Chapter Text
“Notebooks?”
“Yes.”
“Pencil case?”
“Yes.”
“Emergency key?”
“Yes, daddy, let’s go!”
Octavius looked Julia over as she stood in the doorway, practically vibrating with anticipation. A few locks of wavy charcoal black hair had fallen from her bun and framed her dark brown eyes, which were wide with excitement.
“I gots everything, daddy,” she insisted, reaching for his hand. “Come on, come on, we’re gonna be late!”
“Do you have your lunch?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Julia’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration for a moment before she shook her head.
“You have it,” she insisted.
“Oh, so it’s my fault?” Octavius said, smiling even as he turned back to the kitchen to fetch her lunch bag from the fridge.
“Yes!” Julia beamed, following him and taking the paper bag from his hands. “I gots my lunch now, let’s go!”
“All right, all right.” Octavius sighed, reaching for the keys that he kept in a bowl by the door. “Let’s go.”
Julia kicked the back seat for the entire fifteen minute drive to school, but Octavius couldn’t bring himself to admonish her for it. The radio was tuned to the classical music station, as always, and Julia hummed along happily to Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, kicking her feet in time with the music.
The elementary school parking lot was tiny, but Octavius managed to find a space not too far away from the doors. After helping Julia out, he locked the car and reached for her hand. Julia closed her fist around his fingers and they walked together towards Levy Elementary School.
The main doors opened up into a large entry hall, decorated with a banner that proclaimed with large block letters, HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!
The walls were decorated with what looked like student art; there were watercolor paintings in pink, yellow, and blue of various shells. There were pencil drawings of stuffed animals in varying degrees of skill. There was even a gigantic mosaic spanning the entire left wall, with a brass caption plate that Octavius couldn’t quite make out.
Holding Julia’s hand, he walked her down through the hallways, trying to find her classroom. The hallways were similar to the entry room, with the addition of some student poetry typed lovingly in Comic Sans and accompanied by various clipart.
“204, 206- here we are, 208,” Octavius read, looking at the signs written by each classroom. “This is it, Mr. Smith.”
The door was closed, light crawling in from around the edges. Julia tore her eyes off of Ode To Blueberry Waffles and, still holding her father’s hand, stared at the door.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” Octavius asked, quietly.
Julia shook her head.
“I’m okay alone,” she said, firmly.
“If you’re sure.” Octavius knelt down so he was eye level with Julia and smiled at her, putting his other hand on her shoulder.
Julia nodded, face tight in concentration. “I’m sure.”
“All right.” He kissed her forehead. “Good luck in there. Make lots of friends, all right? Promise me no biting or hitting? This is big girl school, now, you’re in first grade. First graders don’t bite.”
“Promise!” Julia beamed. “Can I go now?”
Octavius sighed, letting go of her hand.
“Yes. You can go.”
He opened the door, and marveled at the sheer amount of willpower it must have taken Julia not to screech in delight as she bounded into the classroom. He gave her one last look before closing the door, and-
His eyes caught sight of the teacher for a fleeting second as the door closed, and for a moment he could see a flash of dirty blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes-
And then the lock clicked into place.
o0O0o
Even though it was his eighth year teaching here, Jedediah never got tired of the First Day of School.
He watched the twenty one children- god, he was glad he didn’t teach higher level classes, he couldn’t even begin to imagine having to memorize, what, six classes with thirty kids each, 180 names- as they busied themselves with their worksheets.
It was a simple sheet of paper with a few questions about themselves and a crossword easy enough for them to take a half hour or so to complete. The first day of school was usually focused on introducing the kids to each other and getting them to look forward to coming back, so a crossword puzzle usually did the trick to get them focused.
There were four tables- red, yellow, blue, and green- each with five kids each. Except the blue table, which had the extra sixth kid, totaling the class to twenty one. They were only organized alphabetically for now, but that would soon change.
Judging by the yells, he could already tell that Ivan, Al, and Napoleon were going to have to be separated. The rest of the blue table- two girls named Sacagawea and Julia- luckily didn’t seem to mind them all that much. He’d change the seating charts in a month, once he had their names down.
After they’d all finished the crossword, he passed out the scavenger hunt, which was a five by five sheet, with spaces for things like “this person has travelled outside the country” and “this person has a cat.”
