ADAM
Until that morning,I had never seen an elementary school with its parking lot at full capacity, or I forgot what a madhouse it could be. The traffic pattern was a disaster, a double-helix of minivans and SUVs, each jostling for a spot while the drivers displayed the cutthroat exchanges of drop-off warfare. I circled three times before giving up and parking half on the curb, a move that, judging by the row of other offenders, was both common and tacitly sanctioned by the school’s administration. If I was wrong, I’d eat the ticket, we had an appointment to meet someone.
“We’re late,” Joey declared, unbuckling herself before the engine had even rattled to a stop.
“We’re not late. We have—” Andi glanced at the dashboard clock. “—seven minutes.”
I herded the girls across the parking lot, past a churning sea of parents, children, and overworked teachers in neon safety vests. Joey charged ahead with the momentum of a cruise missile, already scanning the crowd for potential friends or enemies, while Andi clung to my hand as though I might vanish if she loosened her grip. The school itself was a two-story redbrick building, with a gleaming glass entryway that somehow managed to look both institutional and inviting. The flagpole out front stood as straight as an exclamation point, casting a skinny shadow across the blacktop.
A woman with a clipboard intercepted us immediately in the front vestibule, her laminated badge hanging from a lanyard adorned with smiley faces. “Mr. Knight?”
“Hi.”
“Hi, I’m Ms. Nelson, we spoke on the phone last week.” She greeted the girls by name. “And this is Andi and Joey.”
“I’m Joey, and this is Andi,” Joey corrected her when she called the girls by the wrong name.
“Sorry about that. I’m sure that happens all the time.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Joey stated plainly.
She wasn’t being rude, but it really didn’t. The girls were identical, but their personalities were so different that the way they spoke, walked, carried themselves, and even looked was actually different. No one seemed to have trouble telling them apart once they were introduced.
“Okay, well, let’s give you all a tour of the school, and then we’ll bring you to Mrs. McDonald’s class. How does that sound?”
“Great!” Joey enthused.
Andi just held onto my hand for dear life. The tour was fairly painless, cafeteria, art room, library, music room, playground, nurse’s office, and soon we were at Mrs. McDonald’s classroom.
“Alright girls, this is it, room 110, with the blue bunny on the door. Mrs. McDonald is your teacher. We can leave Dad here and I will go in and introduce you to the class.”
Ms. Nelson opened the door, and Joey headed straight inside without so much as a goodbye, but Andi hadn’t let go of my hand.
I crouched beside her. “I’ll be back to pick you up after school is over, and if you need me before then, just tell the teacher andthey can call me. They have my number. But Joey will be with you. Okay?”
They had tried to talk me into splitting them up, apparently some research showed it could be beneficial for multiples’ social skills to be in separate classes. I thought they’d had enough big changes in their lives, and getting to stay together in the same class would be the best for them. I insisted on them having the same class. I was happy to see that one of my first parenting decisions, which had been a gut instinct I’d made on day four after finding out I had them, seemed to be right. At least for now.
Andi nodded, but her eyes darted back and forth, taking stock of every possible escape route. Meanwhile, Joey had already joined a group of girls, one of whom was carrying a glittery backpack shaped like a unicorn. She blended in instantly, a fact that filled me with pride, and also made me hope she looked out for her sister.
“You got this,” I encouraged Andi.
Her bottom lip quivered, but she let go of my hand and walked in. Everything inside of me wanted to go inside that classroom, pick her up, leave, and tell her she didn’t need to go to school. But I knew that wasn’t the right thing for her.
Was being a parent just sitting on the sidelines wanting to jump in and save your kids and not being able to? Because if that was the case, it really sucked.
I left the school with a pit in my stomach, and it was still there when I pulled up to the law offices of Watkins, Price, and Lee, which were located in a glass-and-steel monstrosity in the heart of downtown. The lobby had a faux river running through it, complete with koi that looked half-dead and plastic ferns sprouting from the rocks. I gave my name at the security desk and was sent up to the thirty-first floor, where I was greeted by a receptionist with bone-white hair and the deadest eyes I had ever seen outside of a morgue.
“Mr. Knight,” she said, handing me a visitor’s badge. “You can have a seat. Mr. Watkins is running a few minutes behind.”
I sat down on a leather sofa so expensive it felt like an insult to humanity.
The entire wall behind the receptionist was a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the city. The sun reflected off the towers and construction cranes, and for a moment, I imagined myself as a kid again, standing in this exact building and trailing behind my old man, who reeked of cigarettes. For some reason, that’s what I associated with this building, him smoking. I’d been dragged along to so many meetings here after my mom took off before he deemed me old enough to be left alone, which was at age eight.
I’d hated coming here when I was a kid, and I couldn’t say I was a huge fan now. Finally, the receptionist’s phone lit up, and she nodded. “You can go in. End of the hall, on the right.”
The wait felt like an eternity but was only about ten minutes.
“I remember, thanks.”
