Are We There Yet?

by Kathleen West

  “I’m considering homeschool,” Alice said as she and Nadia started down the path. Alice had suggested a park across town from their usual spot. Nadia knew she was trying to avoid running into Meredith.

  “Homeschool?” Nadia tried to imagine Alice teaching Teddy algebra at her gorgeous kitchen counter, a Martha Stewart–esque centerpiece between them. In her imagination, neither Alice nor Teddy was smiling. “Doesn’t that seem extreme?”

  “Teddy can’t do school.” Alice’s voice sounded flat.

  Nadia rubbed Alice’s back. “Oh, honey,” she said. “I’ve thought that so many times about Donovan, but it’s not true. Not only can he do it, but he has a right to do it.” She dropped her hand and pumped her elbows, energized by the opportunity to share some of what she’d learned in these last few hard years. “Having a behavior problem doesn’t mean a kid is unworthy of education.” She glanced over at her friend. Alice’s eyes were focused a few feet down the trail in front of them.

  Alice picked up the pace. She did that sometimes. Usually it was Meredith who tapped her shoulder or tugged her jacket sleeve. “Whoa there, NASCAR,” Meredith had said once, which had made them all laugh. This time, Nadia just tried to match her.

  “What do you do?” Alice asked. “How do you handle it?”

  Nadia felt at once irritated and relieved that one of her friends seemed finally interested. “You mean being the mom of the bad kid?” Nadia hop-skipped to keep up. Alice shuddered, and Nadia wondered if she might cry. Nadia nudged her. “You’re supposed to say, ‘But Donovan is not a bad kid.’”

  “I know that.” Alice finally looked over at her, her eyes teary and color rising in her cheeks. “Donovan’s not bad. But other people think that. Right?”

  “You know what really mattered to me?” Nadia remembered Donovan’s suspension in fifth grade, the chair-throwing incident that she knew all of the kids and parents had still discussed weeks after it happened.

  “What?”

  “What my friends thought of me.” Honesty, Nadia knew, was the best way to help Alice. “The days when I imagined—when I knew—that you and Meredith thought I was failing? Those were the days that I felt the most lost.” Leaves skittered behind them on the path. Nadia sniffed the chilly November air. “The most alone,” she added.

  “I’m—” Alice started to give the apology that Nadia had craved for years, a continuation of the text she’d sent the previous week. But just then Lacy Cushing and Meredith came toward them around a bend. Nadia saw them first and slowed her pace. A few seconds later, when Alice realized Nadia had fallen behind, she stopped entirely.

  “Shit,” Alice said, just loud enough for Nadia to hear.

  “It’s okay.” Nadia wasn’t sure if she was speaking to Alice, to Meredith, or to herself.

  For a split second, it seemed like Meredith and Lacy were stopping as well, which would have created a made-for-Hollywood showdown in the county park, but then Meredith revved her pace again, swerving to the right side of the path to give Alice a wide berth. “Let’s go,” she said to Lacy.

  Lacy raised her eyebrows and made eye contact with Nadia. They hadn’t been friends since Donovan had bitten Chloe in kindergarten, the seven-year-old incident still the reason Lacy had never accepted an invitation to one of the threesome’s wine bar evenings, the reason Nadia had quietly dropped out of book club and never returned.

  Suddenly, Alice shouted, “You’re not even going to say anything?” Nadia swiveled her head between her friends.

  Meredith kept her back to Alice but raised her right hand, middle finger extended. Nadia gasped. “The whole point of this park was to avoid you!” Meredith yelled.

  “I warned you!” Lacy yelled inexplicably. “I told you Teddy was out of control.” The two of them walked on.

  Alice’s arms fell limply at her sides. She pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead. “Christ,” she said.

  “Let’s go.” Nadia squeezed Alice’s shoulder.

  They walked in silence for a few minutes, except for the deep breaths Nadia could hear Alice take every thirty seconds or so. Cleansing breaths, she thought, imagining herself in the sauna after yoga, eyes closed against the heat. “What did Lacy mean when she said she warned you?” Nadia asked.

  “I think she texted me the morning of Aidy’s conference, before the assembly,” Alice said. “I got a text asking me to do something about Teddy. It just hit me when she said that. Isn’t she friends with Janna Lagerhead?”

