The Lunch Kit

By Deborah K. Frontiera

Alice’s voice floated up the stairs. “Joe, Sophie forgot her lunch kit again. I’ve got my hands in a mess down here. Would you take it up to the school office? Please?”

“Humph . . . I suppose,” Joe responded to his wife. Sophie was just like her mother—and looked just like her, too. That girl would have forgotten her head . . . just like she forgot about us, leaving home like that, taking up with that no good . . . promised Alice I wouldn’t say such things.

Joe tromped down the stairs, pulled on his boots, gloves, heavy coat and scarf, picked up the forgotten “Barbie” lunch kit, with one cracked edge plastered with duct tape, and headed out into the snow. We were supposed to be in Arizona this winter with all our snowbird friends, not freezing our butts off again after saving so long that we wouldn’t have to, stuck with a child we didn’t even know existed until . . .

Joe’s eyes fell on the brand new fifth-wheel parked at the far end of the driveway, covered in snow. He and Alice had such a good time shopping for it, planning a year long trip all over the country, north to south and east to west, to see as many national parks as possible.  

Probably should shovel again when I get back. The school was only five blocks down the street, too short to bother with the car but long on a windy winter day. Half way, Joe stopped in the middle of a bridge over a creek, a bridge he’d engineered years back. Out of habit, he looked down into the trickle of open water, the rest running beneath a deceiving layer of ice. He leaned over to look underneath at the bridge’s structure, checking it as he always had, along with other bridges in the area, for any signs of structural wear. Maybe I should see if I can get my job back with another kid to take care of. Crap! At my age! Just when we thought we were finally free. Joe hung his head at his own thoughts. But not to take in Sophie? No way! Like Alice said, “Over my dead body will she stay in foster care!”

That day just after Thanksgiving flooded Joe’s mind. The knock on their door. The sheriff standing there . . . that look in his eye. “Hey, Joe, can I come in?”

“Sure. Want some coffee?”

“Yeah, that’d be fine. Alice home?”

“Yeah. Hey, Alice, Rick’s here.”

Rick often stopped in during deer season on his way out into the woods to help the game warden make sure that a couple of county residents, with a reputation for having more deer tied to their vehicles than their licenses allowed, weren’t at it again. But a knot formed in Joe’s gut with the look in his friend’s eyes.

Alice came in with a tray of steaming mugs, cream and sugar. “How’s everything?” Alice asked, setting a mug on the coffee table in front of Rick.

A long sigh and then Rick said, “Might as well come right out with it. Got a message from Wayne County Sheriff’s office. Your daughter . . . well, she OD’d on crack . . . I’m so sorry.”

Alice’s hand went to her mouth. Joe scooted over on the couch and put his arms around her, biting his lip.

“I know how you two have grieved over the years with no news of Ronda after she lit out at eighteen. You know I notified every sheriff’s office in the state, and beyond when I could, to be on the lookout.”

Joe nodded. Alice’s head was buried in his chest; his shirt was soggy.

Rick continued. “The thing is, Ronda had a child, and she’s seven now. She’s the one who called 911, saying her mommy wouldn’t wake up.”

Alice’s red face rose from Joe’s chest. “We have a granddaughter?”

“Her name’s Sophie. She’s in emergency foster care down state. Email along with the notice said you can retrieve Rhonda’s body from the morgue and I’ve got a number for you to call child services to get Sophie back. God, I’m so sorry! Anything you need . . . just let me know.”

The week after that had been a nightmare whirl of travel, paperwork, grilling by child services, lists of documents they had to produce, what family court would be like, requirements for guardianship (which they wouldn’t have permanently until the child’s father’s rights had been severed), arranging for their daughter’s body to be shipped home, planning a funeral, meeting a thin bewildered child, whose only possessions were a paper sack of clothes and that lunch kit with Barbie on it, and taking her home, home to a place she’d never seen before.

