13. Solenne
— ? —
Solenne
By the second week of May, Summer has settled into preschool like she’s been going there her whole life.
She comes home with paint on her clothes and stories about Sherman the turtle and strong opinions about which corner of the sandbox has the best digging sand.
Miss Patricia sends home a folder each Friday with her artwork and a note about what they learned, and Summer insists on explaining every single item in exhaustive detail.
Valentin has been keeping his promises. He picks her up twice a week for afternoons together, brings her back on time, texts me brief updates without expecting responses.
The morning messages have continued, variations on the same theme.
Still here. Thinking of you. No pressure.
I read them and don’t reply, but I’ve stopped pretending I don’t look forward to seeing them.
The development work on the project is moving forward. Rachel and I have calls every few days, working through the structure, refining the character arcs. It’s slow, methodical work, nothing like the rush of being on set, but there’s something satisfying about building something from the ground up.
I’m still at Odette’s house. Still sleeping in the guest room with Summer’s drawings taped to the wall above my bed. Still technically married to a man who lives in a hotel fifteen minutes away.
The zoo field trip appears on the school calendar two weeks before it happens. I sign up to volunteer without thinking much about it, one of the parents assigned to help wrangle twenty small children through exhibits and lunch and the inevitable bathroom emergencies.
Two days before the trip, Valentin texts to say Miss Patricia still needs volunteers. He’d like to call her and offer.
Are you comfortable with us both going?
I read the question while Summer looks for the sunhat she’s been told to bring. It would be a whole day together, longer than our handoffs at Odette’s door or the few minutes we sometimes share at pickup.
Yes, I write. But you’ll have children to look after. This isn’t a day for talking about us.
Understood.
The school confirms our places that afternoon. Summer finds her hat in the laundry basket and puts it on upside down. I straighten it without telling her about the matching volunteer vests we’ll have to wear.
The next morning, I arrive at the school to find chaos already in progress.
Twenty four-year-olds are vibrating with excitement near the bus, their voices reaching frequencies that should probably require permits.
Miss Patricia is distributing bright orange safety vests to the parent volunteers, checking names off a clipboard with the efficiency of someone who has done this many times before.
“Mrs. Caruso.” She hands me a vest. “You’re in Group Three with Mr. Caruso and Mrs. Henderson. Penguins, big cats, and the Africa exhibit.”
I pull on the vest, which is approximately the color of a traffic cone and about as flattering. Across the crowd of parents and children, I spot Valentin doing the same thing. He catches my eye and holds up his vest with an expression of mild horror.
“Very stylish,” I say when I reach him.
“I feel like I should be directing traffic.”
“That’s probably the point. Hard to lose a parent in this.”
Summer appears between us, her backpack bouncing on her shoulders, her face split into an enormous grin.
“You’re both here! You’re both wearing the same vest!”
“We are,” Valentin confirms. “We match.”
“Like a team!”
“Exactly like a team.”
She grabs both our hands and starts pulling us toward the bus. “Come on, come on, we have to get good seats!”
The bus is the standard yellow school model, with seats designed for people significantly shorter than either of us. Valentin folds himself into a row across the aisle from Summer and me, his knees practically touching his chin.
“Comfortable?” I ask.
“I’ve been in worse positions.”
“Have you?”
“Summer made me sit in her classroom chair at orientation.” He shifts, trying to find a position where his legs fit. “At least I don’t have to get up from floor level.”
Summer is already pulling things out of her backpack. Bunny, who apparently needed to come despite my suggestion that she might be safer in the cubby. A small notebook with a pencil attached by a string. A granola bar wrapper, left over from yesterday’s snack.
“What’s the notebook for?” Valentin asks.
“Zoo journal. Miss Patricia said we have to draw the animals we see and write about them.”
“Write?”
“Well.” Summer considers this. “Draw letters. Some letters. The important ones.”
The bus lurches into motion, and we’re on our way.
***
The zoo is crowded with school groups, ours just one of many streams of brightly vested children flowing through the gates.
Miss Patricia gathers us near the entrance for final instructions, assigns each group their route and meeting times, and sends us off with cheerful warnings about staying together and not climbing into any enclosures.
Group Three consists of me, Valentin, Marissa Henderson, and five children including Summer and Marissa’s daughter. A serious boy with glasses named Oliver immediately attaches himself to Valentin’s side.
