But this time Mark wanted to walk to our destination, even though it was close to two miles away. I was immediately suspicious, but he just hummed to himself and wouldn’t answer my questions.
We, of course, walked to our subway station and boarded the south-bound train. Alex was excited, which wasn’t surprising seeing how Mark was egging him on. “Look how cool this is,” Mark would say when he stopped at the machine to pay for our tickets.
“Yeah,” Alex would agree.
“Trains are so cool.”
“I love trains.”
Alex sat between me and the window and kept his eyes glued outside. Our trip took about twenty minutes in total, including our wait at the station. It was probably fifty percent slower than if we’d taken the car, but we didn’t struggle to find a parking spot and we didn’t deal with red lights. Trust me, I was just fine spending those extra five minutes on public transport if it meant I didn’t have to put my life at risk by fighting against other crazy city-drivers.
“Wow, where are we?” Alex asked when we got off the train. The buildings were taller in this part of the city and the downtown skyline was visible when you stood in the crosswalks.
“Isn’t this nice?” Mark asked. His body was practically vibrating with excitement and the arm that was attached to Alex flexed.
Alex responded in kind. “I can’t wait to go to school!” Alex leaped into the air while we crossed the road. His glasses slid down his nose.
“No jumping in the crosswalk,” I said.
“Chris is being a big grump,” Mark accused. “He doesn’t think you’re going to like school!”
I glared at my partner.
Alex grinned up at Mark and promised he would love, love, love school. “I’m ready to read, I know how to read. And learn science and math and make new friends and go on field trips.” Mark and I may have filled his head with unrealistic expectations of school.
“What about homework?” Mark asked.
“I can’t wait for homework! You and Chris are going to help me and it’s going to be so fun!”
“You bet,” I muttered.
Alex’s knees gave out so that our arms held him from touching the ground. “Swing me!”
“Get up and walk,” I said.
“Swing me!”
“The school is straight ahead,” Mark said. He pointed with his free hand. “Look. Doesn’t it look beautiful?”
Alex shot straight up and studied the building. There was a rod iron fence that enclosed a courtyard beside the school. The school itself had an older brick facade, maybe half a century old. The staircase up to the main entrance was grand and, I must admit, beautiful.
“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “It’s beautiful. Isn’t it beautiful, Chris?”
“It is.” I tugged on his rubbery arm. “Let’s check out the inside.”
“Yeah. Come on, Mark, let’s check out the inside.”
We swung him between our arms the last few steps so that he laughed.
“Wow,” he said as we walked under the large overhang. “It’s beautiful.”
We walked through the entrance and past an empty security station. The inside was not at all impressive and reminded me of a prison built to a pint-sized scale. All the decorations were hung at hip-level.
“Wow,” Alex said again. “It’s beautiful.”
I pressed my lips together and gave Mark enough side-eye so he knew this was all his fault. Then I let go of Alex’s hand and he stopped walking. “We’re inside now. You can run ahead and knock on the door.”
“Which one?”
“It should have the number one one one on it. See how this is one oh five?”
“Yeah.” He skipped ahead to the next door. “One oh seven,” he called to us. Then he ran across the hall. “One oh six.” He touched the door. “Uh-oh... it’s going backwards.”
“Keep looking,” I suggested as we caught up to him. He skipped to the next few doors and read them, then he found number one-eleven.
“I found it! It’s right here, see?” He pointed at the number.
“Do you want to knock on the door?”
Alex stood three feet back like he was terrified to see what was behind the door. Mark calmly walked forward and knocked.
A woman called for us to enter. “My one o’clocks are here,” she said into her phone as Mark opened the door. “See you soon.” She hung up and welcomed us into her domain. “Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Wolff?”
We worked out who belonged to which name and insisted that she call us by our first names.
“And this must be Alex,” she said, changing her focus and hunching slightly to get a good look at the kid.
“Shake her hand,” I prodded. “Introduce yourself.”
“Hello,” he said. The woman shook his hand and Alex looked like he wanted to melt away.
We had a half-hour meeting in which we toured the building, stopped by a classroom where one of the instructors was preparing for the start of school, and showed Alex all the extracurricular activities. Even I had to admit that the sales pitch for this so-called academy was far superior than my school choice. They apparently had one teacher per group of twenty students who would supervise the same group all day except for electives like art or music or gym.
It all sounded pretty standard to me, except for the slick, professional presentation. I felt like I was being roped into something we were going to regret... like the bill. When the bill finally did come, Mark and I had a small argument about the unnecessary cost. Mark won that one. He paid for it with the appreciation from his trust. It made my head want to explode, but once school started, I put the bill on the back burner and tried to forget about it.
For that amount of money, Mark could have just paid me to stay home and I could have taught Alex how to read. Hell, we did enough enriching activities on our own and had spent tons of time teaching him how to be a confident reader and how to do basic addition. My mom would’ve helped us. They have homeschool programs exactly for families like ours and they don’t cost thousands of dollars.
