Elephant in the Sky (7 page)

17

Nate

I am back in my bedroom. By myself. But that is okay, because I want to be alone. I do not want anyone in my room with me.

Talking makes my heart hurt even more. I have never had it hurt like this. It's like someone is kicking it. Or squeezing it too hard. And it hurts, but it also feels numb. It is weird. And it hurts even more than my ankle did. And it feels way different.

I am glad everyone is staying away. I do not want to be near anyone because no one wants to be near me. Everyone hates me. Even my mom and dad and Mrs. Brock. And especially stupid Tyson.

I know my mom and dad hate me because they are fighting. They are fighting about me. They are yelling at each other. Over and over and over. It is all my fault.

I am the only one at home and they think I am sleeping. So they are yelling at each other. They think I cannot hear them. But I can hear every word.

Mommy is mad at Dad. She says that he does not tell her anything about me. I know it is my fault they are fighting. It is always my fault. If I just went away they would not fight anymore.

Mommy keeps yelling. She is telling Dad that she has a right to know things about me. That everything is
not
typical kid stuff.

I wonder what she wants to know about me. There is nothing to tell. I am boring. No one likes me. I am nothing.

I feel sad. Very, very sad. I do not like feeling sad. I do not want to do anything but sleep. But I am not tired. I cannot sleep.

I want this feeling to go away. But it won't.

I just want to die.

18

Ashley

After Nate's first day back to school, we had a tense family dinner and I decided to go to bed right after Grace and Nate had said their good nights. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted, and couldn't entertain the thought of anything but sleep. I'd had another gruelling day at the office, and a second resignation had forced me to examine where we were going to get the brainpower to execute against everything we needed to deliver. Combined with what was going on with my son, it was all too much, and I felt as though I was teetering on a ledge that could send me straight into a world of complete instability.

As I lay in bed, I thought about what had happened earlier that day. Despite the chaos that had been going on around me at the office, I hadn't been able to concentrate on anything at work, so I left early to meet Pete. I wanted to pick up Nate together. I worried about how his day had gone, what his mood would be like. If he'd had any more outbursts. And if Tyson or his bully friends had picked on him.

If Mrs. Brock had any updates she should tell Pete and me together. With my own husband not relaying any messages or concerns to me, I felt as if I didn't know anything about what was really going on with our son.

Mrs. Brock waved when she saw us, and relayed that Nate's day had been fairly uneventful, but very quiet.

“And how were the other … kids? Did they pick on him today?” I asked quietly.

Mrs. Brock shook her head. “Not that I saw, which is good. I took Tyson out in the hall right before I started the first period lesson to let him know that you and I had talked. I told him that if there was one mean word to Nate, he'd be going to the principal's office. Threats don't always work with him, but it seemed to work today.”

I nodded, grateful for Mrs. Brock's full support, and we said our goodbyes.

Given that Nate had no after-school activities, we took him home. When he finally hobbled his way into the house, he told us he just wanted to rest and go to bed.

“Do you want to talk about today first? How was school? Was it tough being back with a sprained ankle?” I pried. Nate slowly made his way up the stairs to his room. I knew I was pushing too hard. I had asked him the same questions repeatedly in the car, but he'd ignored them.

I tried to tell myself to relax. That Nate would open up when he was ready. But I was anxious about his well-being and nervous that my little boy was being picked on by bullies.

I regretted what came next. When Nate was in his room with the door closed, I couldn't wait for one more minute to ask Pete why he hadn't told me about the kids at school picking on Nate. Or why he hadn't mentioned that Mrs. Brock was concerned about Nate's mood swings.

“Ashley … you're being dramatic again. I know what happened at the other school was brutal. But he's at a new school now, in a new year with a new class. And you have to remember that Nate is a
kid
. With kid friends. And guess what? Kids sometimes tease one another. It happens. It's happened since we were little kids ourselves. Didn't you get picked on? I still remember Tommy Shields and how mean he was to me. But it gave me tough skin. It was character building, and it will be for Nate too. He'll be fine. So stop worrying so much.”

“It's not character building; it's just plain
mean
. And I won't stand for bullies picking on my son!” I retorted. “And … you!
You
didn't even have the consideration to let me know. To tell me about our son being picked on by those stupid little shits at school … especially after everything Nate has been through. I'm his
mother
, Pete. I have a right to know these things.”

