Chapter 35
BILLIE
I put the wedding ring back in my purse, which was my daily ritual, and made the drive to the school the highlight of my day.
It was the only time I was alone and knew I would not be caught pretending to be Mrs. Knight, so I would play dress-up, aka wear my wedding ring.
I knew it was a bad habit, one I’d stupidly gotten into, but I always removed it as soon as I got in the pickup lane.
Which is where I was now, I’d pulled up with ten minutes to spare. I tried to fall into my routine, windows cracked, scrolling through work emails and definitely not reminiscing about how I’d just spent twelve uninterrupted hours having sex with Adam Knight over the weekend.
We’d basically had sex until we picked up the girls from their sleepover.
We had sex twice more on the couch. Once more in the kitchen, and then in the shower.
I should have been laser-focused on ROI metrics for next quarter, but instead my mind kept replaying the way he’d said my name—no, growled it—the way he took my body to places I didn’t even know it was capable of going when I’d finally stopped overthinking and let myself surrender completely to something, to someone, just because it felt good.
A horn startled me out of my reverie. Shit. I’d totally spaced and was not aware of my surroundings, a huge faux pas in the pickup line.
“My bad.” I did the obligatory wave in the rearview as I released the brake and eased forward.
The familiar gaggle of elementary school parents, siblings, and over-caffeinated nannies populated the front of the school.
I spotted Joey first, which was odd, standing on the painted footprints assigned to her class, arms crossed, a scowl in place.
Typically, she was being Miss Congeniality and socializing anywhere but her assigned footprints.
Andi stood behind her, basically on the same set of footprints, face partially hidden under the hood of her fleece jacket.
The second Joey spotted me, she grabbed Andi’s hand, and they made a beeline for my car.
Before they shut the doors, I knew something was off.
The air in the cabin was suddenly thick with whatever unspoken doom hovered between them.
I put the car in park, twisted around in my seat, and gave Joey my best “Talk to me” look.
“What’s up, munchkins?”
Joey shrugged and looked out the window. Andi just stared at her knees, clutching her backpack so tight her knuckles were white. Neither of them said a word. Okay. Time for plan B.
“Did something happen at school?” I tried, voice light, as if this was nothing, just a casual check-in between school and home.
Andi didn’t reply, but I saw that her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying, and it broke my heart. Joey chewed on her sleeve, a sure sign she was either about to confess something or was plotting someone’s demise.
“Girls?” I said, softer. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
Both gave me a tiny nod. Another honk came from behind me. I was holding up the line once again. I took a breath, then pulled the car out of the parking lot, drove it down the street, and parked under a big sycamore just off the school grounds. No other cars around, no audience.
I turned to face them again, twisting in the front seat again, trying to keep my tone friendly and non-confrontational again.
I wasn’t the best at dealing with people, which is why I worked back of house at the shop.
I didn’t handle customers or any client or vendor relations unless there was a problem, like a bill needed to be paid or someone wasn’t doing their job, that’s when they sent me in.
I was jarring, abrasive, rude even. How was I going to make these little angels, who were clearly terrified to speak, open up to me?
“Listen. I don’t care what it is, you can say it. It doesn’t matter, I promise you will not get in trouble. Not with me.”
Silence. Then, after a long moment, Joey glanced at Andi, and I saw a silent exchange pass between them before Joey spoke.
“She had to pee in class, but Mrs. McDonald wouldn’t let her go because she said we just came in from morning break.
So, she had to wait until the lunch bell, but then…
” Joey looked at me, the weight of the world in her five-year-old eyes.
“She couldn’t hold it, and she had an accident.
She wanted to stay in her chair at lunch, but Mrs. McDonald made her line up anyway.
I fixed it so kids didn’t know because I told her to wrap her fleece around her waist, plus her pants were black so it didn’t really show anyway.
Then we went to the bathroom, and I had her change into my clothes from the sleepover that were still in my backpack because I forgot to put them in the wash. ”
It was only then that I noticed Andi was not wearing the clothes she’d gone to school in.
Andi’s chin wobbled, but she didn’t cry. She just looked so small, so defeated, that I wanted to wrap her in a blanket and magic away every bad memory she’d ever have.
“Did you tell your teacher that you had an accident?”