  “I think? But you know, she hates me, too. So.” Nadia trailed off.

  “The nature groups?” Alice said finally. “You think that’s what’s been making a difference for Donovan?”

  Nadia felt a swell in her chest, a moment of pride. So her friend had noticed Donovan’s progress after all. “Yes. You’ve met her, right? Dr. Martín?”

  “That’s a long story.” Alice picked up the pace again. “But yes.”

  Nadia waited, wondering if Alice would continue, but instead she pivoted. “I can’t believe my kid is a criminal.”

  “Your kid isn’t a criminal.” Nadia took another hop-step.

  “He is.” Alice sounded determined. “I’m not even exaggerating. It’s just a fact. And now that I know what this feels like? This total agony of having outside proof that I’m a terrible parent? Even though I’ve tried to do everything possible to not be one? I’m just . . .” She slowed down. Nadia felt her quad seize up as she put the brakes on. She felt both sad for Alice and also just a tiny bit vindicated. She’d been the one feeling so lost all along, and now Alice had a taste of the lack of control Nadia had always experienced. “It just changes the way I look at things,” Alice said.

  Nadia wondered if she was thinking back on some of the times she had avoided asking about Donovan. She and Meredith had never said that they thought Donovan’s behaviors had something to do with her parenting, but it was clear in what they didn’t say. Nadia had stayed in the friendships because she knew they just didn’t know. But now Alice did know.

  “Nature therapy,” Nadia said. “But don’t do homeschool.”

  “But—” Alice stopped again and grabbed Nadia’s arm. “It’s better than being embarrassed. Everyone hates me. We can’t go back to Elm Creek.”

  “Keep walking,” Nadia said. She physically pulled her friend for a while, and then finally Alice found her rhythm again. Nadia patted her back intermittently. She’d feel better, Nadia knew from experience, if she got good exercise. Eventually, as Alice’s breathing slowed, they talked about Nadia’s clients and Ajay’s mother’s upcoming visit from India. Alice mentioned linens on sale for the basement bedroom Nadia kept for her mother-in-law. Apparently, everything was twenty percent off at CB2.

  Nadia felt accomplished as they reached the end of the trail. She’d talked Alice down, gotten her through her first encounter with Meredith, and even distracted her. Just as she’d begun a self-satisfied sigh, the sign marking the trailhead came into view. Nadia stopped short again, her quad seizing the same way it had when they’d encountered Meredith and Lacy.

  “Oh my God.” Alice ran forward to the sign, her arms stiff at her sides. She reached out to touch the bright pink graffiti, the same tag Nadia had seen on NextDoor and at the McDonald’s.

  She tilted her head. “How could Shirley MacIntosh think that was a rocket ship?” Despite Alice’s distress, she laughed. The fluorescent drawing was clearly a penis.

  “Have you seen this mark before?” Alice spun toward her. She kept her finger on the sign where the painter had added a hashtag followed by two “Ts.”

  Nadia squinted. She hadn’t seen the hashtag before. But it was certainly hard not to think the initials stood for #TeamTane or, maybe worse, for #TeamTeddy.

  Alice Sullivan

  Alice crossed her arms as she and Patrick stood in the doorway to Teddy’s room. “Mom,” he said. “I told
you, it’s not me. I wouldn’t do that.”

  A month ago, it never would have occurred to her to ask him whether he’d graffitied the park. But now, he’d basically been arrested. “Teddy?” Patrick prodded. Alice looked at her husband’s clenched fists and felt grateful that someone else was playing the heavy.

  “God!” Teddy flopped facedown on his bed. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

  Alice thought to remind him that he was the type of person who pantsed Tane and distributed child pornography. Compared to those offenses, what was a little graffiti?

  “We’re glad to know you don’t have anything to do with it,” Patrick said diplomatically. He stretched his fingers.

  Still, when Teddy got in the shower later that afternoon, Alice and Patrick searched his room again, as she had after discovering his 420 Finsta.

  “No pink paint,” she texted Nadia.

  The reply came immediately: “None here, either.” She added eight or nine pink hearts to the message.