“Sometimes I need to make a judgement call, Ash. You're at work all day … I can't tell you about every little thing that goes on around here. I always tell you the things that I think are important. You're completely overreacting to me not telling you that some of the kids are teasing our son.”

“Overreacting? Is that what you think this is? And do you think Nate's principal and teacher and the doctor at the ER are overreacting too? That they don't know what they're talking about when they express concern over Nate's strange behaviour or the funky moods he gets in? I've told you several times that the ER doctor indicated Nate might suffer from childhood depression. And you always just shrug it off, like that's no big deal.”

“Childhood depression? Come
on
.” Pete snorted. His face was quickly turning into a shade of purply red. “What a load of medical psychobabble bullshit. And, yes, I do think they are overreacting. Nate is a nine-year-old boy. They get hyper. Then they get sad. They're little emotional balls of energy. They're
kids
, for fuck's sake. And
you
need to stop overreacting.”

Pete and I had never talked to each other this way before. It felt awful. I barely recognized the person I knew my husband to be; the person standing in front of me was a fuming mess of a man in complete denial of a situation that I was desperate to resolve.

As our fight grew in strength, I thought about Nate upstairs. The only thing that provided me comfort was the fact that he was the only one at home, and I suspected he was sleeping.

Pete and I managed to park our anger during dinner and the kids' routine homework sessions that always followed, speaking tersely to each other when we were forced to converse. And then I crawled directly into bed without bothering to wash off my makeup. But despite how tired I was, I couldn't sleep. I felt awful about my fight with Pete and desperately wanted to be a team again.

Pete finally came to bed about an hour later. I stiffened as he entered the bed, and pretended to sleep. I didn't want to start fighting again.

After a few minutes, Pete slowly inched towards me underneath the covers, nudging me with his toe. Inch by inch, he came closer, eventually spooning my back and nuzzling his nose into my neck. “I'm sorry, Ash. The last thing I want is to be fighting with you.”

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I didn't answer. But I also didn't move out of Pete's embrace.

“I really think you're taking this a little too seriously, sweetie. And I don't want you to worry. Nate will be fine. He's just a little kid. And you know kids are like this. They tease each other,” Pete whispered. I could feel the warmth of his breath directly on my ear. “I'll make sure to keep closer tabs on Nate at school, okay? And I'll make sure to relay anything I find out to you as soon as it happens. I feel bad that Nate is being picked on at school, too, but it's part of growing up. And it's completely different from what happened last time. We can't overreact to cruel words and think it's the same thing as black eyes.”

I sat up. “And what about the other things? The fact that we've now had three people, including a teacher and a doctor, tell us that Nate is behaving strangely. That his ‘typical kid mood swings' might be something more? Something bad?”

“Then we keep a closer eye on him. Like I said I was going to. But you've also got to consider that we've just got an extreme kid. One whose emotions swing a bit further than most.”

“I don't know, Pete … something feels off. I can feel it in my gut. Call it mother's instinct, but I can't shake the fact that something might be really wrong with Nate. And it's scaring me.”

Pete drew me in for a hug. “Don't be scared. We're in this together. You need to know that everything will be fine.”

Pete could see I wasn't convinced. “Honestly, Ash, I think we should stop talking about it. It's making you panic and that's not good for anyone. I already said I'd keep a closer eye on him at school, and if anything else happens, I promise I'll let you know.”

Pete's response made me ache all over. He was sweeping everything Nate was going through under the carpet and making it seem like it was normal. And I knew it wasn't.

“Think of it this way … wouldn't you be bummed out if you sprained your ankle and couldn't do any of the activities you loved most?”

“But that's just it, Pete. I don't think it's the ankle that's bumming him out. And I don't think that it's why he doesn't want to play hockey or any of the other things he used to love. He's just so disengaged. From
everything
.”

“Well, maybe he doesn't like those things anymore. Kids change …”

I shook my head. “Not this drastically, they don't. And what about him running away in the middle of the night? Or taking off in the middle of the day to go buy gum in his underwear? That stuff is not normal. Maybe he's so depressed he's crying out for help or something —”

“You just don't know what it's like to be a nine-year-old boy. They're different than girls,” Pete interrupted. “It's like their brains are sometimes without logic. He's just a kid, Ash. And I'm sure this won't be the last of the unusual behaviour. He's a
boy
.”