“Yes, I did.” Joey raised her hand. “I went back after Andi changed to make sure her chair was cleaned and told Mrs. McDonald, and she said Andi should be more responsible, but I told her Andi did ask to go twice.”
Andi’s chin wobbled again.
“It’s okay,” I said, reaching back and squeezing Andi’s hand. “That’s happened to everyone. Bailey wet her pants in second grade because she was laughing so hard during P.E.”
“She did?” Andi’s voice quivered.
“Yep.” I nodded. Bliss women were cursed with a small bladder and peed ourselves when we laughed too hard.
“And when I was nine or ten, your dad made me laugh so hard I wet myself.”
Both their eyes widened. “He did.”
“Yes.” I brushed strands of hair that were stuck to Andi’s tear-stained cheek behind her ear and realized she felt warm. Very warm. I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”
“No!” Joey exclaimed. “She told Mrs. McDonald she didn’t feel good and wanted to go home, and Mrs. McDonald said she was fine at lunch, so she didn’t let her go to the nurse.”
I closed my eyes for a second. I could feel the anger creeping up my neck, turning my ears hot.
I used that fury to fuel my mission mode.
I pulled my phone from the pocket and texted Adam to let him know what was going on before calling the pediatrician.
There was a same-day slot in two hours. I booked it then turned back to the girls.
“Okay, we’re gonna go home, you can take a lukewarm bath, and change clothes before we go to the doctor,” I said, shifting into mission mode. “And then, if you want, we’ll get ice cream. But first—”
I pulled a U-turn, technically illegal, but the street was empty and I was operating on mama bear rage and headed straight back to the school.
Mrs. McDonald and I were going to have a little chat, maybe with the principal, maybe the whole damn school board.
I didn’t say anything, just drove, but the girls were whispering in the back seat.
“Billie?” Joey said, finally. “What are you going to do?”
I checked the rearview and saw her worried expression.
“I’m just going to have a conversation with your teacher,” I said.
Joey’s eyes got big. “Mrs. McDonald doesn’t like when parents come after school.”
“Well, then Mrs. McDonald should do her job,” I said sweetly.
We pulled up to the school, both girls got out of the car with me. Andi was still silent, but she stuck close to my side, and Joey marched ahead of both of us like a tiny attorney ready for trial.
As we walked in, I clocked the secretary at the front desk, Mrs. Felder, out of the corner of my eye. “You need to sign in, Miss Bliss!” she called after us, but I was already halfway down the hall, Andi’s hand in mine, Joey now trotting at my heels.
I didn’t respond. I made a beeline for Mrs. McDonald’s classroom. The halls smelled like Elmer’s glue and chicken nuggets left too long in the warming bins.
When I got there, I could see Mrs. McDonald through the narrow window, stacking construction paper into neat piles. The door to Room 110 was closed. I didn’t knock. I opened it with the force of someone with nothing left to lose and everything left to say.
Mrs. McDonald looked up from her desk, eyebrows arched, mouth forming the first syllable of my name. The air in her classroom smelled of paste, tempera paint, and, weirdly, canned peaches.
“Miss Bliss, how can I hel—” she started, her voice caught between customer service and condescension.
“You can help me,” I said, “by doing your job.” The words came out sharp, each syllable a little knife. “When a five year old tells you she needs to use the restroom, you let her go. You don’t ignore her, you don’t make her wait, so she has an accident.”
Her lips pressed thin, but she rallied. “We had just come in from—”
“I don’t care if you just came back from the bathroom,” I cut in, louder than I meant.
“That little girl would never make up an excuse about needing the bathroom unless she really needed it. And even if that was the case, then so what? She knows all her colors, numbers, alphabet, can write, read, and do double-digit addition and subtraction. She’s smarter than both of us, believe me, Mrs. McDonald, you’re not teaching her anything.
She’s five. She’s a genius. She lost her mom, then her grandma, uprooted her whole life, then moved across the country with a man she just met who got hurt and is now being cared for by another person she just met.
If she wants to spend all day walking back and forth to the bathroom, that is exactly what she’s going to do.
