The Latchkey Kid
I had set my alarm for six in the morning. Jim was still away on business so I needed to be up, showered and ready before the kids so I could get them ready and to school by 7:30 sharp. Time was not flexible that morning; I had a doctor’s appointment at 7:45. After the appointment, I had to drive across town to a meeting that started promptly at 8:30, followed by another one at 9:30, and then a lunch meeting after that.
Despite the girls’ tears at drop off—a rare occurrence—I was back in the car at 7:42, giving me three minutes to drive two blocks to my doctor’s office. Luckily, I made it just one minute late, was immediately seen, and back in the car a mere twenty minutes later, on my way to my 8:30 meeting.
On the drive to the meeting, I concentrated on the one task I needed to do today in the time between meetings: my syllabus for the fall semester. I had one nearly completed, but the other two were still just a draft with many more details to finalize. While I searched my brain for ways to incorporate the text book into a real-world class project, a small thought trickled its way up my spine and into the back of my head: did I fully latch our dog Lucy’s crate?
Her big wire crate, which sits in our breakfast nook, has two latches—one on the top; one on the bottom. Every morning, before we all hustle out the door, I wave a treat in the air and Lucy goes diving into the crate like I’m Mrs. Pavlov. This task is an unwavering everyday task—just like turning of my flat iron and locking the front door—that I sometimes question whether or not I actually did it.
By the time I got to campus and into the building, the thought had gone away. I checked my mailbox, unlocked my office, turned on my computer, grabbed a coffee mug, and headed for the break room. I was relieved to have made it in time for the meeting, yet I didn’t feel relieved.
Twenty minutes into the meeting, the thought came fluttering back in: what if I didn’t latch the crate?
I checked the time on my phone. I had left the house more than an hour ago. If I hadn’t latched the crate properly, Lucy would have had free range of the house for an entire hour. Now, Lucy has come a long way since her early puppy days. She’s calmer, hardly jumps anymore, and is chewing a bit less on everything. But she still isn’t ready to have total access to the house when we are gone. So, in the meeting, while important people talked about important things, I felt my mind thinking through all the things Lucy could be getting into.
Certainly she’d start with the bag of dog food that sits, tauntingly beside her crate. She’d have the entire 40-pound bag eaten in fifteen minutes. Then what? The hand towels. Certainly. They hung on a bar attached to the side of the kitchen cabinet and she loved pulling them off and running through the house with them. Without us there to snatch them back from her, she’d certainly sit down and chew them to shreds.
This was silly, I thought. Of course I latched it. Besides, after she took her treat and laid down in her crate, I had stopped to put sunscreen on the girls. That was at least seven or so minutes before we were walking out of the house. If the crate weren’t latched properly, Lucy would have figured it out the moment her treat was swallowed and been back right beside us. No, no. The crate was indeed latched.
I was relieved to put the time sequence together, virtually proving the crate was securing latched. But I didn’t feel relieved.
Moments later my mind snapped back into sharp focus, suddenly absorbing everything being said by the people in the room. I asked questions, I answered questions. When I got up to make notes on the room’s white board, I was miles away from any worry about latches and chewed up dish towels.
As the meeting wrapped up, I left to go to the bathroom. While washing my hands, I was deep in thought about my syllabus. I couldn’t quite decide how to frame the last assignment. I started crafting the narrative in my head for exactly how I wanted to summarize the assignment in the syllabus. As I scrubbed my hands under the hot water, my chest tightened as I thought all the ways the students might question the assignment. They always came up with questions or concerns or points of clarity I hadn’t thought about. I reached up to pump the lever on the paper towel dispenser and my mind suddenly, and without warning, shifted to Lucy, who was most certainly in the living room pulling stuffing from the pillows.
I turned and looked at myself in the mirror. I shook my head no as a warning. Then I remembered the conclusion I drew not twenty minutes ago in the meeting: if the crate hadn’t been latched, Lucy would have immediately come back out in the time it took me to apply sunscreen and get out the door. I forced my self to breath in deeply and by the time I exhaled, I was back to my syllabus.
In the next meeting I didn’t once think of Lucy. Not until the meeting was wrapping up and a person in the room mentioned finding a great new dress on sale, which cause my mind to immediately picture the dress I had laid out on our bed. I had contemplated wearing it that morning, but changed my mind to another outfit. And there in my head was an image of Lucy, now upstairs in our bedroom, chewing up my favorite dress. I stared down at my feet as I processed back through the morning’s events. My heart quickened with pleasure when I remembered that I had also used the restroom right after applying the girls’ sunscreen, before we walked out the door. That meant Lucy had about 15 minutes to figure out the latch wasn’t hooked properly. I reminded all I had read about Golden Retrievers being a very smart breed. So, given that Lucy had 15 whole minutes to figure out the crate wasn’t latched and she was breed to be smart, there’s no way she was currently running free inside the house. Simply no way. And with that, I walked out of the meeting sharply focused on my syllabus.
