Beyond Midnight (18 page)

She should leave. Truly.
"
I
'
ll bring you a glass of water, in case you get thirsty in the night.
"

"No."

Wincing, she said,
"
Suit yourself. If you need anything, just yell. I
'
ll keep my bedroom door open tonight. Don
'
t worry about your medication. I
'
ll wake you when it
'
s time.
''

He was silent. She couldn
'
t begin to imagine what he must be thinking. Suddenly exhausted by the scope of his willingness to shut her out, she began to leave the room at last.

"
Ma?
"

Helen stopped in the doorway and glanced back casually.
"
Yes?
"

"
Thanks. For the player.
"

She smiled, despite her resolve not to.
"
It was a toss-up between that and your
math book. Good-night, Russ."

****

A week later, Helen was in the Tuesday-Thursday class for threes and fours, subbing for a sick teacher, when she spied Nathaniel Byrne through the glass square of the closed classroom door.

It was only by chance that she happened to glance up from the circle of children that fanned out to her left and right. She was on her knees, too immersed in the lesson to have noticed him before; but she had the sense that he
'
d been standing there a while.

Nobody had told her that Byrne was coming to observe, which meant that Janet must have arranged something on the spot for him. Helen at first assumed that he was on his way to the observation deck, discreetly tucked alongside another of the classes, so that he could get that close-up look he
'
d missed his first time around.

But no. Once he made eye contact with her, he decided to let himself in—which simply wasn
'
t done. Not in her preschool, anyway. As he came inside Helen shot him a warning look, meant to keep him in the shadows, and went back to her finger-puppets. She was teaching a lesson in toddler-science, which meant that the children were joining in and asking questions; she had no attention to spare for the casually dressed dad with the big pink
"
Visitor
"
flower stuck on his windbreaker.

The kitty finger-puppet on Helen
'
s left hand was hunched over a seagull feather and a tablespoon.
"
Hmm,
"
the kitty puppet said, scratching its head,
"
I wonder which is heavier, the feather or the spoon?
"

Naturally all the children had opinions, not all of them correct (the feather was a really big one that Helen had found on the beach during her first walk of the year there). The kitty finger-puppet lifted the objects and appeared to weigh first one, then the other, then passed them around for the boys and girls to do the same.

It was a hands-on experiment in weights and measures; but if Nathaniel Byrne was expecting to see Helen teaching the difference between grams and ounces, he
'
d come to the wrong place.

She stole a look at him every so often as the kitty and puppy puppets picked up different pairs of objects—cotton balls and ball bearings, baseballs and Wiffle balls, carrots and wrenches—and then tried to guess which weighed more between them.

Byrne, hands in his pockets, had taken up a post alongside a big plastic castle with its knob-headed knights and cone-gowned princesses, the most popular toy in the class. Probably he wouldn
'
t want to know that every boy-child in the room enjoyed the jousting knights, and every girl- child there loved the fairy princesses—but it was a fact. Helen considered telling him later, then smiled grimly to herself and thought,
Better not. He
'
ll tell me it
'
s my fault.

The teacher
'
s assistant, one of the children
'
s mothers, was at Byrne
'
s end of the room gathering up the floppy stuffed toys for their periodic run through the washer and dryer. Not a shy woman, she went up to Byrne and whispered a few words to him. He gave her a not-quite-friendly smile—probably she
'
d demanded to see his social security card as well as a picture ID—and then he stepped aside to let her pass with her armful of stuff
i
es.

Disaster. He backed straight into the plastic castle, with its knights so carefully positioned on the parapets, its ladies so safe and secure inside the walls, and sent the whole damn fantasy flying.

The noise wasn
'
t as bad as little Jeffrey
'
s dismay when he saw someone mucking up his project. Jeffrey got to his feet with a horrified look and slapped his fists to his thighs.
"
You
bwoke
it!
"
he cried.

He turned to his teacher and, just in case she hadn
'
t noticed, reported the crime directly to her.
"
He
bwoke
it!
"

"
He didn
'
t really, Jeffrey, he just knocked it over a little,
"
said Helen.
"
I
'
ll tell you what. Why don
'
t some of us spend the rest of the time setting up the castle again? Okay? That way we
'
ll know that everything is fine. And the rest of us can have extra toy time today.
"

It was called going with the flow; either that, or struggle through science time with a bunch of upset, distracted toddlers, thanks to Mr. Bigfeet.

The guy just doesn
'
t have the touch,
Helen decided.
Some fathers did—Hank did—but others...

