You have to be my Child for a day.

“So what’s the catch?” I asked, thumbing through my paperback book, happy to hear my daughter Lillianne’s glee, instead of her moping, after finding Bubby, her birthday rabbit, lying in his cage, dead. Of all the stupid things for her seventh birthday, I’d surprised her with a fragile, mortal creature, when her mother, my wife, had passed away a year ago. I put my book down. 

She clapped her hands. “You have to be my child for a day.” 

“And if I am, what will I get?” I wondered where this was going.

“Daddy,” she said in exaggerated protest.

I put my book aside and helped her onto my lap. “Are you ready to put me on your lap?” 

“No, don’t be silly.” She giggled and waved a sheet of paper in my face. 

“Make your Parent your Child for a Day,” I read aloud. Her teacher, Mrs. Mandaline, should stick with the three R’s of a functional education, and not treat the parents, let alone the children, like guinea pigs. “What for?” My heart warmed seeing Lillianne so happy, but I planned to get a word in with her teacher. 

“Mrs. Mandaline said it’s so we get to experience what it’s like to be a parent, and parents get to experience what it’s like to be a child.” She played with my beard, twiddling the ends in her fingers, and I endured the tugs on some of the finer hairs. “You’re going to be such a wonderful child,” she tweaked my nose. 

The ‘Make your Parent your Child’ day arrived. I pulled the covers over my head to block out the sun streaming through the gap in the curtains. Lillianne knocked. “What is it, sweetie?”

“Daddy, get up right now, and put on the clothes I laid out for you.” 

 Plaid pants my mother gave me, and a pink shirt, from my sister, both equally loathed. Why hadn’t I taken them to the thrift shop? Since Deidre passed, things like that were missed. I didn’t even know what clothing I owned other than the top few shirts in a drawer and the first five hangers in the closet. 

“Do I have to?” 

“Just do as you’re told, and get up now. No dilly dallying,” 

I grumbled and put the outfit on and frowned at myself in the mirror. Mrs. Mandaline will be humored, no doubt. I’d missed the last teacher- parent conference, so I hadn’t met her, but she sent progress emails every week and insisted on getting responses. Whenever I didn’t, I received reminders, with headings like, “Children whose parents aren’t positively involved do positively worse in life.”

“Oh Deidre,” I said under my breath, “You would’ve figured a way through this.”

In my apparel debacle, I stepped into the kitchen, where my daughter narrowed her eyes at me. “Have you washed your hands?” I nodded and looked at the table where she’d put out my breakfast; a bowl filled almost to the brim with milk and cheerios floating around. She looked at my hands and then at my face. “I didn’t hear the bathroom door. Are you sure you washed your hands?”

My face flushed, and I left, and made a point of scrubbing my hands extra long, under scalding water. Would Lillianne be so hard on her mother? 

I got through the breakfast routine by not complaining, and doing as I was told, which knotted my stomach. Just six hours of this, to give my daughter the happiness she deserves. 

 At the school, I expected to see lots of other parents being towed around, but they were dropping off their kids and I was the only one, wearing a ridiculous outfit. I avoided any eye contact. Deidre used to walk with her, and connect with the other parents, but I didn’t have any interest in making small talk while they offered me condolences. 

“Come with me.” Lillianne said, then she tugged on my hand. “If you’re my child, I can’t call you Daddy.” 

“John, you can call me John just for today.” I felt pained; if I wasn’t ‘Daddy’ to my little girl, I’d be adrift. I missed Deidre calling me Honey, and all those cliche endearments. 

“Johnny,” my daughter said. “I’m taking you to your class now.”

“Where are all the other parents being children?” I said, as we passed through the blue entry doors, slouching so I didn’t stretch a meter above the kids jostling around me. I half expected to be teased for my outfit. 

“It’s not their day.” She held my hand and pulled me. “Hurry, you’re going to be late, and if you’re late, you’ll have to sit in the class during recess.” 

I didn’t think that would be so difficult. Simple math; arrive fifteen minutes late, sit through a fifteen minute recess, but I reminded myself the purpose was for my daughter to be happy.

We entered a classroom of children sitting in a circle. Where were the desks? A woman in her early thirties smiled and nodded at the two empty chairs. I felt awkward, asking a small boy to move so I could get into the circle. 

