After I broke my leg, my husband insisted he “couldn’t be late for work” whenever I asked him to drive our girls to school. Funny, because he somehow had time to pick up his young, pretty coworker. He needed a lesson. So I left one small surprise in her seat, and that man will remember it for life.

“Is your mom coming tomorrow?”

Harold asked while I sat halfway up the stairs, one crutch wedged beneath my arm and Nicki’s coat across my lap.

I stared at him.

He was holding coffee.

I was trying to work a zipper one-handed while balancing a seven-year-old’s sleeve over the cast on my left leg.

“No. My mother is not driving an hour here, taking the girls to school, driving an hour home, then doing it again tomorrow.”

Harold checked his watch.

“What about Linda next door?”

“Linda has a job.”

“So do I.”

I stopped fighting with the zipper.

“Harold, they’re your children.”

“I know that.”

“Then take them.”

“The school is across town.”

“So leave earlier. Or work from home once in a while and take them then.”

He sipped his coffee.

“Scarlett, that’s not practical.”

Nicki looked between us.

“Mommy’s leg isn’t practical either, Dad.”

From the kitchen, Sasha shouted, “Nicki took my blue marker!”

“I did not!”

“You literally have it!”

Harold grabbed his briefcase.

“See? Mornings are chaos.”

Then he walked out.

***

Three weeks earlier, I’d slipped on wet tile outside a grocery store and broken my leg badly enough to require surgery and a cast. My doctor had forbidden me to drive.

Before that, I handled breakfast, lunches, shoes, permission slips, and school drop-off for nine-year-old Sasha and seven-year-old Nicki.

Harold never officially called any of it my responsibility. He simply became busy at exactly the right moments until it was.

My mother drove over twice, our neighbor helped three mornings, and I paid for a car service once while the other parent in our house refused to take them.

Every time I asked Harold, his answer was the same: he “couldn’t be late for work.”

If I pushed, he’d repeat it.

“Scarlett, I can’t be late for work.”

Then came my hospital appointment.

I took a taxi because Linda had already agreed to drive the girls.

The doctor examined my leg, said it was healing well, and warned me not to get overconfident.

I promised I wouldn’t.

Then I crutched through the hospital entrance and spotted Harold’s car.

For a second, I thought something had happened.

Maybe he’d come looking for me.

Then I realized his car wasn’t parked at the hospital.

It was across the street outside an apartment building.

A woman hurried out.

Adele.

I’d met her at Harold’s company Christmas party.

She was twenty-something, maybe thirty, pretty, with long dark hair and the kind of polished appearance most people couldn’t manage at eight in the morning.

Harold got out, walked around the car, and opened the passenger door for her.

She smiled.

Then he climbed behind the wheel, and they drove toward his office.

I stood on my crutches watching the taillights disappear.

Apparently, detours weren’t the problem.

The passenger was.

For ten miserable minutes, I let myself imagine the obvious.

Then I remembered Adele had spoken warmly about her boyfriend at the Christmas party.

That proved nothing.

Neither did Harold opening a car door for her.

But one thing was undeniable.

He had time.

***

That evening, I waited until the girls were upstairs.

“I saw you this morning.”

Harold was opening the refrigerator.

“At the hospital?”

“Near it.”

His hand froze on the milk.

“Adele got into your car,” I said.

He relaxed so visibly I almost laughed.

“Oh. That.”

“Yes. That.”

“Her car broke down.”

“And?”

“And I’m giving her a ride.”

I adjusted my crutches against the counter.

“You told me you can’t take Sasha and Nicki to school because it’ll make you late.”

“It will.”

“But picking Adele up won’t?”

“Her apartment is closer to the office.”

“It’s nowhere near our house.”

“It’s not that bad.”

I stared at him.

For eleven mornings, my mother had crossed half the city.

Our neighbor had rearranged meetings.

I’d balanced cereal bowls against my cast because standing at the counter hurt.

And Harold was explaining that his coworker’s neighborhood wasn’t that bad.

“You’d rather drive across town for Adele than take your daughters to school.”

“Don’t make this weird.”

“I’m not making anything.”

“Her car is in the shop,” he muttered. “Who else is supposed to give her a ride?”

I blinked.

“Apparently the same mysterious person taking your daughters.”

He rubbed his forehead.

“You have your mom. You have Linda.”

There it was.

You have your mom.

You have Linda.

Not “we.”

“Coworkers need help too,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Of course they do.”

Something in my tone made him frown.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

For once, I stopped arguing.

***