Naturally, they dissolved into a screaming mob.
He checked the clock- five more minutes until he called the game off- and looked over the papers on his desk, debating actually working on them.
“Mister Smith!”
Startled by the sound, he looked up from his desk to see a pair of bright brown eyes blinking at him. Julia, his mind supplied.
“Yes?” he said, sitting up.
Julia squinted down at the paper in her hands. “Are you left handed?”
Jedediah blinked. “I- yes, I am.”
“Here!” Julia slapped a pencil down on his desk along with the paper, pointing to a square on the top row. “Sign it?”
He scribbled his initials in the box, smiling. There was always one.
“There you go,” he said, handing the sheet and the pencil back down to Julia. Her eyes scanned the sheet for a moment before widening, mouth spreading into a grin.
“BINGO!” she shouted, holding it aloft. “I GOTS BINGO!”
There was a chorus of groans, along with one other voice shouting, “no fair, I’m only one away!”
He laughed as Julia ran back to her desk, bingo sheet still held aloft.
“All right, all right,” he called, over the resulting din. “Everyone take your seats and we’ll go over who had what.”
Julia, he thought forcefully. He’d have to remember her.
o0O0o
Octavius didn’t get to meet the famous Mr. Smith until a week into the school year, when the dreaded Parent Night rolled around.
He’d left Julia in care of their seventeen year old neighbor, Cassius, for the three or so hours he’d be gone, and hoped that the night wouldn’t end up with Julia throwing up cookie dough into the toilet again.
And as the first hour of mingling crawled along, Octavius mused that it hadn’t been a total disaster so far. Half of Julia’s kindergarten class last year had been inherited into this class. He’d talked with that Sacagawea girl’s parents, Louise and Clara Williamson, for nearly twenty minutes before having to dash to the bathroom and returning to find them chatting animatedly with the teacher.
Since then, he’d retired to one of the corners and busied himself with the folder full of forms.
He was halfway through the sheet that detailed Smith’s grading policy when someone collided very sharply with his side. His shoulder knocked into the bookstand and he hissed, bringing a hand up to rub it.
The other person didn’t appear to have heard him- on the contrary, he was laughing even harder with the group of people, one hand on his hips and the other rubbing the back of his head, under his shoulder length dirty blonde hair-
“Ah, you must be the famous Mr. Smith?”
At the mention of his name, the man turned to Octavius, still with the standard meet-and-greet smile stretched across his lips. But as he met Octavius’s eyes, the smile seemed to shift- his eyes crinkled ever so slightly and he held out a hand for Octavius to take.
“Jedediah, please.”
Octavius slipped the folder of papers under his arm, took Smith’s hand, and shook it. It took quite a deal of self-restraint not to say that that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Behind Smith, the group of people began to migrate to the other side of the room.
“I’m Julia’s father,” he greeted, taking his hand back and letting it rest on his waist. For a moment it almost looked like Smith’s eyes followed it, but when he blinked, Smith was looking right back at him.
“Hmm, Julia.” Smith looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to remember something very important and obscure. “I think I remember a Julia.”
“She bites,” Octavius offered.
Jed snapped his fingers. “Ah, that’s it. Julia Gaius, right? She’s got a spark to her.”
“A spark?” Octavius repeated, raising an eyebrow.
“Sure, sure- here, come sit down. Make yourself comfortable.”
Smith led them to the blue table, which was surrounded by too-small matching blue chairs. In the center of the table was a stack of papers and a box, which was open. Smith reached over to the box and slid it across the table, towards Octavius.
“Have a graham cracker.”
“I think I’m good, but thank you.”
Smith shrugged, but took a graham cracker piece for himself.
“So anyway,” he started, still with half the cracker in his mouth, “Julia.”
“Is there a problem?” Octavius asked, suddenly aware that Smith had pulled him away from the rest of the room with the intent of talking about his daughter. “I can have a talk with her about personal sp-”
“What? Problem?” Smith scoffed. “Nah, she’s a gem.”
“You’re sure she hasn’t been disruptive?”
Please don’t let her have bitten someone in the first week, Octavius thought desperately.
