Page 5 of The Coworker
“Feeling nervous about school?”
He lifts one of his skinny shoulders.
“I heard the kids are really nice here,” I say. “It won’t be like back home.”
He lifts his brown eyes. “How could you know that?”
I flinch, experiencing his pain like it’s my own. Last year at school, Josh got bullied.Badly. I didn’t even know that it was happening because he didn’t talk about it at home. He just started getting quieter and quieter. I couldn’t figure out why until the day he came home with a black eye.
Even with the shiner, Josh tried to deny anything was going on. He was so ashamed to tell me why the other kids were bullying him. I had no idea what happened. My son is a little on the quiet side, but there’s nothing about him that stands out—I didn’t have a clue what made him a target. Until I found out the name all the other kids were calling him:
Bastard.
It was a knife in my heart that the other kids were bullying him because ofme. Because ofmyhistory and the fact that my son never had a father. I had some dark thoughts after that, believe me.
The school had a no-tolerance bullying policy, but apparently, that was just something they said to sound like they were doing the right thing. Nobody seemed to have any compulsion to do anything to help my son. And it didn’t help that the principal had judgment in his eyes when he noted that the other kids were simply pointing out an unfortunate reality about mysituation.
When you are a single mom who is barely keeping it together as it is, it’s hard to deal with a school that pretends nothing is wrong. And a bunch of other parents twenty years older than you are and who have a lot more money. I even consulted with a lawyer, which wiped out most of my checking account, but the upshot was that they recommended moving Josh to a new school.
So after a car wreck killed both my parents at the end of the school year, I decided not to sell the house where I grew up. This was the fresh start Josh and I needed.
“You are going to make friends,” I say to my son.
“Maybe,” he says.
“You will,” I insist. “Ipromise.”
The problem with your kid getting older is they know there are some things you can’t promise.
Josh doesn’t look up from the little pile of salt and pepper. This time he writes an S in it for his last name. “Mom?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Now that we’re living here, am I going to meet my dad?”
I almost choke on my own saliva. Wow, I did not know that thought was going through his head. As much as I have tried my best to be two parents for this kid, there have been times in Josh’s life when he has seemed obsessed with who his father is. When he was five, I couldn’t get him to stop talking about it. Every day he would come home with a new drawing of his father and what he imagined that father would look like. An astronaut. A police officer. A veterinarian. But he hasn’t mentioned his father in a while.
“Josh,” I begin.
“Because he lives here?” He raises his eyes from the table. “Right?”
Every word is like a little tiny dagger in my heart. I should’ve just told him that his father was dead. That would’ve made things so much easier. I could have made up some wonderful story about how his father was a hero who died, I don’t know, trying to save a puppy from a fire. He would’ve been happy with that. Maybe if I told him the puppy fire story, the kids wouldn’t have bullied him last year.
“Honey,” I say, “your dad used to live here, but now he doesn’t. Not anymore.”
I can’t quite read the expression on Josh’s face. The other problem with your kid getting older is that they can tell when you’re lying.
Chapter 3
The man in front of me has exactly one tooth.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. Mr. Henderson has a couple of teeth in the back that are black and in need of serious dental care, but when he smiles, all I can see is that one yellow tooth on the top row of his mouth.
“You’re a lifesaver, Doc,” Mr. Henderson tells me as he flashes ol’ Chomper at me one more time. I’ve told him twice now that I’m not a doctor, but he seems to like to call me that. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“Happy to help,” I say.
I have done practically nothing for Mr. Henderson. All I have done is give him a prescription for a new inhaler for his emphysema, which seems to have worsened in the last few months. The prisoners have to fill out a kite form, which is a requisition to come see me if it’s not a regularly scheduled visit, and the form Mr. Henderson filled out just says, “Can’t breathe.”