Because this place, this classroom, this school, is supposed to be the one place where she feels safe. ”
Mrs. McDonald’s eyes flicked to Andi. “I understand your concern, but school policy does require—”
“Does school policy require you to send her to lunch, with wet pants, embarrassed, instead of letting her wait to clean up in private?”
“That’s not what happened—”
“Yes, huh, that is what happened.” Joey raised her hand. Her voice was small but strong, the way it always was when she was telling the truth. “I put my jacket over her. We went to the bathroom so no one knew. I told you that, and you said she needed to be responsible.”
The room went quiet. Mrs. McDonald’s face went blotchy and red at the temples. “I was following protocol—”
I raised my hand, the universal sign for enough. “And when she felt sick and asked to call home?”
“She was fine at lunch.” Mrs. McDonald defended her actions.
“Oh, is that how illness works now?” I asked.
“If you’re fine at lunch, you’re medically incapable of getting sick later?
You know you should really publish your findings because I’m not sure the medical community at large is aware of that.
Seriously, it’s going to be groundbreaking stuff.
Where did you get your medical license from? ”
She bristled. “I am not a doctor, but—”
“Exactly. You are not a doctor. Which is why, next time a child says they’re sick, you call the parent.
I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled because she is running a fever, which is probably why she needed to use the restroom.
Maybe you err on the side of compassion instead of cuntvenience I mean convenience. ”
She opened and closed her mouth, fishlike, before bristling. “If you have an issue, Miss Bliss, you’re welcome to take it up with the principal.”
“Oh, I plan to.” I smirked. “And maybe the school board, too.”
Her eyes widened. I could see the calculation happening, the delicate weighing of trouble versus hassle. “That’s not necessary.”
“I think it is,” I said, calm now, all my fury distilled down to a single, perfect point. “Because what you did today is the kind of thing a child remembers forever, and if you can’t see why that matters, you shouldn’t be teaching at all.”
Mrs. McDonald’s eyes shot down to the twins. “This is an inappropriate conversation to have in front of the children.”
“Maybe,” I conceded, “but you didn’t seem to mind embarrassing my little girl in front of the whole class.”
Andi had pressed herself to my side. I scooped her up, holding her tight, and motioned for Joey. “We’re leaving now. Andi won’t be in tomorrow because she’s running a fever. You can mark her absent now.”
“Miss Bliss!” Mrs. McDonald called after me, but I kept walking.
Andi snuggled into my shoulder, her entire body was hot. Joey walked beside me, holding onto my hand as I marched out of the school. On the way to the car, we saw Leo and Luke’s best friend Jeremiah still waiting outside by the pickup line. He was swinging his backpack around in a circle.
“Are you okay, Andi?” he asked when he saw Andi in my arms.
“She’s fine.”
“Hi, Miss Billie,” he waved.
“Hey Jer Bear, how are you doing?”
“I’m okay.”
I’d gotten to know Jeremiah over the time Bailey and Cole had been together, and he was a really good kid.
He took art lessons from Birdie and was pretty talented.
He’d spent a ton of time with the twins because his parents had been going through a tough time, apparently.
I’d met his mom Stacey once, but hadn’t met his dad.
“You waiting for your parents?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
All of the rest of the kids had gone home, and the lone teacher still on pickup line duty seemed to be on the phone with her boyfriend having a disagreement.
I was about to text Bailey to see if she or Cole had Jeremiah’s parents’ number when a black Range Rover pulled up with Stacy in the passenger seat.
I was still holding Andi, but I grinned and lifted my hand in a wave, but she didn’t even acknowledge my existence. She just barked at Jeremiah to get in when he opened the back passenger door.
“Bye Joey, bye Andi, bye Miss Billie.” He waved as he climbed in before she barked another order to shut the damn door.
And people thought I was rude.
“Bye Jer Bear.”
As they drove off, I caught a side glimpse of the driver, who I assumed was Jeremiah’s dad. His profile looked a little familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it as they zoomed away.
Most people would say that Stacy was being mean or a bitch, but I knew what it felt like to have people judge me. Who knew what was going on in her marriage today that might have made her behave like that?
That right there was a big reason I didn’t want any of those things in my life. Andi tightened her hold around my neck as we walked to the car. But this, this tiny girl in my arms and the one walking beside me was making me question everything I believed I ever thought I never wanted.