August, 2020. You set your lesson book down with a sense of expectation usually reserved for soft-serve ice cream, and my ensuing brain freeze may as well be sponsored by Dairy Queen. I've never felt so unqualified; at your age, these pages were a blur of letters that no amount of disappointment or ridicule could compel me to decipher. How can the fate of your remote education rest with me? My palms begin to sweat with decades-old terror, and I gaze helplessly at the only person with a college education in the room for sanctuary. "Daddy," you sigh, only partially snapping me out of my scholastic panic. "These problems aren't going to solve themselves." "Are you sure you don't want Andr–" "One lesson," you interrupt, confidently laying down your confectionary bribe. "Three Hi-Chews." Did you just use my own tactic against me? I don't know if I'm more proud or alarmed, but it's an improvement on petrified. I take the world's longest breath, and flip open the cover.

August, 2021. "Are you sure you're ready?" I ask, saturating my mask with the world's leakiest eyes. Around us, schoolchildren unencumbered by hysterical fathers skip excitedly through the open gates. "Yes, Daddy," you answer in unison, exchanging long-suffering glances beyond your years. "Because there's still time to sign back up for remote learning," I sob, choking on my tears. "Dad, it's time," you sigh sagely, squeezing my hand with preternatural wisdom. "Get a grip, Dad," your older sister groans with all the subtlety of a demolition derby. "We'll meet you right here after school, okay?" I promise, glancing blearily at my intended as the crossing guards lectures him for double-parking in the white zone. It's close enough to a goodbye that you flee before I can reconsider and lock you in your makeshift pandemic classroom. It isn't until your pigtails are distant specks that I feel something in my hand. I look down at the candy you've pressed into my palm, and bawl all the way back to the car.