Dismissal

Amina Gautier

She waits for me by the curb outside the public elementary school while other kids gather to walk home together. A lucky few get whisked away, ushered into cars far better than mine. It is after three; dismissal’s come and gone. I’m running late but on my way, almost there. This she does not know.

Other parents have real cars, not clunkers that drive on whim. They have better work hours, better schedules, better everything. I’m doing the best I can. Sometimes ends never meet.

If I had it my way, she’d be in a different school. A private one. Or maybe just a better one, where the schoolyard is a place for kids to play, not for teachers to park their cars. A school where they don’t need metal detectors to deter fifth- and sixth-graders from coming in with weapons. A school where the scaffolding eventually comes down because the repairs actually get completed. A school where they let kids wait inside instead of hurrying them outdoors to leave them unsupervised in the cold.

Read the rest of the story on the TriQuarterly website: https://www.triquarterly.org/issues/issue-160-black-voices/dismissal