“I don't know …” I knew in my heart of hearts Pete wasn't right. And no matter what he said, he would not convince me.

“Well, for tonight, we know that Nate is safe and sound. Tucked in his bed. So let's get some sleep and take each day as it comes,” Pete suggested. “We don't really have any other choice right now, do we?”

I shrugged, knowing Pete was right. About the last part, at least.

I lay awake in bed for hours that night, listening to Pete snore softly beside me. It didn't seem that what was going on with Nate was affecting him in the same way it was haunting me.

At one point, I tried waking Pete up. I was frantic to keep talking about what was going on with Nate, and I felt that if we kept the discussion going we might just come across the answer of what we should be doing.

But Pete rolled over, turning his back to me when I tried to gently nudge him awake. I had no idea if he was still sleeping or if he was faking it and using it as an excuse to end the conversation he didn't want to be having. I suspected the latter.

With nothing around me but the quiet sounds of a house in the middle of the night, I felt sad. It was as if there was no one to turn to, to talk to, even though my closest family members were under the same roof. They were all sleeping in close proximity, yet it felt like they weren't really there at all.

As the minutes ticked by, the fist of despair clenched my heart even more tightly. I was aching from loneliness. I had no one to turn to.

And the worst part was the recurring thought that wouldn't escape me. The unshakeable, persistent fear that the wee boy sleeping in the room down the hall felt the exact same way as I did — except much, much worse.

19

The next morning, I got up thirty minutes before my alarm. I sent an email to Emily to cancel my early morning meetings again so that I could take Nate to school. I tried to ignore the guilt of missing yet another meeting I knew I should be at; Jack would lay into me about it when I got to work, so there was plenty of time to feel bad about it.

At breakfast, Pete raised his eyebrows at me when I told him I would be taking the kids to school that morning.

“But I keep telling you that I want to
walk
. By
myself
,” Grace whined, her mouth full of cereal. “Come on, please can you let me? My school isn't that far, and I promise to be careful.”

“Grace, don't speak with your mouth full.” I clenched my teeth, trying to find patience. Even the tiniest things were dancing on my nerves. “You know what? You can walk, since you're able to do so — and since you
want
to so badly. I'll just take Nate. Okay, buddy?” I looked at my son as I took a gulp of coffee and watched for his response. But there wasn't one. His untouched toast lay in front of him.

“Are you going to eat any of your toast, Nate?”

He ignored me.

“You need to eat something, buddy. I'm prepared to wait.” I took a seat at the table and braced myself for battle. I nudged his plate towards him. I wasn't leaving until he ate something.

Slowly, Nate took his first nibble of toast. When he finished half of it, I declared myself the victor. I helped him out of the chair and we began the slow crutch-walk to the car. Nate was silent the whole way.

I once again took him directly to class. Nervously, I scanned the playground, keeping watch for Tyson and his crew. When I couldn't find them, it dawned on me that I should be embarrassed to be uneasy about running into a kid. I was almost thirty years older than him.

Once Nate and I were safe in the classroom, Mrs. Brock greeted us energetically. “Good morning! How are you today, Nate?”

“Okay,” Nate responded quietly. They were the first words I'd heard him utter since he got up that morning.

“Well, I've been excited to tell you that I have a very special surprise for you. I remember you telling me that you love zoo animals, so I've decided that we're going to learn all about elephants and rhinoceroses today. Does that sound good to you?”

I noticed a slight flicker enter Nate's eyes. Then, the tiniest smile crept upwards into his cheeks.

“Look, I brought in animal books from the library that we can read today.” Mrs. Brock crossed the room and pointed to a display of books she had set up. “And I thought we could also paint some ostrich eggs … and play a game called Mammalian Madness. What do you think, Nate?”

As his smile increased, so did my relief. For the first time all week, I felt happy as I left my son, and I hoped he felt the same way.

At work, I had barely hung up my coat when Jack walked into my office. He shut the door swiftly behind him and sat in one of the wingback chairs on the other side of my desk. “Where were you this morning?” he asked curtly. “You missed the senior management meeting. Again.”

“I know, Jack. And I'm sorry. Did you get my email?”

“I did.”

“Well, you know I wouldn't miss it if I could help it. I'm … I'm a bit worried about my son, Nate, and it's requiring a bit more flexibility these days.”

