Nine Grandparents and a Four Dollar Lunch
“Do you want me to call Mr. Quinlan?” she asked. Heath Quinlan is the principal.
The whole town asked me later why I didn’t, and the truth is I thought about it and decided it would do no good.
“No,” I said. “I know exactly what he’d say. Board policy. His hands are tied. He’ll look into it.”
Cindy’s mouth moved a little. She didn’t argue.
A hot tray came out to Austin at 12:25, with a little extra of everything on it. He sat in the nurse’s office with me and ate three bites of chicken and noodles. Then he put his fork down.
“Nana,” he said. “Is Mom in trouble?”
“No, baby. Not one bit.”
“Then why does everybody know?”
I had an answer for a lot of questions that day. I did not have an answer for that one.
I did not say a word on the drive home. A grain truck passed us on the county road and Austin lifted two fingers off his backpack strap, the way he’d seen the men do. Somebody lifted two fingers back. That is what hurt. He was so well loved by every grown person he’d ever met, and in a single minute he found out there was a place where he was a number below zero.
Lynn works nights as an aide at the care home on the edge of town, seven to seven. When I came in the back door with Austin she was in the kitchen in her bathrobe, pouring cereal, and her face changed when she saw the two of us home at that hour.
Austin went straight upstairs. I heard his door shut.
I told her. I did not make it prettier or uglier than it was.
My daughter put the cereal box down very carefully. Then she sat on the kitchen floor, right there in front of the refrigerator, with her back against the cabinet, and put both hands over her face.
“I set up the autopay,” she said. “I did. In the spring. I swear to you I did.”
“I know you did.”
“The card, my card. They sent me a new one in August and I never…” She stopped. “He’s seven, Mom. In front of the whole lunch line.”
“Lynn.”
“I should have been watching. I’m his mother.”
“You were asleep after twelve hours of looking after other people’s mothers,” I said. “You were doing exactly what a mother does. Get up off the floor.”
She did not get up off the floor. I sat down on it with her, sixty-two years old and slow about it. We sat with our shoulders touching and the refrigerator humming above us, and neither of us said anything for a long time.
Jon came home from the co-op at 4:15 with feed dust in the creases of his neck. He drives a bulk feed truck, he leaves at four in the morning, and he is not a man who raises his voice either. He listened with his cap in his hands, then went out on the porch and stood very still with his hands on the rail. When he came back in his eyes were wet and his jaw was set.
“I’m going to the school,” he said. “I’ll be there when they open. I’ll be polite.”