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I feel myself start to relax just a little. Maybe this is actually going to be okay. I fill out a bunch of paperwork, and listen to the principal explain the plan for Dylan’s adjustment to school, but at this point it’s so much white noise. I’ve heard it all before from Susan, how he needs a 504 plan until he can get an IEP—phrases I’d never heard before now, but meant he would get the help he needed in school. The IEP, or Individual Education Plan, comes with an official diagnosis, and how the steps of the plan will be reviewed weekly, in a meeting with the principal, the classroom teacher, the special education assistant, and Susan, who will inform me of any changes.
It reminds me that even though I have the most responsibility for Dylan right now, even though I’m the one tucking him in at night and making sure his teeth are brushed, I don’t get any say in things like this. I just get to be kept informed.
Ten minutes later, it’s time for me to say goodbye, and suddenly my throat goes tight. I’ve only known this little boy for
a week and a half, but right now he’s looking at me with his big hazel eyes full of so much trust and yet also fear, and I feel as if I’m betraying him… which makes me wonder, uncomfortably, how Beth must feel.
“So you’re going to stay at school, Dylan,” I say, crouching down so I’m eye-level with him. I’ve told him this before, but it bears repeating now. “And I’ll pick you up at the end of the day, at three-twenty. And then you can tell me everything that happened, okay? All the exciting things you did.” Why I’m suddenly acting as if he talks, I don’t know, and yet I know he’ll find a way to communicate with me, just as I’ll find a way to understand. “All right, bud? Okay?”
“Say goodbye to Ally now, Dylan,” the principal says firmly. She’s put one hand on his shoulder and I can tell he doesn’t like it, although he doesn’t move. He simply looks at me with that fathomless, unblinking stare, and I want to hug him, but I don’t know he’ll react and it’s clear the principal and special ed assistant both want me to leave as quickly as possible.
So I do, straightening with a smile, giving him a little wave, and then walking quickly out of the building. I don’t know why I’m so close to tears as I head back to the car, forcing myself not to look back even once.
Two weeks ago, I’d never even heard of Dylan McBride—now I know his last name, along with his birthdate, his height, his weight, the bedtime stories he likes, the fact that his favorite color of Lego brick is green. A couple of days ago, I was half-hoping his mother would get him back. What has changed now, that is making me feel as if I’ve left part of my heart back in that school? Everything and nothing, and I don’t even know why.
I think of his grin as he handed me the puzzle piece a few days ago; the feel of his little hand limp in mine. The way his eyelids flutter when he sleeps. That trusting, unwavering stare. I draw a shuddering breath and then I get in the car.
The house is quiet as I unlock the front door and step inside; it’s the first time I’ve been alone in it in nearly two weeks, and it feels both unsettling and like a relief. I drop my keys on the kitchen counter with a clatter and I look around the gleaming, yawning space of the empty kitchen and wonder what to do.
Of course, there are a million and one things I could be doing. Work, for one. I’m more behind than I ever have been, and while the firms I work with have been understanding, they won’t be forever. And then there’s laundry, which has piled up for several days, along with the sacks of apples, and all the other housework—I don’t think I’ve changed Josh’s sheets since at least a week before Dylan came.
With a sigh, I decide the first thing I’m going to do is make myself some coffee and simply sit in the sunshine streaming in from the French windows and just be. Breathe and sit and think. It sounds wonderful.
I’ve just switched the coffee maker on when the front door opens and I hear Nick sing out a jaunty, “Hel-lo!”
“What are you doing home?” The question sounds a bit ungracious, but I’m surprised. He left for the office less than two hours ago.
“I thought I’d come back and see how the morning went.” He seems strangely buoyant as he comes into the kitchen, shedding his briefcase and then his suit jacket like a man who has been let off the hook.
“You could have just texted—” I feel slightly grudging of losing my solitude for the first time in weeks, although I try to hide it, because Nick seems so cheerful.
“And I wanted to see how you were doing.” He shimmies over to me and snakes his arms around my waist, pulling me into him. I put my arms around his neck, trying to smile, but the truth is I’m not really in the mood.
And I can tell Nick is, as he nuzzles my neck and says in a voice full of deliberate, Casanova-like swagger, “We’re alone for what feels like the first time in months.”
“Weeks, Nick, not months…”
He reaches down to pop the button on my jeans, and I manage a half-hearted laugh.
“Nick, it’s not even ten in the morning.”
“So?” He gives me a teasingly lascivious look, and I wonder how I can feel so utterly unsexy. This is really just about the last thing on my mind. Nick hasn’t even asked how it went, if Dylan settled, if he screamed.
He unzips my jeans. “Nick…”
“Come on, Ally. Don’t you want to?” He gives me a little boy look and I try to smile. “I came home specially.”
“I know you did.” I can feel myself crumbling, because he did come home specially, and we haven’t had any time together. If we can’t work in this way, how can we work in any other?
And so I nuzzle him back and, flushed with victory, he scoops me up in his arms and grandly carries me upstairs. It all feels a bit forced, a bit too much, but I make myself go along with it, laughing and putting my arms around his neck as he lumbers up the stairs.
In the bedroom, we shed clothes quickly—the mundane details of this sexy morning—and then slip under the covers. Nick draws me towards him, and after ten days of sleeping in the guest room with Dylan, the bump and slide of flesh on flesh shocks me. But it does feel good to have Nick’s naked body next to mine, to remember how we fit, how we work. We need this, even if my heart hasn’t been in it. I pull him closer, determined to make up for my lack of feeling. In any case, I don’t think Nick notices.
Afterwards, he rolls onto his back and lets out a deep, satisfied sigh, before he checks his watch and makes a clucking noise, like he needs to get going.
“You haven’t asked how Dylan got on at school,” I say before I can stop myself.
Nick rolls out of bed and reaches for his boxers. “How did he?”
