Chapter Forty-One - The First Day of School

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The First Day of School

THE NIGHT BEFORE, we couldn’t sleep.

Laid in bed staring at the ceiling, pretending not to be nervous, pretending we were ready.

We packed the lunchbox three times.
Checked the backpack.
Checked it again.
Argued over which shoes looked “cooler” to a six-year-old.

She cried folding their first-day outfit.
I cried watching her pretend not to.

The morning was chaos.

Toast hit the floor.
They couldn’t decide between cereal or pancakes, so we made both, because of course we did.

They were buzzing.
Not scared.
Not yet.

We were the ones unraveling in quiet ways.

I straightened the straps on their backpack.
She knelt to tie their shoes, slower than usual, like maybe she could stall time.

Then they stood there, in the doorway.
Small.
Bright-eyed.
Whole universe in their grin.

We took pictures, of course.

Fifty of them.
Blurry ones. Posed ones.
On the porch. With the lunchbox. Next to the door.

They got annoyed halfway through.
We didn’t care.

Because one day, we’d need proof that this moment really happened.

Then it came.

The walk up to the school.
Little hand in mine.
Her watching from behind, wiping her eyes when she thought we couldn’t see.

They let go halfway to the door.
Didn’t look back.

We stood there a beat too long.
Pretending we were waiting.
Pretending we weren’t suddenly missing a piece of ourselves.

Back home, it was quiet.
Their toys untouched.
Their voice missing from the background hum.

She sat on the couch with their favorite stuffed animal in her lap.
I made coffee we didn’t drink.

We weren’t sad.
Not exactly.

Just in awe.

Because they walked into the world without us, and that’s exactly what we’d been preparing them to do.

Later that afternoon, they came bursting through the front door with stories, glitter in their hair, and a paper crown that said “I’m Brave.”

And we looked at each other.

We did good.