  On Monday morning, with Patrick gone again in Ohio, Alice made a tense call to Ramona to let her know she was officially off the Kerrigan project. There just wasn’t time between Cincinnati and Teddy and the pink graffiti and Adrian and, for Christ’s sake, the names of her birth parents (which she hadn’t even had a moment to think about) to navigate a tense collaboration with her boss on a potentially career-defining, to-the-studs remodel.

  She did regret reneging on Bea Kerrigan, though. She truly liked her. But if these last weeks had taught her anything, it was that she just couldn’t do it all. If she invested in the Kerrigans, something else would drop. She pictured Teddy in front of a judge and shivered.

  Later that morning, she went into Teddy’s room again without knocking. He shrank back toward his headboard, startled.

  “You’ve lost the privilege of privacy,” she said before he could complain. She wasn’t actually mad at him anymore, and they both knew it. He’d been colossally stupid, yes, but in her heart, Alice didn’t think Teddy was an inherently bad kid. It felt like a relief to Alice, like she was dealing with a lost child rather than a deranged one. Teddy seemed relieved, too, she thought. He recovered from the surprise of her entrance, and his right arm and leg each hung limply off the side of the bed.

  Alice sat down next to him. She expected Teddy to turn away, but he didn’t. She paused, gathering herself. Her heart fluttered uncomfortably in her chest and she pulled at the sleeve of her running top with the opposite hand. “I’ve got to tell you something,” she began, and then she stopped.

  The call from Walt Cushing had come last night. She’d whispered about it with Patrick as they fell asleep. He was the one who’d always handled soccer—tryouts and tournament berths. She’d been spared the responsibility of delivering bad sports news, but now that Patrick had left for the airport at five thirty that morning, she was stuck with the worst news of all. “I’ll do it over FaceTime,” he had offered, but Alice had said no. She’d handle it in person.

  “What?” Teddy’s mouth drooped at the corners; his eyes looked sleepy.

  “The Elm Creek Soccer board has a zero-tolerance policy for bullying. Do you remember signing that player agreement?”

  Teddy blinked at her. “We never read those.” She realized with a pang of regret that it was true. She and Patrick had just had him sign the codes of conduct without reading them. They were always in a hurry, and the paperwork was always due.

  “Well, anyway,” she said. “You signed it. Now, the soccer club knows about the picture of Sadie, and well—” She paused here, but then spat it out. “You’re off the team.”

  “I’m off the team?” He still sounded groggy. “But I didn’t even have anything to do with that picture. Tane sent it to me. Is he off the team?” Teddy sat up and faced the wall away from her. He swung both legs to the ground.

  “Dad asked that.” Alice squeezed her hands into fists. “They said they couldn’t tell us what’s happening with other players, but I assume Tane is also out. I know this is harsh.” Alice felt like crying herself as Teddy’s shoulders began to shake. “We asked them to reconsider, but they said they have to stand by their policy.”

  Teddy grabbed his gray comforter and balled the corner in his lap. Alice had purchased it that summer, as part of a mini room makeover to celebrate the beginning of junior high. She’d painted the wall over his bed a dark red and framed a Tottenham Hotspur jersey, which she’d centered above his headboard. On the opposite wall, Alice had installed the shelves for his trophies and hooks for his medals.

  “So,” Teddy said finally. “I’ll just go back to the C1 team?”

  Alice’s heart sank. “No,” she said. She ran her hand over the buffalo-checked sheets she’d found on clearance, masculine enough for a teenaged boy.

  “No?” Teddy repeated.

  “The Elm Creek Soccer Association has a zero-tolerance policy for the entire organization. You can’t play for them at all on any team.”

  “Wait.” Teddy finally turned to face her. “Soccer is over, like, for the year?”

  Alice held her breath and squinted. She watched his tears well. His chin fell, and he raised his palms to his eyes as if to force them back in.

  “It’s over for the year,” she confirmed. “I’m so sorry.” He sniffled, and she remembered his heaving sobs in the back seat of the Volvo last summer when he’d missed that penalty shot. Even though he’d started to look so old, he was still so young. Alice reached a hand out to rub his shoulder, but he shrugged it away.

