Driving Him to His First Job

My son got his first job this summer, at a bakery in town. He's sixteen. His shift starts at five a.m. He doesn't have his license yet. So every morning in July and August, I drove him there in the dark.

At first, we didn't talk. He was half asleep, and so was I. But after a week or so, something shifted. Maybe it was the dark, or the quiet roads, or the fact that we didn't have to look at each other. He started telling me things.

He told me about the girl he likes. He told me what he wants to study in college. He told me he was nervous about the job because the head baker, a big man named Ray, yelled a lot. A week later, he told me Ray had taught him how to make croissants and said he had "good hands."

At the end of the summer, on his last shift, he came out of the bakery at noon with a white box. Inside were six croissants he'd made himself. "These are for you," he said, "for all the driving." I ate one in the car. It was perfect.