Bianca made a strangled sound.
Billie looked between us wildly. “Wait. That was fake?”
“Oh, unquestionably,” I said.
“But…” He frowned. “You knew?”
“Instantly.”
“Then why did you let me finish?”
I tilted my head. “Because embellishment is an art form when done well.”
He sat there, trying desperately not to look pleased while absolutely looking pleased.
“Sometimes,” I continued gently, “stories tell us interesting things about the people creating them.”
Bianca studied her brother, a slight frown on her face.
Billie climbed halfway onto the counter. “Do I have cognitive inflammation?”
“No,” Bianca and I said together.
CJ rubbed the back of his neck. “It wasn’t really a story.”
“No?”
He hesitated. “Maybe partly.”
“You really should write them down.”
When he met my eyes, there was sadness in his. Poor little storyteller.
The allocated homework time proceeded with considerably less warfare than expected. Not without attempts, naturally. Bianca corrected two textbook printing errors and became briefly distracted while writing notes in the margins. CJ spent ten minutes trying to convince me that reading Shakespeare technically counted as doing a chore and that he deserved monetary compensation.
But mostly, they worked.
The strange thing about children was that they often behaved better once they believed an adult actually saw them clearly, once they believed someone saw the person beneath the misbehaving.
The two girls took a break in the backyard while CJ continued working on an assignment. I watched them from the window, keeping a close distance from the bright late-afternoon sun. By the time I served dinner, the house had settled into an unexpectedly peaceful rhythm.
Just after seven, the front door opened—earlier than expected. The children abandoned their remaining homework and jumpedup, chairs scraping backward across the floors as they raced to greet their father.
“Dad!”
Conrad barely had time to shut the door before Billie launched herself at him and told him about the geese. As CJ hugged him, he immediately started talking over Billie, telling his father about cafeteria corruption. Bianca stayed back for half a second before she briefly wrapped an arm around Conrad’s middle.
The man looked stunned. His gaze lifted over their heads toward me, standing near the stove.
Alive, his expression said silently.
Interesting how low his expectations had become.
“You’re home early,” I said.
“I promised I would be this week.” He glanced around the house. “Everything okay?”
Billie clapped her hands together. “Winnie says I don’t have homework disease.”
