Chapter 7
Nora
“Principal Harrison, there’s a call on line two. Michaela Kingsley’s nanny, Marta.”
I look up from the third-grade reading assessment data I’ve been reviewing for the last forty minutes—which is thirty-eight minutes longer than it normally takes, because my brain keeps bypassing phonemic awareness benchmarks in favor of replaying the wrecked sound of David Kingsley’s voice when he said I keep fucking this up after he fucked me over my kitchen counter on Friday night.
My brain is wrong. Phonemic awareness benchmarks are critical to childhood literacy outcomes and I care about them deeply.
I also care about the way his voice dropped when he said my name while he came inside me.
For God’s sake.
I’m a thirty-eight-year-old woman with a graduate degree, a mortgage, and a professional-development binder color-coded by quarter, and I’m sitting here thinking about a man’s touch like I’m sixteen and doodling Mrs. Somebody in the margin of my chemistry notes.
It would be funny if it weren’t so irritating.
This has escalated with frankly alarming speed.
At the start of the school year, I had a small, private, entirely manageable softness for an attractive father who knows how to braid his daughter’s hair and speaks in full sentences.
Two weeks ago, he kissed me in my kitchen while picking up his daughter, panicked, and walled himself off behind Principal Harrison for seven days.
Then he came to my office last Tuesday for a safety meeting and maintained his distance—every word was measured, every glance redirected, the air between us thick but the line was clear.
That kiss was a mistake. It wouldn’t be repeated.
At least until Friday happened.
Friday, when he showed up at my door at nine forty-five at night with a speech about a rule he has about not dating, made a remarkably thorough case for why nothing could happen between us, and then completely railed me over my kitchen counter and made me come so hard I saw auras like the Virgin Mary.
Then zipped up his pants and apologized.
The apologies truly elevated the experience. Nothing pairs with mind-blowing sex quite like the aftertaste of mutual self-loathing and the delicate hint of guilt, aged for maximum finish.
It’s Tuesday, and I haven’t heard from him. I don’t expect to.
That’s the part that should sting—the silence.
But it doesn’t, because I’ve been here before.
Not the sex part. The after part. The part where someone reaches for you like you’re the only thing keeping them upright.
And then the morning comes and they remember they were looking for something else entirely.
Greg did it in slow motion, over years. David did it in forty-five minutes. Efficiency runs in the Kingsley family, apparently.
I’m surprised I didn’t also receive a text saying:
Please disregard the entirety of Friday evening’s events.
Just to be certain I understand my role in this situation.
And I do. I understand all too well. And what I want going forward is to not want anything. What I want is to go back to existing in his periphery. Where I belong.
“Line two?” Margaret says gently from the doorway. I’ve just been staring at my desk.
“Yes. Right. Thank you.”
I pick up the receiver. “This is Nora Harrison.”
“Ms. Harrison, I’m so sorry to bother you.” Marta’s voice is tight, shaky at the edges. “I’ve been trying to reach Mr. Kingsley, but his phone is going straight to voicemail. I tried Mr. Caleb too, and nothing.”
“What’s going on?”
“My mother. She was admitted again last night—something with her heart this time. The doctors are saying she might need surgery, and I—” Her voice fractures briefly before she reassembles it.
“I need to drive to Milwaukee again. Today. Now, actually. I’m already packing.
But Michaela’s pickup is in two hours and I can’t—”
“Marta.” I keep my voice calm. “Take a breath.”
She does. Shaky, but deliberate.
“Is your mother stable right now?”
“For now. But they want family there for the consultation this afternoon. I’m all she has.”
“OK. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get in your car and drive to Milwaukee. I’ll handle Michaela’s pickup personally, and I’ll keep trying Mr. Kingsley until I reach him.”
A pause. “You’d really do that?”
“She’s my student. This is my school. It’s my job to make sure she’s taken care of when plans change.” I keep my voice steady and warm, the way I would with any parent or caregiver in crisis.
She exhales, relief soft in it. “Thank you. I really am sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for having a family emergency.”
“I’ll text you anything you need. Michaela’s allergy card is in the front pocket of her backpack, but you probably already know about the cashews.”
“I do.” I glance at the clock on my computer. One-fifteen. “Go. Drive safely. I’ll take care of her.”
I hang up and sit very still, receiver in my hand. The universe seems intent on putting me in situations where I need to speak directly with David Kingsley.
And his body.
And his mouth.
His hands . . .