  “And also, while I’m here . . .” She knew she was pushing her luck, and yet waiting felt like it would be like lowering the hammer twice.

  “What?” Teddy said. He stood and approached the trophy shelves. He ran his finger over the engraved plaque from last year’s state championship. That was the game the Elks had lost in a shootout.

  “We’re going to try online school,” Alice said. “I found one. You’re not going back to Elm Creek.”

  “You’re kidding.” Teddy’s voice was thick. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and then took the second-place plaque and walked to his closet. Once he had the door open, he grabbed one of the couple dozen string bags they’d collected at events over the years from a storage bin. He shoved the plaque roughly inside. Teddy carried the bag back to the shelves, grabbed another trophy, and dropped it in. Alice flinched as the figurine on top disappeared below the nylon. “I’m not doing online school. This whole thing is stupid.”

  Validate his feelings, Alice reminded herself, channeling advice from Listen to Me. “I can see how it feels stupid,” she said. “But in-person school isn’t really working for you right now.” She swallowed. “Obviously.”

  Teddy added two more trophies to his bag and then handed it to her. “What about your job?”

  Teddy stared at his white ankle socks. “You’re more important,” she said. She felt tears coming and shook her head, hoping to circumvent them.

  “God, Mom,” Teddy said. He turned away and loaded another string bag half-full with trophies.

  State your expectations firmly, but kindly, Alice told herself. And then follow through. “I’m going to give you a little time to process this, and then we can log on and I’ll show you the school Dad and I chose.” Teddy walked toward her, and as he dropped the string bag at her feet, the awards inside thunked together. He turned back to his closet and procured another bag. “I thought—” Her voice was quieter than she’d planned for the “firm but kind stage.” She pressed on. “I thought we could do some joint work sessions at Starbucks.”

  Teddy scooped six or seven medals off the hooks underneath the shelves and punched the whole handful into the bag, the metal clanking. “You think a Frappuccino is going to get me to agree to never see my friends again?”

  Alice imagined herself replacing the trophies later, when Teddy was feeling better. “I thought the St
arbucks might sweeten the pot.” She forced herself not to react as he grabbed the participation awards from the three- and four-year-old house leagues.

  “I’d throw in a chocolate croissant on each visit,” she said, flailing.

  Teddy didn’t answer. Alice walked to him. She took the Most Improved plaque and held it out to him. She had one more carrot. “You don’t need to do this forever,” she said. He took the plaque, put it in the bag, and then held the whole thing out to her. “Let’s try it for a month, and if it’s not for you, you can go back. Or maybe we’ll try a new school.”

  Teddy stepped around her toward his closet. He grabbed one last string bag—a souvenir from a Colorado tournament he and Patrick had attended the previous summer. Alice’s mother had been shocked that they’d planned their whole vacation around a twelve-year-old’s sports team. “A month?” Teddy said. Alice couldn’t read his tone. Teddy plunked the last two trophies into the string bag and moved over to his desk, where Alice had set up a wire rack for certificates. He folded the pile of cardstock roughly in half and shoved it into the bag. “Can you adios this stuff?” He held the last bag out to her. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  Alice wasn’t sure what to say. Maybe she should argue or make him take it to the garage himself. “Okay,” she said finally, deciding to avoid the fight.

  Meredith Yoshida

  I don’t have any reason to hide.” Meredith texted Nadia on the morning of the first ethical parenting discussion group. Nadia had offered to lead it for her, “given the circumstances,” but Meredith had no desire to cede her position, especially not to Nadia. Nadia had sided with Alice, walking with her in the park together the day before, and now she was trying to take over the group. But Meredith knew she shouldn’t be chagrined. The photo was only Sadie’s first offense. Donovan was the one with the track record. And the more Meredith thought about it, the less she could even really call Sadie’s misstep an offense, regardless of what the law said. Sadie had clearly been pressured by Tane. Her daughter couldn’t even articulate why she’d taken the photo; she just kept repeating that Tane had asked for it. Surely that was the bigger crime—eliciting the photo. And then Sadie had been taken advantage of by Teddy, a boy that Meredith herself had encouraged her to trust. This was classic #MeToo. Sadie, while careless and shortsighted, was a victim.