The Lost Time
The clock above the blackboard ticked consistently in the background as the unsettling stillness hanging in the air slowly swelled. The husband, who had just retired a month ago, looked out of the window; the sky seemed to darken with every passing second.
“Ms. Hunter should’ve been here some minutes ago,” complained his wife.
He sighed, “people can be a few minutes late.”
“This is a parents’ meeting; showing up late is disrespectful.”
“Well, honey, in case you’ve forgotten, our son had done something even more disrespectful,” he said, still looking out of the window, tracing the faint jagged line the trees formed against the dark sky. He didn’t mind the waiting; he needed more time to think, though he didn’t really know what to think about. Retired life had made him feel nothing but… how should he put it, paralyzed? As empty hours invited him to fill them up, he, as if in shock, didn’t know how to react.
While he was lost in thoughts, his wife was getting agitated. She changed the seating position from time to time, and when that failed to calm her, she started tapping the desk with her finger anxiously. He pretended not to notice.
She said, “you don’t think the school is going to expel Jasper, do you?”
“No, I don’t think it will come to that,” he answered mindlessly.
“Easy for you to say; you don’t know this school. Maybe she’s late because expulsion is a harsh news and she doesn’t know how to inform us,” she said.
He shrugged but didn’t answer. The clock kept ticking while his mind wandered off to some long-forgotten memories about his own father, whose voice murmured, “… no time…”
His wife spoke again, “ten minutes; she’s ten minutes late. This is unbearable and unacceptable.”
He sighed, frustrated that his train of thought was getting interrupted too frequently. “I see that boredom not only fills your head with all kinds of worries but also teaches you how to count time,” he told his wife.
Offended, his wife opened her mouth, ready for a rebuttal just as Ms. Hunter—he assumed—rushed in. “I’m sorry, parents; the conversation with the principal lasted longer than I expected,” Ms. Hunter apologized.
His wife sat up nervously, gave her a fake, perfunctory smile and said, “no worries, Ms. Hunter. Is everything alright? Was… was the conversation about Jasper?”
Ms. Hunter hesitated, “…in a way, yes.”
His wife began to panic, “oh God, I knew it. Please, there’s no need to expel Jasper; he’s a good kid. I will make sure that he behave in the future.”
“Honey,” he said, “let Ms. Hunter finish. And even if Jasper is expelled, we will find him another school. Does it even matter?”
“Does it even matter?” His wife repeated, and laughed, “of course it does! A good, elite high school leads to a good college; do you know how hard I tried to put him here while you travelled to God-knows-where for God-knows-what? Also, no college would want to enroll someone with a history of expulsion!”
He felt an anger rose from an unknown place, but he managed to suppress his urge to accuse her of spending all her free time on pressuring their son to be better, because he took the blame, too, for being absent—which had just dawned on him when he got to see Jasper every single day now.
Ms. Hunter, sensing his deepening self-absorption and the growing tension within his wife, coughed intentionally. The couple turned to look at her. She continued, “first, no one is expelling anyone—”
“Oh thank you! I was so worried…” his wife said in relief, her voice slightly trembling.
“—Second, do you know what Jasper had done exactly?”
His wife shook her head, saying, “no, not really; you only told us on the phone that Jasper made some jokes using profanity during class.”
“Right,” Ms. Hunter paused for a short moment and sighed, “well, Jasper used profanity to make jokes about you, in his writing assignment, which he was asked to read aloud, and he did.”
No one moved or made a sound. The ticking of the clock grew louder.
His wife, finally finding the courage the speak, asked, “‘you’ as in, his dad?”
What? He thought.
“No. The both of you.”
Silence. Stillness. Paralysis. The ticking of the clock was practically booming now. He saw his wife’s cheeks turning red, and felt his own face burning up, too. He tried to think of things that he might have done to hurt Jasper but realized that there weren’t many memories to sift through.
Ms. Hunter said quietly, “I’m really sorry. Everyone processes family issues differently and that was how Jasper expressed his… discontent.”
His wife regained composure and scoffed, “this is ridiculous; kids these days just don’t appreciate their parents. They hate you for both doing too much and doing nothing, and they insult, even vilify you in public, or in private with their passive aggressiveness.”
Ms. Hunter said, “yes, it’s a fine line—”
“Don’t you tell me how to raise my kid,” his wife stood up, speaking louder now, “don’t suggest anything like talk to him or listen to him; I won’t do it, after all the time, effort, and sacrifices I’ve made for him while his dad left us alone I won’t do it! That heartless little shit—”
On the other hand, he sat in his seat, heard nothing, didn’t even realize his wife had stomped off. He focused on the ticking of the clock as his father’s distant voice echoed, “… no time…” “… time…” “… I have no time for you…”
Shut up, he thought to his father, I have all the time in the world now, for my son, for my amends to him. Watch me, asshole, I will do it right this time. I will do it right.