I’m Theo. I’m seven.

Me, my mom, my Dad, and my sister Ava, we’re in the doctor’s office. The talk doctor.

Mom and Dad are sitting on the shiny blue couch. It made a squeaky sound when they sat down. Ava’s between them. She’s eight. She’s wearing bell-bottoms, just like Mom. She even has a mood ring, just like Mom. She thinks she’s so grown up.

Dad told me to stop squirming in the big orange chair, so I’m sitting on the floor now, spinning the wheels of my red Hot Wheels car.

Ava looks down at me, her eyes like slits, her nose scrunched up. She tells the doctor, “He always ruins things. He’s always getting in trouble.”

The doctor nods at her.

“Not fair!” I stick out my tongue at her.

The doctor asks, “Theo, what’s not fair?”

I shrug my shoulders. I don’t want to talk. I put the little red car down and rub it against the carpet. Vroom, vroom. Then I let it go. Whoosh! It shoots across the room. It bounces off the wall. It flips over and lands wheels up. “Ha!”

The doctor’s staring at me. “What’s not fair?”

“You already asked me that.”

“So you were listening.”

“Yeah, so? Stop picking on me. Everyone’s always picking on me.”

The doctor leans over, scoops up the tiny car, and slides it into his pants pocket.

I yell at him, “Hey, gimme that!”

The doctor ignores me. “Do you have any friends?”

“Sorta.”

Dad butts in. “No, he’s never gotten along with the neighborhood children. Maybe it’s his nearsightedness or his lack of athletic skill. He’s a little clumsy.”

“Maybe it’s cuzza her!” I point at Ava.

“I didn’t do anything. But I’m missing art class because of you.”

Dad turns to her. “It’s okay, Ava, Mrs. O’Connell will do the project with you on Friday.”

I squiggle up my face at her. “Teacher’s pet, teacher’s pet.”

Dad turns to me. “You’re smart, too, but you have to pay attention and behave.”

“I’ll never be as good as Ava. She’s perfect, and I’m no good at anything. You already said so. Tell him the truth.” I point my finger at the doctor. “Him. Tell him, Dad.”

“I never said you’re no good.” He lowers his head, like he’s sad or something. He turns to the doctor and speaks softly. “I said I can’t manage him.”

Nobody says anything. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it. I didn’t mean to hurt him. Sorry, Daddy.

The doctor finally speaks. “Theo, is there a time when your dad said you did a good job?”

I’m lying down now, chin against the carpet, and Ava’s clean, white tennis shoes are close. I could write all over them if I could just get a pen. I did that once in class to that twerp, Margie. The other kids thought it was funny. Then they liked me.

“Theo, please…answer…the doctor.” Mom’s voice is slow, almost angry. I look up. She’s twisting her pocketbook strap around her fingers.

“Theo?” The doctor sounds kinda angry, too.

When are we gonna get out of here? I stare at the doctor’s shoes now. They’re shiny and dark brown. With a penny in a little hole on the top. Why there? Really hard to reach. And only enough to buy a gumball or two.

Dad’s talking again. “I’ve read the books, I’ve met with other counselors. Nothing’s worked.”

Mom joins in. “I’m doing the best I can. It’s like he’s unreachable. But I’m still trying.”

The doctor stands up. “Glad that you’re optimistic.”

Mom smiles, like she won a prize.

The doctor smiles back. “Our time’s up. We’ll pick up on this next time.” He turns to me. “Here’s your car, Theo. Nice Mustang.” I grab it and run out of the office.

On the way to the car, Ava holds Dad’s hand. “Did I say the right things, Daddy?”

“You did great, sweetie. Thank you for helping us.” He hugs her.

I cut in front of them. “Can we hurry? They’re having tater tots at lunch today.”

***

Twenty years later, the little red car was a thing of my distant past.