Plus, as the years passed, Alex would slowly morph into a ‘bad kid’ at the rich-kid private school. He developed this personality where he would do anything anyone asked, just for a little attention. I think it came from the ‘open’ policies in that expensive school, because after we moved out to the country and homeschooled him for a year, he seemed to snap out of that phase.
Picking the right school is stressful stuff!
SOME TIME AFTER THAT interview at the academy, school finally started. It was after my birthday and after my mom had taken him to the science center a few times. I honestly think between the three of us—Mark, me and my mother—we could have taught Alex everything the school did plus so much more. But that’s just me. I can’t be bitter about the decisions we made. Mark and I both had jobs and adult obligations. I had a company that needed me and Mark needed to bring in the big bucks.
So we settled on the ‘Academy’.
And instead of taking the train to school, as Mark had promised we would do, he ended up driving. This was a horrible idea. I hadn't been to an active elementary school (or even near one, really) in decades. I remodeled the restrooms in an elementary school with my dad one summer, but I never had to deal with buses or parents or crosswalks.
The one good thing about living in the city is that we didn’t have to deal with school busses. The bad thing: the parent drop off.
There was no way IN THE WORLD that there was enough temporary parking on that street so every parent could drop off their child. No fucking way. It was a mess.
“Jeez,” Mark said as we pulled up to the building with our eyes peeled for a parking spot. “This place is a zoo.” We were creeping around at ten miles an hour, but he pressed on the brakes suddenly and we still somehow jolted out of our seats. “Sweet Cheesus,” he muttered. “Will you keep your eyes peeled for kids?” Mark flipped off the parent who was honking at us.
“You’re driving!” I said.
“Just look out for more of these rugrats.” He flipped off another parent. “Looks like we’re dropping him off on the street.” We were partially stopped behind a car doing exactly that as two kids slid out of the back seat and scampered up to the sidewalk. “Got it!” Mark yelled. “Back up.” He waved his hands at the car behind us. “Back up!”
The car beside us was trying to get out. Unfortunately, the car behind us also wanted the spot.
Alex got up from his seat and turned around to see who Mark was yelling at. Mark took the opportunity to flip another bird. I was too embarrassed to keep looking.
“Mark,” I grabbed his forearm which was on my seat. “Up there.”
A spot opened up and we pulled in. My heart rate returned to something approximating normal.
“Time for school,” Mark said evenly. “You know who your teacher is, right?”
Alex gave us her name.
“You know which room?”
He gave us the number and where in the hallway that was.
“They’re going to give you a locker this morning after you get settled in for class. You’ll have to remember how to open your lock.”
“How will I remember which locker is mine?” he asked.
“Maybe you’ll put your name on it?” I suggested. “I’m sure your teacher will know exactly what to do and she’ll help you if you have any questions. She’s a very nice lady.”
I knew nothing about this woman. All I knew was that she had a female name, but it would serve me right if it was actually a man.
Mark got out in between a break in traffic and ran around to the sidewalk to help Alex out of the car. “Come on, bud. Time for your first day of school. Let’s get a picture.”
He didn’t hop out of the back seat. Instead he stopped halfway and looked down at his shoes. “I don’t wanna,” he pouted with a soft voice. He pressed up on his glasses. “Can you and Chris come with me?”
“To school?” Mark got down on one knee. “Do I look like a kid to you?”
Yes.
Alex shook his head.
“School is for kids,” Mark said. “What happened? Last night you couldn’t get to sleep because you were so excited about school.”
Alex moped and wouldn’t confront the question. “When are you going to come back? Can’t you walk with me to my class?”
He already knew the answers to all these questions. We’d gone over them ad nauseum over the past week before bed.
“Picture,” I said. “First day of school with Alex and Mark. Say Cheese.”
“Cheese,” they said in unison. Mark was upbeat, but Alex did it reluctantly and he frowned at the camera.
“Beautiful,” I commented.
Mark ripped the phone from my hands. “Babe, I’m blinking again.”
“At least I got your jaw sitting right this time. No complaints!”
Mark flagged down another parent to take a picture of all three of us. “And wait till we’re not blinking,” he instructed her.
Sure enough, her photo of us hangs on our picture wall in the hallway. Mark’s old car is in the background. He loved that car. I never should have complained about it because now I’m stuck with this gas-guzzling monster of a truck.
He loved that car. It was a luxury hatchback with a hitch that could store our bikes or a cooler. There was room in the back seat for both my parents and Alex.
It served its purpose. Sometimes I wonder if that picture made it on our wall because of the car in the background. We have a series of photos from that day, including the ice cream after school and of us standing by the gates as kids and parents flow around us, but that one with the car is Mark’s favorite.
“LET’S HEAD UP TO THE school,” Mark suggested.
Alex took three leaps towards the steps, then noticed I wasn’t following. “Come on, Chris!” He waved me forward.
“I’ll wait here,” I said. “Give me a hug goodbye.”
