Chapter 2

The next afternoon, Theo's lunch bag sat on the kitchen counter after Dominic had taken him to school. I drove it over before trying to sleep.

The parent-night pictures were still hanging in the hall.

I found Theo's because the dog was purple again and because his letters climbed uphill: My famly.

There were four figures. Theo stood beside Dominic. The dog filled half the lawn. A woman with long yellow hair held the cake over her head like a trophy.

I touched my own hair where it rested against my collar. “He gave her yellow hair. Mine's black.”

The words stopped me. I had meant to explain the picture to myself, yet I had named the woman without saying her name.

Ms. Arden accepted the lunch bag through the office window. “Perfect timing. Sloane usually remembers everything.”

“This one was my fault.”

“Oh, no one's keeping score.” She smiled and hurried away.

I returned to the drawing.

One pin had pulled loose from the corner.

I pressed the paper flat and pushed the pin back in.

Taking it down would have embarrassed Theo. Leaving it there required nothing from anybody but me.

A father passed with a little girl and pointed at Theo's picture. “That's the lady who brings the cake,” the girl said.

Her father answered, “Theo's mom,” without slowing. I kept my finger on the pin until their footsteps reached the stairs.

Dominic called while I sat in the car.

“Is Sloane in his family picture?” I asked.

“Which picture?”

“The one in the school hall. Dad, Theo, the dog, and a woman with yellow hair.”

He paused only to understand the question. “Honey, he sees her at pickup. He draws what he sees at three in the afternoon. You're asleep at three in the afternoon.”

I looked at the school doors. “I'm not saying she did anything—”

Then I stopped. Until that sentence, I had not known I needed to defend Sloane before I could mention myself.

Dominic lowered his voice, patient with my lack of sleep. “She's just the one who's there at three.”

“I know.”

“Nobody's saying you're not his mother.”

“I know.”

“It's not like Theo doesn't know who you are.”

I said I had to sleep and ended the call.

That evening, Marilyn brought soup and found me wiping the table while Theo looked for a blue marker.

He held up three uncapped pens and asked where the blue one had gone.

I found it beneath his reading folder, put the lid back on the green one, and cleared a place for him to draw.

Dominic watched me do it while opening Marilyn's container.

“She's just tired,” Marilyn told Dominic. “Nights do that.”

I set the cloth beside the sink. “My shift is why we never needed daycare.”

Neither of them disagreed. That made the sentence hang there like an unnecessary fact.

When I picked Theo up later, he climbed into the car talking about his birthday. He wanted paper hats, chocolate frosting, and the purple dog drawn on the invitations.

I buckled him in. “Anything else?”

He kicked his sneakers happily against the seat. “Can Sloane come to my birthday? She said she'd bring the cake.”