wagon, with the license plate WDC785.
Iris.
What’s she doing here? It’s unlikely she is doing business at Software a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r
Solutions, and the financial planner is in Austria for the month. She must be here to see the child psychologist, Warren Maltby, an exceptionally small man, with tar-black hair.The thought of Iris up there, with Nelson or without him, strikes Daniel with sudden force.What could the trouble be? Were they taking him to a shrink because he supposedly hit a kid at day care? Daniel sensed that Nelson is one of the teachers’ favorites—
with his clean cubby, princely table manners, perfect diction, and startling beauty. Ruby has actually enjoyed a rise in status since becoming Nelson’s best friend. Like the homecoming queen on the arm of the school’s football hero.
By now he has wandered over to Iris’s Volvo and peers into it. The baby seat is strapped into an otherwise empty and immaculate backseat.
The family dog, an elderly Australian shepherd named Scarecrow, sleeps deeply in the way back, her eyelids trembling while she dreams. Daniel raps a knuckle against the side window and Scarecrow opens one reddened eye. “Hi, Crow,” he says, currying the dog’s favor. Then he looks into the front of the car. In the passenger seat is a stack of books with library markings on their spines. On top of the books is a spiral notebook, opened to a page of her handwriting, black flowing letters, old-fashioned in their shapeliness.Through the glare and his reflection, he reads, Harlem Ren. economic engine B. intell. repudiate Marx 19% unem. extend. fam “A safety net made not of government giveaways and fashioned by would-be social engineers, but consisting of a weave of family structure, rural communalism and Christianity.” And then he opens the door and picks up the notebook. He riffles through the pages like a spy, and then, miraculously, and terribly, he sees, on an otherwise blank page, his initials. DE, written small, in the center of the page, the exact center, with a circle drawn around them. His heart accelerates as if he has suddenly sprouted wings and begun to fly.
But he doesn’t have a chance to obsess, not just then. He turns around to see her walking across the parking lot. She is alone, not a hundred feet away. It’s always so startling to see her, like spotting a celebrity.
She seems to float toward him.
“I thought your lights were on,” he says, dropping her notebook and
[ 69 ]
swinging the door shut. It closes with a sturdy Swedish finality that he hopes will prevent her from asking any questions.
“You’re all dressed up,” she says.
Daniel touches the knot of his tie. “I was in court.”
“Did you win?”
“That’s the thing about court, you rarely win and you rarely lose.”
“I once thought I was going to be a lawyer,” Iris says. “My dad always said I should be one, but just because I argued over everything, you know that way slightly spoiled kids do. I thought I could talk him into anything.”
The thought of her as a child both stuns and provokes Daniel, imagining her that way, in that distant world.
She senses his mind is elsewhere and moves her face a little closer to his.
“Is that why you wanted to be a lawyer?” she asks.
“I never argued with my parents, I was too afraid of them. I thought they’d fire me.”
“I like to think of people when they were little kids. You must have been one of those heartbreaking little kids, with a serious face and secretive, really secretive. The kind of kid that a mother sort of has to spy on to figure out what’s really going on.” Distress courses across her eyes, like speeded-up film of clouds moving through the sky. Daniel guesses she is thinking about Nelson.
“That was fun Friday night,” she says. Her voice rises with what seems like forced gaiety.
“My office is here,” Daniel says, gesturing toward the building.
“I know,” says Iris. She opens her oversized
Iris.
What’s she doing here? It’s unlikely she is doing business at Software a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r
Solutions, and the financial planner is in Austria for the month. She must be here to see the child psychologist, Warren Maltby, an exceptionally small man, with tar-black hair.The thought of Iris up there, with Nelson or without him, strikes Daniel with sudden force.What could the trouble be? Were they taking him to a shrink because he supposedly hit a kid at day care? Daniel sensed that Nelson is one of the teachers’ favorites—
with his clean cubby, princely table manners, perfect diction, and startling beauty. Ruby has actually enjoyed a rise in status since becoming Nelson’s best friend. Like the homecoming queen on the arm of the school’s football hero.
By now he has wandered over to Iris’s Volvo and peers into it. The baby seat is strapped into an otherwise empty and immaculate backseat.
The family dog, an elderly Australian shepherd named Scarecrow, sleeps deeply in the way back, her eyelids trembling while she dreams. Daniel raps a knuckle against the side window and Scarecrow opens one reddened eye. “Hi, Crow,” he says, currying the dog’s favor. Then he looks into the front of the car. In the passenger seat is a stack of books with library markings on their spines. On top of the books is a spiral notebook, opened to a page of her handwriting, black flowing letters, old-fashioned in their shapeliness.Through the glare and his reflection, he reads, Harlem Ren. economic engine B. intell. repudiate Marx 19% unem. extend. fam “A safety net made not of government giveaways and fashioned by would-be social engineers, but consisting of a weave of family structure, rural communalism and Christianity.” And then he opens the door and picks up the notebook. He riffles through the pages like a spy, and then, miraculously, and terribly, he sees, on an otherwise blank page, his initials. DE, written small, in the center of the page, the exact center, with a circle drawn around them. His heart accelerates as if he has suddenly sprouted wings and begun to fly.
But he doesn’t have a chance to obsess, not just then. He turns around to see her walking across the parking lot. She is alone, not a hundred feet away. It’s always so startling to see her, like spotting a celebrity.
She seems to float toward him.
“I thought your lights were on,” he says, dropping her notebook and
[ 69 ]
swinging the door shut. It closes with a sturdy Swedish finality that he hopes will prevent her from asking any questions.
“You’re all dressed up,” she says.
Daniel touches the knot of his tie. “I was in court.”
“Did you win?”
“That’s the thing about court, you rarely win and you rarely lose.”
“I once thought I was going to be a lawyer,” Iris says. “My dad always said I should be one, but just because I argued over everything, you know that way slightly spoiled kids do. I thought I could talk him into anything.”
The thought of her as a child both stuns and provokes Daniel, imagining her that way, in that distant world.
She senses his mind is elsewhere and moves her face a little closer to his.
“Is that why you wanted to be a lawyer?” she asks.
“I never argued with my parents, I was too afraid of them. I thought they’d fire me.”
“I like to think of people when they were little kids. You must have been one of those heartbreaking little kids, with a serious face and secretive, really secretive. The kind of kid that a mother sort of has to spy on to figure out what’s really going on.” Distress courses across her eyes, like speeded-up film of clouds moving through the sky. Daniel guesses she is thinking about Nelson.
“That was fun Friday night,” she says. Her voice rises with what seems like forced gaiety.
“My office is here,” Daniel says, gesturing toward the building.
“I know,” says Iris. She opens her oversized
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