anything that happened on the Blue Rabbit.
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Lane glanced over at Henry. His spoon was in his mouth,
the handle sticking out, but he wasn’t chewing. He wasn’t
moving. He looked as if he’d fallen asleep sitting up. “Hey buddy,” she said. “Better get going with that cereal or
we’ll miss the bus.”
He took the spoon out of his mouth and started chew-
ing. Slowly. He looked exhausted. It wasn’t a mystery
why. Her sister’s call had woken him up and it had taken
him forever to fall back asleep.
Lane briskly unloaded the few things left in the dish-
washer, wiping the bottoms of the cups that weren’t
completely dry before putting them away, and thought
about the call. She didn’t usually let herself get mad at
Shelley and when she did, she rarely let her sister know.
But this time she had. Maybe it was because she wasn’t
fully awake. Or maybe it was because her once reliably
steely self-control, which started to slip when Aaron died, was still not back in working order.
“What’s wrong with you?” was what she said to Shelley.
“I was sleeping. Next time you call me, look at the world
clock on your phone first. If it says it’s before six a.m.
here, wait.”
Shelley didn’t react, which was odd. “I need to tell
you something.”
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“No, you don’t. You call when you want to call. If it’s
morning for you, you think it’s morning for everyone.”
“Wow. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the
bed.”
“Wow. Someone woke me up at before dawn.” They
were both silent. “Can you please not call before six? I’m not getting enough sleep as it is.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“Thank you. What did you want to tell me?”
“Nothing.”
“You just said you needed to tell me something. What
is it?”
There was a pause, an intake of breath, a sigh, and
then, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to manage
Mom and Dad from a distance?”
Lane was unable to the stifle her laugh. Probably be-
cause she’d hardly slept. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. I called because Mom asked me to. She wants
to visit you.”
“You must have misheard. Mom never visits me.” Lane
thought about it. It was possible. Anything was possible.
“Okay, so, if she wants to visit me, why doesn’t she call
me? If you wanted to visit me, would you call her? Don’t answer that,” she said unnecessarily. “It doesn’t matter.
Visiting is a terrible idea. Henry’s still adjusting to a new school and a new house.”
“Adjusting to a new house is the one thing Mom’s
good at.”
“No, it isn’t. If she mentions it again, tell her not to
come. Can you do that?” She waited. “Please?” She sat
with her sister’s silence. It really was impossible to tell Shelley what to do. Her ears pricked up at a sound from
across the hall. She waited. It came again, louder. A cough.
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“Great. Henry’s awake. I told you it was too early to call.
I have to go.”
When she got to his room, Henry was pretending to
be asleep, but his lightly fluttering eyelids gave him away.
“Move over, buddy.”
He did. She climbed into bed and they both stared,
silent, out the window at the ash-colored sky. Henry was
unusually fidgety. He turned toward the wall, toward the
door, face down, face up. Finally, on his back, chest lit by moonlight, his breathing slowed. She waited a few moments, to be sure he was asleep. It was as she was gently
rearranging herself, to slip out of bed, that she noticed
the streaks on his face. Dried streaks of tears. It took her breath away, thinking about how he’d tossed and turned
and fidgeted, and all the while he’d been silently crying.
h h
h h
The last of the dishes put away, Lane looked over and saw
that Henry had moved his bowl aside so he could lay his
head down on the table. She felt his forehead. It wasn’t
warm. He wasn’t sick. He was tired, because her sister
had woken them up early for no good reason.
It took what felt like forever for Henry to finish his
breakfast and to put on his shoes and his coat. He trailed behind her as they walked. “Run,” she called. “I hear
the bus.”
Instead, he crept. By the time he reached the corner,
the bus was rattling down the street without them.
“It’s okay,” Henry said as if she needed consoling. “I
don’t mind. You can drive me.”
She did the math in her head as they hurried home;
Henry’s school was twenty minutes away, which meant
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twenty minutes there, twenty minutes to find a spot to
park and walk him from the car to the school, twenty
minutes back. Her day, already too short for what needed
to get done, was now even shorter.
“I think I know the bus route,” she told him. “Let’s
get in the car. If we hurry, I can catch it.”
“Hurry in the car?”
She stopped. The last time someone in his family had
hurried in the car it was his dad and that hadn’t ended
well. “You’re right. No hurrying in the car. Safety first.
I’ll stick to the speed limit on the way to school. I’ll stick to the speed limit always. Deal?”
“Deal.”
h h
h h
Mrs. Lindsey, the resource room teacher, was standing
guard at the door where the walkers came in. She agreed
to let Lane walk Henry to his class just this once. “They
don’t like parents in the halls,” she explained. “Security.”
