Page 107

“I am on the clock,” Willow muttered under her breath, turning back to her screen. “Nobody respects the remote corporate hustle in this house.”

I grabbed Kaidence’s lunch bag and my keys off the counter. “Alright, little man. Time to roll.”

Kaidence gave Granny another tight squeeze, then leaned over and tapped Willow’s shoulder.

Willow unmuted her headset right as he wrapped his skinny arms around her neck. “One moment, please,” she said into the mic, before muttering out of the side of her mouth, “Boy, you’re gonna get me written up by HR.” But she kissed his cheek anyway and squeezed him back hard.

Kaidence laughed and ran toward the front foyer, his sneakers squeaking on the polished hardwood.

“Love you, Granny,” I called out over my shoulder. “Take your morning meds with some water, please. I set them by the kettle.”

“I got ’em, baby. Go on and get him there safe.”

Willow waved one hand in the air without looking away from her monitor. “Bring back iced coffee from the drive-thru!”

“Use the machine on the counter!” I shouted back.

“It has twelve buttons and speaks Italian!”

“Then learn Italian!”

Granny’s soft, wheezing laugh echoed down the hallway as the heavy mahogany front door clicked shut behind us.

The drive across Hallowridge to Kaidence’s new school took less than ten minutes. The morning sun was just starting to burn through the early chill, casting a bright golden hue over the tree-lined streets.

Kaidence spent the first few minutes in the back seat laying out his personal wishlist for his new classroom. He wanted a teacher who didn’t yell, a recess yard that had basketball hoops low enough for him to touch the net, and a cafeteria that served pizza every single day.

“That’s your whole list of demands?” I asked, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“No.”

“What else?”

He thought about it for two whole seconds. “Tater tots.”

I shook my head, laughing softly. “Boy, you are entirely too much like your father.”

He beamed back at me through the mirror, clearly taking it as the highest compliment in the world.

Henrietta FaceTimed us not long after that. She hadn’t been able to come that morning because she had an important doctor’s appointment she’d waited months to get and rescheduling it would’ve meant starting that wait all over again.

The second Kaidence’s face appeared on the screen, Henrietta’s eyes filled with tears.

Henrietta kept talking to him the remainder of the drive, basically telling him the same things that me, Granny and Willow had already reminded him of. Kaidence answered every question with the kind of confidence only a five-year-old could have on his first day back.

By the time we pulled onto the school grounds, Henrietta was still on FaceTime, telling him for the third time how handsome he looked and how proud she was of him.

When I pulled the Range Rover into the school parking lot, that familiar knot of motherly anxiety tightened right behind my ribs.

I put the truck in park, turned around in my seat, and looked at him. “You ready, Kaidence?”

He nodded firmly, unbuckling his booster seat. “Yes, ma’am!”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and smiled. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

We walked up the concrete steps together, his little hand warm and secure inside mine.

The front lobby was absolute organized chaos—parents signing visitor sheets, crossing guards guiding little lines of children, and brightly colored backpacks moving in every direction.