Michael stared at his phone, as if continued gaze might change the text on the screen.
C invited to bday party. 3y.o. girl. Sat 4pm. Get gift. Will email info.
He considered texting his mom back, but decided that would lead to more confusion. So he called.
"Hello?" she croaked.
"A birthday party? For who?"
"Michael, civilized people say hello. And civilized sons ask how their extremely sick mother is feeling."
"I'm sorry, Mom. How are you feeling?"
"Oh, just peachy. It's been a week, Michael. A week of being scared to sleep for fear I won't wake up. A week of wondering if this is how it feels to die. How the hell do you think I feel?" Madeline snapped.
And that's why I didn't ask you, Michael didn't say. "That's too bad, Mom. Just think how much worse you'd feel if Charlie was there!" Michael said brightly, trying to help.
Madeline was silent for a few moments. Then Michael could hear her breathing deeply. "Michael," she began, "are you trying to make me feel worse?"
"What? No! I just meant – I mean, that was the whole point of him staying with us, right? Because you didn't have the energy to take care of him?"
"'Didn't have the energy,'" Madeline repeated scornfully. "The energy? I didn't have the energy? You make it sound like I didn't get my afternoon nap! I am sick, Michael. I am a living, breathing – for now, anyway – a living, breathing, festering pile of disease. I might die this week, you know that? And now I've lost the one thing in my life that gives me joy. That little boy, with his shining smile and perfect personality and all those wonderful things he says, that precious little boy is the sole reason I have for getting up in the morning, and you think I should be grateful he's not here? Are you really that sadistic, Michael?"
Michael breathed out slowly through pursed lips, forcing himself not to say anything.
"Well? Nothing? You have nothing to say?"
Michael knew better. He knew not to say anything. He knew it would lead to nothing good. He knew.
He didn't care.
"Mom, trust me, I know how bad you feel. I felt pretty bad myself when I was shot an inch away from my heart. Oh, but you're right, this is probably more like that time I had sepsis in Bangladesh. But that was okay; I figured, hey, it's probably okay that they're using that guy's IV on me; he looks clean enough.
"And don't even start about his perfect personality and all the wonderful things he says. You may recall that less than 24 hours before we took him, you called and said you were locking yourself in your closet so you didn't have to hear about, and I quote, 'that fucking train.'"
This time Madeline was silent.
"So," Michael said evenly, "let's start over. What birthday party?"
"A little girl in his class. Sophia. Sophia-with-a-ph. Now don't get her mixed up with Sofia-with-an-f because that Sofia is not having boys to her party this year. Or . . . wait, maybe Sofia-with-an-f G. is having boys but Sofia-with-an-f L. is not. Now let me think just a minute . . ."
What ever happened to Jane?, Michael thought. "Okay, Sophia-with-a-ph," he said, trying to get his mother to focus. "Sophia-with-a-ph is having a party. Where?"
"Her house," Madeline replied. "I'll send you the address."
"Wow, her parents are either brave or stupid to take care of all those kids themselves," Michael remarked.
"Michael, you don't leave him there. They're three years old. You have to stay with him," Madeline explained.
"We have to stay with him? What are we supposed to do?" Michael asked incredulously.
"Oh, I'm sure there'll be an orgy for the adults. What's the matter with you, 'what are we supposed to do?'? You sit there and sing Happy Birthday when it's time and eat a goddamn piece of cake!"
Michael looked at his watch. Three more minutes until his class. Three more minutes, max, of his mother.
"Okay, fine, we'll take him to the party at Sofia-with-an-f's house," Michael said.
"JESUS CHR – " Madeline shouted as loud as she could, which wasn't loud at all. Just angry.
"I'm KIDDING, Mom. A little joke. Sophia-with-a-ph. Turning three. What do we get her?"
"Michael, for the sake of our future relationship and your life with Fiona, I am hanging up now before I decide to use my last legs to drive over and kill you. Go to a toy store. Tell Charlie I love him. G'bye."
Michael pressed the red button on his phone and exhaled. Then he put it on the table and looked over his class roster one last time. Nobody seemed like a Neal. A very promising start.
The door opened, and Fiona walked in carrying two huge duffel bags. "I'm ready, and this time, Michael, if one of them rips my hair out with duct tape, I intend to return the favor. And I will do the same to you. Or worse. And you'll never know when it's coming," Fiona whispered dramatically, grinning slyly.
Now, for any other two people in the world, that would have been menacing. For Michael and Fiona, it was foreplay.
"I talked with my mom," Michael eventually said, trying to regain his composure.
"Oh yeah? How is she?"
"A lot nicer than yesterday, so I guess she's feeling better."
Seven hours later, Michael and Fiona were sitting in rush hour traffic, inching their way to Charlie. Earlier in the week, after talking with Charlie and Madeline and Nisha and Ms. Virginia and anyone else who might have an opinion, they'd decided to have Charlie stay at school all day. He loved it, and apparently he actually napped there. He'd yet to nap at their house.
He'd also yet to sleep in his own bed, even though the guns and ammo were long gone from the guest bedroom.
And he'd yet to let Michael pee by himself. But Michael was getting used to it, which scared him even more than a preschooler watching him pee.
But for all the things he'd yet to do, Charlie had done many other things. He'd hopped in the shower with Michael and Fi, instead of coloring just outside the bathroom door as they'd instructed. Twice. That's when they went back to showering separately.
He'd announced to everyone they saw on their evening walks that Michael was not his daddy.
He'd thrown tantrums in the kitchen, their bedroom, the front yard, the back yard, the car, Subway, the school parking lot, the grocery store, the bathroom of the grocery store, Carlito's (Fi had finally given in), the beach, the yogurt place, and the book store.
