of many Fourth of July celebrations. This was a park that was actually used, and even at this early hour she could see people walking, jogging or sitting on benches near the lake, some of them feeding the resident ducks.
After several turns around the park, Andrea headed for home. Sweaty, but feeling more at peace with herself, she entered her house and went straight to her shower. Twenty minutes later, she scanned the morning paper while eating fresh fruit and cold cereal for her breakfast. She tidied the kitchen, her bedroom and bathroom, then got dressed, choosing a simply styled blue-and-white cotton dress and flat shoes. Her hair was almost dry and she fluffed it slightly, applied makeup very sparingly, ignored perfume and cologne and decided she would do.
Taking up her workday purse, she located her car keys and used the connecting door between laundry and garage. Because she drove slowly with the windows down—very soon it would be much too hot to drive anywhere without the vehicle’s air conditioner going full blast—and enjoyed the activity of the town, it took her a good fifteen minutes to reach Kiddie Kingdom, the nursery school at which she taught. Like New Hope Charity, the nursery school was situated in a very old house that had once been quite charming. Now its high-ceilinged rooms were used as classrooms for preschool children, and its once elegant backyard was a playground with swing sets, a sturdy slide and a merry-go-round. Huge ancient oaks shaded the play area, so even on the hottest days youngsters could spend some time outdoors.
Andrea’s charges were three-and four-year-olds, wee boys and girls that she absolutely adored. Following college Andrea had taught fifth-and sixth-graders, and after her marriage she’d taken on some high-school classes, which had been quite an experience. Most teenage students, she had discovered, were bright, intelligent, witty and sweet, but some were so difficult and rude that Andrea had been forced to change her idealistic belief that no child was unteachable. She’d changed her tune after that and gone back to teaching youngsters. Now she couldn’t be happier with her position. She wasn’t working for the modest paycheck but because she loved children, and there was nothing more satisfying for her than watching them learn and knowing she was part of their expanding knowledge.
She and Jerry had both wanted children of their own, but none came along and they went in for testing. The tests revealed Jerry’s sterility, along with a list of other medical conditions, including a weakened heart. Jerry had always avoided doctors so diligently that he honestly hadn’t known that his aches and pains—everyone had ’em, so why stress over it? he’d always said with an infectious laugh—were signs of severe physical breakdown. But Jerry hadn’t changed his stubborn ways just because of a serious diagnosis. He had worked as hard as ever, played tennis like a wild man and done anything else he’d pleased regardless of doctors’ recommendations that he slow down and conduct both work and play at a less hectic pace.
Andrea had been more furious than grief-stricken when he had simply keeled over one day. He could have lived a much longer life—possibly into old age—had he listened to his doctors. But Jerry had been Jerry, and she’d loved him for his Irish wit, strength and temperament. No one had ever gotten away with telling him what to do, not his family, not the medical community, not her, even though Andrea knew he’d loved her with all his heart.
Finally she had tucked away her grief and built a life without him. She’d done a pretty good job of it, too, she felt. Until last Saturday night, that is.
No, she was not going to think of that again, she decided vehemently while entering her classroom and putting away her purse. The children were arriving, delivered to Kiddie Kingdom by parents or nannies.
“Good morning, Natalie,” she said to a tiny blond girl, who responded with a shy little smile.
And so it went, as did every weekday morning. Andrea greeted each child by name as he or she came in, and when everyone had arrived she began the day’s lessons. Teaching such young children was best accomplished in short segments, with songs and games interspersed among the lessons. Remarkably, some of these tots could already read. Others were just beginning to learn the alphabet. Andrea gave as much one-on-one attention to the children as she could squeeze into their three-hour school day, which to her seemed to fly by.
It was around ten-thirty when the door to her classroom opened and in walked Keith Owens, dressed in tan chinos and a casual, white, open-at-the-neck shirt. Andrea was so startled that she gaped at him with her mouth open. He smiled broadly, as though she shouldn’t be at all surprised to see him, walked to the back of the room and sat on one of the tiny chairs provided for the pupils. He looked ridiculous to Andrea, but worse than that in her eyes, every one of the children had turned around to stare at him. He looked back at them unabashedly, with a friendly sort of half grin, and Andrea soon began seeing smiles on their little faces.
Clearing her throat, clinging to composure through sheer will power, she walked to where he was sitting, bent forward and whispered, “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”
“I’m just visiting, so don’t enroll me,” he said with a devilish twinkle in his eyes.
“How cute,” she said coldly. “You’re a distraction. Please leave,” she added, refusing to laugh at his feeble excuse for a joke.
“A distraction? For whom?”
“For the children! Get off that chair before you break it…and leave!”
“Nope.”
It occurred to her that he might have a child. She didn’t know everything about him, after all, and since she had never encouraged anyone to talk about him, it was possible that he and his ex-wife had children that she hadn’t heard about.
“Do you have a child to enroll?” she asked bluntly.
“No, do you?”
Her heart seemed to flip in her chest. She’d wanted kids so much, and teaching these adorable tots satisfied some of her need to nurture, but not all of it. At that moment she hated Keith more than she had when they’d fought and broken up in college.
“You know I don’t,” she whispered harshly.
Keith could tell he’d struck a nerve, which wasn’t his intention. He’d been hoping that she would laugh over his coming to Kiddie Kingdom and perching on a child-size chair. Didn’t Andrea laugh at anything anymore? “Sorry,” he murmured. “I’d like to watch the class for a while.”
“Even if your presence is a distraction for the children?”
“It’s bothering you a lot more than it is them, Teach,” he said softly. If he let her chase him off every time he appeared, he’d never get anywhere with her. And he wanted to, very much, even if he really didn’t comprehend why.
Andrea realized he wasn’t going to budge. In no position to show her anger, she pivoted on her heel and returned to the front of the classroom. She did her best to ignore Keith while reciting the alphabet with the class, reading a story out loud and passing out cartons of juice, but she was almost lethally aware of him every second.
At recess time she led the children out to the playground, and when she brought them inside again about twenty minutes later, Keith was gone.
It didn’t seem to matter. He had succeeded in turning her inside out once again, and when it was time to go home for the day, she felt totally drained. Andrea drove home with a very suspicious mist in her eyes, and she hated the possibility that she was crying over Keith Owens again. Hadn’t she cried enough tears because of him eighteen years ago?
Pulling herself together, she stopped at the bank and deposited
