Awaiting

The small child stood in the snow. His little gloved hand held on tightly to the teacher's. They waited silently in front of the duplex. The first floor was for kindergarten students; the second for grade ones. There was no room in the main school, just across the street, and this had been made into an improbable annexe.
The child cried as he looked up and down the street and then back at the icy green stairs that led to the second floor of his school. The children's screams could be heard all the way down in the street: they were playing Simon Says with the student teacher. The boy's sobs had wet the front of his brown wool coat, and the ear flaps of his cap hung askew, framing his little tear drenched face. Every now and again a sigh would escape him.
The teacher looked down at the student. She studied his flawless ruby cheeks  and his enormous brown eyes. She looked down at his dark leather shoes with the strong ankle supports and his tweed pants, so unusual for a child his age. The other students in the class wore torn jeans and running shoes or sweat pants and galoshes with fake fur linings; the other students seemed so happy to be at school. This boy did not. When he was not colouring with meticulous precision he would escape from his chair to look out of the second storey window in helpless search of who knows what.
At first she thought that it had to do with the language barrier, but although he had started the year not knowing a word of English, he spoke as correctly, if not more so, than anyone in the class. She wondered what it was that kept him from integrating fully, and, yet, he did not. Something hung like a cloud over his otherwise bright, intelligent face. She sighed and the boy looked up at her. She smiled encouragingly.
This past month of school had been very trying: the Christmas preparations, the mid term report-cards, and then this little boy's incessant crying, day after day, notwithstanding the activities she so carefully planned. She had hoped to speak to the boy's parents at the PTA meeting, but when they failed to come she decided to call the boy's home. Communicating with his mother had been no easy task and now as she watched the person she suspected to be the boy's father rushing round the corner of Ottawa street towards them, she wondered if she had done the right thing.
The man was not as young as she had imagined. He had strong features and his olive complexion was nothing like the child's rosy one. Had she seen him on the big screen in one of her Saturday matinees she would have considered him a drop-dead gorgeous fellow, but now he stood before her merely a foreigner.
She looked him over discreetly. He had obviously changed into what were once called Sunday clothes, and in the air hung the familiar scent of moth balls. His head was bare, notwithstanding the cold, and his ears had taken on an unnaturally painful looking colour.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Rivani. I'm so sorry to have bothered you, but I wanted to talk to you about Stephen...”
She bit her lip unsure how to continue.
She wondered what these people were doing to make this little boy so miserable.
“Mr. Rivani, Steven cries everyday...”
“Non good at school?”
“Oh yes, very good. Intelligent, respectful, but he cries and cries.”
Stefano stared down at his shoes. His father stared at the teacher.
They stood motionless.
The biting cold wrapped them like a blanket.
“Good at school?”
“Oh, yes...”
“Can I go home now, Miss Cooke.”  Murmured the little boy letting go of the teacher's hand and slipping his gloved fingers through his father's bare ones.
“Well, yes, of course.” She replied, flustered.
“Thank you”. Concluded the man rather unexpectedly.
“Well, then,” she stammered, “ Good bye, Stephen. Have a good week-end. We will be painting next week, you know. I have lovely new finger-paints. Good bye, Mr. Rivani. I must go now. The children...”. She said indicating the duplex, “Thank you for coming to speak with me”.
They watched her climb the icy steps. Shoulders slumped, defeated, she disappeared within the noisy premises.
Stefano's father bent down and pulled his boy's hat tightly over his ears.
“I told you not to cry at school.
“Yes, papà.” He replied whimpering again now.
His father led him down the icy sidewalk. They made their way down Ottawa street and through Lansbury Park. The park was deserted, the swings still, the gazebo abandoned, and the swimming pool empty except for the odd mouldy leaf clumped in a corner.
They exited the chain link fence and moved along Giles Boulevard, then left to a row of bungalows, all alike, red brick, small with bay windows and tiny porches.
Inside their house, the air smelled of freshly baked bread and eggs. Stefano's mother was sitting on the sofa nursing his newborn brother.
The little boy ran to her and hid his head in the crook of her free arm. She kissed him softly on the head.
The next morning, after a cup of warm milk wih sugar and toasted bread, Stefano's father dressed him warmly and, without a word, carried him through the snow to their yellow and black Pontiac. The fake leather seats were rigid with cold. The boy snuggled next to his father on the front seat as they drove away from the street lights into the darker roads that led out of the city.
They drove for what seemed a long time and when they finally pulled over, the sun was just rising in the east. His father's construction site lay before them. A group of newly built identical houses with no sidings stood in front of what was left of a tall forest.
Stefano followed his father along a path through the woods to a clearing that climbed slightly. At the entrance, a number of two-by-fours had been placed to form a bench. A pit with the charcoal remains of the previous day lay smouldering under the snow near it.
“Sit very still, here”, said his father indicating the bench.
Stefano sat down burying his hands in his deep pockets. His father sat beside him. The wood planks creaked under the weight of his heavy body.
“There is nothing to see but snow, papà”.
“Silenzio”.
After some time the sun began to light the clearing like a spotlight would a stage. There in the middle two great grey ears twitched as a small hare nibbled long strands of grass that rose out of the snow.
Stefano started in surprise.
The ears straightened suddenly, searching the field. Then the baby hare stood perfectly still. It was frozen with fear, unable to move.
“What's he doing, papà?”
Stefano's father put his index finger to his lips.
“He heard you. Now watch”.
A minute passed before another hare, bigger, rushed out of the bush and into the middle of the clearing where the baby hare stood. It seemed to communicate something because no more than 10 seconds had passed before the baby hare followed it into the safety of the underbrush.
Father and son sat silently for a moment.
“He came to get his baby”.
“Yes, Stefano. Every day while I sit here and have my lunch, I watch the same scene. Every day”.
The child thought this over for a moment.
He pulled his warm hand out of his pocket and slipped it into his father's cold one. He would not cry at school again.

Matilde Colarossi