Sarah raised her eyebrows at Julie and me. “Isn’t it a little cold for a picnic?” Julie just shrugged and pulled the zipper of her jacket up before cheerfully heading for the wrought-iron patio set on the courtyard. I admired her ability to move forward, both literally and figuratively, because it wasn’t one of my strengths—I have a tendency to dwell on the negative.
“I hope the coffee’s hot,” Sarah said in a low voice as we brushed leaves off the table’s matching ironwork chairs. “We’re going to need it.”
Heather came back out the door carrying a silver tray with a porcelain coffeepot and cups. “Oh! I forgot the cream and sugar—I’ll get them,” she said as she set it on the table. And before any of us could protest or offer to help, she darted back into the house.
“Does she seem nervous to you?” Sarah asked as Julie began pouring coffee. So I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. I felt a small surge of pleasure at having my observation supported. Before Julie or I could respond, Heather came back out with a small white porcelain creamer and a glass bowl heaped with sugar cubes.
“I couldn’t find the matching sugar bowl,” she said. “I have no idea what happened to it.” She chattered away, asking who wanted cream or sugar and adding it to each of our cups as if this were all perfectly normal. The cold metal from the chair seeped through my jeans and I tried to hide a shiver. We all followed Heather’s lead and acted as if it were just another summer day and not late October.
“Did you sell the Tillman house yet?” Heather asked Julie, referring to a home that had been the bane of Julie’s existence for more than six months. The owners, an older couple whose home was desperately in need of updates, were stubborn and wouldn’t accept the lower offers they’d gotten despite having already retired to Arizona.
“I can’t wait until their contract is up,” she said. “Let them try to tempt another real-estate agent with the promise of a big commission that they’re never going to see. Good riddance!”
“Their son is just like the father,” Sarah said. “He’s the soccer coach for the peewee team and everyone’s just waiting for him to step down so another parent can step up and replace him.”
“Speaking of stepping up, did you decide about the PTA fund-raiser, Heather?” Julie looked at her expectantly.
“What fund-raiser?” I said, warming my hands on the mug of coffee.
“The parent-child fashion show. I think it was Shelly Schwartzman who proposed the idea and I immediately thought of Heather. I mean, how great would it be to have our own real-life model modeling?”
“That was another life, I haven’t modeled in years,” Heather said, shaking her head with a small smile.
“But you were a model and I can guarantee you that none of the other mothers participating can say that. And we’re not being sexist,” Julie said as an aside to Sarah. “Fathers are welcome to participate, too, but we don’t have any takers so far.”
“You should do it, Heather,” I said, trying to be supportive of Julie’s idea. “You could teach everybody how to walk the runway.”
Before Heather could comment, Sarah’s son, Sam, hit Daniel because he’d slammed into Sam and his plastic truck, which he’d been busy running up the slide as Daniel was coming down. Both kids began wailing, and Sarah yelled her son’s name before running toward them.
“Oh, shit.” Heather dropped her cup on the table and sprinted after Sarah. The wailing increased for a moment as the other kids stopped to stare.
“Daniel’s got a boo-boo,” Matthew said, looking from me to the two older children, who were being both admonished and comforted by their mothers. He’d found his way to my side, as he did any time something upsetting happened. I put my own coffee down and hoisted him into my lap, relishing the way his small body curled into mine. “He’s okay,” I crooned, rocking him a little as he fiddled with the zipper on my coat. He didn’t like conflict, my little boy, whimpering any time he heard arguing or saw fights between other children.
“Better hope he grows out of it or he’s going to get eaten alive in school,” Michael had commented recently, but without any rancor.
“Oh no,” Julie moaned, startling me. I turned to look at her, but she’d stood up and was staring at the children. “He’s bleeding,” she said.
I slid Matthew off my lap and stood, shading my eyes to see Heather cupping a hand under Daniel’s mouth before lifting him into her arms and hustling back toward the house.
Sarah was yelling at a crying Sam, and as Julie rushed to help Heather, I hustled over to try to calm Sarah down. She seemed oblivious to the fact that the remaining children, including her youngest, Josh, were standing stock-still, looking from Daniel to Sam and then to us, trying to decide on their own reactions by gauging their mothers’.
Matthew trailed after me, whimpering and calling, “Mommy, come back,” while Sarah interrogated her wailing son as if he were a hostile witness: “I asked you a question. Did you hit Daniel with your truck?”
“It was just a little disagreement,” I said, trying to placate, only to have Sarah wheel on me.
“I’ll thank you to stay out of it, Alison,” she said in her most snippy, lawyerly tone. “This really isn’t any of your business.”
Before I could respond that she’d made it my business, I heard Julie exclaim “What happened?” in an agitated voice.
Both Sarah and I turned to see her standing inside Heather’s back door. If Heather responded, we couldn’t hear it. Julie looked back at us, mouth opened in an O of surprise.
I headed toward the house, hearing Sarah behind me say hurriedly to Sam, “No hitting, you know that.” She caught up with me as I approached the back door.
Julie had stepped fully inside, but she hadn’t gotten far. Heather’s huge, usually immaculate kitchen was trashed, cabinet doors ajar, plates and glasses smashed across the tile floor. The dishwasher stood open and most of the plates inside it were broken, too, and someone had overturned the cutlery bin.
Daniel was wailing somewhere off in the distance. Without saying a word, Julie stepped over the mess and began quietly picking up forks and knives from the shards of ceramic and glass, arranging them carefully on the marble island as if that small act could restore order to the space.
Sarah swore under her breath. “Who did this?” Her question came out as whisper. We were all tiptoeing in the space, because there was no way to deny that this was something absolutely awful and ugly.
I whirled on her. “Who the fuck do you think did it?” I snapped. “Daniel?”
She blinked at me, too stunned by my response to reply. I took a broom and dustpan from a tall cabinet and began sweeping up glass and pottery shards. After a moment, Sarah began cleaning out the rest of the dishwasher, putting unbroken plates in the cupboards and gently closing the doors. A block of knives on a counter had been knocked over, the wicked-looking steel blades spilling onto the marble. I set it upright, being careful not to cut myself.
We worked in silence for several minutes, and I don’t know what they were thinking, but I was feeling that all-too-familiar, sick twist in the gut that I’d felt ever since I saw the bruise on Heather’s arm.
We’d gotten the kitchen back into some kind of order when Heather came back, still carrying Daniel, who was tearstained but calm, and holding an ice pack against his swollen lip. Heather’s shirt had bloodstains on it, and even knowing they were Daniel’s, I still flinched when I saw them.
“You didn’t have to clean up,” she said, her voice a mixture of embarrassment and defensiveness. We stood there, all of us, and stared at her. Heather avoided our gaze, focusing on her son, whom she held awkwardly against her hip, smoothing his hair from his face. At last, Julie cleared her throat.
“What happened?” she said in a hushed voice, fiddling with the lineup of forks and knives.
“Nothing,” Heather said. Still holding Daniel, she took the broom from me and stuck it back in the cabinet. “Look, I appreciate your help, but I’ve got it from here. Let’s go back outside.” She stepped toward the door, but Sarah blocked her path.