Last Chance

Chapter 18:

We went to sleep that night and the next morning woke up, fed the kids and I drove them to school. I saw Alexandria with Nial going in a separate door to drop him off. I let the girls go off to class and I went to the main office to make the appointment or if the principal was in just talked to him right there and then.

“I’d like to talk to the principal,” I stated clearly to the secretary.

“What about, sir?” she asked politely.

“My daughter has been getting teased by her classmates and when she asked the teacher to call her by the short form of her name she refused,” I explain.

“Let me see if he has time to fit you in now, can I have your name?” she replies.

“Luka Harlow,” I answered.

She wrote my name and the reason and went to the back of the office space to see if the principal was available.

“He can see you now,” she said when she came back, she pointed to the door that marked Principal in big bold lettering.

I went to the door and knocked even though that seemed unnecessary.

“Come in,” he said.

Mr. Kensington as it stated on the plaque on his desk and the website, was a balding man in his late forties who’d been in education for over twenty years and had taught at several different schools in a few different states before settling as the principal of this elementary school three years ago.

“Mr. Harlow, I hear one of your girls is having trouble, sit down and please explain,” he stated pointing toward the chair on the other side of the desk.

I felt like I was here as one of his students, maybe the intimidation of a principal never goes away even when you’re the parent of a kid and not a kid anymore.

“Ash came home yesterday and seemed down, I asked her what was wrong, and she said the kids were teasing her about her clothes and hair, I suggest she tell the teacher so she could talk to the kids but she said the teacher wouldn’t even call her Ash when she requested so I felt it would be kind of pointless to talk to her about the issues when she’s feeding into the negativity of the situation herself, so I wanted to talk to you about it,” I explain again.

“She’s in Ms. Swindle’s class, right?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply.

He nodded and got that knowing look that people in positions of power often get when they are disappointed in their employees.

“I’ll talk to her about her and the student’s behaviour. In the future would you like us to notify the teachers that your daughter prefers to be called Ash?” he replies.

“Yes,” I reply.

“I’ll put it on the attendance and in her file. Is that all, Mr. Harlow?” he continues.

“I think so,” I reply.

“Good day, then,” he replies turning back to his paperwork.

I leave the office area and make my way back to the parking lot.

Alexandria is there attempting to start her car.

“Shouldn’t do that, it ruins the engine,” I say spooking her.

She jumps a bit and looks up at me.

“Luka, what are you doing here?” she asks.

“I and Joel adopted a couple of girls, they go to school here,” I reply.

We hadn’t seen her since I babysat Nial almost a month ago, I guess a lot had happened in that time.

“Darn thing won’t start now,” she muttered.

“You should call a tow truck, I’ll drive you to work after if you need,” I reply.

“Okay,” she replied giving up on revving the engine.

She got on the phone to the tow company and they said they’d be there in twenty minutes, apparently, a lot of cars had stalled today. She then called her work saying she’d probably be about an hour late.

“How are you liking fatherhood?” she asked when she was finally done with her calls.

“It’s alright, it would be better if the kids were treated with more respect here,” I reply.

“I’ve never had any issues, what happened?” she inquired.

“Kids were teasing one of the girls about her hair and clothes, she’s a tomboy and one of the teachers wouldn’t call her Ash instead of Ashley,” I explained.

“That sucks,” she remarked. “Are they going to do anything about it?”

“The principal said he’d talk to the teacher and kids,” I answer.

“I hope it goes well,” she replies. “Is Joel getting any better?”

“The tumour hasn’t grown, we hope the edges will become more defined so they can fully remove it with surgery, we have a date for the wedding, too,” I reply.

“I remember when I got married, it was one of the happiest days of my life,” she replied. “That was a long time ago, though.”

I didn’t want to intrude but she’d started the conversation.

“You don’t have to answer but I’ve never seen your significant other around. Do they travel a lot or…?” I trail off not wanting to assume the worst.

“No, he’s one of the idiots on the planet who left me for someone else, lost interest in the kids and all that,” she replies quietly. “At least he pays child support, I guess.”

We continue our small talk until her tow truck arrives and hooks her car up and takes it off to the repair shop. We get into my car and I drive her to work. She works at a call center. She thanks me and I drive back home.

I stop at the door and start removing my coat and shoes.

“What took you so long?” Joel asks.

“Alexandria’s car broke down at the school, I let her call a tow truck and then drove her to work. The principal said he’d talk to the teacher,” I informed him.

“Have we been good? No, dizziness, headaches, stomach aches?” I continue.

“No, everything’s been fine,” he replies.

“That’s good,” I reply coming over to the couch and kissing him on the forehead.

