, \u201cI know, I know,\u201d and the smoke alarm stopped.<\/p>\n
I heard the back door open. Probably to let the smoke out.<\/p>\n
I stayed in bed.<\/p>\n
It was the hardest thing I\u2019ve done in years.<\/p>\n
Every part of me wanted to get up. To grab my crutches and go down there and find Nicki\u2019s sneakers, which I knew were under the couch in the living room, where she kicks them off every single night. To make the pancakes, which I knew he\u2019d put on high heat, which is why they burned. To wake Sasha properly. To pack the lunches the right way, with the sandwiches cut in triangles for Nicki and squares for Sasha, because they both have strong opinions about sandwich geometry.<\/p>\n
But I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I lay in bed, and I let him burn the pancakes.<\/p>\n
Because if I got up, I\u2019d fix it. And if I fixed it, it would be mine again. And I\u2019d be right back where I started, on the stairs, with a coat on my lap, watching his taillights disappear.<\/p>\n
At 7:40, I heard the front door open.<\/p>\n
I crutched to the bedroom window and looked down at the driveway.<\/p>\n
Harold was loading the girls into the back of his car. Sasha had her backpack on inside out. Nicki was wearing two different shoes. One sneaker and one rain boot. Her hair was in a ponytail that sat almost on the side of her head, like a unicorn horn that had slid off.<\/p>\n
Harold was carrying three lunchboxes. We only have two kids. I have no idea who the third one was for.<\/p>\n
He buckled Nicki in. He buckled Sasha in. He closed the door. He stood in the driveway for a moment and looked up at the sky, like he was praying.<\/p>\n
Then he got in and drove away.<\/p>\n
Somehow, they got to school on time.<\/p>\n
Barely. Sasha told me later they were the last car in the drop-off line. The teacher on the steps was already holding the door closed. She had to open it again.<\/p>\n
\u201cMrs. Garcia looked at Dad really funny,\u201d Sasha said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Nicki was wearing a rain boot and it wasn\u2019t raining.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Dad forgot my library book,\u201d Nicki added. \u201cAnd it was library day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my lunch was just crackers,\u201d Sasha said. \u201cAnd a whole cucumber. Not cut up. A whole one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you do with the cucumber?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI traded it to Tyler for a cookie,\u201d Sasha said. \u201cHe really likes cucumbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhose was the third lunchbox?\u201d<\/p>\n
Both girls shrugged.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had a banana in it,\u201d Nicki said. \u201cAnd a fork.\u201d<\/p>\n
That evening, Harold came home carrying two grocery bags.<\/p>\n
Inside were a giant piece of white poster board, a tube of silver glitter, a new pack of markers with an extra blue one, a box of pancake mix, and a bag of little bread rolls, the good kind from the bakery.<\/p>\n
He put them on the kitchen counter. Then he came and stood in the living room doorway.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy boss said I can start fifteen minutes later,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile your leg heals.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked up from the couch.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou asked him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said okay.\u201d Harold stood there holding the bag of bread rolls. \u201cHe said, \u2018Of course. Why didn\u2019t you ask before?’\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never asked before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
He came over and sat down beside me on the couch. He put the bread rolls on the coffee table.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen minutes,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s all it was. Fifteen minutes. And he just said yes. Like it was nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody at work has kids. Janet in accounting leaves at three every Wednesday for her son\u2019s therapy. Mike works from home on Fridays. I just never\u2014\u201d He shook his head. \u201cIt never even occurred to me to ask. Because you were always handling it. So it never came up.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was quiet for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much you did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I shook my head.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t have to know everything I did,\u201d I said. \u201cYou just had to notice I was doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say anything else.<\/p>\n
No flowers arrived the next day. No jewelry. No big apology speech.<\/p>\n
That helped more than flowers would have. Because flowers would have been a thank-you. A little gift for putting up with him. And I didn\u2019t want a thank-you.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to show up.<\/p>\n
The second morning was a little better.<\/p>\n
He found Nicki\u2019s sneakers under the couch. Both of them. On the first try.<\/p>\n
The pancakes burned again, but only one side.<\/p>\n
The third morning, he woke Sasha up with her alarm and then again ten minutes later by standing in her doorway and singing the theme song from her favorite cartoon, very badly, until she got out of bed just to make him stop.<\/p>\n
The fourth morning, he asked me how to do a French braid.<\/p>\n
