Full Circle

We pull up to the curb of the school yard, in the same spot we always do. Her friends are waiting at the edge of the property for her. They're a huddle of pre-teen excitement with long strands of hair swirling around them in the wind. They spot my blue car a mile away. As we approach, they inch closer to the edge of the school boundary, waving and smiling; A greeting she has received every day for as long as I can remember.

"Who's that?" I ask her, pointing to a girl hovering just outside of the circle. A girl pulling at her backpack straps and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. A girl who looks just like the others, with long coffee brown hair, middle part, nervously tucking and re-tucking behind one ear. Jeans too-short for her rapidly changing body.

"She's new," my daughter says.

I glance again at the group of giggles, the impatience now reverberating back to the car. I sense my daughter's growing eagerness to join them, but I have questions.

"Why isn't she included in the circle?" I ask.

"She is. We hang out with her, Mom." A slight eyeroll accompanies her statement.

She reaches for the door handle, at the same moment my memory reaches back to a time long before I was a mom, or a wife, barely an adult. A time fresh out of college, when I spent my days in a high-rise office building full of grey and taupe and echoing hallways, as an Advertising Assistant. Another life entirely. I can still remember every detail of my cubicle, every silly little memento I hung on my corkboard to remind me of home, of who I was outside of those walls.

It was not uncommon in the Advertising industry for people to enter and exit agencies so quickly you may never know their name. In fact, I, too, am one of those people, having spent only two short years in that life before retreating back to my hometown in search of a simpler life. There is one name, however, that I recall now and again, and as my daughter reaches for the door handle, his name bubbles to the surface, as if nudging me.

The day we met, I went to retrieve a report from the photocopy room and there was a person sitting at a desk inside that small space. A makeshift office for a new-hire.

"Oh," I gasped, startled to find someone there. We exchanged names and shook hands. Kabir, he'd said. He was small in stature with caramel coloured skin and inky black hair, cropped short and parted on the side. We joked about his cushy space (at least you have a door!), and the heat from the printer warming him up.

Every day after that, as I retrieved my reports we made meaningless chitchat, something that likely happened to Kabir all day long. Unremarkable conversations. As lunchtime approached each day, and our media crew discussed which pub we wanted to eat at, I would pop my head into Kabir's "office" and ask if he wanted to join. He rarely accepted, but it became habit to offer as we pulled on our coats and piled out of the building each afternoon.

One day, Kabir approached my cubicle which made a few others turn to see what was happening.

He cleared his throat.

"Can I talk to you for a second?"

I swiveled in my chair and smiled towards Kabir standing there, looking nervous for some reason. "What's up?" I asked.

Kabir told me he had put in his resignation and would be leaving the agency. Since it was his last day, he had wanted to tell me that he was grateful that I asked him to lunch each day, even though he rarely accepted the invitation. That it helped him feel welcome and accepted.

I was shocked and left speechless. All I could stammer out was, "of course. I wish you accepted the offer more often. We will miss you here. And who will I talk to now when I retrieve my reports?" we both laughed.

That conversation now plays in my mind as vivid as the day it happened. I watch my daughter's friends waiting in the huddle for her, with one just outside of reach. Before my daughter opens the door, I quickly share the story of Kabir.

She exits the car just as she has every day for as long as I can remember. She crosses the street and walks towards her friends the same as every other day, only this time, she continues past them and stands beside the new girl. As I drive away, the huddle closes in around them. One full circle.

(*the names in this story have been changed.)