The year my kids were two and seven, my husband, Michael, suggested that I complete the last two years of my bachelor’s degree.

“You’re kidding.” I was holding a lamb chop, chasing the two-year-old across the kitchen floor. Lamb chops were Sara’s favorite, so I broiled a couple for breakfast, my new strategy to tackle her recent hunger strike.

Down the hall, my son, Tony, was in pajamas, a dishtowel on his head, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, his final attempt to revive goldfish that had expired during the night. Once the grieving period ended, I planned to dispose of the fish and the fish tank. His next hobby would not include anything organic.

On his way to a weekend meeting, Michael was showered and shaved, wearing a navy pin striped suit, neatly pressed white button-down shirt and red and blue striped tie. I was in my career outfit too; ancient terry cloth bathrobe, fuzzy, yellow slippers and pink scrunchy holding back my overgrown ponytail. Later, I would change into my last pair of clean jeans and the tee that read, “Losing My Mind One Child at a Time.”

“I’m serious,” Michael pulled a local college brochure out of his briefcase. “I checked. After one math and one humanities class, you can matriculate as a junior.”

“Right,” I said, crawling out of the kitchen to catch up with Sara.

“Start with one class,” Michael said. “I’ll come home early and watch the kids.”

I caught Sara by her training pants and smiled. A night off. No kids to watch. No fish funerals. “Okay,” I said, maybe a little too enthusiastically. “We can try that.”

After Michael left, I put the Sara and Tony in the den with Mr. Rogers, kicked off my slippers, opened the brochure and looked for a class called, “Night Out For Adults”.

True to his word, for the next four months, Michael arrived home on Tuesdays at six. He kissed me as I left for class and tackled his work after the kids’ dinners, baths and bedtime.  I spent the semester learning set theory and mastering long division. I did homework during Sara’s naps or settled her on the kitchen floor where she showed real talent for reorganizing our pot cabinet. I was coming down with a cold when I took the final exam. I was not optimistic.

One week later, Michael arrived home carrying roses and a fresh bottle of cough medicine. “Congratulations!” He bent down to kiss my forehead. “You got an A in Arithmetic.”

“You’re kidding?” I asked, blowing my nose. “How do you know?”

“I stopped by school on my way home. Grades were posted.” He filled my glass with juice. “I knew you could pull this off. What’s next?”

I reminded him that given our scheduling challenges, my choices were limited to Tuesday nights between seven and nine. My best option was an advanced anthropology class, with a stern and demanding professor and lengthy take home exams. All worth it for the benefit of meeting Loretta, another escapee mommy.

By the end of my second semester, in addition to my new BFF, I had met other students equally desperate for adult conversation. I also discovered that the library was a perfectly  adequate surrogate for the spa visits I couldn’t afford. Since both kids would be in school in the fall, Michael and I cut a deal. I would register to matriculate and take four classes each semester until I completed the graduation requirements. If I pulled it off, I would graduate in two years.

Fall semester registration was scheduled on a brutally hot August afternoon. Pushing Sara’s stroller into the building, I had just two hours to get sign off from the department heads in both my major and minor, get the clerk’s official stamp, bring the stamped forms to the finance wizards, present everything to the cashier, make copies and return to the registrar to get a final stamp. After which, ice cream for Sara and a white wine spritzer for me.

My straightforward plan was immediately complicated by my three-year-old companion who needed trips to the potty, sippy cup refills and a new lollipop on every floor. Thirty minutes into our trek around the building, Sara’s face was a rainbow of candy colors. A trip to the dentist would be our next adventure.

I walked up three flights of stairs and headed to the Economics Department. My heart dropped. The line was a block long.  Emboldened by my A in Arithmetic, I planned to major in Economics, but given the line and the time crunch, it was a lost cause.  I looked across the hall and saw that there was no line for Anthropology. I abandoned my investment banking aspirations and registered as an anthropology major. Just around the corner, since no one was waiting to register for Classics, I confirmed my minor. I filled my schedule with Spanish and Philosophy. Mission accomplished.

Early in my first week of classes, I noticed that only my Classics professor was older than I was. An affable, intelligent woman, she was dedicated to Greek and Roman history and more importantly, not offended that her students were less interested in the travails of Odysseus than her reputation as an easy grader. My Spanish professor turned out to be an equal opportunity bully, who lived for moments to tease us about our accents and pronunciation. My anthropology professor, a Harvard trained PhD, was a serious scholar, with special affection for her adult students.

“Welcome to our returning adult students,” she announced on our first day in class, before asking me to introduce myself. “They have so much to add to our learning.”

In my most scholarly tone, I assured my classmates that while I was happy to add any wisdom I had attained in my thirty-one years, my primary expertise was the best method to extract a radish from a three year’s old nose.

