The Carbon Kid, part 1
The look of frustration on his face said it all. This had not been a good visit. I had just gotten back from a weekend away, the latter part spent on a ferry to and from San Fransisco. My fellow and I had spent the morning perusing the goods of local merchants at this last Saturday’s Farmer’s Market at the Embarcadero, eating Spring Rolls in the sunlit ocean breeze while fat pigeons danced around our ankles waiting for crumbs, and admiring the young families around us with tiny children in tow as we took a break from our own. We slept half of the ferry ride home, taking turns using the other’s shoulder as a pillow, the buildings slowly floating away as we returned from being pretend tourists on holiday to being single parents in a busy world of work, baseball, school, bills…..life….
And there my eight year old stood, the world weighted on his shoulders as he quickly came outside of his father’s home and closed the door behind him. He had been waiting for me.
“Hey bud, how was your weekend?” I asked lightly. He shrugged his shoulders.
“It was fine,” he said, his eyes boring holes into the step he stood on.
“That bad, huh? What happened?”
“You’re going to be so angry at me,” he said. I took a deep breath and exhaled, wondering what the heck had happened that made him so afraid to tell me.
“I’m not going to get mad,” I told him, hoping I could keep my promise. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
He launched into the story of a fight he and his sister had gotten into, and the result of his anger that had ended with his sister shoved into a piece of furniture. His father had exploded with anger, lecturing him on the ultimate wrong of hurting a girl. And since then he had waited for me to come get him with the door open, ready to bolt at the first sound of my car.
“I’m a bad kid,” he said, elephant tears escaping his eyes faster than he could wipe them away.
“No,” I said gently, taking him in a bear hug as he cried into my stomach. “You are not a bad kid,” I reassured him. I let him talk it out a little longer, recognizing his need to stall before it was time to face the music. I then led him into the house so we could all sit down and go over the issue at hand.
Stay tuned for Part Two……
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Single-parenting it since 2004.
[...] Read Part 1 here. [...]
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