Chapter Text
“Okay baby, do your homework and I’ll be back to pick you up soon. I love you.” You kiss his forehead and gently nudge him inside the door to his grandparents’ home.
Beau smiles and waves as he dashes inside. “I love you, mom!” he calls over his shoulder and disappears. The slight smile on your face disappears as you rise to your full height and meet your parents' eyes.
Their rigid postures and cold demeanor remind you of when you first told them you were pregnant, bile rising in your throat from the anxiety of the situation. “Thank you for watching him.” You nod while avoiding their judgemental faces. If you had any other choice, you wouldn’t have brought him here and subjected yourself to this.
Your mother grunts disapprovingly. “We can keep him until you bring Will back.” Instead of an offer, it sounds more like a command and you feel your jaw set in annoyance.
Smiling thinly, you raise your eyes to your mothers. “You know that’s not going to happen. We both have school and Will isn’t coming home.” You look between your parents, standing up straight to show them how serious you are. “I’ll be back in a few hours to pick him up.” Without so much as a goodbye, you jog down the steps of the patio and into your car.
The vehicle hums as you start it up and pull out of the driveway, not sparing a glance or wave towards your parents. In the silence of the car and your knowledge of the roads like the back of your hand, you allow your mind to race with everything that’s been happening recently. Honestly, it’s a miracle you haven’t already had a breakdown.
The emotions that you keep at bay when your son is around rise to the top in his absence. Your throat constricts and your eyes prickle with sadness, anger, and frustration. Taking a deep breath, you center yourself and pull onto the expressway. You chance a glance at the clock on the car radio and you curse—you’re later than you thought.
The school parking lot is almost empty when you arrive and the sun is far enough past the horizon that the streetlights have come on. With a quick check of your appearance in the visor mirror, you sigh and exit the car. Your hair is messy in its bun and the bags under your eyes are dark enough to be worrisome, but there’s nothing you can do about that now. It’s parent-teacher conferences, not a runway, but you’d still like to make a good first impression on Beau’s teacher. Hopefully she can see past your appearance.
The hallways are eerily silent, but you hurry down them and to the gymnasium anyway. Most of the teachers have their heads down or scroll through their phones to waste away the last few minutes until they can leave. Your eyes scan the nameplates on each table for the name of your son’s current teacher. Once you find ‘Schemmenti’, you carefully approach the table and clear your throat. The redheaded woman doesn’t look up from her bag that she's packing away her things in. “Conferences are over,” she says gruffly.
A sense of failure overwhelms you. If only she knew how much begging and moving around of your schedule you had to do to even get here now, maybe she would be more understanding. “I’m sorry that I’m so late, I really tried to get here sooner. It would mean a lot to me if—”
The teacher's head snaps up and her hard eyes fix on yours. “If you really cared about how your kid was doing, you would have made more of an effort.” She crosses her arms and looks you up and down. “Just because you’re a young parent doesn’t mean you can party away your responsibilities.” This catches you off guard. You knew some people would stereotype you and make unjust assumptions, but you didn’t expect it from someone that’s supposed to be a professional.
The familiar feeling of shame wells in your chest and the overhead lights are suddenly too bright. You close your eyes and take a breath, trying to keep yourself calm and not break down in front of the room full of teachers. When you open them, Mrs. Howard is walking towards you. “Melissa, cut the girl some slack.” She lays a hand on the redhead’s shoulder which is promptly shrugged off.
“I do a lot for these kids and if their parents can’t put in the same amount of effort, I don’t owe them any slack.” Ms. Schemmenti pointedly glares at you. Frustration turns into anger. She doesn’t have any right to imply you don’t try hard for your son.
Mrs. Howard frowns disapprovingly and tries to come to your defense. “Melissa, she—”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Howard,” you cut her off. “She’s right. I could have done more. Thank you for your time Ms. Schemmenti. Beau really loves your class.” You nod curtly and spin on your heel, rushing to exit the school before a tear slips down your cheek. Even though times are hard, you refuse to embarrass yourself or your son by not holding it together or yelling at his teacher out of anger.
The sky is black by the time you open the double doors to the parking lot. The street lamps hum and the bugs that hover around the heat and light of them buzz lowly. After unlocking your car and sitting in the driver’s seat, you take a second to yourself. In frustration, you slam a hand on the steering wheel before resting your forehead on it. For the first time today, you let yourself cry. You knew it was going to be hard and there would be an adjustment period, but it hit you today that you’re going to have to work twice as hard as anyone else to be there for your son.
Hot tears pour down your cheeks and you angrily wipe them away. This isn’t the way your life was supposed to go and you didn’t ask for any of this. You almost don’t hear the knock on your window through your sobs, but you jump up in surprise at the sound. Turning your head to see who is at your car door, you wipe the remaining wetness from your face and try to plaster on a smile.
Ms. Schemmenti’s knuckles rap on the glass again, prompting you to turn the car on and roll down the window. “Sorry, can I help you?” You smile nervously, silently hoping the older woman didn’t seek you out to berate you about your parenting any more. You’re not sure you can be so polite the second time around.
She shakes her head. “Barb filled me in a bit on your situation.” The woman turns away for a second before meeting your eyes. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I, uh, I know how it feels. My ex-husband left me for someone else and I didn’t have a kid and I wasn’t going to grad school on top of it.” It’s not the best apology, but it’s something.
Your smile drops as you sit there in shock. “I didn’t want you to think I’m a complete asshole, so.” Melissa shrugs like she knows she’s hard to get along with. “And Beau’s a great kid. The sweetest little boy and Barb agrees, so you must be doing something right.” The teacher offers you an apologetic smile. “If you have time, I can take you back to my classroom and talk to you about his progress.”
