Where You Lead

Part 6

One afternoon in March, I was sitting on the front porch, waiting for Carly to drop Sophie off. We had a carpool type arrangement where I'd pick up her son in the morning and drive him to school with Sophie and she'd drive Sophie home when she went to pick up her son.

Once Carly pulled into the driveway, I got up and went over to the car. "Thanks Carly" I said as I opened the door so Sophie could get out.

As soon as we were in the house, Sophie started crying and turned to hug me.

"Woah, what's going on?" I asked as I crouched in front of her. I put one arm around her and my other hand on the back of her head and just let her cry.  "Sophie? Can you please tell me what's wrong?" I asked. No response. "Baby, did something happen at school?"

"I hate school!"

"Why do you say that?" I asked. This was a huge switch from the little girl who usually comes home and can't stop talking about how much fun she had at school.

"I just do. I don't wanna go anymore" 

"Honey, what happened? You love school"

"Not anymore" Sophie said. "I hate it now!"

I knew that something happened, but Sophie was too upset to tell me what, so we went about our evening and I'd ask her about it tomorrow.

Once Sophie was asleep for the night, I went on to my usually nighttime routine of doing the housework that I can't get done while she's awake. I was about to get Sophie's lunch ready for the next day when my phone rang. It was my mom on face time.

I answered the call and propped my phone up against the toaster. "Hey mom"

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Emptying Sophie's lunch box and making her lunch for tomorrow"

"Fun?"

"I don't know about fun but the kid eats the same thing every day so it's definitely simple"

"And how are my favorite girls doing?"

"Well Sophie came home from school, crying. She wouldn't tell me what happened and I'm a little worried that it's about Logan"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that kids are little shits and they like to tease other kids" I said as I looked through the palates that I took out of Sophie's backpack. Mostly worksheets and coloring pages but I always looked through everything to make sure I didn't miss a letter about something important. "I remember being made fun of as a kid because my dad wasn't around so I just really hope that nobody's being mean to my daughter just because her dad is dead"

"I'm sure that's not what happened"

"I'll talk to her about it tomorrow, see if I can figure out-" my heard dropped when I saw what I'm pretty sure was the reason that Sophie was upset.

"Rory?"

"I think I just figured out why Sophie doesn't wanna go to school" I said.

"What happened?"

"Remember that thing she had a few months ago? The muffins with mom thing?"

"Where all the moms went to have lunch with their kids at school on Friday. Yeah, I remember. She wouldn't stop talking about it"

"Yeah and they called it muffins with mom because they handed out muffins for desert" I said. "Well they're doing it again this Friday but instead of muffins with mom, it's donuts with dad"

"Poor kid, probably doesn't wanna be the only one whose dad doesn't show up" she said. "Why would they even have this when she's in that class? They know your situation"