Mason had been flustered, wanting to find the right room and wondering aloud about the school, while Adam had worked hard to hold back tears at the thought of his baby going to school like such a big kid.
Gus had looked up at Mason and smiled and he’d been too distracted to notice. Then she’d looked at Adam and he’d smiled at her big enough for both her parents. She had grinned, showing the gap where one of her front teeth had fallen out the week before, and Adam had felt a physical jolt of love so strong he couldn’t believe he could function after.
How was a parent to survive feelings of such enormity? How could he go about his daily life when another person held his heart in her tiny hand?
It had never gone away, that feeling, though Adam now fancied himself a bit better at functioning despite it.
Now, as if she shared his memory, Gus looked up at him and grinned just as she had that day more than two years ago. Adam smiled back at her and winked.
Then, Gus turned her head and looked up at Wes.
As if he felt her eyes on him, Wes looked down at her and smiled.
Adam’s eyes filled with tears he quickly blinked away. Wes was practically a stranger—at most, a neighbor. Adam had no business expecting anything from him, no matter how damn wonderful he was being. Expecting things from people was how you ended up disappointed, foolish, and heartbroken.
Gus pulled them into her classroom and over to her teacher.
“Ms. Washington, Ms. Washington, this is my dad, and this is Wes, and that’s Bettie. She’s my show-and-tell.”
She pointed to the covered cage Wes held.
“That’s great, August,” she said brightly, bending down. “Is Bettie a hamster? A guinea pig?”
Gus reached out and before she could unceremoniously whip the pillowcase off, surprising Ms. Washington with a tarantula in the face, Adam grabbed Gus and threw an affectionate arm around her.
He gestured Ms. Washington away slightly and made a crawling spider with his fingers. Her eyes got very wide and she raised one elegant eyebrow. Adam inclined his head. I’m afraid so, his gesture said.
Without missing a beat, Ms. Washington said, “Why don’t you sit down, August, and your dads can wait in the back with—er—Bettie?”
Gus skipped off to her desk without correcting Ms. Washington.
From the back of the room, Adam could see how small Gus was compared to the other kids. He’d been small for his age too.
She was nearly bouncing in her seat, and she kept looking over her shoulder at them. She waved at Wes and he waved back—a tiny movement of his hand at his side.
Wes leaned in. “They’re so...little,” he mused.
“Yeah, isn’t it weird? You don’t feel little as a kid. You’re always the biggest you’ve ever been.”
Adam wanted to ask Wes what he’d been like as a child. Had he been an amateur scientist, fascinated by dinosaurs and insects, as Adam imagined him? Had he always been so quiet, so self-contained? Or had that happened later—the result of his interactions with the world rather than the cause of them?
When it was time for Gus’ show-and-tell, she ran to the front of the room, pulling on her explorer jacket and beekeeping hat as she went.
“My show-and-tell is named Bettie. She’s a tarantula!”
Gus was grinning, her eyes wide with excitement. This was the moment Adam had been dreading. Not all of her classmates were going to be pleased with this addition to their number, and he didn’t want to see the light in Gus’ eyes dim with their rejection.
A few of the kids exchanged scared looks, but many leaned forward, interested.
“Should I go up?” Wes murmured.
“I think so.”
Wes strode through the aisles of desks, looking like a giant in a land of Lilliputians. He stood next to Gus, awaiting her command.
Gus told the class a few tarantula facts that she’d read about in the insect compendium Adam had brought home from the thrift store, and more that Wes had clearly told her. Wes softly corrected her pronunciation of arthropod, and then it was time.
Adam pinched his arm, telling himself that Bettie was all the way across the room. She’d have to get past twenty second-graders to make it to him. Still, he let his eyes unfocus as the pillowcase came off Bettie’s cage.
It did help a little to think of her as Bettie, rather than a spider. Bettie lived with Wes. Wes held her in his hand. That meant it was all okay.
Adam was concerned that his brain had begun to equate Wes with Everything is okay.
Wes held Bettie’s cage up so everyone could see. Then he told them he would take her out, but they had to be very quiet and very still. His voice was low and soft, and not a child moved or made a sound as he opened the Plexiglas door and gently picked up Bettie.