I knew it was only a matter of time.
On Friday the school nurse interrupted my meeting with a student. "I'm sorry, but Elias needs you in the gym. He's having a hard time and I couldn't get him to leave with me."
She stays with the girl in my office and I walk across the hall to our small gym.
All the kids sit in the middle except Elias who is off on the side, eyes red and puffy, and that familiar defiant look on his face that till now has been reserved for home.
"No!" he cries when I tell him to walk out to the hall with me. His rag-doll body falling to the floor.
"I'm his Mom," I tell the new Adaptive P.E. teacher who stands next to us wide-eyed. The regular PE teacher stands with the regular kids in the middle of the room. Everyone watches us.
"Come on Bud, you're not in trouble, we are just gonna go for a walk." Somehow he follows my words to the hall. The Adaptive PE teacher walks out with us.
"He did fine during his warm-ups but I think they just had to sit too long."
When the kids get too rowdy in gym, the main PE teacher often makes them sit for lengthy periods, and Elias is not a boy who can go from wild rumpus to stillness just like that.
I still don't know exactly what happened before I got there. The PE teacher told me Elias was "body surfing" and "going after kids" and that he gave him three warnings and then kicked him out. I didn't get a chance to talk more with the adaptive PE teacher because as soon as I knew Elias was calm and safe, and removed from the chaos, I needed to put my counselor hat back on and return to my office.
When I went home for lunch that afternoon, I wanted to crawl underneath my covers and never look back.
But instead I ate smoked salmon and cream cheese on crackers, a plum and a mandarin orange, and returned to school. I decided I wouldn't pull any kids that afternoon, feeling too emotional myself, and instead would create lesson plans for the next week and organize my office.
Of course as a school counselor, your schedule is never your own. And instead my afternoon involved trauma, neglect, more tears, and the Office of Children Services.
By the time I walked into my house to see Olive for the first time in four days, I could have smothered her with my hug. She seemed older and more precious all at once.
We walked hand in hand back to school to pick Elias up from Camp Fire, the after-school program he loves. We walked up the steps to the classroom behind the stage. He saw us coming, only to look back down at his game of Jr Blokus without saying Hi.
"Yias!" Olive said. "Yias!!"
"Elias can you look at your sister and say hi?"
"Hi Olive." Elias turned his head back to his plastic blocks.
When I finally pried him from his game and we got outside to our waiting dog, Olive skipped behind her brother repeating his name like an anthem.
As I unhitched Tonz, I looked up just in time to see Elias walk over his sister, plowing her onto the sidewalk.
And that my friends, was our happy sibling homecoming.
Since then Elias has kicked Olive, stepped on her, squeezed her arm and face, and pushed his sister down our cement steps.
And I know this kind of thing happens between siblings-- but in our household, I am surprised when it doesn't happen. I can't take a shower without worrying that my son will seriously harm my daughter. Can't walk out of the room unless they are watching a show. And even then you never know.
Our school nurse told me about a family that stayed in two adjacent apartments and the parents switched off between the kids because the older brother was such a danger to his younger sibling. We are not quite there-- not yet--but oh do I empathize with this family.
When Elias bowled over his sister on their first afternoon back together, she bawled the whole way home. She wasn't physically hurt but, man, was she sad. And I was a bit of a wreck myself, under the weight of her sorrow that mirrors my own but will materialize in a manner only she will know.
Her brother will never be like a typical older brother. One who is just as likely to protect her as he is to ridicule her. I'm a younger sister myself and yes, my brother Andrew and I did not always get along but we got along. As kids we hung our white flags as often as we bombarded each other with insults. And as we grew, it was Andrew who I turned to when I needed someone to understand my heartache.
And yes, I know Elias is not stagnant and he won't always be the little shit he was tonight stiff-arming his sister down the cement steps when she tried to follow him home. Evolution is possible.
Or so I have to believe.
But tonight, this family of mine feels so damn hard. Tonight it feels like Nick has been gone a month not a week.
Tonight, I want to be little Christy again, chasing my big brother down the hall. I'll take a million pillows to the head; he can say, "What are you gonna do, cry?"
And maybe I will, in fact, I'm sure I will, but that all seems so much simpler than here.