“Ashley, you know I've always given you complete flexibility with your career and your family. And you've never disappointed me within that very loose rein. Part of the reason I've never questioned you is that you have a razor-sharp ability to prioritize and know what meetings you absolutely need to be at.”

I nodded, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. As an obvious favourite at the company, I wasn't used to being in Jack's hot seat.

“I was surprised by your decision to miss the meeting this morning. It was an important one. One you shouldn't have missed.”

“Yes, I'm aware …”

“Well, then perhaps you should have made a different decision.”

“I'll connect with Cruz and find out everything I need to know. I'll catch up. This morning.”

“That isn't the point, Ashley. You should have been there for the group discussion. To contribute to the meeting.”

“I know, Jack. You're right. It won't happen again.”

“That's good. Because we need you around here. Our client list is growing, as you're obviously aware, and we need to be upping our creative game.” I tuned Jack out as soon as I heard his remarks on needing sharp creative. Jack liked to think he was motivating me, but the truth was he knew nothing about running a creative shop. While Jack was a businessman who had the right knack for ensuring profitability every fiscal year, he didn't have the foggiest idea of what constituted strong creative.

I continued smiling and nodding, pretending to listen to Jack ramble on about how important I was to the business and why he needed all of my focus. When I couldn't take any more, I gently interrupted him. “I hear you, Jack. I really do. But right now I'm late for another meeting that I need to attend. The 110 percent focus that you just talked about needs to be on our next campaign. We're working on a deadline for Campbell's. We present tomorrow morning at eight-thirty. The team needs me to provide final feedback and approval, and I don't want to keep them waiting. Okay, Jack?”

“Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Go get 'em. And good talk. I'm glad we see eye to eye on this now.” Jack scratched his head as he rose to his full height. It took every bit of my strength not to roll my eyes at him. While the two of us usually got along well enough, his overbearing side was tough to take in anything more than small doses.

When Jack was gone, I grabbed my Campbell's file folders and made my way to the creative boardroom, where I knew the team was working on the digital campaign. They were heads down when I walked in the room.

“How's it going, guys?” I asked, peeking over their shoulders to look at the comps that had been put together.

“It's going …” James, my associate creative director, piped up without glancing from the comp that consumed him.

“Do you like where we've landed?” I asked him. He finally looked up, and pushed the comp in my direction for me to take a look at. My heart sank when I saw it. The idea was flat and dull. And it wasn't on strategy. I knew the client would be disappointed.

“James … are there other options?” I asked hopefully. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that there were alternatives.

“Nope. Unfortunately not. This is the best we've got,” he responded, looking disappointed. “I can tell by the look on your face that you feel the same way I do, which isn't great. But we're going to fix this, Ash. We'll work all night if we have to.”

I glanced around the room and saw something close to defeat on the faces of my creative team. I knew they'd been working long hours on the campaign, but hard work without on-strategy, effective creative wasn't going to cut it for our client meeting the next day.

“Okay, well let's take a look at what you've got. Maybe there's a thought starter in one of the other ideas.” I set my file folders on the table and sat down, reaching for the other comps. Each one was worse than the previous.

Awkward silence filled the room as I took one more look at each comp. There was nothing there we could work from.

“Uh … we could really use your help, Ashley,” James stammered. He was a strong mind that had been responsible for a tremendous amount of award-winning campaigns, but he was clearly struggling with what had been asked of him this time around. “We've been at this for a few weeks now and, to be honest, I think we're starting to suffer from brain burnout.”

“Not yet you're not,” I responded with a smile and a wink. “We can do this. We'll do it together.”

James shifted awkwardly in his seat.

“Here's what we're going to do,” I continued. “I'll send Emily on a Starbucks run, and get her to bring back a whack of brain food … cookies, muffins, yogurt, candy … whatever you guys want, we'll get. Then, we'll start at the beginning. Together. We'll throw out all of these ideas and start fresh. Who knows … we might circle back to one of them eventually, or borrow a general theme, but for now I don't want to be limited to them. I want us to think bigger. To be more on brand. And definitely more on brief. We
really
need this campaign to be an evolution of last year's creative, and to fit like a glove within Campbell's three-year strategic plan. Does that sound good to everyone?” I paused to look around the room. The previously sluggish faces began to perk up. The team sat taller. Energy began to fill the room.

