My parents never once spoke of the stress of having to pay for college, but I
knew enough to appreciate that it was there. When my French teacher
announced that she’d be leading an optional class trip to Paris over one of our
breaks for those who could come up with the money to do it, I didn’t even
bother to raise the issue at home. This was the difference between me and the
Jack and Jill kids, many of whom were now my close friends. I had a loving and
orderly home, bus fare to get me across town to school, and a hot meal to come
home to at night. Beyond that, I wasn’t going to ask my parents for a thing.
Yet one evening my parents sat me down, looking puzzled. My mom had
learned about the France trip through Terri Johnson’s mom.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” she said.
“Because it’s too much money.”
“That’s actually not for you to decide, Miche,” my dad said gently, almost
offended. “And how are we supposed to decide, if we don’t even know about
it?”
I looked at them both, unsure of what to say. My mother glanced at me, her
eyes soft. My father had changed out of his work uniform and into a clean white
shirt. They were in their early forties then, married nearly twenty years. Neither
one of them had ever vacationed in Europe. They never took beach trips or went
out to dinner. They didn’t own a house. We were their investment, me and
Craig. Everything went into us.
A few months later, I boarded a flight to Paris with my teacher and a dozen
or so of my classmates from Whitney Young. We would stay in a hostel, tour the
Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. We’d buy crêpes au fromage from stands on the street
and walk along the banks of the Seine. We’d speak French like a bunch of high
school kids from Chicago, but we’d at least speak French. As the plane pulled
away from its gate that day, I looked out my window and back at the airport,
knowing that my mother stood somewhere behind its black-glass windows,
dressed in her winter coat and waving me on. I remember the jet engines firing,
shockingly loud. And then we were rattling down the runway and beginning to
tilt upward as the acceleration seized my chest and pressed me backward into my
seat for that strange, in-between half moment that comes before finally you feel
lifted.