“That’s fine,” Lane said. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“It’s okay,” Mrs. Lindsey said. “You didn’t know. Go
ahead. You can take him.”
The door to the classroom was open as children filed
in. Henry allowed her to kiss the top of his head and then disappeared into the scrum of classmates at the cubbies.
She breathed in the smells of his room—apple juice, old
lunchboxes, markers—and watched him stuff his coat
into his narrow cubby. From there he walked to a large
attendance book that lay open on a table. With great care
he wrote in his name. His tongue poked out from the
corner of his mouth; he was concentrating hard.
“Come on in,” Miss Fiske called over.
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Lane was about to enter when the teacher met her eyes
and shook her head. She wasn’t talking to her. “Francesca,”
the teacher called. “Come on in.”
Lane turned and realized she was blocking the door-
way. “Sorry,” she told the little girl and stepped aside so the child—Francesca—could scoot past.
“Be good,” a woman called out from behind her. The
woman stopped next to Lane. “Francesca,” she called to
her daughter. “I said be good.”
“I’m being good.” Fr
ancesca ran over to her teacher.
“I’m here, Miss Fiske,” she yelled.
“Inside voice, please,” said Miss Fiske as she walked
to the door, nodded to the two mothers, and shut it.
h h
h h
Lane was halfway down the hall when she realized the
other mother was calling her.
“Roxie!” The woman accelerated and caught up.
“I’m Claudine. The class mom. Francesca’s mom. You’re
Roxie, right? From the column?”
That got around fast. “I’m Lane. I write as Roxie.
There was a Roxie before me and there will be a Roxie
after me.”
“Really? I didn’t know. I adore Roxie. I guess that
means I adore you.”
“Thank you.”
“Want to know a secret? I used to wish I had a little
Roxie in my pocket. That way, whenever I had a ques-
tion, which is pretty much every second of every day,
she could tell me—you could tell me—what to do.” She
laughed. “I still wish it. My life is such a mess. I’m sure you’ve heard.”
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“Mmm,” Lane said and kept walking.
Claudine picked up her pace to keep up. “Sorry about
what happened on the bus.”
Lane gave a pleasant smile and accelerated.
“They really need to do something about that boy.”
“Mmm.” Lane pushed open the heavy steel doors and
walked out into a blaze of light.
“Is Henry still upset? I don’t blame him if he is. He
really is an awful boy.”
That got through. “Pardon?”
“I’m talking about Silas. The wild child. Makes trouble
wherever he goes. I’d be furious if I were you. Is that
why you came in? To talk to Miss Fiske? She’s no use,
by the way. You might as well talk to the wind. I always
tell parents, if something’s wrong you have to go to the
principal. If something big is wrong, you have to make
your husband go. Miss Oppido is an expert at tuning out
moms, but she’s terrified of dads. Oh no. I forgot. I’m so sorry. My condolences.”
“Thank you.” So news about Aaron had gotten
around too.
“Just so you know, Francesca wanted to tell Miss
Fiske, but Henry begged her not to so she didn’t. Out of
respect for his wishes.”
“He begged her? Henry talks to Francesca?”
“He doesn’t exactly talk. It’s more he whispers to her
and she shouts out what he said.”
Lane was vaguely aware that Claudine was still talk-
ing but she stopped listening; instead she imagined it:
Henry leaning over to cup his hand on the little girl’s
ear. A second later, the little girl shouting out what he’d said. Picturing it, she felt a pain in her chest, as if a bit of her heart had literally chipped off.
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“You’re surprised he picked her, of all people. I get
it. I hear it all the time. People say it to my face, a little Francesca goes a long way. She doesn’t mean to be
difficult.”
“That’s an awful thing for people to say. I think
Francesca has spunk. She seems like a great kid to me.”
“I know. And look-it, Henry could have picked any-
one in the class to talk to, but he picked her. So she can’t be all bad.”
“She’s zero bad,” Lane said.
“She’s very upset about what happened to Henry.”
“What exactly happened to him?”
“He didn’t tell you? Oh she’s going to kill me. I prom-
ised not to tell anyone, but I figured you already knew. I thought Henry spoke at home. At least that’s what Miss
Fiske told us.”
Lane quickly triaged the information. Miss Fiske had
told the parents that Henry didn’t speak except at home.
How had she told them? In an email blast? Was this
information passed along on a phone chain? Miss Fiske
should have discussed it with her first. They should have
made a plan together.
