Too quickly, I resorted to reason. “Robbie. Look. I’m in trouble at your school already. Dr. Lipman said I’ve had you out of class too many times already this year.”
What about the days she kicked me out?
“I went over that with her. She threatened me with bad things if we didn’t get our act together.”
Like what?
“Hey. Hop on it. No kidding. We’ll talk about it tonight.”
I’m not going, Dad.
The one time since Aly’s death that I’d threatened him with force, he bit my wrist and broke the skin. I checked my watch. The bus was no longer a viable target. I put my hand on his shoulder. He pushed it off.
“They have you on probation because of what happened with Jayden. We’re on their list. If there’s more trouble, Dr. Lipman . . . We can’t give them anything to fuss about right now.”
Dad. Listen to me. I’m begging you. Mom says everything’s dying. Do you believe her?
“Robin. Come on. Let’s go. I’ll drive you.” Even to myself, I sounded outmaneuvered.
Because if she’s right, there’s no point in school. Everything will be dead before I get to tenth grade.
I wondered whether this was a hill I wanted to die on.
Do you believe her or don’t you? That’s all I’m asking.
Did I believe her? Her facts were beyond doubt. Everything she claimed was common knowledge to scientists everywhere. But did I believe her? Had mass extinction ever once felt real?
“You’re going to school. There’s no choice.”
You said everything’s always a choice, Dad. For instance. You could homeschool me.
I rubbed my eyes until I saw stars. In my head, I was talking to a dead person again. And Aly was reminding me: Listen. Sympathize. But we don’t negotiate with terrorists!
“I believe in you, Robbie. In what you’re doing. But we can’t change school in the middle of the year. If you still feel strongly about this in the spring, we’ll find a solution.”
That’s why they’ll all go extinct. Because everyone wants to solve it later.
I sat down at the table, his test sketches spread in front of me. He wasn’t wrong. “Okay. Today, paint. All the creatures that are in trouble. As well as you can.”
He must have felt my deflation, because the little victory made him darken. He looked at me, ready to beg me to change my mind. Dad? What if it doesn’t help at all?
NO SITTER IN MY CONTACTS LIST could watch him all weekday on such short notice. Fortunately, I didn’t teach that day and could work from home. At quarter to nine, while canceling and rescheduling appointments, I got the automated text. Your child is absent without excuse. Are you aware of this （please reply Y or N）？ I pressed Y, then phoned the office and told a curt, skeptical staffer that Robin had a doctor’s appointment I’d forgotten to call in.
I applied myself to email triage, then finished the delinquent edits for the article for Stryker: dimethyl sulfide and sulfur dioxide in our models of atmospheric disequilibrium. Sulfur-based life, in place of carbon: I thought about what lunch might look like in such a place, while cooking up Robin’s favorite lentils with masses of melt-away onions and the barest hint of tomato. In the afternoon, Robin knocked on my office door with several small questions about his paintings for which any answer at all would do. He was lonely. By morning, I figured, he’d be ready to head back to school.
We knocked off again for dinner. Robin wanted Aly’s signature eggplant casserole. He insisted on laying out the layers. Our finished result was not a success, but he ate with the appetite of someone who’d put in a full day. After dinner, I asked for an exhibition. A few paintings remained from the many that he’d destroyed in anger. He mounted the day’s work on a bare wall in the dining room using bits of reusable tape. I was forbidden to come in until he said to. There was an ivory-billed woodpecker and a red wolf and a Franklin’s bumblebee and a giant anole and a clump of desert yellowhead. Some were more skillful than others. But they all vibrated, and the colors shouted, Save us.
That’s a bird and a mammal and an insect and a reptile and a plant. To go with yesterday’s amphibian.
I still don’t see how a nine-year-old held still long enough to paint them. He was channeling some other maker. “Robin. They’re incredible.”
The woodpecker and the anole might already be extinct. How much should I ask for them? I want to send in as much as I can.
“You could ask people how much they might want to pay.” Used-car trick, put to a good cause. He took the pictures down and stashed them in his portfolio. “Careful! Don’t crumple them.”