“I have dinosaur facts,” she said. “I memorized three new ones.”
“I can’t wait to hear them,” I said. “Go hang up your backpack and you can tell me at circle time.”
She nodded, beaming up at me, then barreled past me into the classroom. I straightened up and turned back to the door.
Nash was standing right outside in the hall.
He didn’t always come in; he had for the first week or so, but Nell had taken to me fast, and he’d decided she was fine to comein by herself. Now, though, he was standing in the hall with his hands in his pockets, looking…
…well, nothing like the politely hot older dad I’d said good morning to dozens of times.
Instead, he looked likeyou’re going to sit all naked and prettyandyou’re being so good for meandI see a beautiful woman who’s been taken for granted.
My breath hitched. “Good morning, Mr. Nash. Everything okay with Nellie today?”
I knew very well everything wasn’t okay with Nell. I knew she had to be picked up from a sleepover last night after having a nightmare, because me and her dad and been naked in bed together when he’d gotten the call.
“Miss Laine,” he said, nodding and taking a couple steps closer. I could smell his aftershave. It smelledsogood. “I just wanted to let you know Nell had kind of a rough night. I guess Sadie Kowalski went into some detail on her mom dying.”
“Oh,” I breathed. I hadn’t lived in town at the time, but it had rocked everyone here; Sadie, in second grade, was the youngest of the Kowalski kids, and the only one at Juniper Hills Elementary. “For what it’s worth, Rosie told me Nell cried at the sleepover, but Nell mostly seemed interested in her dinosaur facts.”
“We had a bit of a death talk this morning,” Nash winced, his eyes darting past me to where Nell was already sitting with Rosie, Priya, and Dev. “So if that comes up…sorry. I tried to put her at ease but you never know.”
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” I said. “If anything comes up I’ll handle it.”
There was a beat of silence. A normal, professional, parent-teacher beat of silence in which we were two adults having a perfectly appropriate conversation about a child.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
I blinked rapidly. “Um…yeah, of course I am.”
Wow. Way to seemveryconfident, Margot.
“Just—” He lowered his voice. “—with the breakup and…last night. Didn’t like the way I left things.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
There were kids three feet away. Rosie Sullivan was at her desk eating what I was pretty sure was a crayon. I was becoming convinced that Owen Tate had brought theactual frogto class and that he didn’t just want to draw a picture. Mrs. Petersen was going to walk past this doorway in approximately thirty seconds on her second coffee run of the morning, see this happening, and immediately clock the Nash Effect.
“I’m fine,” I said again. More firmly this time. “Really.”
Nash held my gaze for one more beat, and I could see him deciding something—whether to push it, whether to let it go, whether to acknowledge the very large elephant standing in the hallway between us wearing last night like a neon sign.
He let it go.
“Okay,” he said simply. And then: “Appreciate you keeping an eye on her.”
He turned and walked back down the hall.
That was it. Check in delivered, thanks extended, Nash disappearing around the corner back to his real life which had nothing to do with me.
I turned back to my classroom.
“Miss Laine!” Owen shrieked. “Rosie’s eating the glitter glue!”
“Rosie,” I said, walking calmly over to her and taking it out of her hands. “We don’t eat the glitter glue.”
“But Owen has a frog!” Rosie said.
