Beau
What time does the lesson start?
Sabrina
Five.
Beau
I'll come get you both. It's the fastest way for me to see you.
A pause.
Sabrina
Fine. The lesson is at Marlowe Music on 81st.
I went upstairs, showered, and changed.
I put the unread envelope on the nightstand by my bed.
When I finished, I drove to her building.
Sabrina came out with Bonnie.
Bonnie had on a small cardigan over a school dress, a music folder under one arm, and her water bottle in the other hand. The ponytail was, against all odds, fully fixed.
Her eyes found me through the windshield.
She stopped.
She looked up at her mother. Sabrina looked down at her and nodded.
I got out and opened the back door for her.
Bonnie put her music folder on the seat and climbed in. She buckled herself in — eight years old and competent at the bucklethe way I wasn't at fifteen, and Sabrina raised that kid, and the kid was the proof.
I closed the door and went around to the driver's side.
Sabrina was already in the passenger seat.
I started the car. She didn't look at me. She looked through the windshield with her hands in her lap. She had on the jeans I liked on her, which were all of them, but specifically these.
I didn't say hi.
She didn't say hi.
That was the agreement.
Bonnie did it for both of us, from the back seat, at the volume of a person who'd waited forty-five quiet seconds with her water bottle and music folder.
"Hi, Beau."
"Hi, Bonnie."
"My mom said you were picking us up."
"I am."