Sophie seemed happy to be with them in the beginning. Christmas had been delightful—a child in the house to open a stocking again, new toys and books, a fresh look to their daughter’s old bedroom . . . Sophie had seemed to settle right in to school. Then about mid-January . . .

Joe looked up from the icy water into the sky. Why is Sophie such a mess now? Forgetting her lunch almost every day, arguing with her teacher, then hitting that other girl. Why me? Why us? Where is that dead-beat jerk who ran out on his responsibilities? They better find him before I do. I swear, I’ll strangle him! Joe stomped his feet, clapped the numbness out of his hands, left the bridge, and picked up his pace toward the school.

He stomped the snow off his boots on the mat and removed his fogged-up glasses at the office front desk. “Hi, I’ve brought Sophie’s lunch—again—sorry.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” the clerk said, taking the kit, which now had two seams covered with duct tape, from Joe’s outstretched hand. “Better yet, in a minute or two, her class will be walking down that hall on the way to the cafeteria. You can give it to her yourself.”

Then there she was, jumping out of her class line. “Grandpa! It’s you this time.” Sophie nearly knocked him over with a totally unexpected bear hug. Joe bit the inside of his cheek. Where’s this coming from after all the nasty faces lately? Oh, Lord, she’s the image of her mother—my little princess is back.

“Sophie, come back to our line now.”

Joe detected a twinge of grit in the teacher’s ever-gentle voice. Sophie let loose her grandpa, accepted the lunch kit and skipped back into line. Joe stared after her.

Another came voice from the office behind him. “Hello, Mr. Maki. Have you got a few minutes?” It was the school district’s one-and-only counselor.

“Sure.” Joe followed her into a cubicle-sized conference room in the front office complex. She closed the door behind them and pointed to a chair.

Joe shook his head. “Christmas was magical. Then boom! Yesterday she’s yelling that she hates us. Today I get tackled with love. What’s going on?”

“I was actually watching for you today—I never know when I’m going to be here at the elementary, up to the middle school or wherever,” the counselor admitted. “There’s a lot to explain here. Your first several weeks are what we sometimes call ‘The Honeymoon’, and you were lucky to have that last as long as it did.”

“Honeymoon?”

“When a child loses his or her parents and goes to live in foster care, or with another family member, at first they are on their best behavior. Your granddaughter went through a severe trauma, losing her mother that way, having to be the grownup. We may never know exactly what it was like for her, but judging from how thin she was and how she’s gained weight, there was at least a great deal of poverty and neglect.”

Joe shifted in the chair. “She eats like there’s no tomorrow, so why keep forgetting her lunch?”

“Well, I think it could be to see if you or your wife will still come with it—sort of testing you. She found acceptance and love with you on her best behavior, and now, she wants to see if you’ll still keep her when she acts out.”

Joe shifted in his chair. “She plans these things?”

“No, not consciously.” The counselor opened her folder and checked a couple of notes. “But she is testing to see if you will abandon her like her father did, and then her mother left her, too, or at least that’s how she sees it. She’s starting to open up to me in our sessions. Of course, I can’t tell you everything she says—confidentiality and all, plus I want her trust in me to grow—but her acting out is typical of children her age who have lost family for whatever reasons. Even kids who’ve been abused still want their parents and are traumatized at their loss—even when removed from terrible circumstances.”

Joe stared at the floor. “What do we do?”

“Keep bringing that lunch kit. It lets her know you’re there for her. I’ve filled her teacher in on the basics of Sophie’s circumstances and given her advice about how to head off outbursts in class when she sees tension mounting in Sophie. Talk to Sophie about her mother. Show her any photos you have; let her get to know her mother as a child. Yes, she has to face consequences when she hits somebody, but let her know you love her in spite of it. It will take time, but she’ll come around. I’ll try to get in a session with her at least once a week.”

She reached into her pocket and handed Joe a business card. “This is the name of a family counselor. I think you should call and make an appointment for all three of you. I know that’s a bit of a drive from here, but it’s the closest. I’ve heard many good reports about Dr. Hill.”

