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  “Did you see that, Claire? That other kid—”

  “His name is Kyle.”

  “Whatever. He pushed LT over! He needs a serious time out, and if you’re not going to talk to his parents, I will.”

  “You know I can’t call a child’s parents every time there’s an isolated incident.”

  “Isolated incident! He did the same thing last week.”

  “Actually, if you’ll recall, it was LT who pushed Kyle that day. Kyle pushed back in retaliation.”

  “Retaliation my ass. I saw the whole thing.”

  “I’m sorry, Mandy, but I reviewed the video as per your request. LT was definitely the aggressor.” In fact, at this very moment, LT’s meting out his revenge on Sophie Taylor by stealing her snack. I’m sure I’ll be getting a call about that too.

  “Are you suggesting my son has anger-management issues?”

  “Of course not. I’m simply saying that three-year-olds, particularly three-year-old boys, often get in scuffles. You can’t read too much into it, no matter who the instigator is.” I glance fondly at the picture of Seth at that age pinned above the monitors. He’s smiling with a little-teeth grin, a perfect mixture of mischief and innocence.

  “Instigator!”

  “It’s only a turn of phrase.” I pause deliberately and lower my voice. “However, if you’d feel more comfortable removing LT from our care, you’re perfectly entitled to do so.”

  I’m playing my trump card. Every daycare in town is full to the max. Mandy isn’t going to give up her slot unless LT’s taken out of here on a stretcher.

  “I never said anything about taking LT out of Playthings,” she huffs.

  “Well, I seem to be getting a lot of these calls lately, and we do have an extensive waiting list.”

  I can hear her grinding her teeth. “I’m expressing concern for my child, Claire. I don’t think that deserves a threat.”

  “Now, now, calm down. You know we all love LT. We don’t want him to leave. I want you to be happy.”

  “I’m happy,” she says. “LT is happy.”

  “That’s great. So we don’t have an issue?”

  “No. Everything’s fine. I have to get to a meeting …”

  “Talk to you soon.”

  We hang up and I rest my head in my hands. I love running Playthings, I really do, but sometimes, particularly on the days when the Mandys of the world are in high gear, I wish I were back in the grown-up world, dealing with grown-up problems.

  Of course, that world was full of adults complaining about the way their babies were being treated too.

  Much to the chagrin of some of the parents, my lunch hour’s a sacred thing. I don’t accept calls—in fact, I can’t be reached at all, and unless you’re a fellow student at the music conservatory, it’s like I don’t exist.

  This is a rule I implemented soon after I started Playthings, when I was still being swept by the waves of sadness connected to why I chucked my law career and started the day-care in the first place.

  “You need to make time for something purely yours,” my doctor told me when I complained about having trouble sleeping, and the general listlessness I still felt. “Something that brings you joy. Did you have anything in your life like that? Before?”

  I could’ve taken the easy road and told him that what I used to do was run frantically between work and child care, that I hadn’t had time for anything else. I hadn’t had much time for me. Instead I said “Piano” in a small voice, even though I hadn’t played in years. I no longer even owned a piano; we’d left it behind when we bought the house because it wasn’t worth paying the extra money the movers wanted for something I touched only to wipe away the thin layer of dust that marred its glossy surface. It felt like an easy decision then, but now I wasn’t so sure it was the right one.

  “Piano it is,” Dr. Mayer replied in a voice that brooked no opposition. And something about it, something about how it was connected to me before, caught hold in my brain.

  I left his office and drove to the conservatory, which was located a few minutes away. I parked my car and looked through the windshield at the brightly painted building. Like Playthings, it was clearly a place for kids. I could see the child-painted mural inside made up of bass clefs and off-proportion guitars, a relic from my own childhood, many hours of which were spent in that very building. They gave adult lessons too, they always had, but the whole thing screamed Suzuki Method, and I almost didn’t go in.

  But I’d said I would, and so I did.

  In a few minutes, I had a lesson scheduled for the next day with Connie. The receptionist met my tentative request for Mr. Samuels, the kind teacher from my youth, with a blank stare.

  Connie turned out to be a taciturn Germanic blonde who had somehow ended up in Springfield. (“How?” I asked early on. “Complicated,” she replied in a clipped tone that invited no further questions. “We work on scales today.”) When she realized that I knew more than basic chord structures, she started giving me increasingly complicated pieces. And once my muscle/brain memory kicked in, I started to make something of them.

  I kind of hated Connie in those early days. (I suspect the feeling was mutual.) I complained to Jeff one night, a few lessons in, that Connie had missed her calling as a drill sergeant.

  “So quit,” he said as he stripped down to his underwear and climbed under the covers. “If you’re not having fun, fuck it.”

  I slipped in beside him, resting my back against the headboard. I flexed my fingers. They were full of a dull ache, like the early onset of arthritis.

  “I kind of feel like it’ll be fun eventually. Or maybe that’s the wrong word.” I paused, not knowing how to talk about looking for joy, and how it sometimes felt like it was just a few notes away.

  “Well, she can’t be the only game in town, right?”

