“Perspective”

On the way to his first day at preschool, Tommy sat in the back seat of the car and hummed quietly to himself. His mother said nothing, but she kept one eye on his face in the rear view mirror. She had done all she could to prepare him for the experience. He had met his teacher and toured the daycare centre in advance, at least two of the neighbourhood kids were in his class, and though they weren’t friends at present, she hoped they might form a pint-sized trio of Musketeers once they all settled into a routine. He had helped her to pack his lunch and pick out his clothes the night before, and he had been awake ahead of the alarm this morning. All systems were “go”—except for the humming.

Tommy hummed when he was nervous.

He was a brave boy, though. Her little man had solemnly assured her at breakfast that he would be fine. The humming was a sign of nerves, but it was also a summoning of strength.

She blinked to clear a rising mist from her vision. The centre had her work and cell phone numbers, his dad’s work and cell numbers, his grandparents’ home and cell phone numbers—and everyone knew to dial 911 in an emergency. She had cleared her calendar to be available if the school called, though her own mother had advised that she stop hovering else the boy would sense her anxiety and act out because of it.

“You okay, bud?”

The humming stopped. “Yup.”

She turned the corner and drove half a block. The daycare was on the elementary school grounds but stood separate from the school itself. Hordes of kids in shiny new outfits and sporting shiny new backpacks ran riot over the playing field, screaming and jabbering with excitement at starting an equally shiny new school year.

Tommy stayed quiet in the back seat.

His mother pulled up to the curb near the daycare building. The crowd was smaller here, both in number and in height. Every child was attached to a parent, some by the hand and others in a full contact body hug marked by a keening wail. The teacher was on site with a couple of aides. All were engaged in prying the more stubborn barnacles from harried adults. “They look scared,” Tommy observed.

“You can show them how to be brave,” his mother suggested.

Tommy resumed humming beneath his breath. He continued to hum as his mother shut off the engine, got out of the car, and rounded to open the rear door on his side.

“Come on, bud,” she said. “It’s show time.”

He clambered obligingly from his seat. He stood at ease as she fastened on his backpack, then he gave her his hand for the walk to the door. His palm was cold against hers, his whole hand engulfed in the circle of her fingers. His little tiny hand …

She blinked again, and sniffled. Tommy appeared not to hear. He walked resolutely at her side, looking neither here nor there but straight ahead as if none of the other kids existed. One of the teacher’s aides came to welcome him. “You’re not Miss Leung,” he said.

His mother winced. “Sorry. His manners are usually better than that.”

The aide smiled. “It’s just first day jitters.” She put out a hand to Tommy. “My name is Cindy. I’m so happy to meet you, Tommy. Will you come with me to see Miss Leung?”

Tommy gave her his back and locked onto his mother’s leg. “Sweetie,” she chided, “it’s okay. You can go with Cindy.”

“No,” he said, firmly.

His mother fought a rising sense of panic. She held him off and crouched to eye level, cupping his serious little face in her hands. His eyes were starting to shine. Crap. “Remember what we talked about, sweetie? You’re safe here; it’s okay. You can go with Cindy to see Miss Leung and I’ll be back to get you at five.”

“Promise?”

She nodded and kissed him. “Promise.”

Tommy gave her a long, slow look before he turned and gave Cindy his hand.

* * *

She called the daycare at noon to see how he was doing. She was told that he was fine. She didn’t believed it; the image of his stiff spine and squared shoulders floated over every page of the report she was writing, and she had polled every mother in the office to gauge normal behaviour on a child’s first day of preschool.

When she picked him up at five o’clock, he gave her the silent treatment all the way home.

“How did it go, bud?”

Nothing.

“Did you like Miss Leung?”

Not a sound.

He wanted no dinner. He endured his bath without a word and went straight to bed. He neither offered nor demanded a good night kiss; as soon as she tucked him in, he rolled toward the wall and stayed that way until she switched off the light.

She called one of the other mothers in the neighbourhood. “How did your boy do at school?”

“He stopped screaming as soon as I was out of sight and became someone else’s kid for the rest of the day. How was Tommy?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything all night.”

“Maybe he’s processing.”

“Maybe …”

“Look, I didn’t hear of anything traumatic happening today, if that’s what you’re worried about. As far as I know, it was a normal first day of school.”

She stopped by his room on her way to bed. He was flushed and loose-limbed, splayed across the mattress like the proverbial rag doll, and she wanted to burst into tears at the sure knowledge that he was mad at her though she had no idea what she had done.

Her ex was scornful. “Relax, will you? It was only his first day at school. He survived. He’ll survive tomorrow, too. Jesus, if you hadn’t wrapped him in cotton wool at birth—”

She hung up wondering what had duped her into mating with the guy.

The next morning, Tommy refused to get out of bed. He was slow to wake up and when she asked what he wanted to wear, he said, “I’m not going to school today.”

She turned from the closet. “Why not?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Tommy, why not?”

“You didn’t come to get me.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“You said you’d come at five and you didn’t.”

What was he talking about? “Sweetie, you’d still be there if I hadn’t come when I said I would.”

“You said you’d come at five,” he repeated.

She was generally grateful that it wasn’t Tommy’s style to pitch a fit, but her logical preschooler was sometimes worse than her neighbour’s hysterical one. “Don’t you like Miss Leung?”

“I like Miss Leung.”

“And Cindy? Do you like her, too?”

He nodded above his folded arms. Her stubborn little Vulcan, she was torn between smooching and swatting him.

“Tommy, I don’t know what you mean when you say I didn’t come at five.”

They stared at each other for a few minutes, deadlocked. Then he sighed heavily and barely restrained an eye roll before he said, “I counted. One, two, three, four, five.”