Sarah looks behind her. The license plate is fully visible. “I’m from Children’s Services,” she blurts.
Immediately, the woman’s attitude changes. She becomes both stiffer and more friendly, a smile stretched across her face as if it’s being pulled by a string.
Sarah introduces herself as “Ms. Adams.” “May I come in?”
The woman stands back, swinging open the cracked storm door. “Of course, of course, we got nothing to hide.”
An unfamiliar feeling of power washes through Sarah, loosening her stomach and slowing her heart. “Ethan is coming in too, yes?” she asks, glancing behind her as she steps into the building’s common hall, a wide space dimly lit by a single bulb recessed behind a soiled plastic cover.
Inside the apartment the living and dining space is one long room. The table is covered in stacks of mail and various other misplaced things. She spies a screwdriver and several bottles of nail polish. Unopened boxes stand in the corner, and the drapes, little blue and yellow flowers, must be left over from previous occupants. They were not chosen by the same person who owns the overstuffed brown couch and red chairs.
“Would you like a drink? A pop or coffee?” Ethan’s mother asks.
“No, thank you.”
“Please sit down. What’s this about? Did someone call you or something?”
“Maybe we should talk privately.” Sarah mimics the cadence of Nancy’s voice and the kinds of things she used to say.
Ethan’s mother tells him to go to his room, then motions for Sarah to sit and both women perch on the edge, Sarah on the couch, Ethan’s mother on the nearer of the two chairs.
“I’m just here to find out a little information. So I see Ethan was outside. He said he had to stay out there. Why was that?”
“I just wanted him to go play a little while. He doesn’t do anything but those video games. I thought he needed the exercise.”
“It’s pretty cold. Does he have a heavier coat? Some gloves and a hat?”
“Oh yeah, yeah.” She goes into the hall, opens a narrow closet where coats half-conceal an old vacuum cleaner and yanks out a blue ski jacket. “See, he’s got a good coat, and I told him to wear it, but he likes that team jacket. He’s a Broncos fan.”
“Well, he shouldn’t be out in this cold dressed like that.”
Ethan’s mother nods. “Right, sure. Absolutely.”
Sarah wonders if this is how the Judge feels behind the bench: everyone must listen.
“So Ethan’s father? Does he live nearby?”
“He’s out in Texas. Maybe Arizona. The moron moves a lot.” Ethan’s mother rolls her eyes just like Melanie.
Sarah asks about friends, if Ethan has other boys over to play, and his mother shrugs. “We’re pretty busy.”
“How are his grades? Does he do well in school? Does he like his teacher?”
At the mention of Melanie, his mother’s expression changes. “Is that who called you? That woman?”
Sarah fumbles, then grabs hold of the obvious: it’s confidential.
“His teacher’s had it out for me and Ethan since day one because Ethan, he’s got the ADD, and he’s a handful, but that’s not my problem. It’s her job to deal with it.”
Sarah asks a few more questions, random ones she’s not even sure seem reasonable or professional, but she doubts his mother has the experience to know the difference.
“Okay, I think it’s all good. I appreciate your time today.”
Sarah’s bladder hurts and at the last moment, when the blast of cold air hits her, she decides she can’t make it.
Ethan’s mother takes her back inside, points down the hall to a peach-and-black-tiled bath. The peach toilet seat has yellow spots. Sarah stands, holding the towel rack. The tub has a charcoal rim of filth, and a tangle of dark and red hair completely covers the drain. The place could definitely use a scrubbing.
She flushes and after washing her hands leaves the water on to muffle the sound of the rusty medicine cabinet hinges. Nothing remarkable except one bottle of OxyContin. It has a script label, though. Luanne Holman. Probably a maiden name.
Ethan’s mother is waiting for her in the hall, by the entrance to the kitchen. Behind her Sarah glimpses a mess of pots and pans, plates and cups.
“Maybe you should do a little cleaning, I mean, just in case. It would look better, you know.”
“Right.” The woman glances behind her. “Right, I will. I’ve been really busy. I will, though.”
On the front step Sarah puts out her hand. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No problem, no problem. I’m an open book.”
Sarah steps down to the walk, then turns. “I’m sorry. To be honest, I missed your last name. Was it the same as Ethan’s?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, Kiebach. Sorry.” She offers to shake hands. “Kim Kiebach. People call me KK.”
Sarah considers every scenario. Obtained under a false name? Left by a friend? Borrowed for a bad toothache or migraine? There are several plausible, innocent explanations for the pills.
Over the next few weeks she avoids the topic of Ethan, then one Friday Melanie comes home and slaps her leather tote on the counter.
“We had Ethan K.’s mother in today. He was in a fight on the playground again, so we call her in and she says they’re moving. It’s almost April for crying out loud. She’s going to move the kid two months before school is out? Like he doesn’t have enough problems fitting in.”
“Maybe it’s a job change or something.”
Melanie snorts. “Right, a corporate relo.”
Sarah escapes quickly and drives home thinking about what she’s done. They’re moving because of her. Which might be good. Or disastrous. There’s no way to know.
She spends the summer staying home with Grayson so Melanie can take Bea to the pool and clean her classroom or go out with friends. One week Melanie and Aaron go to Nashville and Sarah stays with the kids and sleeps in their bed, remembering the big blue dick in the shoebox. Does it mean Melanie isn’t happy with Aaron? Maybe it means he has a small penis.
In August, when Aaron and Melanie take the kids to her parents’ cottage on Lake Michigan, Sarah spends her vacation in bed watching TV. The hours are different now, still faster, but not fuller. At the end of the two weeks they’ve accumulated to nothing. She doesn’t remember a single show.
School starts, Bea goes to morning kindergarten and returns to report being the only one in her class who knows how to cook, what 911 is and her own address and phone number. “Some kids didn’t even know the name of the street they live on!”
In September, Bea turns six and the family throws a huge party. Aunts, uncles, cousins. Aaron’s parents are divorced and remarried, so there are six grandparents. Sarah is invited because, as Melanie says, “You’re like family. Bea would be devastated if you don’t come.”
Saturday morning Sarah considers calling to say she’s sick. Bea needs to learn: devastation is just a state of mind.
But she goes. She goes, and there is the backyard strewn with balloons bobbing on fish line strung from tree to tree. Several folding chairs and tables are set up, including a table with the cake she made. Sarah baked and decorated it yesterday afternoon, Bea in awe of her ability to transform five regular square cakes into Dorothy’s slipper. Covered in Red Hots, of course, which the guests will have to pick off because only Bea could stand to eat so many.
Everyone knows Sarah even though she doesn’t know them. She is the famous nanny, who taught Bea to cook, who made the cake, who, Melanie has joked, stole Grayson’s first word. Instead of “Dada” or “Mama” it was “Saha.”
Sarah eats a burger and flirts with Melanie’s cousin Michael, a guy just good-looking enough to make her tingle, but with crooked teeth that give her confidence. Michael is finishing a master’s in engineering at the local university. They talk for twenty minutes before he’s yanked off to provide piggyback rides. Sarah has little experience with men or their signals, but she thinks he looks reluctant to go and for a while she watches him play, hoping he’ll break away, until he doesn’t and she becomes self-conscious and moves off toward the food tables.