Chapter 9: The Good Cereal
Three months later, Jaylen started first grade.
I drove him on the first day.
Mia was in her car seat behind us, chewing on the ear of a stuffed rabbit.
Jaylen had his backpack on his lap even though we were in the car, because he wanted to be ready.
"Mama," he said, watching the streets go by.
"Is Marcus coming back?"
I had been waiting for that question.
I had thought about how to answer it for weeks.
"No, baby," I said.
"He's not."
Jaylen considered this.
"Okay," he said.
Just okay.
No follow-up.
He looked back out the window.
I had expected more.
I had braced for more.
But sometimes children understand the important things faster than adults do, because they haven't spent years learning to doubt what they feel.
---
I had moved into a two-bedroom apartment six weeks after leaving Deb's.
It was smaller than the old place.
The kitchen window looked out at a brick wall.
But the lease had only my name on it, and that meant something I hadn't had words for until I signed it.
Carol came to see us once, about a month after everything settled.
She brought a plant for the kitchen windowsill and a bag of groceries and a dinosaur encyclopedia for Jaylen that was so large he could barely carry it.
We sat at my kitchen table while the kids played in the other room.
"How are you?" she said.
"Better," I said.
"Genuinely better.
Not just saying it."
She nodded.
"And Marcus?" I said.
"Have you spoken to him?"
"He called me once.
He told me I had destroyed his life." She wrapped her hands around her mug the same way she had in Aunt Diane's living room three months ago.
"I told him I loved him.
And I told him that what happened was the result of his own choices, not mine."
"How did he take that?"
"He hung up." She paused.
"I think, eventually, he may understand.
I don't know.
That part isn't mine to control anymore."
I looked at her across the table.
"You saved us," I said.
"You know that."
"You saved yourselves," she said.
"I just drove four hours and knocked on a door."
"You almost didn't knock."
She smiled slightly.
"I almost didn't.
I sat outside for ten minutes."
"Jaylen saw you."
"I know." She looked toward the other room where I could hear him narrating something elaborate to Mia involving at least three different dinosaurs.
"He has good eyes, that boy."
---
That evening, after Carol left, I gave the kids dinner and bath and put Mia down and read Jaylen two chapters of the dinosaur encyclopedia even though it was a school night.
When I turned off his light, he said: "Mama.
Did you know the T.
rex had really small arms but it didn't matter because it was still the most powerful one?"
"I did not know that," I said.
"Carol told me." He yawned.
"She's nice."
"She is."
"Can she come back?"
"I think so.
Yes."
He rolled over and pulled his blanket up.
"Good," he said.
"She knows a lot about dinosaurs."
I stood in the doorway for a moment after he closed his eyes.
The apartment was quiet.
The kitchen light was on.
The plant Carol had brought was on the windowsill, small and green against the brick outside.
I went and made coffee for one.
Sat down at the table.
Didn't think about Marcus until I was halfway through the cup, and when I did, the thought passed through without catching on anything.
That was new.
I sat there until the coffee was gone, in my own kitchen, in my own apartment, with my children asleep down the hall.
It was enough.
It was more than enough.
It was, finally, exactly enough.
---
*Sometimes the people who walk out on us make room for the people who drive four hours to show up.
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