I watched him from my chair at the kitchen table while he stood behind Nicki with his big clumsy hands in her hair and his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. Nicki sat very still, which she never does for me.<\/p>\n
The braid was lumpy. It was crooked. It had a big bump on one side.<\/p>\n
Nicki looked at it in the hall mirror.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The fifth morning, I came into the kitchen on my crutches at seven-fifteen and found the lunches already packed and zipped and sitting on the counter. Two of them. Just two.<\/p>\n
I unzipped Sasha\u2019s to look. I couldn\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n
A turkey sandwich. Cut into squares. A bag of carrot sticks, cut up this time. An apple. A juice box. And a small folded note in Harold\u2019s handwriting.<\/p>\n
Have a good day. Love, Dad. P.S. No cucumbers.<\/p>\n
I zipped it back up before anybody saw me looking.<\/p>\n
My mother came to visit that weekend. Just to visit this time. No driving the girls anywhere.<\/p>\n
She sat in the kitchen with me on Saturday morning drinking coffee while Harold made pancakes. They were only slightly burned now. Around the edges.<\/p>\n
She watched him flip one. It landed half on the pan and half on the stove.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d my mother said quietly. \u201cLook at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s trying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see that.\u201d She sipped her coffee. \u201cHow did you get him to do it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t,\u201d I said. \u201cThe girls did. And his coworker. And a man named Kevin.\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother raised her eyebrows. \u201cWho\u2019s Kevin?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a long story.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked at Harold. He was scraping the pancake off the stove with the spatula and muttering to himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know,\u201d she said, \u201cyour father was exactly like that. The first ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDad? Really?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, God, yes. He thought the laundry did itself. Thought dinner appeared on the table by magic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat changed?\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother smiled into her coffee cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had your brother,\u201d she said. \u201cVery fast. In the car. On the way to the hospital. Your father had to deliver him himself on the side of Route 9.\u201d She shrugged. \u201cAfter that, he never complained about changing a diaper again.\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my chair.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I guess it takes something big,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes,\u201d my mother said. She looked at my cast. \u201cSometimes it takes a broken leg.\u201d Then she looked at me. \u201cAnd sometimes it just takes somebody finally deciding to stop fixing everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adele sent a card about two weeks later.<\/p>\n
It came in the mail, addressed to Sasha and Nicki.<\/p>\n
Inside was a picture of a big fluffy dog wearing a bow tie. Waffles. On the back of the photo, she\u2019d written:<\/p>\n
Dear Sasha and Nicki,<\/p>\n
I heard you made a really great poster. Thank you for telling the truth. That takes a lot of guts. Waffles says hi.<\/p>\n
Love, Miss Adele<\/p>\n
P.S. My car is fixed now.<\/p>\n
Sasha read it out loud at the kitchen table. Nicki took the photo of Waffles and stuck it to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a strawberry.<\/p>\n
Harold looked at it for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s getting married,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the fall. She invited the whole office.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you going?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d he said. He was quiet for a moment. \u201cI\u2019m going to bring you. If you want to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy then, I\u2019ll be off crutches.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we\u2019ll dance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll learn. I\u2019ve learned French braiding. How hard can it be?\u201d<\/p>\n
A week after that, Harold owned the mornings without asking me for any instructions at all.<\/p>\n
He knew which day was library day. He knew Nicki needed her sneakers for gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He knew Sasha liked her sandwiches in squares and Nicki liked hers in triangles, and that you should never, under any circumstances, put the carrot sticks touching the sandwich in Nicki\u2019s lunchbox, because then the sandwich tastes like carrot, and she won\u2019t eat it.<\/p>\n
He knew all of it now.<\/p>\n
He even remembered pajama day. Before I did.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pajama day,\u201d he told me one Wednesday morning, coming down the stairs. He was holding Nicki\u2019s pajamas with the little moons and stars on them. \u201cThey sent a note home last week. It was in Sasha\u2019s folder.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou read the folder?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI read the folder,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery night. You never told me there was a folder.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought you knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know there was a folder, Scarlett.\u201d He shook his head. \u201cNine years. Nine years of folders.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final poster was due on a Friday.<\/p>\n
