What my son taught me the year I lost my job

When the warehouse closed I did what I think a lot of men do. I kept leaving the house at seven in the morning. I sat in a café, then in the library, then in the car. I came home at six and said the day was fine. I did this for three weeks.

My son is nine. He is not stupid. He noticed that I was suddenly home in the afternoons when he got back from school, because I had run out of places to sit. One day he asked me to help with his fractions, and I did, and when we finished he looked at me and said, "Papá, do you not have a job anymore?"

I told him the truth. I expected him to be scared, or ashamed of me, the way I was ashamed of me. He thought about it for a moment and asked if that meant I could help with homework every day. I said yes, for now. He said good, because his mother is bad at fractions.

What he knew that I didn't

He didn't measure me by the job. I did. For him, the only thing that changed was that his father was at the kitchen table. That was a better deal, from where he was sitting.

I found new work after five months. It pays less. I leave at seven and I am home by five, and twice a week I still do the homework. He is eleven now and I am worse at his math than his mother ever was. He hasn't noticed yet. Or he is being kind.