The next few hours, including my lunch meeting, went off without a problem. I was alert, focused, present. My mind never once veered to latches or destroyed dresses. I was a bit tired, and felt a little down, but I knew it was because dropping this kids off that morning had been rushed and upsetting. London had screamed for me, holding out her hands, her tears dripping to the floor. And when I took Lowery to her classroom she hung her head down and asked me, in the most pleading voice, not to leave her. They typically didn’t cry at drop off. But I knew it was a combination of things, including that their father was out of town. They were always a bit off when our routine was off. Jim usually handled drop off. I often wondered if he knew some secret I didn’t because he was always able to leave them smiling and happy and ready to play and learn.
On the occasions I dropped off—which was a sure sign to all the other parents that my husband was out of town—the girls were always clingy, upset, and unwilling to get excited about the day.
Certainly if they were still upset and crying, the teacher would call. Yes, I thought, they call if they are sick or hurt. If there was a major problem, I would get a call.
As I typed up my syllabus my mind shifted back to the way Lowery’s curly hair swung when she put her head down that morning in sadness. “Please don’t go,” she whispered. When Lowery’s on the verge of crying, her skin always goes a little pale just under her eyes and her nose turns ever so slightly pink. But as I sat in my office, my fingers hovering over the keys, I wondered what happened when I left the building: did the tears fall or did her face return to it’s normal olive glow?
And London. Sweet, sensitive London who was screaming, her translucent skin red with anger and sadness, her arms outstretched to me as the teacher tried to keep London from falling out of her arms. I knew when I was out of sight London would slowly calm down, her face changing from red to pink to pale, and she would happily find a toy to play with. I knew this, but I didn’t feel it.
For an hour I tried working on the syllabus. Writing and rewriting the same paragraph until I looked down at my arms to see they were shaking, just slightly. But I was determined to get this syllabus finished and emailed to the students today. The university policy is that students will have access to a list of the books needed for class, but the syllabus isn’t expected until the first day of class. Yet some students had already emailed asking for it early. Others had stopped by my office to check the status. The anxiety of students manifest itself in a variety of ways, and I try very hard to be mindful of it. But as I worked to finish the syllabus in an attempt to calm their nerves, I felt my own rising.
But as I sat there, determined to nail down the syllabus and get it sent to the students, I felt unable to make my fingers type anything more. A flash of Lowery’s pale face and lowered head entered my brain, squeezing out my students and their needs. I searched my mind for something that would cheer her up, just in case her morning was an indication of the entire day. My heart quickened again at the thought of her American Girl Doll, Samantha. And as quick as the feeling of happiness inflated my chest, the feeling of concern replaced it when I remembered she had left Samantha on the stairs that morning.
I could picture Samantha now, her dress in shreds, arms dented with teeth marks, an eye out of it’s socket and down the throat of a golden retriever struggling with separation anxiety.
And with that, I sprang out of my chair, grabbed my keys, slammed by door and ran out of the building.
My hands shook as I put my key into the ignition and I forced myself to process the morning yet again. I held my hand up with the treat and Lucy ran into her crate. Remember, dammit, remember! Did I lock the latch? Yes. Ok. Yes. But then, as I turned left out of campus I forced myself think about what would happen if I hadn’t.
It’s no question that anything made of cloth fibers would be destroyed. There’s no doubt the hanging towels, the throw pillows and the rug had been chewed through if not outright destroyed. But what about bigger pieces? Is there a chance she chewed the tufting buttons off the couch? I’d have to assume the couch was destroyed. It was a given she made her way upstairs and chewed through the books Lowery left on her floor. And any clothes lying around were more certainly chewed on, or worse, peed on.
At a stoplight I was drumming anxiously on the steering wheel. I’d been gone from the house seven hours at this point. Don’t be in a hurry, I reminded myself, drive slow and safe. She’s already destroyed as much as she can destroy.
And yet, my heart quickened, what if the latch wasn’t latched but for some reason she hadn’t figured it out yet? She could, theoretically, figure it out in the next ten minutes. And if she did, she would go straight for Samantha because Lowery always kept her out of Lucy’s reach. I pressed down on the gas pedal.
I turned sharply into our driveway, slammed on the brakes and put the car in park. I rushed to the door, the keys jingling with my nervous energy. I flung open the door and the first thing my eyes met was another pair of eyes staring up at me from the stairs: Samantha. Fully intact.
And my ears were met with a single bark from Lucy, ready to come out of her crate.
Moments later I was pulling up to the day care center, feeling a new found respect for life. I didn’t have to buy a new couch, new rugs, or all new clothes and books. And I didn’t have to buy a new American Girl Doll. There I was at the school, picking the girls up early because I didn’t need the extra time to clean up pieces of pillow stuffing or scrub dog shit of the stairs. I felt relieved, and yet I actually wasn’t.
Not until I heard my two daughters, screaming my name with happiness in their voices. I squatted down and let them run at me. When we unhooked ourselves from our group hug, I asked London is she had fun today. She nodded eagerly and leaned in for a kiss. And when I turned to Lowery, looking her squarely in the eyes, and asked if she had a good day, she laughed and said, “Of course! Were you worried I wouldn’t?”
And just like that, the worries from the back of my head began to dissipate, trickling slowly back down my spine and away from my thoughts. At least for now. Because my worries, my tiny panics, my distracting concerns, are certainly animal in nature.
But they can’t be caged.