“Um.” You quickly check the time on your phone to see how soon you need to leave to pick Beau up. “Yeah, I have a few minutes.” You swiftly exit the car and let the redhead lead you back inside the school, then to her classroom. On the way in, Mrs. Howard waves to both of you and you wonder how much of the redhead’s apology was forced and how much she actually meant it.
Melissa unlocks the door and the lights flicker on when she hits the switch. The room smells nostalgic like crayons and glue sticks. You let your hands skim the tops of the desks as you walk around the classroom to look at all the art attached to the walls. Beau’s is easy enough to point out, it’s the only artwork that features a book. A soft smile graces your mouth while you think of your little boy.
Ms. Schemmenti clears her throat, catching your attention. “Beau is doing really well, you have nothing to worry about academically.” You can hear the but at the end.
She gestures to a seat you can take and you do so. “He’s always been smart, at the risk of sounding like one of those parents,” you say with a smile. “I’ve read to him every night since he was old enough to sleep in his own bed.” The memories are bittersweet—Beau is growing up into an amazing young man but you miss when he was small, if only because none of the past few weeks has happened yet.
The grade book is flipped upside down so you can glance over his scores. “It seems that’s all he wants to do.” Ms. Schemmenti smiles back. “Sometimes he asks to stay in here during lunch to read.”
You’re not surprised. That sounds just like him. “I think he gets that from me. Always had my nose stuck in a book when I was young.” It made you stick out from the rest of the class when you were in school, your soft and shy personality endearing the teachers more than any potential friends. “I’ve tried to get him into a sport or hobby but he’s just not interested.”
The teacher nods. “He has some friends but it’s mostly because he helps them with their work.” Your love for your son floods your veins. You’re not sure you’ve ever met a single person as sweet as him, even when his father tried to force him to be more manly. You’re thankful Beau didn’t inherit Will’s twisted ideals of gender. “Have you ever considered bumping him up a grade? I’m concerned he’s getting bored and isn’t challenged.”
“I have,” you answer honestly. “With everything that’s going on, I don’t want to add more stress to his life. School is the only thing that’s constant right now.”
“I understand that,” Ms. Schemmenti placates, “but I think it would be good for him to learn something and be around other kids that are on his level.” It rubs you the wrong way that the woman implies she knows what’s best for your son more than you do.
Still, you try to be civil. “Don’t get me wrong, I want him to succeed and learn. I just don’t think now is the best time to change even more things in his life. If this year is a little easier on him academically, it’s the best time for it.” Feeling yourself get upset, you lean back in the chair and pinch the bridge of your nose. Maybe she’s right though, he could be happier with more challenging work. “Can you give him a few extra worksheets since this is a split class?” You were in one as a child and that’s what your teachers did for you. It kept you busy enough to not get bored and it wasn’t much extra work for them.
The teacher straightens and crosses her arms. “I’m not Wonder Woman, teaching a split class is hard. I can’t spend extra time on your son because you think he’s special,” she huffs.
The nerve of this woman. You match your body language to hers. “That’s not what I’m trying to say. It just seems like the best solution is to sometimes let him work with the third graders in your class since you’re teaching them anyway.”
“Like I said, I don’t have extra time. I would have to teach him a month’s worth of material just to catch him up. I’m not going to throw him in the deep end, he’ll drown.” Ms. Schemmenti rubs her eyes tiredly. “Unless you want to work on it at home, it isn’t going to work.”
The thought of having more fall on your plate makes you nauseous but you want to do everything you can to show up for your son. If he’s only going to have one parent, you’ll make damn sure it’s a good one. “Okay, yeah.” You sigh dejectedly. This compromise is probably the best you’ll get out of the woman that clearly doesn’t like you. “What all do you need me to do?”
Twenty minutes later and with a packet of worksheets for Beau to do, you walk with Ms. Schemmenti to the parking lot. Tense goodbyes are said before you start your car and head back to your parents’ house. With a yawn, you pull into the driveway and hustle to the door to retrieve your son. Beau is tired too, you can tell, because he’s quieter than usual on the way home.
Looking in the rear view mirror, you watch as his eyes blink slowly until he falls asleep against the window. Once you arrive home, you open and shut your door as quietly as possible so you don’t wake him. Your muscles strain with the effort it takes to carry him inside and into bed. For a split second, you wish Will was there so he could do it for you before you shake the thought from your head. You’re a smart and capable woman—you don’t need a man’s help and certainly not Will’s.
With one last kiss to his cheek after tucking him in, you leave Beau to sleep and close the door behind you. The stairs creak under your weight as you make your way down to the main floor and into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.
The essay you have due tomorrow won’t write itself, unfortunately, so you pull out your textbooks and your laptop to get started on it. You’re so close to being done with your masters degree that you can’t afford to slip up on it now. Quitting would be letting Will win and you won’t let him hold that over you. You and Beau will be better off without him in your lives. You’re committed to showing him that, even if he never sees it himself.
When you open your laptop, you’re greeted with a sticky note, clearly in Beau’s handwriting, that reads I believe in you. Your throat closes up. You’ve tried hard to not let him see how difficult the split is on you, but he’s perceptive enough to notice anyway. That little boy is the only thing motivating you to keep going. You’re not sure what you’d do without him.
Staring at the note, you vow to do anything it takes for your son to have the happiest life he can. Instead of pulling up the word document your essay is on, you open up your school schedule to see what you can switch around. The two most important things in your life right now are your son and your education, but blood trumps books.