Household Gods

Miss Dolores, good preschool teacher that she was, asked The Question: “And how well are they trained?”

“Very well, I think,” Nicole answered. “Kimberley hasn’t had an accident in months.” She preened at that, too, and stood tall, as a big girl should. “Justin’s still learning.”

“That’s about right,” Miss Irma said. “He’s just a little fellow – aren’t you, Justin?”

“Big!’’ Justin countered, as contrary as any two-year-old worth his training pants.

Miss Irma laughed. “Big, then. But you’re still learning about going potty, aren’t you?”

“Go potty!” Justin replied.

“Now?” Miss Dolores asked.

“Now,” he said firmly.

She held out her hand. He took it. Nicole felt a tug as he trotted away, but she didn’t try to call him back.

Kimberley stayed with Nicole and Miss Irma through the rest of the daily procedure: the sheet on the door of each class on which each child was signed in and out, and the cubbyholes, each labeled, for the child’s work and for communications from the school. It was all very clear, very ordered, very – yes – efficient. Nothing like Josefina’s casual arrangements. Maybe that was as well. It wouldn’t remind the kids too forcibly of what they’d lost.

Just as Miss Irma finished showing Nicole where everything went, Justin came hurtling down the hallway. “Kiss, Mommy! Kiss!” Nicole caught him on the ricochet, whirled him around, and planted a loud, smacking kiss on his cheek. His answering kiss was sloppy enough to smear the powder on her cheek; she’d repair the damage when she got to the car. For now, it didn’t matter.

He was already wriggling to get down. She let him go, and scooped up the waiting Kimberley, whose kiss was a fraction more demure. Then Kimberley too was ready to make the break. For Nicole it was like ripping Velcro, but they seemed quite unfazed.

At the entrance to the yard, Nicole looked back. Kimberley was already playing with another girl about her age. Justin had found a ball and was chasing after it, yelling at the top of his lungs. They both seemed to have forgotten she existed.

She should have been pleased that they were so independent. She felt like crying.

The turn back onto Tampa from that miserable parking lot was a challenge, to put it mildly, but when she finally did get out to the street, she was only ten minutes’ drive from her office. This, I could get used to, she thought as she turned into the lot and found her space vacant as it should be. She’d almost wondered if it would be given away – as if she really had been away a year and a half.

Even before she got to the elevators, the wave of welcome had started. She gave up trying to find variations on Thank you. I never felt better, and settled for that one, canned line.

She’d more than half expected to feel depressed about returning to the place that had relegated her to a dead-end job, but the familiar spaces, the people she’d known for the whole of her working life in L.A., even the sight of her own cubby of an office and her secretary sitting in front of it, gave her a sense of being home again – just as she’d been in her house. This was her life, too, no matter how badly it had treated her.

Cyndi bounced up from her desk to give Nicole a giant hug. “It’s great to have you back,” she said.

“It’s good to be back,” Nicole answered. “You have no idea how good it is.” And isn’t that the truth? “Now let’s see if I remember anything about the law.”

Cyndi laughed, as anyone would who’d welcomed a lawyer back to work after a little over a week off. But Nicole meant it. She’d been away a lot longer than anyone knew.

Still, if her memory had gaps in it, she had her books and she had a computer. She might not be so quick with an answer as she’d been before, at least not at first, but the answers she gave would be the right ones. If law school had taught her nothing else, it had given her a solid grasp of combat research skills.

There was a small silence, which Nicole became aware of somewhat after Cyndi did. Cyndi broke it a little abruptly. “Everyone was upset about the way things happened,” she said. “Very upset. “ She hesitated. Then she went on, “I’m really glad you didn’t…” She paused again, looking for a safe way to say it. At length, she found one: “… you didn’t do anything foolish.”

You have no idea what a foolish thing I did. I had no idea what a foolish thing I was doing. “Not making partner isn’t the end of the world,” Nicole said from the perspective of a year and a half in another world and time. God knew, she hadn’t felt that way when Sheldon Rosenthal pulled the rug out from under her.