Chapter 4 - The Poster on the Wall
Nate pushed the box toward the edge of the counter. "I wasn't planning to."
"It looked like you were."
"You're observant. That's going to be a problem when you're sixteen."
Josie didn't laugh. "I like the job you do now."
He looked at her, and for the first time that week he didn't have an answer ready.
On Friday, her poster hung between two drawings of mothers in scrubs and a crayon engineer standing beside a bridge. Josie's showed Nate kneeling in a kitchen, holding a mismatched lunchbox. Above his head she'd written: MY DAD REMEMBERS.
Underneath were tiny labels: library day, inhaler at field day, purple socks, the bus route when it rains. The inhaler belonged to her classmate, whose teacher he'd helped locate it for during field day; Josie had remembered the panic better than the fix.
"This is great," Nate said.
She peered up. "Not boring?"
"Not a bit."
"Maeve asked why you didn't draw a laptop."
"Maybe I should've."
"I told her you do hard things without one."
He swallowed. "You did?"
Ms. Bell joined them. "Josie was worried you might be embarrassed."
"I'm not," he said, and this time it was almost true.
Meredith passed with a stack of permission slips. She stopped to look at the drawing. "How adorable. I wish my husband had more time for the little things."
Nate wanted to point out that the little things took hours. Instead he asked, "Are the volunteers still meeting Monday?"
"At nine. Refreshments is flexible."
He smiled without warmth. "Good to know."
At home Leah found the office box open again. Nate was searching for an old warehouse seating diagram. He could use the traffic patterns to make a proposal Meredith couldn't dismiss.
"You're doing unpaid work that nobody requested," Leah said.
"It's for the school."
"It's for Meredith. You want her to look stupid."
"She already looks stupid."
"Nate."
"What?"
"I need you on our team, not at war with a woman who organizes cupcakes."
He stood too fast and knocked a stack of drawings off the counter. Neither of them moved to pick them up.
Leah knelt first. "I'm sorry. That was cheap."
"You weren't wrong."
They gathered papers in silence.
Later, Ms. Bell emailed that a volunteer had canceled the early assembly rehearsal. Could Nate help supervise the parent seating line on Tuesday afternoon?
He clicked yes before checking the family calendar.
May you like
Leah called from her car ten minutes later. "Tuesday is your mother's cardiology appointment. You promised to drive her."
