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the
driveway, glad to be heading home at last. I could see Sarah’s lips
moving as she chattered to her mother about her day. What we
mothers won’t do to make sure our little girls are safe.
     
    Ryan was waiting on the doorstep when we got
home, leaned up against his backpack, jiving to some music or other
coming through the headphones that seemed eternally glued to his
ears lately.
    “ When did Stephen’s mother
drop you off?” As if the kid had any sense of time at
all.
    He shrugged. “Not long.
Brittany had a doctor’s appointment.”
    “ Oh.” What was there to
say to that? I had asked her not to drop Ryan off if I wasn’t home,
but doctors don’t wait, they only make you wait.
    No doubt she assumed Ryan
had his own key, like her kids, 11-year-old Stephen and the 15 and
pregnant Brittany.
    As if he read my mind,
Ryan said, “You should let me have a key. I feel like such a dork.
Everyone in my class has a key to their house.”
    This was a lie, told
without regard for the fact that I swapped notes with his
classmate’s parents every PTA meeting and sometimes in the school
parking lot. “Maybe you should have a key.”
    He pulled the left earbud
out, a smile forming as he asked, “Do you mean it?”
    “ I suppose.” Of course,
since he routinely lost everything from pencils to homework, I’d
have to Superglue it to his index finger. Maybe I’d make ten keys
and stash one under the flowerpot by the mailbox. Seth would have a
cow at the security hole that would create at home.
    I reached to tap his
cheek—he’s going to be taller than I am soon—and pulled out the
other earbud. “You should have done your homework while you
waited.” We’ve talked about the fact that his dyslexia means he
needs to spend more time on homework, not less. But I try not to
bring up the D word too often. His reading tutor says to focus on
the positive strategies rather than the reason he needs
them.
    The half formed smile
disappears. “I don’t have any.”
    Right. It’s moments like
this that made focusing on positive strategies difficult. “I have
to get dinner going, but we’ll go through your backpack when I’m
done.”
    He was already halfway
down the hall to the kitchen by the time I finished my sentence,
but his plaintive, “Moooooommmm,” echoed back mournfully, followed
by the snap of the refrigerator door opening.
    Neither of us wanted to
have to look at the crumpled papers hiding at the bottom of his
backpack. But it had to be done.
    The answering machine
blinked madly from across the living room, but I ignored it. If I
could get the laundry and dinner started, I would have just enough
time to get one short report sent in before Seth was due home and
the evening dinner/homework/bath/bedtime ritual began.
    Listening to the answering
machine would throw off the delicate balancing act. Anyone who
really needed me would have called my cell phone.
    I stopped and sighed. The
cell phone I’d left plugged into the car when I turned the engine
off. I’d have to go get it.
    I examined the metal and
glass half circle of hallway table. It had been an impulse
purchase, meant to class up the entry way. But any class had long
been buried under the precarious pile of research papers, discarded
Happy Meal toys, a baseball glove and a dusty vase I’d once
envisioned full of fresh flowers. Silly me.
    My purse would fit on top
of the baseball glove, but it could shift. So I went for balancing
it on the square vase top. Yes! Point for Mom.
    Before Anna could even ask
what was for dinner, I cut her off, “Go get your dirty laundry and
bring it down to the basement.”
    “ Mom—”
    “ Do you want to watch TV?”
My voice sounded like the tax lawyer’s at the museum when she said
the name of her law firm. That pleased me.
    Even more pleasing was the
way Anna stopped arguing and turned sharply, her ponytail whipping
around as she spun. She’d already missed Jelly Rangers, no way was
she going to miss SpongeBob.
    “