No. This wasn’t on Miss Fiske. It was on her. She should
have brought it up with Miss Fiske. She should have asked
Doctor Bruce for advice on how best to introduce Henry
to his new class. The problem was whenever she asked
those kinds of questions, Doctor Bruce always said the same thing. After she organized support services for Henry, her job was to treat him as if the next moment would be the
one when he would speak. Because eventually—he told
her this every time—he would. She had to have faith.
Doctor Bruce talked a lot about faith. He talked about it
as if it was something a person could just decide to have.
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Part of the problem was that it was hard to see Doctor
Bruce regularly now. She really needed to find someone
closer because— She stopped. Something had happened
to Henry. On the bus. She felt her cheeks get hot. “What
did the boy—what did Silas do to Henry?”
“I don’t know for sure it was Silas. It’s just, if anyone
is going to pull out hair, that’s who I think it would be.”
“Silas pulled Henry’s hair,” she said aloud and then
let out a sigh of relief. Kids pulled hair. It wasn’t fun but it wasn’t the worst thing.
“Pulled out,” Claudine corrected her and then mimed
a yank.
Lane’s hand reflexively went to the back of her head.
Shelley’s call, she touched his head and he jumped.
“—and then to threaten to pull out the rest if Henry
told,” Claudine was saying. “Awful!”
Lane sat down on the cool concrete steps.
Claudine sat next to her. “Don’t worry. None of the
other mean kids are mean to Henry. They like him. It’s
Francesca they don’t like. Because face it, she can be an-
noying. Henry’s not annoying. He’s quiet. No one minds
a quiet kid.”
“Apparently Silas does.”
“Here’s some good news: Silas is moving. Which is
a relief. Believe me, Henry isn’t the only one he both-
ers. I know because I volunteer at lunch on my days off.
You should volunteer at lunch. Everything happens at
lunch. I was there yesterday. Which is how I know Henry
isn’t mean to anyone. The mean kids—not Silas but the
other ones, the regular mean kids—they ignore him. I
wish they’d ignore Francesca. They might if she’d just
toughen up. She’s so thin-skinned. Everything bothers
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her. Literally everything. If I don’t cut the labels off her clothes, she’s beside herself. You know how many times
I’ve accidentally cut holes in brand-new clothes because
I was trying to remove a label that no other kid would
even notice?”
Lane felt the label on her own shirt start to tickle at
her neck. “That must be hard for her.”
“Well it’s no picnic for me, I can tell you that.”
Claudine got quiet.
Lane seized the moment. “I have to go. I have to get
to work. Thank you so much for telling me what hap-
pened
with Silas. Will you thank Francesca for me? Can
you tell her how much I appreciate her being a good
friend to Henry?”
“No. I can’t do that. I promised her I wouldn’t say
anything about Silas.”
“But I have to tell Henry you told me. I’m sure you
can understand.”
Claudine begrudgingly agreed that she did. “You real-
ize what’s going to happen is Henry’s going to be mad at
Francesca and Francesca’s going to be furious at me. But
okay. I get it. I’ll give her a heads-up that Henry’s going to dump her. Soften the blow.”
“He’s not going to dump her. He’s not that way. I
bet she’ll understand why you told me. Francesca seems
like a smart kid.”
Lane ignored that Claudine did not look convinced
and thanked her again. She was hustling to her car when
someone tapped her shoulder. She swung around.
It was Claudine. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.
I just forgot I need to ask you a favor. I hate asking for favors but given my situation…” She paused to give Lane
a chance to ask what her situation was. When no question
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came, she went on. “Could you take Francesca with you
tonight? Unless you have a full car. If you have a full car, I’ll try and find someone else. Which won’t be easy. I have to give Miss Fiske credit for putting Henry in Francesca’s group. Don’t worry,” she said. “I wasn’t a big fan of the
idea either. I mean a book group for first graders? That’s insane. You should have seen us all at back-to-school
night when she announced it. No one said anything but
you could see it on everyone’s face. The horror! Turns
out it’s not as bad as we thought. We alternate houses.
We eat pizza. We talk about the book for five seconds.
The kids play for an hour.” She eyed Lane. “Did Henry
not tell you about book group?”
No way Lane was going to admit that. “It’s tonight?”
“Oh no. Are you not on book group email yet? Can
you go? I can’t. I’m on call. Hospice nurse. Don’t look so impressed. I’m not a saint. I’m comfortable with bodily
fluids and death is all. Probably no one will die tonight, but you never know. I get that it’s a ‘parent-child’ book
group but should Francesca be penalized because I’m on
call in case someone dies? Unless—do you think Henry
won’t want her to come with you because she squealed
about Silas?”
As a general rule, Lane was not a fan of favors. She
found the culture of reciprocation more nuanced than