But somehow, Keme was already there, tugging a beanie down over my I-get-advice-from-the-Bride-of-Frankenstein hairdo.He grabbed his backpack and, still carrying the plate with the rest of his toast, started toward the door.
I grabbed the stack of homework from the corner of the table, caught up to him, and shoved it in his backpack.
7:13.
We ran for the car.
Bobby had been nice enough to let me use the Pilot (when he didn’t need it, of course), and since I was being a responsible, upright citizen and doing my moral duty by forcing Keme to go to school, Bobby had gone an extra step and caught a ride to work that morning.The Pilot started easily.I wedged my mug between my legs, prayed it didn’t spill, and drove.
7:20.
We lost a full minute outside Hastings Rock, waiting for Althea Wilson to turn her boat of a car.
Then we had to stop at a crosswalk where Mr.Li was shepherding a bunch of elementary schoolers.
Then there was a parade of geese.
It wasn’t fair.It didn’t make sense.It had to be a conspiracy.
And then we turned the corner, and I saw the drop-off line for the high school.It stretched most of the block.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said.
I had one job.I’d gotten out of bed at seven in the morning to do this job.I’d basically sacrificed everything.
And I was not going to let Althea Wilson’s yacht-sized Cadillac, or Mr.Li’s outrageous friendliness, or a goose parade, or a line of helicopter parents ruin it.
(A small voice suggested maybe getting up a little earlier.I told that little voice to shut up or I’d stab myself in the brain with a pencil.)
And then: a miracle.
An open spot that somehow everybody else had missed.Right in front of the school.I cut around the line of cars, accelerated, and swerved into the spot.Keme shoved the last of the toast in his mouth.
I stretched past him to open the door.“Go!Go!Go!”
He dropped out of the Pilot and ran.
That’s when I saw his backpack.
Muttering under my breath (words that would have gotten me sent straight to the principal’s office), I grabbed his backpack and sprinted after him.I caught up to him at the door, shoved the backpack into his arms, and then planted a hand between his shoulder blades and shoved him inside.
7:26.
The bell rang.
A moment of unreality washed over me.
We’d done it.
I’d done it.
I was practically a parent now.Scratch that.I was parent of the year.
I was on my way back to the Pilot, wondering why people always made raising a child sound so hard, when I saw Bobby.
He was in uniform.
He was holding a clipboard.