He grabs my forearm and pulls me onto the couch beside him, I almost fall on top of him. We laugh about it. he’s getting his strength back, it’s another good sign. He puts his forehead to mine, and we’re eye to eye.

Joel and I spend the next hours together, I get some work done and he asked my opinion on invitation designs which I didn’t weigh in on much because I didn’t care really what they looked like, I just wanted to get married to him already.

I leave at 3:00 pm to go pick up the girls, Aimee seems delighted with her second day of school.

“How was school?” I ask Ash.

“Ms. Swindle, left in the middle of class, the assistant principal taught our class, she was fun,” Aimee interrupts.

“We have a note for you,” Ash replied after.

“You can give me it when we get home. Did you make any friends?” I continue.

Ash shrugged in the rear-view mirror.

“I’ll always be her friend, no matter what,” Aimee replies hugging Ash.

This makes me and Ash smile. But siblings can turn, I was lucky Sean supported me. I hope Aimee and Ash’s friendship survived the hardships middle school would bring.

When we approach the house, I see a car in the driveway, and not just any car, the same car that was sitting in Joel’s parents’ driveway.

“Aimee, Ash, stay here,” I state with a weary look at our house.

I get out of the car and lock the doors behind me in case his parents come out. I walk up to the house looking around wearily again as if they’re going to jump me or something. I dig my key for the house out of my pocket but find the front door unlocked. I push it open cautiously and step inside. I can hear voices.

“Joel, God is giving you a second chance to redeem yourself. You can still save yourself. You can still go to heaven if you leave him now,” I hear his mother exclaimed.

“I am not leaving him. I love him. You have no say, and I didn’t welcome you here so please leave,” I hear Joel reply.

“Joel, I’m trying to help you,” she exclaims.

“No, you’re doing what you’ve always done, pushing your beliefs and wishes on me. This is my life, not yours. I like Luka, I’m not leaving him. He never made me sick, and God isn’t healing me, the medication the doctors are giving me is. Leave, I don’t want you here. We tried reaching out to you hundreds of times over the years, now you think I’m God’s miracle? I’m not. You can’t just walk into my life after eleven years,” he counters.

“Joel, you okay?” I asked stepping into the kitchen where he is standing in front of the stove and she is by the dining table.

I keep a safe distance from her as she’s in between us but I throw a questioning gaze at Joel.

“Luka, where are they?” he asks, referring to the girls without hinting to his mother otherwise.

“They’re fine, they’re in the car,” I reply.

It wasn’t only our safety that was endangered by her being here now, it was the girls’ too. We could fend for ourselves but they were kids, his mother had never been violent but she’d never randomly showed up to our house either. If she saw the kids, she might get concerned that not only have I infected her son, and his cousin but now these kids are also being exposed to the gay lifestyle or whatever.

“I believe he told you to leave. Should I show you out?” I ask her pointedly.

She glares at me.

“I will get my son back,” she growls stomping off past me to the front door.

I follow her to make sure she’s going, but she’s stopped on our front step and is staring at my car when the two girls are watching from in clear view of the not tinted front windows.

“Where did you get kids from?” she questioned harshly.

“If it’s necessary information to you, which it’s not but I’ll give it anyway so maybe you’ll leave. We adopted them,” I reply annoyed.

“The state allowed you to adopt them?” she questioned as if we were the most outrageous thing in the world.

“Weren’t you leaving?” I question again.

She looks at the girls again and then starts going towards her car but keeps an eye on them as if at any minute they’d disappear. Once she was in the car, she started it up and backed out. I watched her like a hawk until she was gone around the corner out of sight from the house. I went back to the car to get Ash and Aimee.

“Who was that?” Aimee asked.

I was tempted to say “You’re Grandma,” but I didn’t want these children to have an inkling of trust for her, not right now anyway.

“If you ever see her, stay away from her, okay?” I warn them instead. “Promise me, okay?”

“I promise,” Ash responds picking up on the seriousness of the situation more.

Aimee keeps looking off in the direction she drove but replies, “I promise.”

“Let’s go inside,” I beckon.

We go inside, Ash hands me the note. I look it over. The letter said that Ms. Swindle was under review until further notice and wouldn’t be teaching. It said in more general terms what she and the children of the fifth-grade class had been doing and well they had been talked to, parents were encouraged to talk to their children about respecting each other and appropriate treatment of each other.

“Did they call you Ash today?” I asked her.

“The Assistant Principal did, the kids tried,” she replied.

“Trying is a start,” I reply patting her on the shoulder.

Joel was standing in the doorway to the kitchen looking tired and defeated from the conversation with his mother.

“Do you have any homework?” I ask.

“No,” the girls answer.

“Okay, go play upstairs,” I reply.

They run off upstairs.

“You okay?” I ask again taking one of his hands.

