11. Clarissa

11

CLARISSA

S ix years later

"Night, Boss," I said as I shut down my computer and turned the lamp over my desk off. I grabbed my water bottle and my tote bag before I headed out the door.

"Night, Clarissa. Do you have class tonight?"

"No, I'm just picking up Leo. We're gonna have a quiet night at home. I've got to study, so I'm sure that means Leo will learn everything he didn't want to know about Roman concrete." I had a habit of reading the more interesting things I was learning out loud.

"I'm sure he'll find Roman concrete fascinating," James Stone, my boss, said.

"We'll see," I started. "Sometimes, he thinks what I'm learning is interesting. Most of the time, that's not nearly as fascinating as the little creatures in his video games. I have to go before I'm late picking him up from daycare. I'll see you in the morning."

I hiked my bag onto my shoulder and headed out. I took the elevated train out to our neighborhood and walked a few blocks to the daycare.

"Mommy!" Leo shouted as soon as I stepped in the door. He already had his coat on, and his bag was sitting there waiting next to the door.

"Am I late?" I asked as I noticed he and the other child were more than ready.

"No, you're fine. Leo and Joey are the only two left, so I figured it would be easier to have them ready to go," Miss Franny, the teacher for his daycare class, said.

I scooped Leo up and held them on my hip.

"How was kindergarten today?" I asked.

"I learned how to read. I can read, Mommy," he said.

I looked over at Franny.

"Apparently, they're starting sight words in his class. He's been reading all afternoon long."

"That's fantastic," I said.

"He's reading words that he shouldn't already know. I mean, he's actually reading and not just pretending to know what the words say. You've got a smart one there," Franny said.

I tickled and kissed Leo on the cheek. "I knew you were a smart boy."

I still held him on my hip as I signed him out, then set him down and helped him with his backpack. I took his hand, and we walked the few blocks from the school to our apartment.

Leo held my hand and skipped along as we walked home. He pointed out every sign that he could read. "Mommy, that says ‘Stop'. Mommy, that sign says ‘Shoe'."

And then he pointed at the yellow awning across the street. "That says ‘Pizza'. Can we have pizza for dinner?"

I stared down at him. He really was reading. Not once had he pointed at the yellow awning with the big red letters and announced that it said ‘pizza' before. I was impressed.

"Since you can read that sign, I think you deserve pizza for dinner."

We walked up to the corner and waited for the light before crossing the street. I knew plenty of other people who would've just waited for traffic and then dashed across. But I was trying to teach Leo proper pedestrian rules and that if he needed to cross the street, he needed to look both ways and go to a corner and wait for the light to tell him to cross.

Once inside the pizzeria, I asked if he recognized any other words when I pointed up to the menu. The menu was a series of large whiteboards covered in letters with all of the different choices and all of the different sizes and all of the different prices.

Leo's blue eyes went wide, and he shook his head, a little panicked. It could be overwhelming when you could read.

I ordered a medium pizza with his favorite things on half and my favorite things on the other half. The warm, savory smell of pizza filled our small, cozy apartment. Leo couldn't put his school bag in his room fast enough or wash his hands and face fast enough. He was eager to dig in.

Just as predicted, I spent the evening studying ancient Roman construction methods. Specifically, concrete. Specifically, the recent rediscovery on why Roman concrete was as brilliant a building material as it was. Not only did it seem to withstand the test of time, but it also self-healed whenever cracks formed. For close to two thousand years, modern builders had been struggling to find out what the secret was. It turned out it was something fairly simple. It came down to hot salt water. And the weirdest thing about that was it took a chemist from MIT to "rediscover" that fact.

Our morning routine was fairly simple. I woke up first and gave Leo a pre-wake-up kiss. He woke up slowly, so I did my best to give him plenty of time and not try to rush him while he was struggling to face the day. Once out of the shower, I made sure he was out of bed and in the bathroom. He was old enough to potty and brush his teeth without me hovering over him. He still needed verbal prompting, but I could yell my instructions from my room while I got dressed.

I helped him to pick out his clothes for the day, and while he got dressed—again, this was something he was old enough to do on his own—I made our lunches for the day. Any grogginess left in our systems was chased out by a brisk walk to the school.

"Love you," I said as he ran into the school yard. I had been allowed to kiss him goodbye for exactly two days, and then he announced that only babies got kisses. He let me kiss him when I picked him up. I think whichever kid it was who picked on him about my kissing him wasn't around in the afternoons. It squeezed my heart that my little boy was growing up.

It wasn't a full two blocks to the train, and then another short walk and I was back in the office. I was set up at my desk in the front and had coffee brewing before anyone else got in.

"Clarissa, could you join me in my office?" James asked as I walked in the door.

"Right now?" I asked, getting to my feet.

"Please."

I followed him to the back of the firm's offices, stopping long enough to pour his morning cup of coffee.

"What's up?" I asked as I placed the cup of coffee on his desk.

"You know my plan is to eventually sell the firm?" James asked.

I nodded. In my dreams, I would graduate with my master's and somehow suddenly have enough money to buy the firm from him. But I knew I was years and years away from being in a position to have my own firm, and James was much closer to retirement for that to ever happen for me.

"It looks like I may have lined someone up."

"But I didn't think you were ready to retire for another few years?" I said. I tried to hide the panic in my voice. James couldn't sell already. I wasn't ready yet.

"I didn't expect to. But an opportunity has come up, and if I can take an early retirement…" He let out a long breath. "My wife would murder me in my sleep if she found out I passed up a golden opportunity to retire early. She's ready to move up to Minneapolis to be close to the grandkids without me."

I bit my upper lip and nodded. He was my boss. He didn't owe me anything. We had talked extensively about my plans once I had my degree, and he had offered to help launch my career. But in the end, that was just talk. No promises had been made, and no contracts had been signed. I tried to hide my disappointment behind a weak smile.

"I'll still be around, and I know how to use a phone. I said I would help mentor, and I plan on following through. Just because I might retire a little sooner than planned, it doesn't mean my contacts are going away."

I nodded some more. His words felt like empty promises. He would retire and move up to lake country and forget all about helping the young architectural student who had spent the last three years answering phones for his company. I blinked and prayed that he didn't notice I was trying hard not to cry. The past few years had been hard. I finally felt like I was making progress, and this was a blow to my plans.

I cleared my throat. "Who are you talking to about this? Is it a firm I know?" I asked.

"Probably. The guy has been out of the country for a few years. My understanding is he is trying to reestablish a presence in the Chicago area. You've heard of Kyle Love, right?"

My eyes went wide. Kyle was back. I hadn't heard his name in years, not since I was a hapless intern for him and let him seduce me before abandoning me and his growing firm to relocate to Hong Kong. I didn't want anything to do with him. I didn't even include that I had interned for him the summer before I dropped out of school for a few years.

"Yeah, I have heard of him. I didn't realize he was in the States."

Kyle was back, and I was going to see him. Damn it. I thought about him every day, even though I didn't want to. It was hard not to when his son had the same pool blue eyes.