“Hey, Connie,” I greet my sister. She’s the reason I moved to this quiet borough just eight miles away from the Manhattan skyline. New York itself was out of the question due to the outrageous rent and even worse public schools, but I would have probably chosen a more popular—and populated—city like Hoboken or Elizabeth if Connie hadn’t been living in Lincoln for the past eight years. It’s like a throwback to a different time, she said. The downtown is so quaint, with cute little shops and gorgeous views of the river. And the schools are really good. I couldn’t care less about the river, but she had me at the schools—and the fact that she would be a few miles away and could jump in and help with Aja if I needed it.
“First day of school,” she says, skipping the greetings and jumping directly into the conversation in her lawyerly fashion. Yes, my parents raised an accountant and attorney, and though they often tell us at our WASP-y holiday gatherings how proud they are of us, I sometimes wonder if they’re not a little disappointed by how boring their children turned out. “Is he ready?”
I glance down the hall. He’s still in the bathroom. “Just about. Although I think he may have a potentially dangerous new interest in blowing things up.”
“Don’t all boys?”
I try to recall a fascination with explosives from my own childhood. “I don’t think I ever did.”
She snorts. “No, I think you’d qualify as the outlier in the risk-taking department.”
“Oh, I would?” I say. “Hey, speaking of—how was your skydiving trip last weekend? And the rattlesnake farm? Did you handle a lot of them?”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.”
“Just saying. Pot, kettle. All that.”
“Yeah, but we’re not talking about me.”
“No,” I say. “We never do seem to talk about you, lately.” I look for my coffee on the shelf next to Squidboy’s bowl and realize I left it in the kitchen.
“Well, my life isn’t the one that’s imploded on itself.”
“Thanks. That’s very helpful.”
“No problem,” she says. “But seriously—how are you holding up?”
“Fine,” I say, walking into the kitchen and setting my sights on my mug on the table. I drain the last few gulps and reach for the pot on the counter to pour a second cup. (I’ll stop at two today. Surely cutting back slowly is a better way to break a habit than cold turkey.) “I can’t find my other coffee mugs,” I tell Connie. And then I laugh.
As if the disappearing coffee mugs are the most severe of my problems. I moved four states away from my ex-wife and my daughter who’s not speaking to me. I uprooted my son—who, admittedly, doesn’t handle change well—from the only town he’s ever known, the only friends he’s ever known, the city where his parents are buried for Christ’s sake, and am starting him in a brand-new school with kids he doesn’t know. Oh, and he’s into blowing things up.
And the fish is dead.
“It’s only for six months,” Connie says, ignoring my coffee mug comment and shooting right to the heart of the matter, like she always does. “You did the right thing.”
The right thing. It’s like a slippery salmon I’ve been trying to catch from a stream with my bare hands for my entire life. The right thing is why Stephanie and I got married directly out of high school when we found out she was pregnant with Ellie. The right thing is why I adopted Aja when Dinesh and Kate died in a commuter-plane crash, even though Stephanie was against it. The right thing is why I let Ellie live with her mother after the divorce, even though no part of me wanted to be without her for even a day.
But moving to Lincoln, New Jersey, so I can work in my firm’s New York office filling in for the senior financial analyst during her maternity leave—even though I told myself it would not only put me one step closer to making partner, but it would be nice to have a fresh start, be an adventure for Aja, and put us closer to my sister—is starting to feel a little bit selfish, and a lot like running away, and not even remotely like the right thing for anybody but me.
“Ellie,” I say, immediately visualizing her upturned nose, the wispy caramel curls that frame her round face, her doll-like eyes. But no. I’m picturing her as a child. Not as the fourteen-year-old she is now, her thinned-out face revealing defined cheekbones, her locks trained to lie flat—all hints of curl erased from existence with a metal iron, as is apparently the style. When did she become this person, this young woman? And how did I miss it?
I don’t realize I’ve said her name out loud until Connie’s voice softens.
“Oh, Eric,” she says. “I don’t think it much matters to Ellie right now where you live.”
And though I know it’s true, I can’t explain why hearing it hurts quite so much.
THE SEPTEMBER MORNING is still and muggy, feeling more like the thick air of August than the crisp leaf-turning weather associated with back-to-school. As we pull into the Lincoln Elementary School car drop-off line, I swallow all of the hokey clichéd advice that my dad arbitrarily said over the years. Knock ’em dead, tiger. Never let them see you sweat. Be yourself.
I’m not sure which phrase would be most appropriate, anyway. Certainly not Be yourself. I love him, but if I’m being objective, I have to admit that sometimes when Aja’s himself, he can come across as a little patronizing and antisocial, and, well, weird—which isn’t the best foot forward with fifth-grade boys you want to befriend.
My palms get sweaty as the car inches up, closer to where Aja will get out. I glance over at him. He’s sitting stone still, his eyes trained straight ahead.
“I’ll pick you up today,” I say, just to break the silence, even though we talked about it all last night. “But you’ll be riding the bus home starting next week.”
He doesn’t acknowledge me, and I know it’s because he hates when I repeat instructions.
The carpool line attendant—a grandmotherly woman with crinkly eyes and an orange sash draped over her large belly—opens the door of the car in front of us, and a man steps out of the backseat, slinging a backpack on his shoulder. A slight panic sets in—am I supposed to be walking Aja in? They didn’t mention that in any of the information packets.
The man shuts the door, and I wonder where the kid is. And then my eyes bulge as I get a glimpse of the “man’s” cherubic face. He’s just a child. A huge, gargantuan child. Is this what fifth graders look like nowadays? I glance back at Aja, who looks even tinier in his bucket seat. Fragile. I wonder if it’s too late to jerk the wheel and peel out of the parking lot. Possibly drive all the way back to New Hampshire.
I wonder if Aja is thinking the same thing.
“Hey, Eric?” he says in a small voice, and my heart breaks a little.
“Yeah, bud?”
He turns to me with his big eyes, and I steel myself with all the confidence I don’t feel, to assure him that this is the right thing. That he’ll have a great day. That the hulking fifth grader who probably lords over children like Aja on the playground stealing their lunch money and giving them wedgies is actually going to be a nice kid who’ll bond with him over their mutual love of the X-Men.
“Can we get a dog?”
“What?” I say, tearing my eyes away from the frightening man-child who’s now shaking hands with the principal on his way toward the entrance. They’re almost the same height. I shudder and hope that Aja doesn’t notice.
“A dog. Can we get one?”
“What? No.” I pull the car up to the curb in front of the school’s entrance and put it in park. The carpool attendant reaches for the handle to open Aja’s door, but it’s locked.
“You promised,” he says, ignoring the attendant looking expectantly in his window.