The first time she entered this space with Kael, Lurielle had scanned the room the way she scanned meetings at work. Who was in charge? Who talked the most? To whom did everyone else defer without quite realizing it? There was always one.
The unofficial leader of the group hadn’t changed in the intervening two years: Yanna, a sable-haired selkie.
She was there that day, of course, as Lurielle came stumbling through the door, Kora balanced on her hip, Kael already pullingher along.You got this. This isn’t middle school anymore. You don’t need to fit in. You don’t need to be liked. You’re wearing the viral butt-lifting leggings. You have nothing to stress over.
It was a mantra she repeated every single time she walked into this room, every morning slightly after ten. The start time was an abomination, and she couldn’t be blamed for never actually making it.
Yanna was already sitting cross-legged on the floor, posture serene, wearing an oversized linen tunic top and an expression of calm authority. Her toddler sat nearby, quietly stacking wooden blocks with an unsettling degree of focus.
There were clusters of mothers throughout the space, most orbiting the selkie, a few others sitting on the outskirts, scrolling on their phones. There were the professional yappers, who never stopped comparing the running tally of scholastic achievements and milestones met by their little ones; the CSA almond moms, who carried a ridiculous amount of healthy snacks with them everywhere they went; and the social media moms, sometimes livestreaming right there, telling their followers all about their plans for themselves and their littles ones that day.
Lurielle tried to occupy the in-between. She was allergic to cliques and had no desire to play into the cronyism of acceptance . . . but she was going to be stuck with these mothers for fourteen years, and she didn’t want to be on the outside of things, either.
By the time Kael was in preschool, she had learned that, like the workplace, the hallowed halls of motherhood came with their own specific language.
She knew the code behind one of her peers in the office asking for ‘a deep dive to discuss a kinetic disassembly,’ as well as the simultaneous acknowledgment of ‘moving the needle with an easy win’ and a ‘thermal event.’ Engineering shorthand for things were falling apart on the back-end, shit caught fire, andhad fucked up the entire product timeline. The conversation would then shift into ‘deliverables,’ ‘dependencies,’ and the ‘length of the runway.’
Every corporate space had its own lingo, industry jargon by which one operated. The mother’s group had the same.
“. . . we’re doing Montessori at home too. It just aligns so well with our values.”
“Gentle,” she murmured to Kael as he wriggled free of her hand, lunging towards the basket of trucks.
“. . . her vocabulary justexplodedat twenty-two months.”
Lurielle watched as Kael approached a gnoll from his class, offering a truck, then snatching it back as if he’d changed his mind on the virtues of sharing.
“Hey,” she called gently, “let’s try again, okay?” She breathed a small sigh of relief when he did, successfully. A tally on the board in her mind. “Great job. It’s more fun when we share together.”
“. . . Oh, I know! We don’t really do screen time at all.”
“That’s a hard limit for me.”
Lurielle smiled thinly to herself as Kora wriggled down, determined to cross the room without Lurielle’s interference.Shedid screen time. She did it unapologetically, and sometimes joyfully, especially on those days she was desperate for a breath, refusing to believe her children would be irreparably damaged by twenty minutes of a puppet show that taught sharing and kindness, while she went to the bathroom alone and sat without someone climbing on her. They also did reading and imagination play, outdoor exploration and structured routines.I contain multitudes, and so do my kids.
Kael and the gnoll zoomed past, narrowly missing the neat stack of blocks. The serene toddler looked up, mildly affronted.
“Sorry,” Lurielle offered automatically, wincing at herself.What areyouapologizing for?! They’re kids. If he knocked them over, that would be a teachable moment for him.
Yanna gave her a beatific smile. “It’s good for them to learn spatial awareness.”
Lurielle smiled, biting back a laugh.Or a scream? Could be either. Or both.
As she sat, hovering on the edge of being part of the group and just outside it, she found herself cataloguing everything. Which kids were speaking in full sentences? Who was walking with total balance? How they played, how they interacted, which parents hovered, which seemed disinterested. Who was sharing, who was tantruming.
There was no end of metrics she could apply to the playroom. Her competitive streak had long been dormant, but Lurielle found that motherhood had awakened it like a sleeping dragon once they started doing things regularly outside the house. She hated that part of herself, but couldn’t seem to turn it off. She hated that she noticed how quickly Kora navigated the room, how confidently she approached new kids, even the older ones, how Kael was waiting his turn in line for the marble run, neither pushing nor acting impatient.
She hated how badly she wanted to win at a game she claimed not to be playing.
“. . . the consultant said we should think about executive functioning now, not later. It’s about forming early habits.”
A chorus of humming approval punctuated the declaration from one of the trolls, as the door to the room swung open. Lurielle lifted her head, eager to see who had arrived ever later than she, feeling her lungs flip inside out at the sight of the slender orc holding the hand of a well-dressed little girl.
It was Tate.
Lurielle felt the blood leaching from her face. Ris had told her all about the first afternoon she’d spotted Silva at the Makers’ Mart, holding the hand of a little girl who bore a striking resemblance to the missing barkeep. It wasn’t possible,they’d decided. It had been five years. Silva had married that douchebag Tannar, had left Cambric Creek to live in the enclave with Tannar’s family, breaking tradition and not looking back. It didn’t make sense for her baby to resemble her ex, who’d vanished and never come back.
But now Silva was back, and had even attended one of their clubhouse meetings. She’d not mingled and, as of yet, had not accepted Ris’s invitation for them all to get together again, still settling into her condo and a routine. She was back in their office, had lunch breaks to look forward to, just like old times again . . . Silva was back, and apparently so was Tate, and the little girl who had his hand in a death grip wasclearlyhis daughter.