Until whoosh! Another little red car spun past my feet at the stairwell and bounced off the tan stucco wall of my apartment building. I stumbled, leaned against the railing, and turned to yell at whoever did it, when the boy’s dark brown eyes caught mine. He was huddling under the open stairs like he was afraid of me.

I put my grocery bags down, picked up the toy car, and extended it toward him. “Yours?”

“Yeah.” He snatched it from my palm and slipped back into the shadows.

“Nice Ferrari.” I peered in. “What’s your name?”

“Why?”

“I’m Theo. I live upstairs.”

“So?”

“Well, since you almost killed me, I thought I might introduce myself. At least while I’m still alive.” I moved back a bit. “So what’s your name?”

“Zach.” He stepped out of the darkness but stayed a few feet away. “Zachary Alexander Higgins. I’m the youngest.”

“Youngest of what?”

“My family. My sisters, there are two of them. They’re twelve and thirteen. I’m eight. We live here with my mom.”

“Wow. All of you in a one-bedroom apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s tight.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Who gets the bedroom?”

“My mom and my sisters. My bed’s in the living room. It’s a bunk bed, with a TV on the bottom.”

“Huh?”

Zach chuckled. “My mom, she’s smart. She figured out how to find room for all our stuff from the house.”

My voice is soft, tentative. “Your dad…too?”

“Nah, he doesn’t live with us anymore.”

“Oh.”

Zach paused. “Yeah, he couldn’t take it.”

“Take what?”

“Me. I kept getting in trouble, and he got madder and madder. They were fighting all the time, usually about me.” He looked down at his scuffed-up Converse.

I suddenly remembered my groceries. “Hey, my ice cream is gonna melt. You mind if I run it upstairs? I can come right back.”

“Nah, never mind. Bye.” He ducked into his apartment before I had a chance to respond.

***

A few hours later, I knocked on Zach’s apartment door. A woman with light brown hair, a blue striped T-shirt, and jeans ripped at the knees pulled open the door a crack, the security chain still attached. “Yes?”

“Hi, I’m Theo. Theo Pemsey. I’m in 201, right above you.”

“Yes, I’ve seen you walking by. What’s up?”

“I met Zach earlier. His Ferrari almost met my foot, but that’s not important. Anyhow, it seemed like he could use a friend. Would it be okay if I talked to him, just right out here, on the stairs? Nothing weird.”

She opened the door a bit wider and looked me up and down. “Why would you have an interest in talking to a kid, an eight-year-old boy?”

“Just sort of reminds me of when I was that age. Like the getting in trouble part. That was me, too.”

“Isn’t that a bit personal to tell someone you just met?”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Just something felt familiar about his situation, or at least what he told me in two minutes. Thought I might be able to help, like a big brother or something. Never mind.” I headed back to the stairs.

“Wait a minute, okay?” She took the chain off the door. “I’m Kate.”

“Hi, Kate.”

She shouted back into the apartment, “I’ll be right outside.”

We sat a few steps apart. She kept surveying me as we spoke, as if she still didn’t really trust me. But she told me a little about the difficulties of raising Zach. “He’s always in trouble at school. Nothing big, like fighting, but never paying attention, talking back, not doing his work. Teachers have tried but nothing seems to make a difference. Thank goodness for my girls. They’re doing great. They’re easy. He’s not.”

“I was in the shadow of my big sister, too. She was the A student, the perfect one. The only thing I was good at was messing up. I guess that’s what I sense in Zach, that fear of never getting praise, only criticism.”

“You got that from just a quick moment with him?”

“Not exactly, just a wild guess. It was what he said about his sisters. And the car.”

“The car?”

“The red Ferrari that I almost tripped over. I’m sure he saw me coming towards the stairwell, but he spun it towards there anyhow. Like he was trying to get attention.”

Kate scowled at me. “Are you a shrink or something?”

“No, just an unhappy kid who had a red toy car, too.” I told her about my red car and the psychologist’s office. “I never had anyone who believed in me, who thought I could do anything other than screw up.”