“I’m Mrs. Mandaline, Lillianne’s teacher.”

“Mr. Davidson, but call me John.” The chairs were too small. Mrs. Mandaline’s long legs tucked under her chair. Lillianne hadn’t told me how attractive her teacher was; there wasn’t an angle I found safe to watch, not her breasts almost visible through her cream-colored blouse, not her wide smile, her pert nose, nor her luminous eyes, not even her brunette hair that cascaded onto her shoulders. A shudder of guilt passed through me.

“He’s my child, Johnny,” Lillianne said in a proud voice. 

“Since it’s your first day, we will give you a pass for being late,” Mrs. Mandaline smiled at me. God help me, and my unchildlike thoughts. 

“I tried Mrs. Mandaline, but Johnny wouldn’t cooperate.” 

I frowned at my daughter’s betrayal. Five minutes in my job, editing a newspaper wasn’t late. 

“That’s okay, Ms. Davidson; I believe you did your best.”

I nodded in agreement. “Mea culpa.”

A chubby boy asked, “How come Johnny gets to speak baby language?”

“It’s Latin for I’m at fault.” 

“Good point, Benjamin, and Johnny, I’ll remind you to keep to vocabulary appropriate for your age today.” 

So far, I was in as much trouble as when I’d been back in second grade. What were we doing in a circle? Where was my desk? I thought of the desks I’d defiled with ink lettering and drawings over my school years. 

“Johnny is our first parent to take part in our ‘Make your Parent your Child for a Day’. Every day, a different parent will have the honor.” Mrs. Mandaline smiled. 

I blushed, like I hadn’t since eighth grade, when Sherry Timmins looked at me. 

“Children, one at a time, you may ask Ms. Davidson and her son Johnny questions about their day.” 

A girl with a blond bob, and I knew just the type she’d grow up to be, svelte and condescending, asked, “Did you choose your own clothes?” I hesitated and looked at Mrs. Mandaline, who took no notice.

“I laid out his clothes,” Lillianne spoke up, her little chest puffed up, looking at the girl. I hoped she’d always have the same self assertiveness. 

“You did a fine job,” Mrs. Mandaline said. 

“Because these are the clothes I wanted to wear,” I said.

Lillianne scrunched up her face, but when I winked one eye, she grinned. “Oh, yes, you begged me to let you wear those clothes.”

“How did you find the homework?” A boy with serious eyes asked. He’d be swallowing antacid tablets by the time he was eleven if he didn’t lighten up. Mrs. Mandaline’s gaze softened at the boy.

“It was okay,” I said. Homework, what homework? Lillianne never had homework, she was too young. My daughter squirmed in her chair. I held my breath, hoping Mrs. Mandaline wouldn’t ask about it. My child-self didn’t want to get told off by Mrs. Mandaline, but my adult-self felt drawn, oh so drawn. From now on, I’d check in with Lillianne about school. It was all coming back to me; how messed up you can get from your tender school years. Some sailed through it, happy and carefree, and I hoped Lillianne would be one of those. 

“Adrianne, we don’t do homework in this class,” Mrs. Mandaline said in a gentle voice.

“But my parents say I need homework.” The boy looked like he’d burst out crying.

“I know,” Mrs. Mandaline said softly.

 Lillianne shifted closer in her chair to me, and it felt good, like we were a team. I felt proud, as together we fielded more questions about whether I needed a lot of prompts in the morning, how many times I got told off, how long it took me to make my bed, if I made my bed or not. Lillianne covered for me, and I covered for her. Colluding didn’t feel wrong, though I’m not so sure about what Mrs. Mandaline would have to say about it.

I put up my hand, as I had been taught years ago. “I would like to read a story with my… ah, with my parent.” 

Lillianne looked at me, uncertainty clouding her eyes.

“Did you write the story?” Mrs. Mandaline asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it what a seven-year-old would write?” 

I squirmed in my seat. “An eleven-year-old could comprehend it,… but I think everyone in this room is really smart.” I looked around the room for affirmation. 

“Ms. Davidson, what do you think?” Mrs. Mandaline looked at Lillianne. 