“Nah, don’t you worry. She’s been a peach.” Smith waved away Octavius’s concern with a hand. “Always comes in with a smile.”
“She’s very proud to be in big-kid school,” Octavius admitted, smiling to himself more than at Smith. “She’s been looking forward to it for quite some time.”
“Smart girl.” Smith nodded. “She’s a good kid, Gaius.”
For a moment Octavius wanted to ask how and why Smith knew his name, but remembered that Julia’s full name must be on the class roster. He realized, then, that Smith hadn’t so much as mentioned the fact that Octavius was here alone, let alone ask if Julia’s mother was in the picture. He blocked out the memory of the disastrous awkward kindergarten parent night, forcing a smile instead onto his face.
“I know she is,” he said, nodding. “Thank you.”
Smith smiled back, and for a moment neither of them spoke. Octavius resisted the urge to clear his throat, if only to break the silence that seemed to have stretched between them. And then Smith’s eyes darted to the digital clock over the wall and he snapped his fingers.
“Right, volunteer sign up time,” he said, standing from the table. “Good meeting you, Gaius!”
And then he was in front of the room full of parents, holding up one of the lavender papers and saying something about field trips and chaperones. Octavius flipped through his packet of papers and found the lavender sheet.
Near the bottom was a small checkbox, and beside it read the words Yes! I want to be a chaperone!
He scoffed and slipped the paper back into the folder.
o0O0o
“So that’s four hours total, let’s see- here’s fifty.”
“I thought we agreed with eleven an hour,” Cassius said, looking down at the three twenties in his hands.
“Consider the rest a tip, then, for not burning down the house,” Octavius said, shrugging.
“Aw, thanks, Mr. Gaius.”
“Cassius, come on. You can call me Octavius.”
“Right, right.” Cassius stuffed the bills into his pocket without so much as folding them first, and zipped up his hoodie. “Night, Mr. Gaius!”
Octavius watched him leave, just making sure the teenager got into his car and pulled out of the driveway before shutting the door and heading for the kitchen.
“Daddy!” he heard Julia squeal, before the telltale sound of thumping footsteps grew louder and louder. Julia sprinted from the bottom of the stairs, across the floor, and hugged his left leg as tight as she could. “Where’d you go?”
“I saw your teacher tonight,” Octavius said, bending down and picking her up with only mild difficulty.
“Mister Smith!” Julia squirmed in his arms excitedly. “Why?”
“Because tonight was parent night,” Octavius explained.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a special night where we go to school instead of you.”
Julia gasped, twisting her little body to look up at him in wonder. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” he said seriously, as he climbed the stairs leading to Julia’s bedroom. “It was very… informative.”
“In-what?”
“I learned a lot of things,” he clarified, pushing her door open. She wriggled out of his arms and ran over to bed.
“Yeah, I bet. Mister Smith issa great teacher,” Julia informed him, tugging up the covers. “Didja like him?”
“You know,” Octavius mused, flicking the light off from where he was standing in the doorway, “I’m not quite sure.”
o0O0o
Twenty one children wasn’t as bad as thirty- or god forbid, thirty five- but it was still a handful. And it was enough that, no matter how hard he tried, Jedediah didn’t have a chance in hell of being able to monitor them individually at once.
So he quashed down the feeling of guilt at the sound of two nearly identical screams, followed by the unmistakable smack-thud of someone being hit and knocked cleanly to the ground.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he called, abandoning the green table and leaving them to their family trees.
The blue table was in chaos. Sacagawea was sitting with her knees tucked up, looking down at where Julia was trying her best to beat Ivan to a pulp. On the other side of the table, Al and Napoleon were watching, fascinated, as Julia’s tiny fists struck again and again. Underneath her, Ivan was kicking frantically, but Julia’s weight held him down.
“Stop it!” Ivan shouted, pressing his hands up against Julia’s face.
“No!” Julia yanked them away and-
“OW!”
“All right, that’s enough.”
Jedediah tugged Julia up off of Ivan, and, taking care not to let her mouth come too close to his hands, set her down on the floor.
“Julia, Ivan, what’s going on?”
And Julia burst into tears.