“Interesting, but what I don’t get is your comfort in sharing stuff like that with a total stranger.”

“Well, you’re not a total stranger. You live downstairs from me.” I laughed.

She didn’t. She stood up. “I’m still not sure about you, but Zach could really use a guy in his life.”

“So I can talk with him? I’ve got time now, if that’ll work.”

“Right outside, no farther than the picnic table, where I can see you. I’ll go get him.”

“That’s great. Thanks, Kate.” I reached out to shake her hand, but she went back into her apartment.

I walked across the patchy grass to the picnic table. It was one of those public-venue types, grey concrete and pebbly stuff, marked with dirt and a couple splats of bird poop at one end. I sat at the other end, and Zach sat down across from me. He revved the Ferrari along the bumpy top, flipping it over and turning it upright again.

I broke the silence. “Thanks for coming out to talk with me.”

“Yeah, whatever. It’s outta the apartment. Too many people around.”

I remembered his comment about not having his own room. “How does it feel to have a TV as a bunkmate?”

“It sucks. My mom’s usually watching it until late. She keeps it kinda soft, but I still can’t sleep sometimes.”

That evening, before I left for my night job at the warehouse, I knocked on their door again and gave him an old pair of my headphones. The black muffs dwarfed his small skull and looked as if they’d squeeze his brains out like toothpaste. He pressed them against his head with a big grin.

The next afternoon, we were at the picnic table again. I asked him if he had homework to do. He shook his head and slid the Ferrari around.

“Really? Nothing?”

“Nothin’ I feel like doin’.”

“Do you need some help?”

He stopped pushing the Ferrari around. “School sucks. I’m stupid. Everybody knows it.”

“Knows what?”

“Knows that I don’t get it. I’m slow. They make fun of me. The teachers. My sisters, too. They get As and I get Fs.”

“It’s hard to be like them, isn’t it?”

He looked up at me. “Yeah. How would you know?”

“Because I’ve been there. My sister, Ava, was like that, too. She was the great student, the popular kid, talented. I couldn’t measure up. So I looked like a failure, even when I was trying hard, so I finally gave up.”

“Gave up? Like you didn’t go to school anymore?”

“No, silly, I still went. It’s the law, you know. But I gave up trying. Barely graduated and got into a mess of trouble along the way.”

Zach was quiet. His eyes looked off into the distance, like he was thinking about what I said.

It’s what I hadn’t said that still saddened me. I was around Zach’s age when I sensed that my brain just didn’t work like Ava’s. But “neurodivergent” and “learning differences” weren’t common terms back in the 70s. People thought I was just lazy, because brilliant parents have brilliant kids, right? I was just a “behavior problem.”

Over the years, it’s occurred to me that if I had someone back then to believe in me, not criticize me, maybe things would be different. Maybe I’d be more on par with Ava now. She’s almost thirty, with a master’s degree, a career, a husband, and a huge house in Connecticut. Did I mention money? All I’ve got is a few college courses with bad grades, a low-paying job, a pile of debt, and a small apartment in a not-too-great neighborhood.

I looked across to Zach and spoke softly. “What if I try to help you?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just trying to help, so that you don’t end up working a bunch of lousy jobs someday to pay the bills like I do. You’ll understand that later.”

The long-range planning didn’t register with his young brain, but, with a skeptical shrug, he did accept my offer of help. He ran to get his backpack from his apartment. He pulled out a math worksheet, and we sat side by side to work on the word problems.

He stumbled many times as he read the short paragraph aloud, sounding more and more confused as information was added to the word problem. I drew a vertical line at the end of each sentence to separate them. I asked him to read just the first sentence again. His reading was better when he only focused on a small section instead of the whole thing, so we kept trying that.

I helped him draw a little diagram of the information that each sentence revealed. Four players, three points each for a goal, ten-minute game, and so on.

