Pam cleared her throat, and Clara could tell she was trying to work out how she might holistically tell Clara that the decision was not up to the parent.
Clara lowered her voice. “Not that it should matter, but—off the record—I have it on good authority that the investigation next door won’t be actively ongoing after this week.” She leaned forward, careful to keep any smugness from her voice. “Ergo, we won’t be associated, however tangentially, with any more ‘distractions.’”
Pam dropped her professional fa?ade and knitted her brow in concerned lines. “But that means they’ll stop looking? For Abby and Aaron?” She wrung her hands on the desk in front of her, and Clara sat back in her seat, caught off guard.
“Not necessarily,” she said. “Just until something new comes in.”
“Is that as unlikely as I think it is?”
Clara shrugged. “The twins’ father might be hiring his own investigator.” She wasn’t sure why she said it. She was trying to distance herself from this, not reestablish herself as the closest contact to the drama.
“Whatever for?” Pam snapped. Her hands clenched into fists, and she looked up toward the ceiling. “Never mind,” she mumbled. “I know what for.” She shook her head. “Sorry. It just strikes me as … insincere.”
Clara nodded carefully. “Detective Bryant did say he thinks we all need to accept that things might be left as they are. To move on. Which is what I’m here trying to do. I’m sure you can understand…”
But she could tell Pam’s mind wasn’t on Thomas. She took the wizard hat off her head and sat it on the edge of the desk, sighing heavily as she ran a hand over her hair to smooth it. “Frankly, I was hoping you might turn something else up,” she said. “That newspaper was such a gift to Kristin, though no one can say it out loud. I think I even thought that seeing you and Thomas out playing, without his usual playmates, might get to Dr. Kirkland. Convince him to own up to … whatever there might be to own up to.”
In all the times she and Kristin had chuckled about Pam—from her oxymoronic “rules for fun” to the political correctness of even the most benign holiday parties (“the notion of a leprechaun may be perceived as disrespectful to little people”)—and as much as Clara had been missing those chats more than ever, she had never, until now, stopped to consider Kristin through Pam’s eyes. The impeccable parent with impeccable children who made everything look easy. The doctor’s wife who had it all but made sure to pay it forward. The all-star activities volunteer with a table full of handmade party favors, right until the end.
How many hours must the women have spent together? Clara could picture them standing on chairs, laughing, after the recycled newspaper streamers hung for Recycling Week had come loose and tangled the twins as they walked through the door. And though there were several sets of twin parents at the Circle, Kristin had been the one Pam stopped, en route to the parking lot with Clara, to ask if she might meet with a new mom to offer tips on managing the morning drop-off. (Clara had often thought that if she could not so much as drop her kids at day care without enlisting the aid of a massive double stroller, she’d never have the energy to leave the house.) It was Pam who had, with expert efficiency but also empathy, handed Kristin the whole box of tissues the afternoon Aaron sprained his wrist and Kristin burst into tears at the mere thought of him in such pain. Pam might not have known the real Kristin—or, rather, the whole Kristin—any more than anyone else did, but of course she’d cared about her, and especially her kids.
Maybe Clara wasn’t the only one with certain blind spots.
Clara blinked at her. “Surely that’s not the real reason you asked us to stay home?”
She stared back for a beat too long. “Of course not.” Clara wondered if she knew something more than she was letting on, then decided to let it drop. She could hardly fault Pam for having Kristin at the center of her thoughts. Frankly, if she’d known the director had felt this way all along, she might have thought of her as an ally. But that wasn’t why she was here. This wasn’t about Kristin anymore.
It was about Thomas.
“I want you to know I get your earlier point, about how your job is to have the best interest of all the children at heart,” Clara said. “And I know you requested a cooling period after Benny reacted badly to your judgment call. I’ve respected your wishes, but now I need to get back to doing my job. Which is to have the best interest of my child at heart. He wants to come back. I want him to come back. His dad wants him to come back. Please.”
Pam studied her for a moment, then nodded. “I’m sorry if—” She grappled for the right words, then gave up.
A whoosh of ribbons announced Miss Sally’s return. “Two kits,” she announced triumphantly. Clara stood, and Miss Sally met her eyes as she took them. “Thomas usually went trick-or-treating with the twins, didn’t he?”
Clara nodded, glancing at Pam for good measure, lest she rethink what she’d just agreed to. “That’s why he’s so excited for the Halloween party here, I think,” Clara said. “There aren’t a lot of other kids on our block.”
“I was thinking about that,” Miss Sally said. “I know it’s a small town and you could head anywhere, but you have an open invitation to start and finish at my house, if you’d like. I’m on the other side of campus and can’t pass more than a couple of driveways without running into a Circle of Learning kiddo out playing. He’d have plenty of company, plenty of fun. Maddie too.”
“That’s really kind,” Clara said. “Thanks. I’ll run it by Benny.”
She tucked the craft kits into her purse and turned to leave.
“About the Halloween party,” Pam called out. Clara turned, and the director’s all-business smile was back. “There’s still time to sign up. Thomas’s class is set on snacks, but there are open slots for party favors.”
“Oh, sure,” Clara said, relieved at escaping another year of veggie scarecrow assembly. This sounded easier: Grab and go. “What’s the head count now—eighteen?”
Pam nodded. “Of course, we want to be sensitive about how some families choose not to celebrate Halloween per se. Nothing too blatantly scary—witches, vampires, things that could be associated with death, or the occult.”
“Nonscary Halloween. Got it.”
“We’re also trying to steer away from superheroes and princesses. We don’t want to encourage violence, or dated gender roles, poor self-image…”
“Of course.”
“Wonderful. Oh, and none of those temporary tattoos. Some parents are having an issue with the fact that they can only be properly removed with rubbing alcohol.”
Clara hid a smile even as she wondered what was left. If someone had to step up to fill Kristin’s shoes, it might as well be her. And if she fudged the rules here and there, or if what she contributed was a little uneven, so be it. At least it would be honest.
She swept the wizard hat off the desk and placed it gallantly on her head. “Challenge accepted.”
38
Don’t keep good news to yourself!
—The Color-Blind Gazette “Contact Us” column
Izzy was cocooned sleeplessly in bed, the house dark around her. But for once she wasn’t awake because she was stuck thinking about Josh. And it wasn’t the sweet detective who’d taken his place, nor was it Paul, much as the run-in at Moondance had left her cringing and uneasy.
It was Penny.
After Detective Bryant had left, she couldn’t stop thinking about one of the last things he’d said: “I can only say who I think he’s not. Those descriptions don’t add up for me.” It put her in mind of what Clara had told her of Kristin’s estranged sister, who had felt all along that something wasn’t right. And Izzy had pooh-poohed it. Sisters don’t always know.