“Are you Summer’s dad?” Oliver asks.
“I am.”
“My dad couldn’t come. He had a meeting.”
“That’s too bad. Meetings are boring.”
“That’s what he said.” Oliver adjusts his glasses. “Do you know a lot about animals?”
“Some. My wife knows more.”
The word wife lands strangely. I glance at Valentin, but he’s focused on Oliver, not looking at me to gauge my reaction.
“Let’s start with the penguins,” Marissa suggests, consulting the map. “They’re supposed to be feeding them at ten.”
We make our way through the zoo in a loose cluster, the children darting ahead and then being called back, a constant negotiation between exploration and safety.
Summer stays close to me at first, but gradually drifts toward her father, pulling him by the hand to show him things she finds interesting.
“Look, Daddy, that one has a baby!”
“I see it. The baby is staying very close to its mother.”
“Because it’s scared?”
“Maybe. Or maybe because that’s the safest place to be.”
At the penguin exhibit, we watch the feeding with the other school groups, children pressed against the glass, competing for the best view.
Oliver has questions. Many questions. About what penguins eat and where they live and why they waddle instead of walk and whether they get cold even though they live in cold places.
Valentin attempts to answer the last one.
“Their feathers keep them warm,” Valentin says. “Like built-in winter jackets.”
Oliver accepts this, but at the giraffes he has a new question. “Where do they come from?”
“Africa. Though where they can live depends on land use, and the economic pressures on…”
I touch his arm. “Oliver is four.”
He stops. Looks at the expectant face in front of him. Recalibrates.
“Parts of Africa,” he says. “I don’t know where these particular giraffes were born. We can ask.”
“Oh.” Oliver considers this. “That’s cool.”
“It is cool.”
Summer tugs at my sleeve. “Mama, I need to draw them for my journal.”
I help her find a spot where she can see the giraffes and still have room to draw. She hunches over her notebook with intense concentration, her tongue sticking out slightly the way it does when she’s focused.
Valentin comes to stand beside me, watching our daughter work.
“I almost explained land prices to him,” he says quietly.
“I noticed.”
“Do I always do that?”
“Sometimes. Not always.” I watch Summer add another patch to the giraffe’s improbably long neck. “You get earnest. He wanted a place he could point to on a map.”
“Noted.” He’s quiet for a moment. “You’re good with them. The kids. You always have been.”
“It’s not that hard. You just have to remember they’re people, not small adults.”
“I forget that sometimes.”
“I know.”
We move on to the big cats, where Summer declares that lions are “okay but not as good as bunnies” and Oliver asks whether tigers could beat lions in a fight. Valentin studies the sleeping lion. “This one looks as if he’d rather have a nap.” Oliver presses closer to the railing to check.
Oliver stops at the meerkats while the others are still debating the lion. Valentin waits beside him and calls me over when the boy points excitedly through the glass.
“They’re standing up,” he reports when we collect him. “Like people.”
“They’re watching for predators,” Valentin says, then catches himself. “They’re being lookouts. Like guards.”
“Cool.”
Summer has been quiet for the last few exhibits, focused on her journal. When I peek over her shoulder, I see she’s drawn a giraffe with a neck that extends off the page entirely, a lion that looks more like a yellow cloud with legs, and what might be a zebra or might be a very confused horse.
“Those are wonderful,” I tell her.
“The zebra’s stripes are hard.”
“Stripes are always hard.”
She nods solemnly and returns to her work.
Lunch is at the picnic area near the center of the zoo, all the volunteer groups converging on the tables with their charges. The noise level is extraordinary. Miss Patricia moves through the chaos distributing juice boxes and making sure everyone has their lunch from the cooler.
Valentin and I end up on the same bench, four of our children spread across the table in front of us. Marissa has taken Oliver to the bathroom. Miss Patricia stands at the next table, helping another child open a lunchbox.
Summer hands Valentin her juice box and takes a sheet of stickers from her backpack. While he works the straw through the foil, she presses a gold star to his forehead.
“For helping,” she tells him.
“Thank you.” He hands back the juice without removing the sticker. A minute later he seems to have forgotten it. I decide not to remind him.
“This is nice,” he says, watching Summer inspect the rest of her stickers.
“The zoo?”
“Being here. With her. With you.” He pauses. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”