After a couple of minutes, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a jumbled plastic baggie of Sharpies. “Can I color in their shirts?”

“Sure.” It was an obvious distraction, but he was working with me, so I stopped myself from getting annoyed.

He was surprised to figure out the answer so easily once he could read the words better and see them becoming a picture. We worked through two more problems before he dropped the pencil and started playing with the Ferrari again.

I grabbed the pencil before it rolled off the table. “Your brain’s tired?”

“Yeah. Are we done yet?”

“How about we put it away for now and try a few more problems after we take a walk? Just in this area.”

“Okay.” He jumped up from the table but quickly ran back and stuffed his homework into his backpack. “Don’t want it to fly away!” He laughed.

Over the next couple of weeks, we kept meeting after school got out. We worked mostly on helping him read. He was willing to try more of my suggestions, which I came up with as we worked together. He was even okay with tackling a few of his short writing assignments.

Kate was impressed that Zach completed some of his homework and even turned it in, on time. She eased up a bit, letting me take Zach to the store, then to mini golf. I didn’t have a bundle of spare cash, but helping Zach somehow seemed to work for both of us.

Four months went by fast. In early June, I pulled into my parking space and saw Kate with a stack of flat Home Depot boxes next to her car. She closed the hatchback and called to me. “Hey, Theo, we’re moving next week after school ends. Near Boston. I told the kids last night.”

“Oh wow.” I was stunned. “Why so far?”

“I’m going back to my old company. My career was just getting started when I got pregnant with Brittany. I really need to get back on track financially, and that’s where I’ve got family, too.”

“I’m happy for you. That’s great. But what about Zach?”

I guess she took it as criticism because her expression stiffened. “He’ll be fine.” She hoisted up the boxes. “Thanks for all you’ve done for him. I really appreciate it.” She turned towards the building.

My feet felt frozen to the hot sidewalk. I just stood there. I wasn’t thinking about Kate, she and I weren’t close, but I wondered what would happen to Zach. She must have sensed my worry, because she shouted back, “You’re not his dad, you know.”

I tried to see Zach before he left, but he was never in the stairwell when I was coming and going, and nobody answered the door when I knocked several times. The day they filled up the U-Haul truck, he wasn’t around.

***

It had really clicked with me to connect with Zach. I wasn’t a miracle worker, far from it. But our friendship nudged him back onto the tracks at school, which Kate said made his home life a bit easier, too.

I was sad that I couldn’t work more with him. It slowly came to me that maybe I could help other kids who were having similar difficulties. Oddly energized by the possibilities, I got a part-time job as a campus monitor at Zach’s old elementary school. It gave me some experience and blended well with my brave enrollment in two courses at the community college.

I stumbled. Badly. I discovered that I still had my own learning issues to address.

My sister, Ava, was very excited about my finally pursuing a degree. When I reluctantly admitted that I was nearly failing both courses, she suggested getting a psychological evaluation for a possible learning disability.

As I entered the psychologist’s office, a chill went through me. I half-expected to see my parents there, just waiting to complain about my latest screwups. But as the psychologist strode across the room to greet me, I noticed his brown loafers and started to laugh.

He was confused. “Hi, I’m Dr. Morgan. What’s so funny?”

I blurted out, “You don’t have any pennies in your shoes!” I quickly explained my childhood memories of the “talk doctor” before he thought that I was crazy.

After nearly five hours of psychological testing, and a couple of weeks waiting, Dr. Morgan reviewed the lengthy report with me. I tried to listen closely, but much of it seemed like a lot of words, numbers, and graphs. He explained that “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” known as “ADHD,” was my diagnosis now and probably would have been in childhood, too.

It suddenly started to make sense. Like how I could laser focus on certain activities, like puzzles and video games, but often be blown away by paperwork tasks – and lose the paperwork itself. Like how I missed appointments and payment due dates, but I’d have no problem remembering when the concert was.

I called Ava to tell her about the results. “You were right, you know.”