“No,” he whined. Then he ran to me and gave me a hug. “Come with me to school,” he begged.
“I’ll miss you,” I promised.
“I’ll miss you, too.” He leaned his head against my shoulder.
“Don’t be sad. This is going to be fun. And tonight we can go over everything you learn. I want to hear about all your new friends.”
“I don’t want any new friends.”
“Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not scared!”
I pushed my fingers through his hair, then brought his forehead to my lips. “Mark and I are going to be here after school waiting to pick you up. We’ll take you for ice cream. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
“Come with me,” he whispered. He tugged on my hand to get me moving.
“Mark will take you up the steps.” I stood up and gave his back a tap in the right direction. Mark was halfway to the building so Alex jogged to catch him. The kid slapped Mark’s hand, then held it. They smiled at each other.
His backpack was almost half the size of his body. Green, of course. Green shoes, green glasses. A couple weeks after the first day of school, he would try to go to school wearing his Green Lantern costume that my mom found for him for Halloween. With those colors, it was easy to follow him through a crowd.
The two of them made it up the steps to the large veranda, Mark knelt and got his hug and kiss. He whispered encouragements and checked the backpack and checked the shoes. They high-fived, then Mark left the kid with the hall monitor.
The monitor held the kid’s hand while Alex waited stubbornly in front of the door. He waved to me, then patiently stared at Mark’s back. Parents and kids streamed around us. When Mark made it to the car, he turned around and Alex waved at us by hopping up and down.
Mark and I waved back.
Then Alex calmly walked into the school and we didn’t see him again until six hours later because school let out early on the first day.
Mark had tears in his eyes.
I accused him of being soft.
“Lay off my case,” he said brusquely. “Is your heart made of stone? My God. I’m too old for this shit.”
We made it out of the parking spot without throwing hand signals or delivering violent curses. I won’t lie and say Mark wasn’t muttering under his breath about the traffic, but he had calmed considerably now that we'd made a successful drop off.
“I need to lay down,” Mark claimed.
“You need to go to work.”
“I don’t wanna. Will you come with me, babe?”
I was still holding his hand near the console so I tightly entwined my fingers in a show of solidarity. “I have to go to work, too.”
“Why even go in? We’re getting off early anyways.”
Mark was, if you couldn’t tell already, a major complainypants that morning. “Aren’t you dropping me off at work?” I asked as we took a wrong turn. “I’ve got my stuff in the trunk.”
“Let’s chill at home for a few minutes.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to—” Oh, he wants to have sex. “Guess I’m wearing your cologne today?”
He grinned, then pressed the accelerator in an exaggerated fashion. “We’ll only be five minutes, my prince.”
I looked out the window so he couldn’t see me roll my eyes. “How romantic.”
“I feel sad. Don’t you want to cheer me up?”
“Don’t push it,” I said. “I’ve missed enough work as it is. You’ve got five minutes.”
“Fifteen?”
I sighed.
“Half hour?”
“I said don’t push it!”
MARK PICKED ME UP FROM work in the early afternoon. We had a small argument about transportation.
“We are not taking the car. I mean, holy heck, did you see how many parents were dropping off their kids today?”
“Holy heck?” Mark asked, wearing a goofy grin.
“Whatever. Don’t make fun of me. I’m trying not to use adult words.”
“I know, but holy hec
k is kinda dumb.”
“Dumber than Sweet Cheesus?”
Mark guffawed, but he acquiesced and turned towards our parking garage. “I hate public transit,” he declared.
“Well, I like it.”
“You like it in theory. But just think of all those germs. Did you pack enough baby wipes? Or are you leaving your fanny pack in the car?”
“If you wanna go this route, I can make you carry a purse.”
He mumbled something into the steering wheel.
“What was that?”
“I said, I’d gladly carry a purse for you.”
I squinted at him suspiciously. “That’s what I thought you said.”
We parked at our apartment and walked the five minutes to the Metra station. The whole trip took about half an hour. If we could hit the wait times at the train and crosswalk just right, you could shave off a few minutes.
“You’re going to do this every morning?” Mark asked.
“You’re going to drive him every morning?”
“I would.”
“We can walk. I like to walk.”
We strolled up to his school and waited with a group of other adults. More arrived as we waited. There wasn’t a single open parking space in my line of sight.
Mark chatted with the parents next to us. He told them some of his funny stories and soon he was getting animated stories out of his new friends.
I patiently waited for the bell to let out the children. Mark tried to involve me in the conversation, but I would just nod and use the least amount of words. He held my hand at one point, but it ended quickly because we were in front of all these strangers and it made me feel weird—like we were under a microscope.
I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to spend more than two minutes waiting along this wall for the bell to ring. Hell no. I’d rather sit in the coffee house down the street if I arrived too early.
The bell rang. As one herd, every adult fixated on the school steps. A crosswalk monitor was already outside and waiting for the kids. Three minutes later, the kids began pouring into the fenced courtyard in front of the school.
The Foster Dad Page 19