Delivered Safe
“Straight home,” I said.
Joel was standing by the front door with his backpack already on both shoulders. Eleven years old. Hair sticking up in the back no matter how much water I put on it. Sneakers with the laces tucked in instead of tied because tying them took too long.
He sighed.
“I know.”
“No shortcuts.”
“I know.”
“No stopping anywhere.”
“Mom.”
“And you text me the second you walk out of that building.”
He gave me the most dramatic sigh an eleven-year-old could possibly produce. His whole body sagged with it. His backpack slid down one arm.
“Yes, Mom.”
I smiled.
I couldn’t help it. He wanted so badly to prove he could handle a little freedom. He’d been asking for weeks.
“Mom, it’s ten minutes. I’m eleven. I can walk home by myself.”
He started in September. The second week of sixth grade at Whitman Elementary. Every single afternoon, when I pulled up to the pickup line in my old Honda, he’d climb into the back seat and say it.
“Ten minutes, Mom.”
“I know how long it is.”
“Ava walks. Caleb walks. Everybody walks.”
“Everybody’s mother isn’t me.”
“That’s not an argument.”
“It’s the only one I need.”
He’d slump against the window and stare out at the street.
And here’s the thing I didn’t notice. Not then. Not for weeks.
He wasn’t staring at the street.
He was staring at the corner.
My name is Erin Matthews. I’m forty-one.
I’m a paralegal at a law firm in downtown Columbus. Family law, mostly. Divorces. Custody. I spend my days reading about all the ways parents fail their children.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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