“Sounds great. Thanks Ash,” James responded. Around him, the team nodded their heads in unison.

“Let me just see if Ben can lend us a few members of his team so we have some new thinkers in the room.” I picked up my phone and sent Ben a message marked urgent. “You guys definitely know the brand and the brief, but having fresh minds sometimes helps to spark ideas.”

Twenty-five minutes later, we all sat around a food- and drink-filled table with a few new faces eagerly waiting to get started. I took my position at the white board and said, casually, “Let's start with the easy stuff. Don't think too literally. Or specifically. Let's let our minds open to
all
ideas and
all
concepts that revolve around coziness during the holidays. We'll throw them up on the whiteboard and go from there. And remember, no idea is a bad idea. No matter what. It might not be what we'll go with, but you never know what will spark the next idea, which could be the winner.” I smiled again at the group. I didn't want them to be frustrated. I needed them to be filled with energy. We had about a week's worth of work in front of us with less than twenty-four hours in which to do it. We were going to need to dig deep to pull it off. “So. Who wants to start?”

“How about flannel pyjamas?” A twenty-something guy named Hunter suggested. He was one of the new additions from Ben's team, and I was thankful Ben had sent him, given what I'd heard about his brainstorming contributions. I nodded my head and wrote it down. “Anything else?”

“Roaring fires,” Nicholas threw out. On the whiteboard it went.

“White twinkly lights.”

“Snow falling in the woods.”

“The smell of apple pie baking in the oven.”

“A new pair of mittens. You know … the really soft kind. Like cashmere.” I wrote quickly. The ideas were beginning to tumble out of the team's mouths and, within thirty minutes, we had two oversized whiteboards filled with marker.

I glanced at the clock on my phone. I was ten minutes late for my next meeting, but I knew I couldn't leave. It was internal, so I wasn't as concerned about bailing as I would be if it included clients, and there was no way I could risk our momentum falling to pieces if I moved on.

Inwardly sighing, I sent Emily a note asking her to reschedule my next meeting. I knew it was likely going to be at seven a.m. the following day, given that it was time-critical and I was already stacked with meetings for the entire day. There was zero wiggle room in my schedule.

“Okay,” I said, turning back to the team. “Let's keep going. There are some obvious idea keepers that we've put on the left side of the whiteboard, but there could be some others over here as well. Before we abandon them, let's go through the list to prioritize the better ones and see if anyone has ideas for how we could build on them to support the brief we've been given by the client.”

Together, we worked for three hours, prioritizing the list and fleshing out the ideas we knew could work.

In the middle of the afternoon, I left the group to go to a client meeting that I couldn't miss, and returned a few hours later to check in on their progress. While I knew my chances were hovering somewhere just above zero, I was keeping my fingers crossed that the team would be far enough along that I could let them officially take over.

“How's it going?” I asked, forcing a smile.

“We've made some progress, for sure. But we're glad you're back, as we need your opinion on a few things …” James replied.

I glanced at the sketches on the table, and felt my shoulders drop as I realized how much work there still was to do. We were on our way but definitely nowhere near done.

At six o'clock, I excused myself to call Pete. I was dreading the phone call, but knew I had to let him know I wouldn't make it home for dinner.

“How's Nate? Did he have a good day?” I asked, once I'd given Pete my disappointing news.

“Unfortunately not, I'm afraid. Mrs. Brock said that, at first, she thought he was going to love the zoo animals. But when the rest of the class came in he barely said a word. Apparently she tried her best, and coaxed him all day to participate —”

“But he didn't?” I interrupted. Pete wasn't getting there fast enough.

“No, he didn't. And she thinks he was using his ankle as a crutch, so to speak. The only thing he
did
say was that his ankle was hurting and that he wanted to sit by himself in the back of the classroom.”

My heart ached. I had no words to reply.

“And those little bullying shits in his class seemed to take advantage of him being that way, too. Mrs. Brock overheard them laying into him pretty good at the back of the class, calling him a baby and a wimp. She kept him inside at recess and tried to talk to him, but she said he just stared out the window.”

“I'm going to come home. I don't care about this creative presentation anymore. I need to see Nate.”

“No, no … you stay there. We're just about to sit down to dinner and then he'll be in bed soon after that. I get it … you need to be at work right now. I've got things covered here.”