When We Were Sisters by Emilie Richards Page B

hadn’t checked the clock. And strike two? The bus schedule was posted downstairs.
    Clearly, from Pet’s expression, my IQ had dropped a few points this morning. “I have to eat, don’t I?”
    â€œExactly what are you wearing?”
    My daughter isn’t sophisticated enough to hide guilt. She has fair skin like her mother, and now I watched the color in her cheeks deepen before she looked down. “Everybody wears skirts like this.”
    The skirt barely covered my daughter’s tush. Maybe everybody wore them, but I was pretty sure that unless they were auditioning for a reality show called Preteen Hookers , they wore them with something else.
    I pointed toward her closet. “Wear something under it or change.”
    â€œDaddy!”
    â€œIt’s fall. You’ll freeze, and besides you’ll spend the whole day pulling your skirt down. If they even let you stay in school.”
    â€œBut I told you, everybody wears skirts this short.”
    â€œDoes your mom let you wear that skirt to school without something under it?” The “something,” whatever it was called, wasn’t in my vocabulary. I would Google this mystery later so our next conversation could be more precise.
    She didn’t answer.
    â€œGo.” I pointed again.
    â€œFine, but I’m going to be late!”
    That was already clear. I headed down the hall to pull Nik out of bed. As expected, he was still sleeping. The one thing I remembered about the bus schedule was that Nik’s bus came later, because middle school started later. If I was lucky at least one of my children would board a school bus today and not require a personal chauffeur.
    Except that, of course, that would mean Nik would be here alone after I left with Pet. Could I trust my increasingly rebellious son to get to his bus stop on time. Or at all? I really didn’t know.
    â€œWhat do you want for breakfast?” I asked on my way out of his room.
    â€œWhat I always have.”
    â€œAnd that would be?”
    â€œWhat Mom fixes.”
    â€œThen I’ll fix whatever I feel like fixing unless you give me a better clue.”
    â€œWaffles.”
    Robin had pointed out the frozen waffles in our freezer. “You want sausage or bacon?”
    â€œI don’t eat pork. Do you know what pig farms do to the environment?”
    â€œYou can tell me all about it some other time.”
    Downstairs I found the waffles, read the directions and slid them into the toaster. I took out cereal and milk, bananas and berries, juice. I located the syrup and butter, and had everything on the counter by the time Pet arrived wearing something that stretched to her ankles under the skirt. I hoped she didn’t strip off whatever it was as soon as she was out of sight.
    As I got bowls and plates my cell phone buzzed. Pet had already informed me she liked toast and strawberry jam with her cereal, so I had popped out Nik’s waffles to replace them with bread.
    â€œCan you pencil in a breakfast meeting first thing?” Buff said without the usual pleasantries. He named three other attorneys on our floor and a local coffee shop. “Everybody else can be there.”
    I did calculations in my head. I had to dress and drive Pet to school. I had to figure out what to do about Nik and whether I could safely leave him here to do what he was supposed to. Then I had to drive into work. Since that would be later than usual, I would be hampered by rush hour.
    Trying to do the impossible wouldn’t win me points with Buff, because clearly I would fail. And in any law office, it’s all about results.
    I told him the truth, then I finished with, “But I’ll try to get there by the end of the meeting and someone can catch me up.”
    â€œRobin left this morning?”
    â€œIt may take a day or two to get into the swing of our new schedule.”
    â€œWe’ll do what we can without you today.”
    I didn’t