“Thanks.” Joe put the card in his pocket. “Guess I better head home. Alice will wonder what took so long.”

They shook hands and Joe pulled his coat back on. He kept his pace quicker this time but his mind still rambled. What if I’d been more patient with Ronda? She went from princess to monster at about fifteen. What if someone had suggested family counseling then? Would we have gone? Or would I have just done what I did—told her to shape up? How am I going to explain all this to Alice? Will she go? Will I go?

Alice was more willing than Joe expected. Over the next several weeks, they took turns working with Sophie on her homework, reading to her at night, telling her stories about her mother—trying not to cry—and working through the anger and confusion they felt, and that Sophie felt, too. The family counselor set up weekly appointments after school hours—it was important, she said, for Sophie to have a consistent routine. She talked with Sophie first, then Joe and Alice, and then all three of them. They worked out a plan with the school that if Sophie remembered her lunch for four days, one grandparent could come and eat lunch with her on Friday. Small steps here, sometimes backward, then more forward; soon there were more good days than tough ones.

The Barbie lunch kit had duct tape on every seam by that time. Alice found a new one just like it, but Sophie threw it aside and grabbed the old one out of the trash. She sat on the floor next to the kitchen trash bin, tears streamed down her face. Alice wrapped her arms around the sobbing child. “Sophie, what’s wrong?”

Joe came in, hands in the air. Alice waved him away soundlessly mouthing, “I’ll tell you later.”

Joe stood there, hands in his pockets, looking at the ceiling.

Several minutes passed before Sophie’s sobs turned into hick-ups and then a few more minutes before she could talk over the sniffling. “My lunch kit . . . Mama got it for me at Goodwill. It was the last thing she gave me before . . .” sobbing took over again.

Joe sat down on the floor with his arms around both of them. For the first time, all three of them cried together.

                                                            ***

At supper toward the end of April, Sophie asked, “Grandpa, will you read to me tonight?”

“But it’s Grandma’s turn,” Joe replied.

“Well, can’t you take two turns and then Grandma two?”

Joe raised his eyebrows at Alice.

“Sure,” Alice said. “I’ll do tomorrow.”

Once Sophie was in her pajamas, Joe picked up the latest in a popular children’s chapter book series and sat down on Sophie’s bed. “How about we change it up a little? You read a paragraph and then I’ll read one.”

“Okay.”

Sophie read a few words, hesitated, started again. Joe put his arm around her. “You’re doing great.”

She smiled up at him. “I love you, Grandpa.”

“I love you, too.” This time, the tears Joe bit back were those of joy.

                                                            ***

When school ended in June, Joe, Alice, and Sophie opened the door of the fifth-wheel trailer, loaded clothes and groceries into storage compartments, checked out the other equipment Joe and Alice had bought the fall before, and headed out on a camping trip close to home—a shake-down cruise. Longer trips followed, cementing the bonds between them.

A few weeks before school would start again, Alice spoke up at dinner. “Sophie, what would you think about us traveling more?”

“But school’s starting.”

“Yes, it is, but I was a teacher many years, you know. I could teach you. Would you like to give it a try?”

Sophie beamed.

“I’ll go up to the school tomorrow and talk to the principal, see about getting materials, and ask what internet programs we should use.”

“We can plan our route together,” Joe said.

Author’s note: This work of fiction was inspired by a photo prompt during the 2020 Fall Fiction Workshop with Doug and Bethany Leonard sponsored by UPPAA. According to the AARP website, over a million grandparents in the United States find themselves parenting grandchildren for a variety of reasons. If you Google AARP, and then put “raising grandchildren” in the site search box, you’ll find a long list of helps, tips, resources and conferences offering support for these grandparents. Those mixed feelings of resentment/guilt/love are very common. The author had personal experience with that in 2007-8 when her daughter and son-in-law were wrongfully accused of child abuse and had to spend thirteen months proving their innocence, during which time Grandma and Grandpa had temporary custody.