And it was only day eight.
Tantrums fascinated Michael. Well, they also startled and embarrassed and angered him, but once those emotions faded a bit, they fascinated him. Michael could understand being furious at not getting his way. That's human nature. Toddlers just have to learn to control their fury. That made sense to Michael.
What didn't make sense is what they got mad about. Most of the time, Charlie's tantrums resulted from his changing his own mind about what he wanted. And it was always something profoundly unimportant.
Take the parking lot tantrum, for example. There were two places to park, one right across from the other. Michael started to go to the one to the left. Charlie pointed to the other one and said, "Dah wun!" Michael, having learned to choose his battles, pointed to the spot on the right and asked, "Charlie, would you like me to park in that spot?"
"Yah!"
"Okey dokey," replied Michael. "No problem. Charlie gets to choo-oose!" he sing-songed. He'd been Googling again and had found lots of lots and LOTS of stuff about giving kids choices. It seemed harmless and people swore it cut down on tantrums, so Michael figured he'd try it.
Then Charlie changed his mind. Only he forgot to tell Michael.
Michael started to pull in to the spot on the right. "No," Charlie said, "the other one." No reaction. "NO," Charlie said, "THE OTHER ONE." Still nothing. "UNCUH MICUH," Charlie said, with some ooomph this time. "UNCUH MICUH, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? I SAID GO TO THE OTHER ONE AND YOU ARE NOT DOING IT AND YOU ARE CAUSING ME GREAT DISTRESS AND JUST GO BACK TO THE OTHER $!*&ING SPOT ALREADY AND OH MY GOD YOU'RE SERIOUSLY GOING TO PARK HERE, AREN'T YOU."
But Charlie didn't say it like that. He just screamed violently and emphasized his point with some accusatory finger-pointing back to the other spot.
Michael turned off the engine and twisted around to face Charlie. "Charlie, now, I understand you're upset. I'm sorry you're upset. But you asked me to park in this spot. That was your choice. So this is where we're parking."
Charlie just screamed more. Michael went around to Charlie's seat and lifted him firmly out of the car seat.
Still screaming and now choking on his own snot, Charlie threw himself to the asphalt (carefully, checking to make sure he wouldn't bang his head). A father/uncle type walked by and said cheerfully, "Hey, it'll be okay!" Charlie stopped crying long enough to glare at the man.
Another car pulled in to the spot right next to the good spot – the spot Michael wanted and Charlie rejected and then Charlie wanted again. The woman took a stroller out of the trunk, unfolded it, and lifted a baby out of the car and into the stroller. Charlie seemed to enjoy that. He stopped crying to listen to what the lady was saying.
As soon as the woman strolled the stroller toward the school, Charlie evidently relived the trauma and started up again.
After another two minutes of screaming, Charlie finally stopped. Then he got up, took Michael's hand, and started to trot off to school without a care in the world.
That afternoon, when Michael and Fiona picked him up, Charlie saw the good spot again in the parking lot. It was still empty. He burst into tears and fell to the ground.
So, just as he'd done with his students, Michael decided to think of Charlie like his woebegone clients, but with a couple of tweaks: Recognize he's not entirely to blame for his situation, help him learn to solve his own problem and maybe impart a little common sense along the way, and try really hard to not let him crack his skull open during the tantrums.
But sometimes he also needed to think of him like one of those third world despots he so frequently had to outwit. You let those people think they're getting what they want, and then you either kill them or make them think they want something else and give them that instead. Michael knew option B was his only option with Charlie, so that gave him a lot of incentive to end things peacefully.
And it was going . . . well, well would be overstating it, but it was going as well as could be expected.
Michael and Fiona had made it to school, gotten Charlie, and were finally home. Tonight was a big night. Charlie had been begging for days to cook. The toy kitchen at school was one of his favorite areas, and he was itching to grab a plastic pot and some fake bacon at home, too. So the adults had decided to bite the bullet and do it. They were going to make breakfast for dinner. They figured Charlie could take the bread out of the bag and put it in the toaster. Set the table. Maybe use the serving spoon to give everyone some cut-up cantaloupe.
Charlie had other plans. But at every turn, it seemed like, one of the fuddy-duddies thwarted his plans.
"No, no, no, no, no, Charlie, you can't throw the egg. We have to be very gentle with eggs."
"Ahhh! Charlie! Get down from there. You can't pull yourself up on the oven handle. That's very dangerous."
"Okay, Charlie, would you like to stir up the eggs? All right, so, here, just put your hand around this whisk, and I'll hold on to it, too, and then verrrrrry slo – CHARLIE! SLOWly. Very, very SLOWly."
"No, Charlie, you can't lick the egg from off the floor. Let's just get a sponge and clean it up."
"Fi, where's that knife? It was just h – CHARLIE, DROP IT. You know you can't lick jelly off a knife. Come on now. You know better than that."
Eventually, and with only one minor burn between the three of them, dinner was ready. Charlie sat down and started to eat. Michael sat with him, then got up to pour Charlie some milk. Fi was waiting for the kettle's mid-pitched whistle to raise to a shriek. Michael sat back down and put the lidded cup of milk near Charlie's plate. Fiona brought two steaming cups of tea to the table. Charlie put the last bite of food in his mouth.
"Aw finiss! I go pay now!"
Michael and Fiona sighed deeply with relief and nodded their approval for Charlie to go play. Somewhere else.
Only two more hours til bedtime.
A/N: Thank you for reading! The parking lot tantrum is ripped from the headlines of my own life. My son did that when he was 25 months old. And he's done every one of those cooking things and then some.