Dray put a hand on my shoulder. “Babe, we talked about this.”
Right. This week the kids needed to do this on their own.
I knelt down and pulled all three into a hug and whispered, “Remember, no shifting and no fire.”
“We know, Papa.” Malinda kissed my cheek.
“And if you need me?—”
“We'll tell Mrs. Anthony, and she'll call you,” Brenton finished. We'd gone over this a hundred times.
Kaida buried her face in the crook of my neck. “I love you, Papa.”
“Love you too, my darling.” I kissed the top of her head and stood up before I changed my mind about leaving them here.
Dray wrapped an arm around my waist and steered me toward the door. I looked back once, twice, three, four, no, make that five times until Dray turned me around.
“They're fine.”
Through the window I saw Malinda showing another girl her sparkly shoes. Brenton was already building something with blocks, and Kaida was sitting in the reading corner with a book.
“See? They’re doing okay by themselves.”
That was what I was afraid of.
We made it to the truck before I started crying. Dray held me while I sobbed onto his shirt.
“I'm being ridiculous.”
“You're not.” He rubbed my back. “You carried them and kept them safe, and now you have to trust the world won't hurt them.”
“What if something happens?”
“No what-ifs. They're strong and smart, and they have each other.”
We drove home because neither of us was going into the office today. The house was too quiet. No one was demanding snacks or asking me to read the same book for the tenth time. I wandered into Kaida’s room and picked up the stuffed dragon Stephen had given us before the eggs hatched. It smelled like Kaida because she slept with it every night.
“I miss them.” I was sitting on the floor when Dray came in.
“It's been an hour.”
I laughed through my tears.
“You're a good dad.” He sat beside me and pulled me against his chest. “And in a few hours, we get to pick them up and hear about what they did today.”
The time crawled by. I tried to work on invoices but couldn't focus. Dray suggested we go to the café, but I didn't want tobe far from the school. We ended up sitting on the porch doing nothing.
When it was finally time, we arrived at the school ten minutes early. Other parents gave us amused looks as if they understood how our morning had been.
The classroom door opened, and Malinda ran to us first.
“Papa! Daddy! I made a friend! Her name is Celia, and she has sparkly shoes too!”
Brenton was next. His words tumbled over one another, and I picked out “blocks” and “snack time.”
Kaida walked out last, holding Mrs. Anthony’s hand. Oh no. She'd had a terrible day, and I shouldn't have made her come here.
But she smiled. “I liked school, Papa.”