  It turned out he was right, but the two younger teachers I tried were so used to the kids-who-were-working-just-hard-enough-to-appease-their-parents that they’d grown soft, their fingers slow. When I sight-read the pieces they’d put in front of me, saying “Now, this should be a real challenge,” they’d get these funny looks on their faces, like that wasn’t supposed to happen. One of them told me bluntly: “You should be playing with Connie.” The other simply “forgot” our lesson one day and never called me to reschedule. Either way, I got the message.

  So back I went and here I am, sitting on the hard piano bench in a room with perfect acoustics playing Debussy’s Reverie. Connie’s standing next to me, waiting to turn the page. My left foot’s working the damper pedal, my left heel’s keeping time. As the haunting melody tumbles out, I lean in, like I’m trying to catch the notes, gather them close. And now there’s un poco crescendo and the music’s flowing through my fingers, into my chest, suffusing my brain. The world is receding, receding, and yet I feel, for lack of a better word, alive.

  When I get home around five, Seth’s at the dining room table pretending to do his homework. But our in-need-of-replacement TV is still emitting that strange, staticky sound it does for the minute or so after it’s been turned off, so I can tell what he’s really been up to. Now what I need to decide is whether I’m going to call him on it.

  Letting Seth be home alone for the hour or so between when the bus drops him off and when Jeff or I get home is a new thing we’re trying since he turned twelve in February. He lobbied hard for the freedom, showing us that he was old enough, responsible. He kept his room clean, his grades went up, and he actually put down his PS-whatever-they’ve-gotten-to-now when we asked him to. We agreed to it on a trial basis until the end of the school year. If he doesn’t screw up, we’ll talk about making the arrangement permanent.

  It’s nice to have the extra money, though I miss the chats Ashley (Seth’s long-term after-school babysitter) and I used to have at the end of the day, the updates she’d give me about how Seth acted when Jeff and I weren’t around. As Seth gets older, the opportunities to observe him when he isn’t aware of it
are few and far between. Teacher-parent interviews, reports from his grandparents, my chats with Ashley, that’s about it. Now, if I want to know what my son really thinks, I’ll have to resort to spying.

  Seth raises his head slowly and gives me the smile that melts my heart every time I see it. I’ve steeled myself against it to a certain extent (I had to), but it’s worked on babysitters and women in grocery stores his whole life.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hey, buddy, how was school today?”

  “Same.”

  “You have a lot of homework?”

  “The usual. I’ll be done soon.”

  “It needs to be done before dinner,” I say in a tone that’s way too close to my mother’s.

  “Mom, jeez, it’s Friday.”

  I raise my hands in surrender and head to the kitchen, thinking about what’s in the fridge, wondering whether I should cook or if we should go out for dinner. Jeff mentioned something last night about having to fire someone today, someone he was upset about. Did that mean he’d rather go out or stay in? Out is a distraction; in might mean him drinking too much and brooding about it.

  Out it is, then.

  I pick up the phone and dial his work number. When he doesn’t answer, I try his cell. It rings and rings and then goes to voicemail. I glance at the clock. It’s five fifteen, about the time he usually gets home on Fridays. Maybe his meeting went long; firings are never easy. And it’s such a nice day out, he might’ve decided to go to the driving range and hit a few balls first. He doesn’t like bringing bad work energy home if there’s a way he can leave it behind.

  I spend the next hour working on a new piece Connie’s given me (Haydn’s Sonata in F Minor), working out the fingering, letting the notes linger in my brain as I tap them out silently on the kitchen table, and now it’s a quarter after six and Jeff really is late. Another round of calls to his cell and work phone get the same result as before, so I dig my cell out of my purse and text him: Home soon? I hold the phone in my hands, waiting for his reply, but none comes. Eventually, it powers down, like it’s tired of waiting.

  I feel a small trace of annoyance, but I brush it away. He often gets lost in whatever he’s doing. His focus is something that astounds me still after all this time. Getting mad about it would mean I was mad at something fundamental about him, which I’m not.

  But I am hungry. “Seth, do you want to order in?”

  Seth comes bounding into the kitchen like an eager dog, lunging for the drawer where we keep the takeout menus. After a small skirmish, we decide on pizza, Seth promising that he’ll eat at least one slice of vegetarian so he gets some vegetables today.

  Jeff still isn’t home by the time the pizza arrives, so we eat at the kitchen table while I gently probe Seth about his week. He dodges my questions like he always does, his mouth full of food, his answers a combination of “Jeez, Mom, honestly,” “Dunno,” and “All right, I guess.”

  I try not to take it personally. I try to remember how I was at that age, the secrets I kept.

  I let Seth take his last piece of pizza into the living room while he finishes his homework. I bring our dishes to the sink, which sits in front of a window overlooking our front lawn. I’m washing the dinner plates when I notice that it’s almost seven thirty, and now maybe I am mad that Jeff hasn’t even bothered to check in.

  A police cruiser slows to a stop in front of our house. There are two uniformed officers in the car. The one I know, whose name I can’t bring to mind though we went to high school together, is sitting behind the wheel. He’s gripping it like he’s girding himself to do something unpleasant. I watch them, curious, as they slowly exit the car, two burly men. I wonder if the neighbours’ teenage daughter is in trouble again, but it isn’t their walkway they’re lumbering up; it’s mine. My mind jumps to Seth. What could he possibly have done that’s worthy of police attention?

