The Married Life of the Hamilton-Laurens

The Conference

      Alex threw his backpack onto the table. He loved teaching the third graders, he really did, just sometimes they could be a bit of a handful.

The hamster incident had started innocently enough. Eleanor had brought her pet hamster, Harry, in for show and tell. Alex had been hesitant to let her bring in a pet, but she was one of the best students, so he eventually gave in.

All the kids had loved petting Harry's long orange fur and short black ears. Alex was really congratulating himself on a day well done. Then it was lunch.

While all the other kids were eating their PB&Js, JC had gone to the bathroom. That's atleast what he had told Alex. This was disproved the second the class of eighteen third graders and one teacher walked into the room.

Papers were strewn about, and pencils were knocked off desks. The Mother's Day cards (which Alex had reminded the kids didn't necessarily have to be for mothers) had little footprints all across them. Several minutes later and the hamster was back in his cage and JC was in the principal's office.

Luckily it had been time for art and music the rest of the day, so Alex got a break. He had spent the next two hours cleaning the room and deciding never to let another kid bring in a pet for show and tell.

So here Alex was having picked up his laptop out of the abused bag. He settled in between the couch cushions and grabbed a cookie from the 'specials occasions' jar that John kept.

"Give your sister her phone back." John's voice echoed through the entryway of the apartment. John taught kindergartens at the same school Alex did, but he got out an hour earlier. Everyday he would pick up Frances and Philip from the local middle school. Today, it appeared, Philip had decided to steal Frances' phone.

Phillip was in sixth grade and Frances was in eighth. Alex still remembered when he had first met John. He had been another teacher's assistant, and had just had a bad breakup with his girlfriend, Martha. The two clicked immediately, and started dating. About two months into their relationship John realized he was four months pregnant. Martha was a trans woman, but she had been taking estrogen shots for years. John had just started about four months before he met Alex.

Frances had been born early, and only a month after her birth Alex and John had been engaged. They eloped a month after that, and had now been happily married for fourteen years.

So, yes, he had to deal with the annoyed teen and preteen in his apartment. The argument was quickly settled, however, when Philip was made aware of the fact that not releasing Frances' phone would result in a loss of television privileges for a week. John nodded a silent 'thank you' to Alex, who graciously received the acknowledgement.

"So, how was your day?" Alex asked the kids.

"Eh. I don't know. We have to write a five page essay on 'something in Africa'. I think I'm going to talk about gay rights in Uganda or something," Frances said.

"Nice. What about you Philip?" The preteen shrugged.

"My day was kind of terrible. Today we made Mother's Day cards, and one kid threw a bottle of glue on the other. I mean, that would have been fine on it's own, probably just a scolding or something. Maybe I would have sent him down to Peggy," John was interrupted by Philip.

"Please stop calling Ms. Schuyler Peggy, it feels weird."

"Philip," Alex began, "Peggy and Angelica come over at least once a week."

"Yeah, but she was my fourth grade teacher."

"So, as I was saying," John continued, "it normally would have been fine. But the glue bottle broke, and it all came out into the poor girl's hair. I had to spend half an hour pulling it out."