At last, the school year is over, and the fat lady is singing. Literally. Cameron comes home from his final day of sophomore year and hits repeat on a YouTube video of Ethel Merman singing “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”
He pops his head into Andi’s room where’s she’s packing for another trip. “‘You’ll be swell!’” he croons. “‘You’ll be great!’”
“Are you still planning to drive me to the airport?”
He’s doing the Tom Cruise Risky Business slide across the wooden floor. “‘Gonna have the whole world on a plate.’”
“We need to leave in ten minutes.”
Now he’s heading down the hall to his bedroom doing the Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy dance from The Breakfast Club—heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe. “Startin’ here. Startin’ now.”
Like a hurricane, Cameron had thrown himself into schoolwork at the end of the year. He got himself semi-organized, put his head down, and dropped overdue and coming-due projects on his teachers’ desks like falling houses.
Grades are already coming in. There’s even a B in Civics. Maybe miracles are possible. Fingers crossed.
The trip she’s packing for, however, is less heartening. A Guatemalan client recently admitted that the men she’d paid to help her across the US border forced her to marry a migrant from Honduras on the journey. The coyotes claimed it would make the US more likely to grant them both amnesty, and that the government considered dual-income families more desirable. They also charged the bride and groom a hangman’s sum for the privilege. Now the groom is being deported, and Andi’s client is fearful of being sent back to an unfamiliar country with a man who’s not her rightful husband.
Andi has to appear before a San Diego judge first thing in the morning to argue for the annulment of a marriage she’s not even certain took place. It’s also forcing her to break her “no overnight trips if I can help it” rule.
But even twenty-four hours away is better than what she’d been doing. Judging from Cam’s sudden burst of responsible behavior, being home is good for everyone. Her and Dom’s sex life is back on track, too, which makes Dom especially pleasant.
Yet, just as one pool of guilt begins to dry up, another begins to flood. A lawyer on her team resigned, citing burnout, and they’ve had to cut back significantly on the ICSW cases they take on as a result. Last week, her legal assistant, Issah, blocked fifteen minutes on Andi’s calendar and used the time to request a transfer back to the division she’d been working in before joining the team.
“I can’t stop worrying,” Issah had said. “And I can’t sleep. My life feels like a hamster wheel that I can’t get off.”
Andi knew how she felt. And yet it had been her need to cut back that hastened her team’s unraveling. Where was the justice in that?
On the way to the airport, she reminds herself that she can’t do anything about staffing concerns right now. She ought to take advantage of this still-scarce one-on-one time with her son. “We’re really impressed by the way you wrapped up the year, Cameron.”
“I know. I’m the best.” He laughs at himself, practically giddy with relief. “I told you not to worry, didn’t I?”
He wants her to give him credit, to praise his ability to grab a rabbit out of a hat. She won’t. The lesson Andi and Dom want him to learn is the importance of working hard and fulfilling one’s responsibilities. Not shutting the blinds and pretending like your lawn isn’t on fire.
“Like I said, I’m impressed by the way you pulled yourself together. But I don’t want you to think you’ll always be that lucky. Your teachers could have docked you a lot more points, considering how late some of those assignments were.”
In law school, she’d lost a full letter grade on a paper for missing the deadline by one minute. Upon returning it, the professor wrote in red pen: Deadlines matter. Had you been one minute late to file in court, the judge would have been justified to not read at all.
She’s already told that story to Cameron a dozen times so doesn’t repeat it now. She does say, “Being bright is no excuse for being sloppy.”
“I know. I know.” He pulls up to the Departures curb, his tone of voice matching the one Andi uses with her own mother.
“I’ll be home tomorrow. In time for dinner. Promise. We’ll celebrate the end of school, order pizza or something.”
“Maybe.” He unlocks the doors, shooing her out. “If I don’t have plans with friends.”
Andi stands on the curb and watches him drive away.
He needs me. He needs me not.