He picked up his fork. Yes. She nodded again like this confirmed something she had already filed under known information. Okay. Are you happy?
The question was so direct it almost made him laugh. Yeah, baby. I am good. She reached for her water glass. Then Jada's mom can mind her business.
He did laugh at that. Really laugh. Maya, what? It's true. You can't say that.
I didn't say it to her. I said it to you. She looked at him seriously. There's a difference between thinking something and saying it to the wrong person. You taught me that he had he had taught her exactly that.
The fact that she had applied it in this direction was something he chose not to examine too carefully. Finish your pasta, he said. She finished her pasta. He cleared the table and washed the dishes nations and thought about Jada's mom and the question at pickup and the fact that the neighborhood's awareness of his l had graduated from Gerald Walsh on the sidewalk to secondhand inquiries through his daughter's classmate's parent and he measured his reaction to that information and discovered it was substantially smaller than it would have been 4 months ago. Not zero, but smaller.
Progress, he thought actual progress. He texted Clare after Maya went to bed. The neighborhood has officially taken an interest in our situation. Clare responded fast. I know.
Sandra texted me today. Darius stared at that. Sandra from the fundraiser. Clare. Sandra from the fundraiser.
She wanted to know if we were quote an item. Darius, what did you say? A pause long enough to be deliberate. Clare. I said yes.
Was that okay? He sat with that for a second. The word yes sitting in his phone in her handwriting. Clean and certain. He typed more than okay.
Then Jada's mom also conducted an inquiry through Maya. Clare. Oh no, Darius. Maya told her to mind her business. Clare, I love that child.