We had Isaac via IVF when I was forty-two and she was forty-one. Five rounds, six figures, and a lot of late-night arguments about whether I’d ever “show up” for him. He’s five now, all curly hair and big brown eyes, starting kindergarten at Dalton. Rachel bitches that I never spend time with him. Fair, I guess, since I’d rather review a 10b-5 disclosure than play Legos. So she made me start walking him to school. It’s three blocks from our co-op, a prewar with a doorman who nods at me like I’m a ghost while I walk past with my head down, praying he doesn't say anything.

I thought it’d be easy: drop him at the curb, wave, vanish. But no. The school’s got this sadistic rule: parents have to walk the kids inside, stand outside the classroom like cattle until the teacher, some chipper twenty-something in Birkenstocks, opens the door. Five minutes tops, but it’s five minutes of hell.

The other parents are unbearable. They’re all late-thirties, early-forties, glowing with that post-yoga, pre-Citron brunch energy. The dads wear Patagonia vests and talk about squash at the Yale Club; the moms clutch Stanley tumblers and trade gossip about co-op boards. They’ve all bonded, this little clique of gregarious schmucks. I stand there, hands in my pockets, staring at the linoleum, my nails scratching my thighs through my pockets until they bleed. I can’t talk to them. Even if I wanted to. It hurts too much. My brain’s screaming. Run, hide, bill something. But I’m trapped, sweating through my suit, praying Isaac doesn’t notice I’m a freak.

I dread it every morning. The anxiety’s a vise, tightening until I can’t breathe. Last week, it broke me. I’m in a client meeting -- some M&A hotshot from Goldman, mid-forties, gelled hair, asking about poison pill triggers -- and I just unravel. Mid-sentence, I stop, stare at the conference table, my anxiety-ravaged mind laser focussed on tomorrow morning's drop off. I mutter, “I can’t do this.” He laughs, thinks it’s a joke about the deal. I laugh too, but it’s not funny. I awkwardly excuse myself, lock my office door, and dry-heave into a wastebasket. Rachel doesn’t know. She’d call it “another episode.”

I try to fix it though: hire a nanny, Maria, twenty-four, Dominican, no nonsense, no English. She meets me at the school, takes Isaac inside, does the drop-off. Five minutes, a hundred bucks a day, cash. I stand outside, alone, scrolling doom-scrolling Westlaw on my phone to distract myself. It’s perfect. Until Rachel finds out. She’s rifling through my desk for God-knows-what -- probably my AmEx statement -- and sees the nanny’s number scrawled on a Post-it. She loses it. “You’re outsourcing drop off?!” she shrieks, her voice hitting that pitch that makes me want to claw my ears off. She’s pacing the living room, barefoot on the Persian rug, ranting about how I’m a “cold, selfish schmuck.” I don’t argue. She fires Maria that night, calls her herself, voice dripping with sanctimony.

Next morning, Rachel’s with me at drop-off, her arm hooked through mine like I’m a prisoner. She’s chatting up the parents -- “Oh, we loved that place in Montauk!” -- and shoving me into the conversation. “Tell them about your new Trans associate,” she says, elbowing me. I mumble something about the firm's DEI recruitment, my palms slick, my throat closing. They play along, but it’s pity. I’m a sideshow, the awkward husband with the big title but no soul. Blood from the cuts on my thighs drips down my leg onto my Ferragamo loafers as we walk out.

That night, I can’t sleep. It’s 2 a.m., Rachel’s snoring softly, and I’m staring at the ceiling, the drop-off replaying in my head like a deposition transcript I can’t shred. I get up, pad to my study, and pull out the Luger. My grandfather took it off a Nazi in ’45. Ironic, right? It’s heavy, cold. I sit there, turning it over in my hands, thinking about the parents, Rachel, Isaac’s little face. I don’t write a note. No point. I press the barrel to my temple, and it’s over. Quick, clean, preferable to one more day having to deal with people.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5696180&forum_id=2...#48759958)