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Chase enjoyed getting up earlyto make Timmy’s lunch.They did it together.PB&J with the crunchy peanut butter, a hard-boiled egg, and a piece of fruit, usually a small banana, grapes, or a mandarin orange that was easy to peel.For variety, sometimes they’d switch out the PB&J for celery with peanut butter, and the egg for cheese and crackers.Timmy was a good eater.He’d never been too picky, and he’d even eat most vegetables if they were tasty.The elementary school didn’t have a cafeteria.All the kids brought their lunch.
When Chase clamped the lid on the lunchbox, it was a signal for Timmy to finish his breakfast of cereal and milk and take his dirty bowl and spoon to the sink.
“Get your backpack and let’s go,” Chase said, holding the lunchbox and walking toward the front door.
It was a short walk, less than five minutes from their house to the corner of the street where the school bus stopped.Sometimes they had a few minutes to wait before the bus came.
When Timmy was a toddler, he’d get excited whenever he saw the yellow school bus.It wasn’t long before it was his turn.
Chase watched the boy get on the bus before he turned around and walked home to get his stuff ready for work.
It was a stroke of luck when this job came up.He applied for it immediately, the day they announced it on the company job listings.Good jobs didn’t open often in this small town, and almost never to outsiders in the generations of family-owned businesses.Chase had studied accounting and taken economics and finance courses in college.After graduation, he had worked as an accountant for some small businesses before landing a job at a bank.It was a large regional bank with offices spread in cities and towns across the state.
Chase had kept an eye out for openings in his hometown, and when one popped up, he jumped on it, submitting an application the first day they posted it.It was his chance to move back to the town where he and Timmy’s father grew up.He wanted to raise the child here, where he could experience what it was like growing up in their small town.As a single parent, a job with banker hours meant Chase could spend time with Timmy after he got home from school.He was the only family Timmy had, and vice versa.
When Chase was a kid, he wanted to be a fireman, like a lot of little boys.They even went on a field trip once to the town’s fire station.A fireman took the kids on a tour and let a few adventurous ones take turns sitting in the driver’s seat.The big, shiny red truck was nothing like the toy version he had at home.
It all changed when Kenny and his wife died, leaving the care of their only child, a baby, in his hands.Chase barely remembered how he got through those times, grieving and taking care of Timmy.For a few weeks initially, he leaned heavily on friends and a nanny.
Timmy was a well-behaved baby.But sometimes, he’d wake up screaming and crying at night.He was an orphan, and bawling until he was hoarse did nothing to bring his parents back.It was a void that couldn’t be filled, not like the hunger and thirst he had experienced in his life.How did you explain to an infant that he’d never see his mother and father again?
Somehow, the two of them went through the grieving together, surviving the dark period where the promise of the sun or living a life beyond the pain seemed unattainable.Chase didn’t realize it then, but as the baby thrived and gained weight, so did his love grow.Timmy had a hard time saying Chase, so he started calling him “cheese” instead.When he got older and he could speak in complete sentences, Timmy dropped the word and called him “Dad”.
Chase loved this beautiful child and raised him like he was his own.
