Wake up Under the Sun

The last day of summer. I worked only a few hours at work before heading to my parent’s house for dinner. It was the least I could do since I was taking them up on their college-offer. But as I sat on the couch with Kaden, listening as he was finally willing to babble about his day, I wished this day had never come. Tomorrow I would be in college and a week from now John would be home. I should be excited, for both accounts, but I was nervous. I was apprehensive about starting college and I almost pegged the feeling of John’s return to dread.

“I’m so thrilled that you managed to get Kaden to speak,” my mother said at the dinner table. “He still won’t say why he didn’t speak for all those years.”

I looked at Kaden, who was looking at me, and we both shrugged slightly. “John got me to realize he’d speak on his own, whenever he was ready. I guess it’s going to be the same thing when it comes to getting the reason.”

Kaden pushed his peas around his plate while dad smiled at him. “Either way, we’re glad to hear him talking now. We were so worried about him for the longest time, but the doctors assured us he was fine and he hit every developmental mark on time. There was really no reason why he wasn’t talking.”

I shrugged again. “He just needed a good enough reason.”

Kaden grinned now, still focused on his plate. He looked up right as mom started speaking again. “Don’t play with your food, Kaden. But yes, I suppose he did just need a good enough reason. Now that he’s speaking, he’ll be ready for school next year.”

“Speaking of school,” dad chimed in. “Your first day is tomorrow, isn’t it, Delaney?”

We talked about school for a while, but quickly jumped back to the topic of Kaden talking. Mom and dad asked him questions to purposely get him talking and I couldn’t blame them. Kaden’s voice was so cute and innocent and childish. His words, however small his sentences were, caused a new light to ignite in my parents’ eyes. Maybe they had dropped the ball when it came to me but this child – so young and obviously full of life and long-kept stories – had sparked something in them I had never seen before everything went wrong with us. And now that he was speaking, mom was so much more at ease with everything. She came home early from work and she wasn’t so snippy when I mentioned John.

I left after putting Kaden to bed, then went home and went straight to bed myself. Lex was out with Loren, now that he was home again, and she had been absent from the house for days. I didn’t blame her; I had done the same thing with John at the beginning of summer. So, with nothing to do, I slept. Or, tried to sleep. I tossed and turned anxiously, wondering how my first day of class would be. I had three classes, all in a row. Of course, the only class I had with Ava and Ethan was at the end of the day.

When the clock read 7:15, I decided it was time to stop fighting for sleep and get ready for the day ahead. I got dressed in a pair of shorts and a thin v-neck shirt, pulled my hair into a loose ponytail and ventured into the kitchen to pack myself a snack for later in the day. As I tied up my tennis shoes, I realized I’d be the most awake person in my 8:30 class. I wasn’t sure if that was good or not, but considering how party-central this town was, I could already hear the groans.

I grabbed my books with a heavy sigh and slung my purse over my shoulder. The drive to school was boring and I got stuck in early-morning traffic. What was worse, though, was finding a parking spot close to the first building I had to go to. By the time I found a spot – halfway to the middle of nowhere – and hoofed it to class, I had five minutes to spare before it started.

It was a huge lecture hall filled with kids sporadically placed all over the room. I didn’t know where to sit, but I knew I didn’t want to be in the front. The kids at the back of the room, at the top of the stairs, were all sleeping and I knew that was a bad choice. The kids in the middle all seemed to know each other and didn’t seem like they were willing to break their summer-recap to make time for a newcomer. So I chose the third row. It was close to the front, where kids were paying attention, but close enough to the middle that if I happened to make a friend or two, I’d be able to focus on class and friends at the same time.

But the third row was fine with me, as I had no friends to tend to and only the professor to focus on. And the professor was late. Eight minutes late.

“I could bore you all with my story as to why I’m late, but I won’t. And I will not be late again. So, I warn you, you should not be late, either. You are not here just for a grade, you are here to learn a skill,” he started as soon as he walked in the door. He hadn’t even put his briefcase down on his desk yet. “This is not an elective and if you fail, you must re-take it before continuing on to the next level of your education. Do not take this lightly. My name is Dr. Barron.”

He shuffled in his briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers. He handed one to a kid in the first row and instructed him to take one and pass the rest along. He stood behind the desk, studying his planner. He didn’t speak again until after the papers had made their way into my hands and beyond.

“Why are you here?” he asked. When no one answered, he chuckled softly. “What, too hungover?”

