“Are you kidding?” he asked. “This is where we stopped being a couple—just a pair of lovebirds running on hormones and Lean Cuisines—and became a family. Even before Liam came along, we were learning how to be a family. We took our lumps and came out the other side better for it. We did it all here. How could I ever hate this place?”
Wren searched for Arthur’s hand, found it, and gave it a squeeze.
“I think you’re right,” Wren said. “It’s time for the next phase.”
Arthur squeezed back.
“But we’re gonna be so broke if we move into a bigger place. Are we gonna be OK?”
“We are. That part’s going to suck. But I say,If it’s not good, it’s not over.”
“Another Tristan-ism?” she asked.
“Nah. That’s all me.”
In the morning, a knock at the door woke Arthur far too early, right in the middle of a good stretch of sleep from Liam. Wren slept through it, somehow, but Arthur shot up instantly. Without so much as half a second of transition from deep in the dreamworld to full-strength reality, he was disoriented, bleary-eyed, and highly annoyed. Arthur stormed quietly through the apartment, determined that if this was Mrs. Flynn asking him to help her carry a hundred pounds of dog or cat food or drums of oil or whatever heavy-ass thing she was bringing into her apartment today, he was going to lose it. He and Wren had worked tirelessly over the last eight hours to have some semblance of a normal circadian rhythm. Liamhad other plans. He was up and angry, then hungry, and then alert, and just when he had finally broken them, he decided it would be hilarious to lull his parents into a false sense of security, allow them to doze off, and then start screaming to start the whole process over again.
But now, he was finally down, temporarily at least. And whoever had knocked had somehow managed to wake only Arthur. Arthur was determined to keep it that way.
He flung the front door open without so much as a look through the peephole. Greeting him with smiling, nervous faces was a gaggle of children—his former students. There was Martin, in the front, and behind him floppy-haired Grant and extremely tall Mackenzie and a few others he’d taught over the last two years. Martin held a bouquet of flowers and a card.
What were they doing here? It had to be some kind of mistake. Maybe they’d announced the news at school, but instead of telling everyone that Wren had delivered the baby, they accidentally told everyone Arthur had slipped into a coma. The kids were here to celebrate and draw crude things on him while he lay there helpless, he knew it.
“Congratulations on the baby, AP,” Martin said instead, handing over the flowers and light pink envelope. “From all of us.”
“What are you— You guys didn’t have to come here.” He’d hoped to be more elegant as he realized that they were indeed here for him, because they cared, but found his throat closing up rapidly. Surprised and overwhelmed couldn’t possibly do it justice. It was like being back in the dreamworld all over again. He was half expecting one of the kids to morph into his father. “This is too much, really.”
“Well, we all chipped in and got you a present, butsomeoneforgot to attach the card,” Grant said, as Martin’s face grew red. “So we decided to bring it by. Sorry it’s a little late.”
“And sorry it’s pink,” Martin added. “We were all sure it was going to be a girl.”
“That reminds me, you owe me five dollars,” Grant chimed in, nudging Martin.
Arthur laughed. “I don’t care about the color, it’s perfect. But I didn’t get a present from—” He stopped mid-sentence, realizing. “The car seat. That was all of you?”
“Well, and our parents,” Mackenzie added with a hunch of her shoulders. “My mom headed up the collection.”
The parents were involved, too? They actually…liked him? This really was too much. With the exhaustion coming into play, he was dangerously close to breaking out into a hefty, on-his-knees sob right here in the hallway. The kids were being nice to him now, but there was no way they’d ever let him live that one down.
“I gotta be honest, I didn’t think you guys liked me all that much,” Arthur admitted. “Martin, I let you down. And the rest of you…I don’t know if I was always giving you my best.”
“You didn’t let me down, AP. My grandma wouldn’t let me buy the trumpet, but chasing you with that bat was the first time she’d been up off the couch in weeks.” The kids laughed. “I’m serious, once she knew she could do it, everything changed. She’s been walking, cooking. She even changed a lightbulb the other day—I’m not kidding!”
“And I definitely would have failed seventh-grade English without your video about how the object of a sentence would drink a soda versus the subject,” Mackenzie said.
“Oh yeah, that was fire!” a few of the others chimed in.
“Oh,” was all Arthur could think of to say. It was a lot ofinformation to take in, knowing that yes, they had trolled him and teased him and made his life pretty difficult at times, but maybe that’s just what kids were supposed to do. That’s what his kid would probably do one day. In the end, he had gotten through to them, some of them. In the end, he had made a difference after all.
“I guess, you’re welcome, then.” He nodded his thanks again, turned to head back inside, and then paused. “And hey—I’ll see you all around the halls.”
27
Two weeks later
Tristan and Charlie were waitingfor them outside in the parking lot, as promised.
“Thanks for coming to see us off,” Arthur said. “We would have come to you, but…I wouldn’t have a clue where to park this thing in the city.”
