It’s the first day of middle school and you’re still in bed. I laid out your clothes for you last night, warm from the dryer and freshly folded. Now, I pour your juice, flip your pancakes, and call your name for the third time. You already sleep like a teenager, though you’re one year and two months short.

Summer has been long. Your hands are more used to a fishing rod than a pen. Every day you trail grass and dirt into the house from your sneakers; your bare feet spatter chlorine trails across the kitchen floor. School seems like an impossibility after two months of total freedom.

You slouch to the counter and eat, monosyllabic. My upbeat chatter bounces off you like a cartoon forcefield. You carry your breakfast things to the sink and I give you a hug, which is momentarily accepted. I’m proud of you, I say, feeling the bird bones of your shoulder blades beneath the thick sweatshirt. You’ll do great. 

I hustle you out the door and grab my own keys, handbag, scarf. You hoist your new bulletproof backpack over one shoulder. We play your music in the car as you gaze out the window: wide front lawns, trees dripping crimson leaves. The right turn to your old school, where we turn left. You can probably ride this journey on your bike but not yet. For now you’re safe in my car.

I pull up at the kerb and can’t resist smoothing your hair, though you shrug me off. A big kid now. Have a good first day sweetheart, I say. You get out and swing your backpack over both shoulders. 

When you shut the car door, you stoop and give me a small wave. I can tell from the look on your face that you’re being brave, masking the nerves. A new school, new kids, new teachers. Part of you wants to get back in the car and drive back to summer, even as you lope toward the stone steps. I put on a big smile and wave back, thumbs up. I keep looking, and waving, just in case you look back again, one last time. 

You climb the steps alongside the other kids and all of you wait, one by one, to pass through the metal detectors, into the unknown.

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Johanna Bernhuber is a psychologist who has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, and has published short fiction and nonfiction in Whitefish Review and Denver Quarterly. She has three children and lives in Illinois with her husband, one dog, and too many books.