Someone behind me must have raised their hand because he pointed to them. “You just said so. We have to be here.”

He rolled his eyes, turning his back to us and writing on the whiteboard. His handwriting was relatively neat for a professor – and for being a guy in general – and that’s when I realized just how young he was. He looked at us again and his blue eyes scanned the room. I could have sworn he was in his late 20s, and if he was in his 30s he definitely wasn’t far in at all.

“True, it’s required for your major,” he allowed. “But why are you here? Why this major?”

He let it sit for a while as he finished writing his notes on the board. I started reading his syllabus. I reached his grading policy before I heard his voice again.

“What about you?”

I looked up and saw he was pointing at me. I was the last person he wanted to hear from, I was sure of that one. I hadn’t been sure of going to college in the first place, let alone bothering with childhood education.

“Honestly?” I asked daringly.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

I swallowed hard. “M-My parents chose it for me. I- I have a younger brother that I just met this summer. He’s four. But he couldn’t speak – well, I’m not sure if he couldn’t, but he didn’t want to. He could laugh and scream and make noises, just not form any words. My parents, I think, wanted me to fix him.”

He smiled, his eyes stuck on mine. Yeah, he definitely wasn’t old at all. He didn’t have any age marks or wrinkles, and his eyes were so young and juvenile. His hair covered his forehead in a shaggy, non-professional cut.

“Anyone else?” he asked, tearing his eyes from mine. No one spoke up. “No, huh? Well, I suggest you sober up for my classes. Participation is going to be a big part of your grade. Hell, it’s going to be your whole career from here on out. If you can’t talk at 8 in the morning, you won’t be able to hold a job for long. Your hours are going to be long and your pay is going to be small. But the reward you get from working with kids is worth much more than your salary. The only way you can start to feel prepared for that journey is to put the beer down and start speaking up in class.”

I watched him intently through the entire class. He moved animatedly and his voice level fluctuated a lot depending on the subject he was talking about. We skipped reading over the syllabus and jumped into the first chapter of the book instead. I had taken pages of broken notes, little excerpts of his lecture jotted down to jog my memory later. His class definitely didn’t feel like it was three hours long.

“Your assignment for the next class is to tell me why you’re here. Not on this earth, but in this class. I don’t need any philosophy about why you’re on this earth or in this town, just tell me why you’re taking this class. Because if you don’t know who you are and where you’re going, you won’t get very far.” He paused, erasing a few things off the board. “Also, read the next two chapters.”

The groans were clearly audible as everyone packed up their books and headed out the door. I slowly closed my book, waiting until everyone had started filing down the aisle before I stood up and made my way to the doors.

“You,” I heard. I turned and saw him staring at me. “Come here.”

I raised my purse higher on my shoulder, holding my books close to me as I walked toward him. I stood awkwardly in front of him while he smiled down at me.

“What’s your name?” he asked, turning back to erasing the board.

“Delaney,” I squeaked. I cleared my throat. “Delaney Leblanc.”

He nodded. “That story was true?”

“About my brother?” I asked. When he looked over his shoulder at me, I figured that was a yes. “Yeah. I was living with my grandparents when he was born and, well, like I said, I just met him this summer.”

“I couldn’t help but notice you said he couldn’t talk, and that your parents wanted you to fix him. All of which implies that he is talking now,” he said casually.

“Oh, yeah. He said his first words the other week,” I replied, and just thinking about it brought a smile to my face.

He looked at me, the eraser still in his hand. “Kids don’t just refuse to talk their whole life and then suddenly start. Don’t be surprised if he stops again.”

I recoiled. How was he going to stand there and tell me my brother was going to stop talking again? I forcefully shook my head. “With all due respect, you don’t know him. And you don’t know me, or my family. My brother won’t stop talking.”

He shrugged slightly. “I’m just telling you what I know. It’s not a common thing for a kid to never say one word his entire life and then randomly start speaking because he meets his long-lost sister. There’s something else going on. Besides, if you truly believe he has been ‘fixed’ of this, why are you here?”

I gaped at him. “I’m here-”

“No,” he interrupted. “That’s your assignment for next class. See you on Thursday, Ms. Leblanc.”

As I shuffled out of the lecture hall and toward my next class, I reflected on what he said. Why was I here, now that Kaden was talking? Was he right, would Kaden stop talking eventually? Or worse, did I already know he was going to stop?