  Then my heart clenches with the sudden knowledge of why they must be here. My hands sit in the sudsy water, turning gently to prunes.

  They’re at the front door, and still I can’t move. They don’t look my way, just straight ahead, and push the bell, harder than they should. The chiming gong bounds through the house, a brassy sound I’ve never liked.

  All this happens in real time, not slowed down or speeded up, only the time it takes for them to walk to the front door and ring my bell, but it’s enough time.

  “Mom!” Seth yells. “You going to get that?”

  My brain is screaming Go to the door! Don’t let Seth be the one who answers it! but I can’t bring myself to move. In this, of all moments, I can’t bring myself to protect my son.

  “Really,” I hear him mutter as he clicks off the TV and shuffles towards the front door.

  Now my feet are moving, my mouth is open, but I can’t get the words out. I don’t beat Seth to the door, which is swinging open, revealing the officers. And my son, my beautiful, intelligent son, sees the unpleasant task in their faces, turns towards me with a look of horror, and runs.

  CHAPTER 2

  How the Promise Gets Broken

  “Have I got this right, Tish?” my best friend, Julia, asks in a distracted tone. “You’re saying you haven’t heard from this guy in a couple of days?”

  I’m lying on my dining room floor, the phone receiver cradled under my ear. I can feel the itchy wool rug beneath me, and the hardness of the wood floor it covers. There’s a string of old spiderwebs dangling from the plaster cornice on the ceiling. I have no idea how long it’s been there. I don’t usually lie on my dining room floor. I don’t usually have a reason to. But my heart feels like there’s a hand holding it, and that hand is squeezing, squeezing, so:

  “It isn’t the number of days, really, but that he hasn’t answered my email—” I stop myself before I add an “s.” I have to be careful here.

  There’s a hint of movement on my leg. It’s a small black ant. A line of them is marching across the floor from the kitchen. I don’t know where they’re going, but I seem to be in their way.

  “I still don’t get it. What’s the big deal?” Julia asks. Her three-year-old calls for her in the background. His father shushes him.

  And that’s the million-dollar question, because the big deal is what took me four hours to place this call. The big deal is what I’m still not sure I can say out loud, though I’ve got to say something now that I’ve got Julia on the line.

  “Tish,” she says when I’ve been silent too long. “This really isn’t a good time …”

  Here’s my out. I could let her go, give in to the fact that she doesn’t really want to know what I called to tell her. She might even forget we had this conversation. The taste might remain on her brain, but the substance would be gone, like the thought you have right before sleep, the invention, the perfect line, the thing you ought to write down and never do.

  I could let her go, but I don’t. Because I’m drowning here, on the floor, with the ants marching across me, the phone slick in my hand. If someone doesn’t pull me out, I may be lost forever.

  “Please. Don’t hang up.”

  “All right. Give me two minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”

  I almost laugh. If I could go somewhere, anywhere, I’d already be there.

  I hear the phone click onto the kitchen counter, and the brief negotiation with Ken about taking care of Will for a few minutes.

  “Yes, it’s important,” she says, followed by a mumble of assent.

  I listen to Will’s wail as his mother leaves the room, and Ken’s curse and immediate apology, like his three-year-old son would be mad at him for swearing.

  “Okay,” Julia says a minute later. I can hear the silence behind her. “I’m in the study with the door closed. What the hell’s going on?”

  I felt the first flutter of worry Friday night.

  After dinner and a movie with Zoey on the couch while Brian worked late, I realized Jeff had never written to say how the firing had gone. He’d been fretting about it so mu
ch, I was sure he’d be eager to tell me all about it. But when I checked my email, there was just the message he’d sent earlier in the day.

  How’d it go? I typed, and waited a minute for his response. When it didn’t come, I put my phone down and turned my attention back to Zoey, who was impatient to tell me the problems she had with Letters to Juliet, the movie we’d watched.

  Brian got home while Zoey was on point #7.

  “And why do the main characters always have to hate one another at the beginning of the movie? Like, hello, red flag. It’s so obvious they’re going to get together.”

  She stopped her tirade to run to the door and jump on Brian’s back, insisting he take her for a lap around the house even though, at eleven, she knows she’s kind of too old for it.

  Brian dropped his medical bag and complied. Zoey whooped with delight. I followed them through the kitchen to the dining room, and up the stairs to her bedroom. It was getting late, close to ten, and Brian ended his tour by dumping Zoey on her bed and pointing to the red, glowing numbers on the clock next to it.

  “You need your sleep, kid,” he said, his voice gravelly from a long day. “Big weekend.”

  “I know.”

  He rumpled her hair, and I kissed her cheek. Together we said, “Don’t read too late,” then we laughed, the three of us, the laughter following Brian and me down the hall to our bedroom.

  The sight of our soft king-sized bed made me exhausted. I began to undress.

  “Late one tonight,” I said.

  Brian loosened his tie. “Sorry about that. Harry’s kids had croup again.”