That morning, Sasha was hunting through the papers on the kitchen counter for her spelling list, and she found the first draft. The one with Adele on it. Harold had brought it back home that first night and put it under a stack of mail, and nobody had touched it since.<\/p>\n
\u201cI forgot about this!\u201d Sasha said.<\/p>\n
She pulled it out and unfolded it across the breakfast table, right between Harold\u2019s coffee and Nicki\u2019s cereal bowl.<\/p>\n
Harold saw his blue car. With the dent in the bumper. And the stick figure with the long black swooshy hair sitting next to him.<\/p>\n
He groaned.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease,\u201d he said. \u201cPlease tell me that\u2019s not being displayed anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just the first draft,\u201d Sasha said. \u201cThe real one\u2019s already at school. Mrs. Patterson hung it up in the hallway yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, thank God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sasha looked at the first draft for a long moment. Then she grabbed a marker out of the new pack. A purple one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to fix it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFix what?\u201d said Harold.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wrong now,\u201d Sasha said. \u201cMrs. Patterson said it has to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under DAD, next to the drawing of the blue car, Sasha wrote in her neat third-grade handwriting:<\/p>\n
Takes us to school.<\/p>\n
She capped the marker. She looked at it, satisfied.<\/p>\n
Then Nicki leaned over her shoulder. She took the purple marker right out of Sasha\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey!\u201d said Sasha.<\/p>\n
Nicki uncapped the marker. And right underneath Sasha\u2019s line, in her big, crooked, unmistakable block letters, she added one more word.<\/p>\n
NOW.<\/p>\n
\u201cNicki!\u201d Sasha said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d Nicki said. She put the cap back on the marker. \u201cIt\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
The kitchen went quiet.<\/p>\n
Harold looked at the poster for a long time. At the blue car. At the stick figure with the long hair. At Takes Miss Adele to work because her car is broken and OUR SCHOOL IS TOO FAR.<\/p>\n
And at the new line underneath.<\/p>\n
Takes us to school.<\/p>\n
NOW.<\/p>\n
Then he looked at his daughters. Sasha in her school sweater. Nicki with her lumpy French braid, sitting on the edge of her chair, waiting to see what he\u2019d do.<\/p>\n
He held out his hand.<\/p>\n
Nicki hesitated. Then she put the purple marker in it.<\/p>\n
For a second, I thought he was going to change it. Cross out the NOW. Or cross out the old line about Adele. Make it prettier. Make himself look better.<\/p>\n
He looked at the marker in his hand.<\/p>\n
Then he handed it back to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeave it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sasha folded the poster carefully in half, and then in half again. She put it in her backpack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to keep it,\u201d she said. \u201cFor my memory box.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour memory box,\u201d Harold repeated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere I keep important stuff,\u201d Sasha explained. \u201cLike my first tooth and the ticket from the aquarium.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold nodded slowly. He didn\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n
He picked up both backpacks off the floor. He checked inside each one. Homework folder. Library book. Lunchbox. He zipped them both up.<\/p>\n
Then he looked at the clock on the stove.<\/p>\n
7:43.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be late.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he held the front door open for his daughters, and they ran out into the driveway, and climbed into the back seat of his blue car with the dent in the bumper and the stick-figure family and the cat we don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n
I stood on the porch on my crutches and watched them go.<\/p>\n
Nicki waved at me through the back window. Both hands. Grinning.<\/p>\n
I waved back.<\/p>\n
Then I went inside, and I sat down at the kitchen table, and I poured myself a cup of coffee, and I drank the whole thing while it was still hot.<\/p>\n
For the first time in nine years, I didn\u2019t have anywhere to be at eight-ten in the morning.<\/p>\n
It felt strange.<\/p>\n
It felt wonderful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIs your mom coming tomorrow?\u201d Harold asked me that while I was sitting halfway up our stairs with one crutch wedged under my arm and Nicki\u2019s winter coat stretched across my lap. I stared at him. He was holding a cup of coffee. A full one. Still steaming. He was wearing his good gray suit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5099,"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5098\/revisions\/5099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storydosee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}