“Oh, my god, Nora. Stop.” I absolutely do not have time for this right now.
But it is, I suppose, what I deserve for letting him touch me the way he did.
Still, I conjure some professional detachment—the kind that’s served me since I was a rookie teacher with a full roster of behavioral issues and no backup from administration.
The detachment is in there somewhere. I just have to excavate it from under the collapsed ceiling of my self-respect.
I call his cell first, even though I know it’s pointless. Straight to voicemail. The Kingsley & Kingsley line is answered by a young man I haven’t met. His voice is soft and earnest, and I immediately decide he isn’t paid enough for whatever fresh hell greets him each day at that place.
He says Mr. Kingsley is in court but takes a message. I leave my name and the urgency, hang up, and stare at the phone, willing it to ring back so I can get through this without further escalation.
Just to be safe, I call David again. This time I leave a message.
“David, it’s Nora. Marta called—the school. She has a family emergency and can’t do pickup today. I’m going to keep Michaela with me here until I reach you. Please call me back as soon as you get this.”
I hang up and stare at the phone for a beat.
That was the first time I’ve said his name out loud since Friday night.
My voice didn’t break. My voice didn’t do anything interesting at all.
My voice was calm, professional, and exactly correct for the circumstance, and if that isn’t evidence of my functional adulthood, I don’t know what is.
I call Caleb next. Voicemail as well.
“Mr. Kingsley, this is Nora Harrison from Lincoln Park Prep. I’m sorry to bother you, but Marta had an emergency and can’t pick up Michaela this afternoon. I’m trying to reach David too. Please call me back when you can.”
I hang up and immediately call the front office. “Margaret? If Mr. Kingsley or Mr. Caleb Kingsley calls, put them straight through to me.”
“Of course.”
Next I try Michaela’s grandmother, Nadine Kingsley. Her medical practice gives me nothing but an engaged signal.
“Hmmm.”
I look through the contact list on Michaela’s file.
Marta has mentioned a housekeeper before—Leonie, who handles the apartment during the day and looks after Michaela when needed.
But it’s my understanding that Leonie doesn’t drive and would have left the apartment by now.
Even so, the approved pickup list is strict right now: David, Caleb, Marta, Nadine. That’s it.
I look at my desk, at the reading assessments spread in neat little stacks, and I know with perfect clarity I’m not getting back to them today.
“Damn it.”
I keep calling . . .
Fifteen minutes after the bell rings, the halls are almost empty.
After-school clubs have started in pockets of the building—robotics in the lab, orchestra tuning in the music room, a small stampede of fourth graders heading toward soccer practice with shin guards hanging out of their backpacks like loose armor. The ordinary rhythm of a school day.
Michaela sits in the armchair across from my desk, backpack at her feet, a sheet of copier paper balanced on a hardcover copy of the faculty handbook. She’s drawing Archie from memory with the kind of serious concentration most adults reserve for their tax documents.
“This is his noble profile,” she informs me, without looking up.
“Of course it is.”
“He has one floppy ear and one philosophical ear.”
I blink at her. “Philosophical?”
“The left one. It points at truth.”
I press my lips together to keep from smiling and play it cool, but it’s impossible not to love a child who assigns metaphysical qualities to domestic animals.
“Do you need anything, Michaela? Snack? Water?”
She shakes her head, tongue between her teeth as she adds shading to the end of Archie’s tail. “I ate half a sandwich and an apple at lunch. I’m not in a growth period right now.”
“That’s a relief,” I say gravely.
She flicks her eyes up at me, then back to her drawing. “Is my dad coming?”
“Soon as he can,” I say, resisting the urge to over-explain. “He’s in court today.”
“Like Law & Order or like Night Court?” she asks.
I have to think about it. “Uh, probably closer to Law & Order.”
She nods sagely. “That’s what I thought. He’s always the guy in the suit with the files.”
“I’m going to try calling your grandmother again.”
This time it rings. Then connects to a message service. “Mrs. Kingsley, this is Nora Harrison from Lincoln Park Prep. I’m with Michaela, and we’re trying to reach an approved pickup contact. Please call me back as soon as you receive this.”
I set the receiver down and glance up.
Michaela has stopped drawing. “No answer?”
“No, sweetheart.”
She considers this. “Maybe she’s with a patient. She has her own medical practice, you know. Kind of like how Daddy and Uncle Caleb have their own law practice.”
“I did know that. Fancy, huh?”