She’d had to stop and remember that, after so much time inhabiting the body of a widow who worked out of her own home. She was going to miss some of that. Having the kids so close, day and night, weekdays and weekends. Not having to commute.
She hugged Kimberley yet again, and Justin for good measure. Kimberley grinned at her, with Justin half a beat behind, as he always was. “Monday we go to Woodcrest,” Kimberley said. “I can’t wait. It’s
“Tomorrow!” Justin said emphatically.
Kimberley rolled her eyes and put on an elaborate give-me-strength expression. “No, Justin. Not tomorrow. Monday.”
She knew the days of the week; Justin didn’t. Anything that was going to happen in the future would happen tomorrow, as far as he was concerned.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the world really worked that way?
But then, from the perspective of eighteen centuries ago, everything in this century really
But first, there was a thing she had to do. She looked toward the night-stand. Yes, there it was: the plaque dedicated to Liber and Libera. It
That same wearing and staining made her shiver a bit. So much time had passed. Every human being she’d known in that other world was centuries dead. Their city was a ruin or an archeological dig, their lives the concern of scholars. Regular people, people like Nicole herself, never gave them a moment’s thought.
She brushed a finger across the carven faces. She was almost afraid to feel the brush of tiny lips, the shock of electricity as they woke, but they remained cool, stony, still. She’d get a bottle of wine later, so she could properly thank them for sending her home again.
Frank and Dawn had put fresh sheets on the bed, for which Nicole was duly grateful. They were the beige ones that had been a wedding present — from one of Frank’s cousins, who was a beige-sheet person if Nicole had ever seen one. She stripped them off and dumped them over Kimberley and Justin. The kids giggled madly. “I’m a ghost!” Kimberley declared.
While they ran around flapping and booing at one another, Nicole remade the bed with a vivid ocean print. The kids liked it. They abandoned their game to help put on the new bedclothes. Between the two of them, they were about as much help as a cat.
While the sheets Frank and Dawn had used were in the dryer, and while the kids were occupied with a stack of coloring books, Nicole put in a call to the office. Cyndi was almost as glad to hear from her as she’d been the day before. “I’ve got your check here, Ms. Gunther-Perrin,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do with it while you were, uh, out. “
“ ‘Out’ is right,” Nicole said. “Save it for me, why don’t you? I’m calling from home; I expect to be back Monday, to start getting out from under whatever’s waiting for me. Doctor wants to see me next week, but nobody’s going to keep me from doing what needs doing.”
“That’s all good news,” Cyndi said, and she sounded as if she meant it. “I’ll be glad to see you then, Ms. Gunther-Perrin.” She hadn’t had to say that. It made Nicole feel good that she had. It was nice, no, more than nice, to be appreciated.
The day went smoothly, no fights, no annoying phone calls, just the quiet pleasure of a day at home with her own — her very own — two kids. They didn’t mind being grabbed and hugged at random intervals, and they certainly didn’t mind that she had the time or the stamina to sit and play with them by the hour.
In the late afternoon, after Justin’s nap, Kimberley cracked. She’d been too good for too long. She started teasing him, teasing and teasing, determined to keep at it till she had him in a screaming tantrum.
“Knock it off,” Nicole said sharply. Kimberley obeyed for a minute, but most of the way through the second minute, she was at it again.
“I said,” Nicole said more pointedly, “knock. It. Off.”
Kimberley kept right on going — with a glance at Nicole that invited Nicole to do something about it. Nicole was delighted to oblige. She was beside her in two long strides. Before Kimberley knew what was happening, Nicole had swatted her on the fanny.
It wasn’t anywhere near as hard a whack as she’d often had to administer to Lucius — he’d required a wallop just to get his attention. It wasn’t even hard enough to make Kimberley cry. She stared, open-mouthed, too astonished to say a word.
“When I tell you to stop something,” Nicole said evenly, “I expect you to stop it. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mommy,” Kimberley said in a subdued voice. Nicole knew an instant’s guilt, but she hardened herself against it. If there was one thing she’d learned in Carnuntum, it was that kids needed understanding — but they also, occasionally, needed the application of palm of hand to seat of pants.
Kimberley wasn’t cured of het habit of teasing Justin. That would take a miracle. Fifteen minutes, an hour at most, and she’d be back at it. Still, she was a good kid. She wouldn’t need too many lessons. Justin, now — Well, Justin was only two. Maybe, when he got to Lucius’ age, she wouldn’t have to correct him with a two-by-four. Maybe.
Life settled to a routine that was wonderful in its very dullness. Get up, shower (oh, that delicious hot water!), get kids up, get kids dressed, feed breakfast, and so on through the day. Sometimes she went to the supermarket — which was an experience in itself. So many things to buy. So much to take home in her car, as much as she could use. And no haggling over prices; though the price of lettuce was downright near gouging, and chicken had gone through the roof. She’d have haggled over that if she could.
Frank called every day to ask if she was all right. He had little to say when he did call, but that didn’t matter. She had little to say to him, either. If they’d had more to say to each other, they might have stayed married.
She wondered what he talked about with Dawn. Then, even more to the point, she wondered how long they would go on talking about it.
It was not, thank God, her problem. She didn’t waste much time feeling sorry for Dawn. Dawn was likable, after all, but she was one of those women who always landed on their feet, and always with a man in the bag.
The strangest thing of all, stranger than being as clean as she wanted to be, and even stranger than driving to the supermarket and buying as much as she needed and being able to pack it all home, was sleeping in her own bed at night. Not that it wasn’t comfortable — after the tavern and the hospital, it was wonderful — but because whenever she lay there in the dark, listening to the hum of the air conditioning and the whoosh of cars on the street outside, she kept feeling that Liber and Libera were watching her. She’d turn on the lamp — marveling as she did it that she could produce light, and such light, clear and bright as day, with the simple flick of a switch — and state at the god and goddess on the plaque.
They’d stare straight ahead with empty limestone eyes.
Sometimes she turned off the lamp, then turned it on again very quickly, hoping to catch Liber and Libera at whatever they were up to. But they hadn’t moved. They weren’t up to anything — or, if they were, they weren’t about to let her catch them at it.
She kept the kids through the weekend this time, by agreement with Frank. He’d had enough of them while she was in Carnuntum, and she couldn’t get het fill of them. It was a nicely mutual arrangement.
On Monday morning, the alarm blasted her awake. She woke as she had so many times before, face to face with the god and goddess. She got up, she got moving, she got the kids up. That, for once, wasn’t even hard. She had the magic words: “Today’s the day you go to your new preschool.”
Woodcrest was on Tampa, a few blocks south of Victory — east of her office, yes, but not even half as far as Josefina’s house. The parking lot the preschool shared with several small businesses and, she was most interested to note, an attached elementary school, was cramped and awkward, but for once she had good parking karma:
