Geometry Midterms

on haircuts and hoodies, duct tape and Sunday nights

He helps me unload the groceries first.

It’s a Sunday night and the Sunday of it all nudges extra hard on this eve of the first day of the last semester.

There’s a line from My So-Called Life that I’m going to search for in a minute so I don’t get it wrong but it goes something like Sundays are the worst … something something something… I have a test tomorrow and I haven’t studied but I bet Bryan Krakow has and I always think of it — the same line— on Sunday evenings.

Anyway. My son and I are in the kitchen unloading groceries.

I always put the dry goods on the counter first and then put all the perishables away. But then, because there isn’t a rush to, say, put away the pasta or the canned things or the sauces, I just sort of leave them there on the counter for a few days.

He’s not like that, though. Takes the pasta I have already pushed to the side of the counter, reaches around me, grabs the jar of sauce with the other hand. Balances a couple cans on each other, delivering it all to the pantry with two arms.