He left Ivan alone at the reading table and brought Julia outside into the hallway. Without the carpet to muffle the sound, Julia’s sniffles echoed off the walls and the tiled ground until they seemed to be twice as loud.
“Try to calm down,” Jedediah said, kneeling so he was at eye level with her. Julia nodded, eyes red and puffy, chest hitching with every other breath. “Now,” Jedediah said, “can you tell me what happened?”
Julia made a small, worried noise, wiping at her nose with the back of her palm. It came back slimy and wet. Jedediah sighed.
“Why were you mad at Ivan?” he tried.
“He- he’s a buttface,” Julia muttered, voice catching on the last syllable.
“What did he do to you?”
Julia hesitated. She looked down at her shoes. “Nothing,” she admitted.
“Did he say something?”
Julia nodded.
“Can you tell me what he said?”
Julia nodded again, but didn’t say anything. Jedediah waited. If he pressed her too much, she’d feel crowded, like she was being interrogated. After a few more sniffles, she began to speak.
“He was- he was talking to Wea, an’- an’ sayin’ that since she gots two mommies, an he’s got a mommy an’ a daddy, his family’s better than hers.”
Oh, dear.
He hadn’t had one of these to deal with in at least three years. Jedediah made a mental note to send an email back to Ivan’s parents. And Sacagawea’s, for that matter.
“So you hit him?” he said instead, and Julia looked at him again.
“It’s not fair,” Julia wailed, shaking her head. A lock of hair stuck to the mess of snot and spit on her face, but she didn’t wipe it away. “Cause Wea’s got two mommies, an’ I only gots one daddy, an’ if two mommies is bad then- then-”
On the verge of crying again, Julia wiped at her eyes.
“I only gots one daddy,” she repeated, eyes brimming with tears. “So that’s worse.”
“Julia,” Jedediah said, trying not to sound as heartbroken as he felt. “Ivan is wrong. It doesn’t matter if a family has two daddies or two mommies, or a daddy and a mommy, or one daddy or one mommy- or even an aunt or an uncle or a pair of grandparents. They can all be good families. Wea’s mommies love her very much and love each other very much, and that means that their family is just as good as everyone else’s.”
Julia sniffled and looked up at him with hopeful eyes.
“And I’m willing to bet,” Jedediah said, smiling, “that your daddy loves you very, very much. And I know you love him back, don’t you?”
Julia nodded, still a little dumbfounded by the wealth of information. “Yeah.”
“But,” Jedediah added, “you still shouldn’t have hit Ivan, you understand?”
Julia looked at the floor. “Yes, Mister Smith.”
“And you shouldn’t have bitten him.”
“Yes, Mister Smith.”
“I’m going to write to your father,” Jedediah began, and Julia sucked in a breath. “You’re not in trouble, Julia, don’t worry.” Jedediah smiled. “But no more fighting, okay?”
Julia nodded. “Okay,” she said, and sniffled again.
“All right, back inside, now,” Jedediah said, pushing open the door. Julia stumbled inside, heading over towards the blue table and sitting back down next to Sacagawea.
Jedediah headed for his desk and scribbled down ‘email parents- sac, ivan, julia.’
“Don’t listen to him,” he heard Julia telling Sacagawea very seriously, “he’s a poopoo head.”
Jedediah cracked a smile.
o0O0o
[3:16 PM [email protected]: Subject: “Julia”]
Mr. Gaius,
There was an incident in class today concerning your daughter, Julia.
One of my students made a comment about families, and Julia took this to great offence. She attacked him, hit him, and bit him. I took her out of the classroom and had a talk with her, and she calmed down.
I don’t know what your familial situation is, but I think Julia needs some reassurance. I’ll add onto the family unit and have a talk with the other student in question, and hopefully this won’t happen again.
I would also like to add that this is the first disruptive instance Julia has had, and she’s otherwise a delight to have in class.
Below I have some references to a few websites you might find useful.
Octavius checked the bottom of the email, but the name J. Smith still read in plain black and white. Strange, he thought, this didn’t sound anything like the Smith he’d met back during parent night. Maybe these types of emails were fill-in-the-blank style.
Putting the thought out of his mind, he sent back a quick reply thanking Smith for the notice and, sitting back in his chair, rubbed his temples.
