“If I say I’ll be here, I’ll be here. On time. Anyway, Harper and I have to leave in a minute to get her to piano on time.”
Hayden rolled her eyes. “We don’t evenlikepiano.”
Oakley pressed her teeth together. Her ten year old had been extra spicy lately, and she was trying her best not to take the bait.
“Hi Mom!” Harper ran through the auditorium and hit her with a hug. “Ew, you’re all wet!”
“Hi, baby.”
“Did you see me?”
“You were great.”
Hayden made a rude sound. “You weren’t even here.”
“I caught the end,” Oakley said with a warning in her voice. She looked back at Harper. “And the end was great.”
Eight-year-old Harper shrugged, unbothered. “You’ll see the whole thing when we do the show.”
“Right.” Oakley waved to the theater teacher and then turned to Hayden. “You’re up. We’ll be back before you’re done.”
“Oh no,” Harper said tragically. “Is today a piano day?”
Oakley nodded, and Harper groaned.
“I told you,” said Hayden in a singsong voice.
“Do I have to?” Harper whined.
Oakley bit her lip. She was ready to let the girls drop an extracurricular –anyof them, at this point – but piano was the one activity that Trent put his foot down on.
“Can’t I skip it?” she pressed.
“Dad won’t let you,” Hayden told her.
“But I’m hungry.”
“I have a protein bar in my backpack,” Oakley offered.
Harper scrunched up her face. “Ihateprotein bars.”
“Well, you can eat it if you’re starving. And we’ll get a big lunch after your music lesson, I promise.”
“Fine.” Wearing a tragic expression and dragging her feet, Harper walked out into the afternoon sunshine.
“Doyouneed a protein bar?” Oakley asked her eldest daughter.
“I’d rather starve.” Hayden tossed her hair and ran to the stage.
Oakley looked up at the ceiling, prayed for patience, and then followed Harper outside.
Her eight year old was unusually quiet on the walk to the piano teacher’s house. Oakley’s mind ran through its usual task list, puzzle-piecing errands and chores together with her teaching schedule, the girls’ activities, and day trips down to Pualena for time with her family.
She’d read a study once showing that chess players burned through roughly six thousand calories per day on tournament days. Since then, she often wondered how much energy mothers burned daily with the mental gymnastics required to keep their families running… all while subsisting on toddler leftovers and sandwich crusts.
Oakley’s life had been borderline unsustainable even before her dad passed away and two of her sisters moved home to Pualena. Now, through sheer stubbornness, she had managed to wedge multiple trips all the way down there into her schedule each week, and that had eaten up what little downtime they’d had left.
Once school started up again, she didn’t see how she could possibly manage the drive down to Pualena more than once or twice a month… and she hated that. She hated losing that time with her girls, and she hated the thought of only seeing Anne once a month when she wasright thereon the island.
