It is a perfect storm of anticipation and trepidation. The decision to go on a road trip, leaving my son on his own after work, is never an easy one. It has to be a big lure to compensate for the additional work and uncertainty. Yesterday the lure was huge and I bit.
The underpinnings of a road trip are comparable to planning a military landing by a small, elite, expertly trained advance team. It requires the cooperation of an absolutely dependable person to catch John before any serious system failures can occur at the home base, while I enjoy a peaceful afternoon away from domestic duty. Yesterday tested our planning and execution to the maximum.
Not only did I want to enjoy a visit to a city art gallery, John had plans that were just as important to him; an evening at the Warren County Fair and tickets to a concert by Josh Gracin. Here then was the plan: I would leave after John was put on the bus for work. He had with him the keys to the house, which he has no trouble using. We had reviewed the plan for when he got home. He would just get himself a cold drink and listen to the radio or read the newspaper until Big John came to help him with his shower and getting ready for the Fair. There would be plenty of time, we assured him. He would have between 15 minutes and a half hour on his own, before John could leave work early to assist him.
The parking lot at my house was empty except for my car as we pulled in. I checked my watch and realized we had made it home earlier than expected. We were between the time John got out of work and Big John's scheduled arrival. And then through the leaves of the magnolia tree I saw the solitary figure of my son, sitting on the back porch steps, holding the day's mail on his lap, his red lunch box next to him.
"John, why are you sitting on the porch?" I asked through the car window. "I don't have a key to get in the house," he replied. My heart sunk to my toes. Of course he had a key to the house. I had carefully put it in the zippered compartment of his lunch box, showing him this as I dropped the key in. I told him where to look. "Oh," he said, retrieving the key and opening the door. "Sorry," he said.
There is a point to this story. John's landing on the home front had been perfectly planned. I had his cell phone on the kitchen table along with everything else he would need to take with him for his evening out. He could use his new cell phone to call me and tell me everything was OK. The shower was ready for him to step in. The backup caretaker was en route and in fact arrived 5 minutes after I did. How could I anticipate that the slight change in the busing this week, the excitement of the fair combined with the little anxiety over my not being home for him, would blot out the information about where I had put the house key?
And the point of the story is that John did exactly what he had been told over and over to do. If he came home and I was not there, he was to stay at the house and not worry. Someone would be there soon. Somehow that stuck. He knew Big John was on his way. And so, I walked calmly to the door, now open for me, and thanked John for staying so calm, for not wandering off, for staying put and for doing what he knew to do. And the day picked up exactly as it needed to. John got ready for his shower, Big John arrived in time to find us all going about our business leaving him with unexpected free time to run a few errands, and in the end a good time was had by all.
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