The girls started chatting about their drawings, comparing colors and details like little art critics.
Sarah extended her hand to me, introducing herself. We chatted about the girls’ budding friendship and school activities. Sarah was friendly and approachable, but there was a polish to her that made me feel slightly out of place.
After a few more polite exchanges, we said goodbye. I loaded my kids into the car, their drawings carefully riding shotgun. On the way home, Bebe and James chatted about art and recess. But I couldn’t help myself. My mind wandered.
To Will. To his calm presence. How blue his eyes were like the best day of summer. And those dimples. They were reckless. Like they knew the power they held and didn’t care who got hurt. I shook my head as if trying to clear it. These thoughts were borderline embarrassing for a grown woman with two kids and a Costco membership.
The next day, there I was again, back at the gate, this time waiting with Camille, my neighbor and friend. She was glamorous in that way that seemed to start trends, a Paris-born former model who still looked like one. Her husband, Tate, met her on a business trip, and three months later, they were married. Their twin boys, Hank and Henry, were in Kindergarten with James.
As we chatted about our day, I admit I was looking for Will when I saw Ivy and her siblings walking toward a different tall blonde woman, one I hadn’t seen before.
She was statuesque, with the kind of beauty you expect to see on runways, clad in crisp white denim and Hermes slides, her polished appearance was a stark contrast to my decade-old Gap tee, straight-leg jeans, and an Indiana University baseball hat I threw on to cover my three day old hair.
“That must be their mom,” I said, more to myself than Camille.
Camille nodded knowingly. “Kelly,” she said. “I know who she is. She used to model, too.”
I could see it. There was something about her that felt untouchable, like she belonged in a different world. I thought about introducing myself but stayed where I was, unsure how to bridge the gap.
As the days passed, with Jason traveling so much, I started volunteering more in my kids’ classrooms. At the school’s book fair, I noticed Ivy standing near the back of the room, her hands empty. Other kids, including my own, clutched fifty or one-hundred-dollar bills, piling books into their arms like it was Christmas. I noticed Ivy was quietly scanning the shelves.
“Do you see anything you like?” I asked, crouching beside her.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide. “I don’t have any money with me. I think my mommy forgot about the book fair,” she said softly.
My chest tightened. Something about the way Ivy felt struck a chord. I remembered when my parents weren’t getting along—how they would forget the smallest things, things that probably didn’t matter to them but felt big to me.
“Pick one,” I said. “It’s my treat.”
Her face lit up. “Really?”
“Really.”
She darted off, finding Bebe to do her shopping and came back with a glossy Taylor Swift biography, clutching it to her chest like a treasure. “This one,” she said, her voice brimming with excitement.
“Good choice,” I smiled, adding it to the stack Bebe had found.
As the book fair wound down, Ivy found me again and hugged me tightly.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice muffled against my sweater.
“You’re welcome,” I said, ruffling her hair.
I watched her skip back toward her classroom with the book in her hands, her face beaming with pride. For reasons I couldn’t quite explain, I felt a little pang in my chest.
That night, as I packed lunches for the next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ivy. And then, inevitably of course, I thought of Will.
There was something about him that stuck with me in a way I didn’t want to admit. His calm presence…it didn’t fit with the way his wife presented herself, I thought. Maybe they really weren’t getting along, the way my parents had not in the end. And then I wondered if maybe, just maybe, he was divorced.
I shook the thought away and focused on sandwiches to cut, water bottles to fill, laundry to fold. But something had shifted in me.
It was small—a barely there idea—but it was enough.
And I couldn’t shake it, the feeling that the restless thoughts about Will was just the beginning.
CHAPTER 3
AN UNEXPECTED MOMENT