My philosophy professor was fashion model gorgeous and a post-doc from Columbia. She had a CV that cited sixteen pages of her scholarly articles and two books, all written in the last five years and in translation on five continents. I was appropriately intimidated and took a vow of silence in her class. This did not stop her from calling on me, occasions for genuine panic.  If I responded incorrectly, I spent the day planning my career as a bike messenger. If I sounded like I knew what I was talking about, I practiced a Nobel acceptance speech.

In my final year, I considered getting a PhD of my own, a phase that lasted until I made the misguided decision to take a graduate class in Linguistics, a subject that required me to deconstruct the grammar of obscure foreign languages, both modern and ancient. Before I tackled our take home final, I asked Michael to bring home two bottles of Merlot. For two weeks, I struggled with the exam, an eighteenth-century text found on a remote south sea island. By the time I had deconstructed the grammar, translated the passage, and outlined the forty-two steps it took to achieve both, the Merlot bottle was empty. The upside was that Sara had reorganized my vanity for the new season, generously applying my Estee Lauder makeup to herself and her stuffed animals. We agreed that Sally Skunk was particularly on trend with bright pink lips and iridescent eye shadow.

When I turned in my exam, I had a flash of satisfaction and considered applying to  Harvard’s Linguistics program. But when my professor returned the exam without a grade, I headed to his office.

“Glad you stopped by,” he said. “I was hoping to chat.”

I nodded, holding back tears. I had failed. I wouldn’t graduate. I would never find work with this Linguistics blot on my resume. How would we pay our school loans? Michael would be shamed.

“Do you have your exam with you?”

I took the exam out of my bag, hands trembling.

“Can you explain your process?”

I ran through the logic of the forty-two steps I had used to solve the problem.

“Let me show you something,” he said, taking a piece of paper off his desk. His pencil raced across the page as he solved  the problem in four steps.

“Four steps?” I asked, holding back tears. “So, I failed?”

“Not at all. You’ll get an A.” He handed me a tissue along with his four-step solution. “Your exam was exceptional. You know, in all my years teaching, I’ve never had a student deconstruct a grammar with as much detail. I’m still trying to decide if it’s a good thing.  But study my solution. There’s a lesson here.”

In this, he was correct. The lesson was that my future did not lie in Linguistics. That conversation was the official end of my PhD period.

I waited until my final semester to fill my Physical Education requirement and opted for modern dance, the most benign form of exercise for an out-of-shape mommy. At our first class, I noticed that I was the only student over twenty.

“We’ll begin by stretching,” our teacher said. “Nice long stretches to warm up.”

This ensured that two days a week I arrived in class with the same thought. “I’m going to die.”

After stretching, we lined up to follow the instructor’s moves. I stayed in the back row, copying movements of the students up front. This worked well until our final exam, a performance piece to be created and performed with another student, randomly drawn. Here, the Gods were with me when I drew Nadia, the best dancer in the class. She created a program of leaps and turns and, after observing my obvious lack of dance talent, suggested I follow her lead.

All went well until our final move, intended to be a graceful glide across the gym floor.  I started brilliantly, one foot in front of the other, before my right foot slid forward, carrying me with it. As Nadia reached the far end of the gym and turned to bow to the class, I arrived, sliding on my butt and came to a stop at her feet.

“Splendid,” our teacher said. “Truly a statement piece.”

“Thank you.” I picked myself up off the floor. “Our piece represents life as a series of surprises.” I gave Nadia a high five. “We live to plan but must endure the unpredictable.”

The class cheered as I hurried to the shower to examine my bruises. Nadia went on to study at Juilliard. I was satisfied with my Pass in modern dance.

In January, I received official notification that I had completed my degree.  Commencement ceremonies were scheduled for May, but the universe had a plan and commencement was not on it. Instead, the family headed into the spring with a new visitor.

Chicken Pox.

The children had stayed surprisingly well during my last two semesters, so to compensate they spent the better part of the spring with the dreaded pox, covered in oozy, swollen pustules. One afternoon, a few weeks into chicken pox hell, the doorbell rang in the middle of the day. Someone had left a large envelope on the doormat.  I dropped it on the kitchen table and returned to pox watch.  Later, after dinner and calamine had been appropriately dispensed, Michael found the envelope.

“What’s this?” He asked.

“No idea,” I said. “I forgot all about it.”

“Mind if I open it?”

“Go for it,” I sighed.  “I’m too tired to open anything.”

Michael cut open the seal. Inside was a stiff white envelope. “Looks like someone sent you an envelope,” he laughed. He opened the inner envelope and pulled out an official looking parchment certificate. My official diploma had arrived.

“Well look at that.” Michael gave me a hug. “We are so proud of you.”

I heard the kids upstairs laughing, saw Michael smiling and took a breath. Maybe, just maybe, this was the start of something.

————

Lou-Ellen Barkan lives in the Berkshires where she teaches writing classes, runs a writer’s group and writes for her pleasure and, hopefully, for others. She holds a BA from Hunter College and an MA from Columbia University. Two children, six grandchildren, four dogs and three careers have produced enough material for a lifetime of stories, some of which are available at https://www.clippings.me/lebarkan