Chapter 1 - The Drawings on the Fridge
My name is Melissa, and for most of my thirty-four years I thought I understood what a normal Tuesday looked like. Coffee gone cold by nine a.m., work emails stacking up before lunch, and the constant hum of a life that never quite slowed down.
My six-year-old son, Caleb, was the bright spot in all of it.
Ever since he started kindergarten, he'd loved drawing. Every Friday he'd burst through the front door waving a fresh piece of construction paper like it was a treasure map.
"Mommy, look! I made another one!"
I'd smile, kiss the top of his head, and glance at it while stirring dinner. "That's beautiful, buddy. Is that Waffles?"
"Yeah! And that's you, and that's the playground!"
Waffles, our scruffy golden mutt, would thump his tail against the floor like he understood he was famous. I'd stick the drawing on the fridge next to the twenty others, promising myself I'd really look at it later. Later never quite came.
Lately, things had gotten harder. I'd taken on a new work-from-home schedule, and picking Caleb up on time had become a small daily miracle I kept failing to pull off. Some afternoons I'd pull up ten minutes late, others twenty. His teacher, Ms. Dunlap, always waved kindly from the doorway, but I could feel the guilt piling up like unopened mail.
At dinner one night, Caleb mentioned it again. "The nice lady says my drawings are really good, Mommy."
I laughed, twirling spaghetti onto his fork. "What nice lady, honey?"
"The one who waits with me."
"Oh, sweetheart. Is she one of your friends' grandmas?"
He just shrugged, more interested in Waffles begging under the table. I filed it away as imagination — the way kids invent friends out of shadows and sunshine — and didn't ask again.
I did remember to check his backpack that night, though. Tucked inside was the little book I'd packed him on his first day of school — our address, my phone number, his allergies, all in my neatest handwriting, just in case.
"You still remember your important book, buddy?"
"Yep. It's in my bag, Mommy."
"Good boy. Never lose that, okay?"
May you like
"Okay, Mommy."
I zipped it back into the front pocket and told myself I was doing enough. That being a little late sometimes didn't make me a bad mother. That Caleb was happy, and the fridge was covered in proof.
