The next morning, Sasha was working at the kitchen table while Harold got ready.

The first draft of her school project covered half the surface.

At the top, written in purple marker, were the words:

PEOPLE WHO HELP MY FAMILY

Several drawings filled the page.

I recognized myself immediately by the red hair and enormous gray cast.

Under MOM, Sasha had written:

Takes us to school.

Makes lunch.

Knows where everything is.

Nicki had added another line beneath it:

EVEN WITH THE GIANT LEG.

I laughed.

“Thank you, I think.”

Nicki grinned.

Then I noticed the right side.

DAD.

Harold was drawn inside a blue car.

Beside him sat a stick figure with long black hair.

Sasha had written:

Takes Miss Adele to work because her car is broken.

Below it, in Nicki’s unmistakable block letters:

OUR SCHOOL IS TOO FAR.

Apparently, the girls had heard everything.

I studied the poster, then looked toward the hallway.

Harold was humming while tying his shoes.

I didn’t add anything.

Didn’t cross anything out.

Didn’t explain.

When the girls went upstairs to brush their teeth, I folded the poster twice with the drawings hidden inside and placed it on the passenger seat of Harold’s car.

An hour later, my phone rang.

I answered.

“Scarlett, what have you done?” Harold shouted. “Adele saw it!”

I moved the phone slightly away from my ear.

“Good morning to you too.”

I set down my coffee.

“Adele saw that thing,” he said.

“What thing?”

“You know exactly what thing!”

I smiled toward the kitchen window.

“Sasha’s first draft?”

“She opened it in the car!”

“Why?”

“Because she sat on it! It was folded with the blank side facing up,” he snapped. “I thought it was just scrap poster board.”

That was unfortunate.

For him.

“Then what happened?”

“What do you think happened?”

I waited.

His voice dropped.

“She read it.”

“And?”

There was a pause.

Then I heard a woman’s voice nearby.

“Tell her what you told me.”

Adele.

Harold muttered something I couldn’t make out.

“Harold.”

I sat straighter.

“What did he tell you?”

Another silence.

Then Adele answered.

“He told me he already drives the girls to school before he picks me up.”

I looked toward the stairs.

Sasha’s backpack sat beside Nicki’s, ready for yet another person to take them.

“He said what?”

Harold cut in.

“I didn’t say every day.”

Adele made a sound that needed no translation.

“You said, ‘I’m already out with the girls anyway.’”

I closed my eyes.

“Adele,” I said, “did you ask him to pick you up?”

“No. I told him I’d get a rideshare.”

Harold interrupted.

“This is ridiculous.”

Adele ignored him.

“He said it was no trouble because he was already doing school drop-off.”

Then I heard a car door open.

“Adele?”

“I’m getting out.”

“You don’t have to.”

The door slammed.

Harold came back on the line.

“Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?”

I looked down at my cast, then at the two lunchboxes I’d packed before seven.

“Harold, I didn’t write it. Your daughters did.”

He exhaled.

“You put it in my car.”

“Yes.”

“You knew she’d see it.”

“I knew it was there. I didn’t realize your coworker provided complimentary document review with every ride.”

“Scarlett.”

“If the passenger seat was unavailable, I suppose that became a problem.”

He went quiet.

Then he said, “I have to go.”

“Don’t be late.”

He hung up.

I expected him to come home furious.

Instead, Adele called me that afternoon.

“I hope this isn’t inappropriate.”

I was on the couch with my leg elevated, a laundry basket beside me that I’d stopped pretending I could carry.

“Today passed inappropriate around 8:30.”

She laughed.

Then her voice turned serious.

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“Harold talks about you at work.”

My fingers stopped sorting a sock.

“What does he say?”

“Nothing terrible.”

That sentence never improves anybody’s afternoon.

“He says you’re very particular.”

“About what?”

“Everything, I guess.”

I waited.

Adele continued.

“He says he tries to help at home, but you usually redo things, so you’ve both learned it’s easier if you handle the house and he handles other stuff.”

I stared at the laundry basket.

I remembered the time he’d packed a school bag with three toys, no homework, and a yogurt without a spoon. Another time, he’d wedged a wooden cutting board against the dishwasher’s spray arm.

Each time, I’d fixed the problem.

Eventually, I stopped asking because correcting the same things took longer than doing them myself.

Adele said, “He makes it sound like you don’t let him help.”

I picked up one of Nicki’s socks.

“No.”

“No?”

“I stopped asking.”

After we hung up, I opened the route app on my phone.

Home to school to Harold’s office.

Twelve extra minutes.

Then I entered Adele’s address.

Twenty-five.

I left both routes on the screen.

Harold came home just after six.

The girls were doing homework at the table when he set down his keys.

“We need to talk.”