Did you make a new friend today?” At the start of each new school year, my mother would ask that question when I stepped off the bus every day until she was satisfied that I’d reached out to the whole class. I never quite understood why I needed to designate myself as the social chair or the goodwill ambassador of the elementary school. I had plenty of friends and wasn’t pining for more. But still, I complied … until I uncovered a hypocritical streak beneath her line of questioning. Because apparently her definition of a new “friend” had limitations.
“I swear to God,” I overheard her telling someone on the phone one day, “you should see these ragamuffins she drags home. They’re like stray cats. I’m afraid that if I feed them a snack they might never go away.” Our neighborhood at that point was what some might politely call transitional. Only it was transitioning in the wrong direction. By the time I hit junior high, we were out of there.
Evidently, though, I took my knack for finding choice companions with me.
I’m not blaming my mom. I know I have no one to blame but myself. But I do wish she’d prepared me a bit better for the importance of judging character up front. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: She needn’t have worried so much about the strays. Sometimes the meanest, most feral cats of all are the ones with a pedigree.
11
There seems to be some confusion about our no-tattling rule. Let us be clear: We appreciate that certain things warrant being brought to the caregivers’ attention, for safety reasons. Children at this age, however, have difficulty distinguishing where that line is. Thus, let’s focus their energies on a more easily learned line—where the offending party recognizes the need to do the right thing. We stand by our policy: The ONLY tattling we will tolerate is from those who have the good judgment to tattle on themselves. Those who do will not be disciplined, but praised.
—Letter from the Circle of Learning director, Pam, sent home to all parents
“Mommy, you count to ten and I’ll go hide behind the curtains in the dining room. Ready, go!”
Clara stifled a laugh. “Thomas, hide-and-seek only works if you don’t tell me where you’re going to hide. I’ll count and you pick a new place, okay?”
“But the curtains are a great hiding place!”
“But you just told me you’re going to be there. I already know.”
“Okay. Close your eyes—no peeking! I will go hide now—and do not look behind the curtains.” Thomas pointed an ultraserious finger at her, then backed toward the hallway.
Clara shrugged and covered her eyes with her hands. “One,” she began. “Two … Three…” She hoped she wasn’t being loud enough to wake Maddie. Thomas was usually tired out on the afternoons when he’d spent the morning at preschool, but today he’d only stared at her wide-eyed after lunch and story time came and went. “Do you want to skip your nap just this once and play a game?” she’d ventured. He’d be cranky by dinnertime. But she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts anyway. She’d seen patrol cars come and go from Paul’s house again yesterday afternoon, and the uncertainty about what was happening or not happening was driving her mad.
Plus, she knew it was selfish, but it wasn’t just that she was worried about Kristin. It was that she was starting to miss her.
“Ready or not, here I come!” she called.
Maniacal giggling came from the dining room.
Clara hadn’t needed Detective Bryant’s reminder of what she’d witnessed years ago to be mindfully grateful for what she had. Even at her most exhausted, she relished the off-key notes of Benny singing in the shower, the Muppet-like form of Thomas’s bed head, the new fascination Maddie had with sticking out her tongue and going cross-eyed trying to see it.
The charming inability of her preschooler to grasp the parameters of hide-and-seek.
Loudly humming the Pink Panther theme song, she made her way into the kitchen. She opened a silverware drawer and loudly rustled the forks. “Thomas, are you in here?”
“No!” came a loud whisper. “Mommy. I’m behind the curtains. In the dining room.”
So much for putting on a show. Clara rushed around the farmhouse table and threw the curtains back dramatically. An exposed Thomas dissolved into giggles. “You thought I was in the kitchen! I fooled you! I fooled you!”
“You did,” Clara said, bending to fold him into a hug. “You, my clever boy, are today’s hide-and-seek champion.”
“It’s okay, Mommy,” he said, patting her primly on top of the head. “You’ll win next time.”
“Another day,” she told him solemnly. “It’s time to get Hallie off the bus!” Clara slid the baby monitor into her pocket and Thomas slipped his hand into hers as they headed out and down the front porch stairs.
“Can Abby and Aaron still come to my birthday party?” he asked.
Clara hesitated. They’d simply told Thomas that Kristin and the twins were on a trip and they didn’t know for how long. His birthday was still months off, but she’d observed that parties were the weapons of choice in the precarious social structure of preschoolers. If someone wouldn’t share the fire engine, it wasn’t the “You’re not my friend anymore” pout she used to see from Thomas months ago. Now it was “You’re not invited to my birthday party!”
“I hope so, sweetie.” He’d attended the twins’ party back in May, at Young’s dairy farm, where a whole gaggle of kids—Kristin invited half the school—had climbed giant tractor tires and fed goats and rode the little cow train. Paul had accused Kristin of purposely picking a Saturday he had to work, which of course she had. “What does he care?” she’d muttered to Clara. “This party exceeds his kid tolerance by the small factor of a couple dozen kids.”
Kristin was radiant that afternoon, her loose curls shining in the sunlight beneath a cowboy hat that matched the little woven ones she’d bought as favors for all the kids. Paul was sleeping in the guest room by then, making arrangements to move out, and that day, she looked more than just happy. She looked free.
Thomas broke his grip on Clara’s hand and ran for his tree swing as she headed down the walk. A white van was backing out of Paul’s driveway, and she stopped cold as she caught sight of the name on the side: WALT’S WINDOWS. The doctor stood with his back to her, holding a yellow paper she took to be his invoice, and she reflexively stepped back under the cover of the old oak, where Thomas was situating himself between the ropes. “Mommy, can you give me a push?”
She moved to comply, and her eyes flicked toward the corner, where Hallie’s school bus was set to appear any minute. A dark sedan was crawling around the bend. She gave Thomas a firm starter shove and stepped aside—he’d protest if she gave him more than one. As the van pulled away, the sedan swung swiftly into Paul’s driveway, and through the open window she caught sight of a frowning Detective Bryant.
“You replaced the broken window, Dr. Kirkland?” he called out, putting the car into reverse. “Wish you’d checked with us first.” The car backed onto the street, then crawled forward along the curb, headed back the way it came.
Paul’s voice was smooth, calm. “I didn’t realize it warranted checking, Detective. Certainly if you’d instructed me to leave it, I’d have complied.” Clara sucked in a slow breath, feeling the blood drain from her face.
Detective Bryant barked a laugh. “I apologize for getting sloppy with my instructions. I assure you, it won’t happen again.” Without waiting for a response, he accelerated too fast toward the corner, where the van had just disappeared, and whipped past the stop sign without pausing, close on its heels.
An angry horn sounded in the distance, and Paul turned on his heels without a glance in Clara’s direction. She heard his front door slam just as the school bus came into view.
Clara shivered in the warm air. What had she just seen? An innocent misstep? An overreaction? A cover-up?
Beside her, Thomas was pumping his little legs hard now, swinging higher and higher, and he let out a whoop as the bus groaned to a noisy stop at the curb and the doors snapped open.
“Hey, Chief!” Hallie shouted, bounding across the lawn. “The first edition of The Color-Blind Gazette is underway!”