He’d known this was coming, he’d always known. He considered himself lucky Julia hadn’t had to worry about anything like this back in kindergarten, but it had been foolish to hope that she’d be ignorant forever.
The diesel engine croaked and rattled outside the window, and he closed the laptop shut, sighing.
Julia opened the door without even half the enthusiasm she usually used, simply turning the handle and pushing it forward instead of slamming it back and announcing her presence with a scream of DADDY!
“Julia?” he called, and the door closed.
Slow, careful footsteps carried through the entry hall into the living room. Julia, head tilted down to the floor, didn’t meet his eyes.
“Mister Smith talked to you, didn’t he,” she said, quietly.
“Yes,” Octavius said, nodding. “I’m not angry with you.”
“You’re not?”
“No, I’m not. Though I did tell you not to bite.”
“But he was a buttface.”
“Yes, well. Some people are just buttfaces.”
Julia crossed her arms, scowling at the floor. “I hate him.”
“Julia.”
“I hate him. He’s. He’s gross! And mean. And he made me cry.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”
“He said mean stuff, daddy, he meant to!”
“Julia,”
“He was goin’ on on Wea because she gots two mommies and he said it’s only good if you’ve got one mommy and a daddy, but I don’t even have one mom, an’-”
“Calm down, Julia, come here.” He knelt down on the floor, but Julia stayed where she was.
“Why don’t I have a mom? Everyone elsegots one.”
“Has one,” Octavius corrected. “And, well, you did, but- Julia, it’s complicated.”
“But why don’t- Ivan says you need a mommy an’ a daddy, an’ they gots to love each other a whole lot an’ then they get kids like us, so-”
“Well, that’s true, in some respects-”
“Did mommy hate me?”
He stopped short at the look of mingled hurt and confusion Julia was giving him.
“Because- because Wea says that’s what it means when someone doesn’t love you, and- and did mommy not love me?”
"Julia, Julia, no. Sweetheart, come here.”
And finally, she came. Dumping her backpack beside the couch, Julia wobbled over to him, almost looking to be on the verge of tears again. Kneeled on the ground, he took her into his arms and held her tight as she buried her face in his chest.
“Is that what you were worried about?” he asked, quietly. Julia made a small sound, closing her fists around his shirt.
“M’ sorry,” he heard her say, voice muffled both by his shirt and the fact that her throat was probably worn out from crying.
“You’re sorry?” He frowned. “What for?”
“I kicked Ivan. An’ hit him. An’ bit him.”
Julia was certainly her mother’s daughter. Good enough to recognize her mistakes and brave enough to admit them. It made his heart hurt, just a little.
“I forgive you,” he said. “I know we talked about it earlier, but just this once, I’m not angry.”
“You’re not?”
“No.” He patted her hair gently.
“You don’t hate me?” She pulled away and he looked her straight on. Her eyes, still red and puffy from having cried, were welling up again. Octavius bit his lip.
“Sweetheart, no, I could never hate you.” He shook his head, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I love you, all right? So, so much. More than a hundred mommies, even.”
“You do?” Julia mumbled, wiping at her eyes.
“I do. You have nothing to worry about, do you understand?” He took her hands in his. “I love you very much, and that’s never going to change.”
“Never?”
“Never ever.” He pressed a kiss to her head. “Come on, now, help me with dinner.”
o0O0o
Even Simon and Garfunkle- yes, yes, shut up- couldn’t lull him to sleep that night.
He yanked a pillow out from under his side and shoved it back behind his head, trying to get comfortable. If anything, he felt worse.
Julia was beginning to ask questions, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for them. How was he supposed to answer did mommy not love me? How was he supposed to answer that honestly? Julia was only six, she couldn’t begin to comprehend love, let alone-
Could she? Was Octavius just sheltering her? Would she be better off with someone else? Would she be better off with a better family, one that wasn’t broken?
They weren’t a broken family, he told himself. They weren’t. They weren’t. He loved Julia with everything he had, didn’t he? He supported her as well as he could, kept them afloat with his job and the occasional cheque. He loved her and that was enough.
He fell asleep to the sound of cars racing down the highway, the feeling of something low in his gut turning over and over, and the thought that he loved her. That was enough.
Wasn’t it?