She chuckled. “It explains so much. I just never mentioned it before you brought it up, because I didn’t want you to think I was putting you down. I think you had enough of that when we were little.”

“Aw, gee, thanks. Seriously, though, I don’t see it is a bad thing, at least not now. It gives me something to work with. Maybe I’m not so stupid after all.”

“You’re not stupid, that’s the thing. Just ask the college for help with stuff like notetaking, extra time on tests, things like that. You can do it!”

And I did. I took it slow. My brain could only manage a couple of courses at a time, to start. I worked hard. I did several projects at the local schools. Working with kids with problems seemed to come naturally to me.

It was a long road, but I finally graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Counseling. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for a guidance counselor position, which is where I thought I would really be comfortable. I pushed myself – hard – to keep on going. I took mostly online courses for a Master’s degree, which helped me study in segments throughout the day.

After a total of almost ten years in college, I was proud to get a guidance counselor job at the high school in the next town. Even Ava was proud of me, which I never thought would happen. That job was hardly on her level, as she was a vice president in a major corporation, but I never aspired to the executive world.

I still struggled with administrative tasks, but I used the skills and systems I had learned along the way. I focused on the chance to help kids who were misunderstood and written off, like I had been.

My office faced the high school’s courtyard, where the kids hung out. My eyes often went to the ones by themselves. Everyone has an off day, or two, but I noticed that some kids seemed perpetually alone. I sought out those who seemed unreachable but really needed the help. I was on their wavelength, I could feel their pain. The successes were small, admittedly, but they were successes nonetheless.

One Friday afternoon, right before the end of the school year, I got back to my office shortly after the last bell had rung. My door was open slightly, which was odd since I always close it before leaving. I opened it a bit wider, quickly scanning the room. Computer? Still there. File cabinets? Still locked. Nothing seemed amiss.

Then it whizzed out of my office, hit my right foot, bounced off, and whirled into the hallway. It was a red, remote control car.

I stumbled, shoved open my office door the rest of the way, and yelled in, “What the heck?”

“Surprise!” A young guy jumped up from behind my chair, a grin on his face, and the car’s controller in his left hand. “Surprised you, didn’t I?”

It took me a moment to realize it was Zach, now much older than when I last saw him. “Oh my gosh, how are you? What are you doing here?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I rushed over and hugged him. He was so tall now. Still had the dark brown eyes. Only they were full of light this time.

“My mom’s visiting some friends, and I looked you up. It wasn’t easy. I got your last name from her. Can’t believe she remembered it, but she did. Couldn’t find you on Instagram or Facebook, but the Daily News did a piece on you when you got this job. What a headline! ‘High school, part 2: Returning as a success.’ That’s how I found you.”

“Whoa, slow down. That’s a lot of research. I’m flattered, really, and sort of stunned. It’s been so long. I made such an impression on you?”

“Yeah, dude, you really helped me to believe I could do things, or at least some things. So I wanted to tell you my news, in person. I got into college. I made it. Okay, not like Stanford or NYU like my sisters, but at least it’s college. UMass Amherst.”

“That’s great! I knew you could do it.” My heart was racing. Those words just slipped out of my mouth without thinking. Were they true? His turnaround was hard to believe. Maybe I sensed back then that he had it in him – if only someone else believed in him.

But back then, I didn’t know I had it in me. My brief friendship with him taught me that, instead of giving up, I should focus on what I could do, not what I had failed at.

It sounded like he learned that, too, and thankfully at an earlier stage in life. Almost like we had traveled on parallel tracks over the past ten years. Had I really set that ball in motion, for both him and for me? Like a jump-start for that little red car?

He dropped into my chair and spun around. He still had the energy of the eight-year-old kid. “Congrats to you, too! Big office, and a real cool job.”

“Thanks to you, Zach. Knowing you made a big difference in my life, too.”

He picked up the red car and revved it on my desk. “Vroom, vroom.”