“Make sure you lock the door when you leave next time,” he replies quietly leaning his head on my shoulder.

“Okay, I will,” I reply quietly, resting my head on top of his.

We stand together like that for a minute, I feel someone watching us, I turn and I can see Ash peeking through the rungs on the stairs. I smile at her sadly.

“Maybe we should get out of here for a bit, it seems like we all haven’t had the best day,” I reply quietly. “Where should we go?”

Joel looks up at Ash, Aimee has joined her.

“Can we go bowling?” Aimee questioned.

I and Joel look at Ash.

“I’ll go,” she replies. “Can we get pizza?”

“Sure,” I reply.

The four of us get dressed up to go back out. We leave Jamie a note and start driving around to bowling alleys to see if they have any lanes open. We find one, pay for our lanes and get some pizza for us and the girls. I and Aimee are on one team and Joel and Ash on the other.

I can feel some other families staring at us but I just ignore them. I’m not sure if they’re staring because we're two guys or if because our children don’t look like us at all.

One of the moms a few years older than us, maybe early thirties comes over to us. I get weary.

“You guys having fun?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I reply with a weary smile.

“My name’s Emma,” she introduces herself.

“Luka, Joel, Aimee, Ash,” I reply pointing to them in turn.

“Is he your boyfriend?” she asks quietly so Joel doesn’t hear her.

“We’re engaged,” I reply.

“You seem kind of young to have kids that old,” she continues.

“We adopted them a few weeks ago,” I explain.

“Those are mine over there,” she replies pointing to a six-year-old boy and an eight-year-old boy attempting to chuck bowling bowls down a lane.

“Luka, it’s your turn,” Aimee exclaims carrying a dark green bowling ball over to me. I stand up and take my shot, I leave three pins standing, it’s Joel’s turn now.

“Why didn’t you wait till you were married to adopt?” she asks.

“We don’t have that much time,” I reply quietly looking at Joel and then at the floor.

“He’s got a brain tumour, he’s in a drug trial but we still have about two months and then he still needs surgery after that, we’re getting married in July. We wanted to do things well we still could,” I explain.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

“It’s okay, it feels good to talk about it, and I’ve been doing that a lot lately,” I reply.

“What aren’t you playing with them?” I ask nodding toward the kids.

“The teams would be uneven,” she replied.

“She seems quiet,” she replies pointing to Ash.

“Yeah, she is,” I reply.

“I wish one of mine were like that. They’re just go, go, go, twenty-four-seven,” she replies.

“I’d like to see her be more outgoing,” I continue. “She has a hard time making friends.”

“Last round,” Aimee exclaims.

I stood up and took my shot and got my third strike and took my second shot and leave four pins standing beating Joel’s current score by twenty.

Joel steps up to take his turn, he does but I can tell something is off, his shot ends up being off, too. He only knocks out five before sitting back down on the bench, closing his eyes tightly. I get up and go over to him.

“You okay?” I ask touching his shoulder.

Aimee steps up to take her turn but looks back at Joel concerned.

“Headache,” Joel replies.

“We’re almost done, we’ll go home and get you some Advil, okay?” I reply quietly to him.

He nods as Aimee knocks nine pins down making her two points behind me and in second place.

“Nice to meet you,” Emma replies.

“You too,” I reply.

Ash steps up to take her turn, she needs six points to beat Aimee and nine points to beat me. She lines up her shot and lets the bowling ball roll off down the middle but it veers about halfway down knocking seven pins down. She was second and Aimee was third. She seems happy with this prospect though.

We clean up our area and head out to the car. The girls settle themselves in the back well I make Joel comfortable in the front. So, far it’s just a headache, with no dizziness or nausea. When we arrive home, I hand the key to Aimee and tell her to run ahead and unlock the door and go get some Advil and a glass of water for Joel. I make sure Joel makes it to the front door and inside. I lock both the car and the front door. Ash is standing by in case I need help. Joel sits down on the bench in the foyer and I help remove his shoes and coat. Aimee comes with the water and the Advil. Joel swallows them.

“Girls, it’s late, go get ready for bed,” I tell them.

“What about Joel?” Aimee asks concerned.

“I’ll be alright, sweetie. It’s just a headache,” Joel reassures them.

Aimee steps up, hugs him and he kisses her forehead.

“Goodnight, love you,” he whispers.

Ash does the same before they wearily go upstairs looking back every few feet till they’re out of sight.

“You sure you’re alright?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he replies getting up he walks over to the kitchen and dumps the remaining water down the sink drain. We go up to bed, Jamie must be home because our note is gone. I settle Joel comfortably into bed before climbing in myself and shutting the bedside light off. Joel lays in my arms as if my warmth and beating heart make him feel better. We both attempt to settle and get some sleep despite the scare.