I almost laughed out loud.
Of all the things I’d imagined she might say—questions about why Miss Laine was at our house, what it meant—she was worried about her toys.
“I’m sure Miss Laine won’t mind,” I said.
“But there’s dinosaurs everywhere,” Nell said, with the gravity of someone reporting a genuine crisis. “And I left Gerald’s friends on the kitchen floor.”
“Gerald’s friends will survive.”
She chewed on that. “Does she know about Gerald?”
“I mentioned him.”
Her brow furrowed. “So Miss Laine is your friend?”
I turned into my parking space behind Rick’s.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re friends.”
“Does she get to be my friend and not just my teacher?”
I blew out a breath, hoping she wouldn’t catch onto how nervous I was. I desperately wanted this to just…work. For it to be normal and natural, the same way every interaction with Maggie so far had been normal and natural and right.
I looked over at my daughter.
“I want you to make sure to be respectful to Miss Laine,” I said, “but yes, we are friends…and she wants to be your friend, too. That means, though, that we have different rules with Miss Laine at home than we do at school, okay?”
She nodded—very, very serious.
“At home, she can be your friend, but you still need to be respectful at school.”
She shook her head aggressively, eyes wide. “I’m really good at rules at school, I would never be disrespectful?—”
I reached over to ruffle her hair. “I know, sweetpea,” I said. “And I think…maybe I’m not saying all this right. How about we talk to Miss Laine about it.”
Nell beamed at me. “Yes, please.”
We got out of the car and I grabbed Nell’s backpack while she raced toward the door with Gerald in tow. I could smell pancakes as soon as I crossed the threshold—and I heard Maggie talking to Nell a minute later, Nell’s voice going about a mile a minute while Maggie occasionally chimed in with a “mmhm” and “ooh, interesting!”
I had to take a second at the door—standing there, watching them.
Nell was on her stool at the kitchen bar, Gerald on the stool beside her, her feet kicking as she told Maggie every detail about her game of Mario Party last night. Maggie was at the stove, somehow immaculately dressed in her leggings from last night and one of my shirts—looking like it was all on purpose, her hair tidy and pretty in a loose braid. She flipped pancakes while simultaneously appearing completely present as she listened to Nell.
“But Yoshi isn’t really a dinosaur,” Nell was saying. “I mean they couldn’t talk and also he’s more of an alien, at least that’s what my cousin Henry says, do you know Henry? He’s in the second grade, he thinks everything is an alien actually, he says he saw Bigfoot and that Bigfoot is an alien, do you believe in Bigfoot?”
“Mm…maybe,” Maggie said, then she glanced over her shoulder at me. “Nash, do you believe in Bigfoot?”
I considered that. “Yes, and I’ve heard he’s friendly.”
Nell wrinkled her nose. “Henry says he’s big and hairy and mean.”
“Only to stinky boys and not to smart girls who know about dinosaurs,” Maggie said.
I moved to the coffee pot and poured myself a cup, then one for Maggie. “How do you take it?” I asked her.
Sugar,I thought.
“Black,” she replied.