“No, I don’t want to read Johnny’s stories. They’re not very good. They make fun of other people.” She folded her hands on her lap and looked me in the eye.

What? She’d never told me that before. I regaled her, or so I thought, at dinner time telling her my stories. So when she said, That’s interesting Daddy, but I feel really hungry now and I can’t concentrate, she’d meant only the latter part. My stories pointed out people’s misdeeds and foibles. I floundered. My whole writer- identity hadn’t impressed my seven-year-old daughter.

“But I’m a fine writer, and a decent reader,” I said.

“In our class, we create and read stories together, so all the children feel they are a valued part of the process,” Mrs. Mandaline said, and smiled.

How come I wasn’t aware of this? Deidre would’ve been. When Lillianne came home and told me, ‘We wrote a story about a dinosaur,’ she had meant we, not everyone, wrote their own stories. I’d lost Lillianne to her classmates. 

So much for introducing the two of the fundamental R’s. Math befuddled me at the best of times, but I threw it into the ring. “I’d like to practice math,” I said, certain I could handle grade two math.

Mrs. Mandaline smiled, making me fret there’d be an end to her patience, but I smiled back, determined to win. There was no way she could mess with math and make it a group effort. 

“Johnny, I’m delighted you’re so keen. But Ms. Davidson, would you like to explain to Johnny how we structure our learning environment?”

Lillianne bobbed her head. “Yes, Mrs. Mandaline, I’ve told him many times, but he never listens.” When? I scratched my head. I usually remembered to ask about her day and listen. Had I been only tuning in to the bits that fit in with my own experiences? Deidre would have done this better. I wanted to cry out to Mrs. Mandaline. I’m missing my wife. You can’t blame me. I've been doing my best. 

“Now, that Johnny’s in the class. Maybe if you explain it here, it will make more sense,” Mrs. Mandaline said.

“We come up with arithmetic questions as a group, usually about something that has happened in our family, such as when Erik’s mother had a broken leg and couldn’t go to work.” 

“We may not work with the actual amounts, but we put in some realistic numbers,” Mrs. Mandaline said. I couldn’t return her gaze. I clenched my fists below the sides of my chair. Had the class done this when Deidre, Lillianne’s mother, passed? Figured out how much more this, how much less that? 

I must have been staring at the floor.

“Johnny.” I blinked and looked into Mrs. Mandaline’s warm brown eyes. “I’d like a word with you in private, if you don’t mind. Ms. Davidson, if you wouldn’t mind leading the children in selecting the social math question for the day?”

I followed her to a corner of the room, where low bookshelves partly blocked us from the group. We sat on little stools, my legs awkwardly taking up most of the mat, and hers folded under her. 

 “I’m sorry for your loss, Johnny.” She pressed her palms down on her skirt. 

In a terse, low voice, I spoke, “If I had any idea, you were subjecting Lillianne to such a brutal reduction of her grief… to numbers and calculations.” 

“Johnny…”

“No, stop playing this game. I’ll do this charade only for my daughter.”

“Mr. Davidson, I want you to know we didn’t use you and your daughter’s loss as a social math problem, but we talked about grief, and the feelings that arise, and how to be supportive.” 

I hunched my shoulders and bit my lip, fighting back tears. This past year, I’d been so involved in my grief, I hadn’t considered how Deidre’s death had affected our daughter. I thought of all the times when I closed my eyes, and left the room in my mind, or all the extra drinks I’d poured late at night to avoid going to bed alone, and all the while I hadn’t considered her. Children just adjusted, I’d assumed. 

“He’s typically happy-go-lucky,” my parents had said of me when I was ten, after my favorite grandfather died. They’d never asked me how I felt, but,…, what; I put my hand to my forehead, remembering the rabbit they’d given me. During the past year, when Lillianne often came and held my hand, not asking me to play, or give her something, I’d thought she wanted me to be happy, but now I understood, she’d wanted to support me. 

“Thank you for being there for my daughter. I’m ready to be a seven-year-old again for a little while longer. Johnny has a thing or two to learn.” I smiled at Mrs. Mandaline.

We rejoined the group. Lillianne grinned at me, and I noticed the light in her eyes that had been in Deidre’s eyes.