Jen shouldn’t even go there anyway: Paul would never say they weren’t equals, and neither should she. They were a good team who’d made the only logical decision about resource allocation, and were both just doing the best they could.
Paul switched on the ignition. The podcast they’d listened to on the way to Dr. Shapiro’s—about a man who purchased a DNA kit and found out his uncle was his father—blared over the speakers like the world’s biggest non sequitur. Paul switched it off.
“It fits,” Jen said. “I don’t want it to but—”
“What?”
Jen’s phone had started to ring and the Bluetooth announced Mom calling in a soothing voice not dissimilar to Dr. Shapiro’s.
Jen looked at Paul helplessly. “I can’t.”
“Definitely don’t,” Paul said.
Jen hadn’t even told her mother about Abe’s expulsion from Foothills because she’d never felt quite strong enough to talk her down from the hysterics that would result.
Maybe her mother did have an anxiety disorder.
When the phone stopped ringing, Jen picked it up.
“Calling back so soon?”
“Nope, I’m looking up the school Shapiro mentioned.”
Dr. Shapiro had mentioned three alternative programs for Abe. Jen had already visited one of them before the move, and had not been impressed—too big, too impersonal. The second was two hours away, but the third, the Kingdom School, was a small religious school close to their home. It wouldn’t matter, Dr. Shapiro said, that both Jen and Paul were lapsed Catholics. Plus, sometimes the inherent structure and moral code of religion provided a helpful bright line to kids like Abe.
“There’s just a picture of a shack,” Jen reported. “And a paragraph about Jesus written by founder Nan Smalls. How do we know Nan Smalls?” Jen asked, as Paul turned onto to Main Street, which was as messy with traffic as usual.
“We don’t.” Paul stopped short on the brakes as a Mercedes jeep pulled in front of them.
“The name is familiar, though.” Jen paused. “Maybe if we send Abe to the Kingdom School, our prayers will be answered.”
Paul snorted but Jen hadn’t been entirely joking. She hadn’t prayed much before having Abe, not even as a relatively pure-hearted youngster, but at least once a week she would try to quiet her mind and channel a peacefulness and plead—not to God per se, but also not not to God—that Abe would find a sense of belonging outside of their family, that he would be okay in a vague general sense.
Jen was aware that by the dictates of fairy tales she was violating the rules of specificity. What was okay? Meaningful, reciprocal relationships? Or just not stabbing anyone?
The answer was a moving target.
The light changed and they inched forward, their bumper a little too close to the Mercedes’s.
“When we die, he’s going to be all alone,” Jen said.
“Of all our happy topics, this one is always my favorite,” Paul said.
“We can’t die, you know. Ever.”
“So you’ve informed me.”
The Mercedes in front of them suddenly stopped short and began backing up in a fruitless attempt to turn left on a road that was mostly behind them.
Paul slammed on the brakes and then the horn. “Asshole,” he said. “There’s no room behind me. Where do they want me to even go?”
“I’ll run in from here.” She opened the door. “Watch something calming on your phone.”
The town park in the middle of Main Street was an ode to autumn, with clusters of pumpkins and red-and-yellow leaf garlands twined around the lampposts. People wore knit scarves and tall boots and everything appeared gilded by the sunlight, which was so thick as to look artificial.
A dozen kids around Abe’s age had overtaken some of the picnic tables. Their laughter, the effortless way they bit into each other’s burritos and leaned their gawky bodies against each other, gave Jen an ache deep within her body.
Not a sociopath among them, she suspected.
（Although Dr. Shapiro had told them that it was more common than you’d think. A lot of CEOs, she’d said matter-of-factly.）
Jen sprinted to the baker’s stand, grabbed the last two baguettes, and then because the line was brief, and she and Paul deserved it, made her way to the good espresso cart.
Jen decided that she felt relatively calm. They had a plan now, which was good. It was always better to have a plan.
The two women at the front of the line left with their paper cups and waved at Jen: Priya and Janine from book club.