She returned Byrne
'
s sheepish look with an unamused one of her own and proceeded to settle the children into the new routine while the assistant, sighing, unpacked the hamper of stuffed toys for them.

Obviously Byrne was a hotshot in his chosen career; you didn
'
t become Mutual Fund Manager of the Year by sitting around on Saturday morning making balloon animals for all the kids in the neighborhood. But generally, it was Helen
'
s experience that young children and Type-A personalities didn
'
t mix. To relate to a three-year-old, you had to believe—or be able to pretend—that life went on forever and that you could linger over the fun parts and run away from the scary parts.

She suspected that Nathaniel Byrne wasn
'
t good at lingering and that he didn
'
t have much fun. Even more disheartening was her sense that he might actually enjoy the scary parts: the risk, the uncertainty, the impossible situations that his career threw his way. Who else could thrive in a world where financial ruin was a real possibility? She shuddered at the thought of what he did for a living with people
'
s hard-earned money; that kind of responsibility was not for her.

In the meantime Byrne had the sense to keep out of her way. Until the end of the session he didn
'
t make a peep. After their first curious glances, the children paid no more attention to him than they did to the broom locker. Eventually the buzzer sounded, the door was thrown open, and the mothers began to collect their own.

Only after the last of the children had exited did Helen turn her attention to Byrne.

He came up to her with hand extended.
"
Thanks for putting up with me,
"
he said seriously.
"
I learned a lot.
"

His courtesy disarmed her completely. She
'
d been about to say,
"
Don
'
t you ever crash a class again without express permission from the teacher.
"
Instead, she practically apologized as she said,
"
I wasn
'
t expecting you,
"
and shook his hand.

"
I know. That
'
s my faul
t. A meeting got cancelled and
I decided to head home early
to catch up on some research;
it
'
s a luxury to have the plac
e to myself. Somehow or other,
I ended up detouring here in
stead. I don't know whether it
was guilt or insecurity driving me.
"

Instantly Helen said,
"
So Katie did end up in
Switzerland
, then?
"

It wasn
'
t the best choice of words. Some of the light went out of his eyes as he said defensively,
"
It
'
s not as if I sent her off to
Siberia
. Her grandmother has a fabulous place. And Katie has Peaches at her side all day long.
"

Helen shrugged unhappily as she loaded her science props into a canvas carryall.
"
You know the situation better than I do, of course.
"

So why did she feel so convinced it was wrong? The cleaning lady came in then, with her disinfectant and her sponges, to wipe down tables and toys and anywhere else that germs liked to play.

Byrne and Helen were in her way, so Helen said,
"
If you have any questions. . .

"
Just one,
"
he said.
"
Will
you
be teaching Katie?
"

"
Unfortunately, no. I
'
m a full-time administrator now, unless there
'
s a pinch, like today.
"

He looked genuinely disappointed, which sent a funny little surge through Helen, and then he said,
"
That
'
s too bad. I can see that the kids like and respect you.
"

"
They trust me. But they trust the other teachers too, Mr. Byrne; we have a wonderful staff.
"
She began to ease him out of the room so that the cleaning lady could get on with her job. At some point he too was going to have to trust Helen and her staff; she wondered whether it would ever happen.

They stood
for an awkward moment in the hal
l while he peeled off the giant visitor sticker from his windbreaker. She was able to study his hands. Becky was right: He didn
'
t chop his own wood.

"
I
'
ve never worn pink before,
"
he said lightly as he folded the sticky side onto itself.
"
Do you suppose your secretary did it on purpose?
"

There was no doubt.
"
Oh, it was probably a random choice,
"
said Helen as she marched him along.

But he dug in his heels.
"
Look, Mrs. Evett
...
since I
'
m here, I wonder if you
'
d—look, can we go somewhere for a cup of coffee?
"
he asked, obviously at a loss as to protocol.
"
I
'
d love to be able to talk to you about Katie, about some of the things I should do to make the transition easier for her.
"

Helen glanced at her watch and said,
"
Ah, I
'
m afraid I can
'
t. My son was injured in an accident the other day, and we
'
re due at the doctor
'
s before long.
"

He looked appropriately concerned.
"
Nothing serious, I hope?
"

"
It looks worse than it is,
"
she admitted.
"
He
'
s on crutches, but the last I saw, he and his sister were having a sword-fight with them.
"

Byrne laughed then, a sudden, nervous explosion of sound, as if he somehow felt guilty about it.
"
They sound close,
"
he said.