Free Antonia's Choice by Nancy Rue Page B

that’s the way you’d be. Me, I’d be like to fall apart about now.”
    â€œI have to keep it together. I don’t have any choice.”
    â€œThere’s a lot of that goin on, isn’t there?”
    Ben took an early nap, and I was soon up to my armpits in the files Jeffrey sent over. A courier brought them, which made me smirk to myself. However, it was obvious the minute I dove into them that Jeffrey’s choice of how many to send was part of a test to see if I really could handle the load.
    I was well into handling it when Mama called to tell me that because of spring break traffic she couldn’t get Wyndham a flight until Wednesday, almost a week away.
    â€œTry not to torture her too much between now and then,” I said.
    â€œWe’re just walking around each other in silence right now,” she said.
    Which you do so very well, Mama,
I thought. But I kept it to myself.

    The next day, Ben was fine to go back to school. Not surprisingly, he was grumpy about that, and I tried to pump him up on the drive over with promises of things to come.
    â€œWe have our first soccer meeting this afternoon,” I said. “You’ll get to meet all the other kids that are going to be on your team.”
    He indicated that he wasn’t sure he wanted to play soccer. That was at least an improvement on “I hate soccer!” so I ventured on.
    â€œAnd your cousin is coming next week to stay with us for a while.”
    â€œWhat’s a cousin?”
    â€œYou know, like Emil.”
    â€œIs Emil coming?”
    I caught his face in the rearview mirror. It was lit up in a way I hadn’t seen it in months. He actually looked like a five-year-old instead of an agitated little old man, and my heart sank.
    â€œNo, Pal, Emil’s not coming. His sisters coming, though. You’ve played with her—”
    I was sure he didn’t hear the rest. He sent up a howl that lasted until I got him inside his classroom, where he immediately shut his mouth tight and ran to his cubbyhole to put away his backpack. Mrs. Robinette, his teacher, who looked to be about twelve, patted my arm.
    â€œWe all have our bad days, don’t we?” she said.
    I wasn’t sure she was talking about me or Ben, but I nodded, and then I booked out of there. Maybe it would be good to get back to Faustman, where at least I knew what I was doing.
    Over the next two days, I discovered that it was the
only
place. The soccer world was so foreign to me, I was surprised the other mothers spoke English. I was the only one not driving a mini-van or an SUV, and I was the last one to sign up for a day to bring snacks for practice. I wanted to wait and see what everybody else wrote downbefore I jotted in “a package of Oreos and a case of soda.” I was glad I did, since everything on there sounded healthy and homemade and creative. Until then, I didn’t know people actually made their own granóla bars. One mother, a seamless woman with a large collection of diamonds on her left ring finger, seemed to sense my confusion and whispered that you could never lose with juice boxes and animal crackers. I wrote it in my Day-Timer.
    Ben was shy with the other kids, but at least he didn’t yell that he hated me while the coach was talking. The poor man was already at the beck and call of thirty women who seemed to have nothing else to do but guide their children on to stellar careers as the next Pelé.
    The T-ball meeting the following day was merely for sign-ups, since teams wouldn’t be formed until the end of May. There were more fathers there, and no talk of granola bars or juice in any kind of container. But I felt even more like a misfit than I had at soccer when they started talking about playing catch with our kids to develop their coordination and where to buy our own T-ball setup.
    â€œWhat
is
T-ball anyway?” I whispered to the only other mother-alone that I saw there.
    She