Free Time of Death by Shirley Kennett Page B

of light underneath the door. She knocked and opened it, to find Thomas bent over the desk, working on the homework that was due the next day. Obviously he’d played around all day and left his schoolwork for the last minute. Typical, but she wished he’d get the important things done first.
    Not that I did any better at his age. Then along came the to-do lists that run my life.
    Feeling old and stodgy, she went over to him and tousled his straight black hair.
    “Hey, you’re messing up my look,” he said.
    “No, I’m creating a new look. You can be the first one in school to have it.”
    “Yeah, right. We’re out of soda and frozen pizzas, and there’s only one bag of microwave popcorn left.”
    PJ sighed. Sometimes her relationship with her son boiled down to a grocery list.
    “I’ll be back when I smell better,” PJ said. “We can talk about the school week coming up.”
    Thomas grunted, but at least it was a social grunt.
    The hot bath was wonderful, but PJ didn’t linger. She tossed on a clean sweater and jeans over fresh underwear. She made a phone call and then went back downstairs with her hair dripping from a thorough scrubbing. Thomas joined her at the kitchen table. He was eating a granola bar.
    “I’m going to be really busy the next couple of days. I just called Mick’s mom,” PJ said. “She said you could spend tonight and Monday night at her house and she’d take you to school with Mick. Megabite’s going, too.”
    PJ found that having Thomas attend Jamison Academy had a side benefit. There was an active and supportive group of parents who looked out for each other’s kids, called simply Parents Care. She’d thrown herself into it, because she liked the way others were concerned not only about academic success but the whole well-being of their kids. Mick was in some of Thomas’s classes, and his mother Lilly Kane was a divorcée like PJ. The two women had gravitated together. The boys often spent the night at each other’s houses, and usually Winston made it a trio. It was like having a co-mom, a tremendous relief for PJ, who had once had to ask her boss to recommend a babysitter.
    “Okay by me,” Thomas said, around bites of granola bar. “She makes eggs and bacon for breakfast.”
    “Do you make all of your decisions based in what kind of food is available?”
    “Pretty much, yeah, unless there’s girls involved. Mom, when are you and Schultz going to get married?”
    So much for discussing the school week.
    Schultz wanted to get married, and she wasn’t ready for it. He’d surprised her with a ring, and when she didn’t immediately say yes, Schultz assumed that she thought he wasn’t good enough for her. As he put it, “Good enough to fuck, but not good enough to commit to.” They’d talked it over, but she couldn’t get him to see her reasoning.
    She still hadn’t left behind the pain of her divorce. It didn’t help that her ex-husband Steven married a woman two decades younger than PJ before the ink was dry on the divorce decree. A few months later, Steven and Carla had a baby. PJ had wanted another baby, but Steven kept putting her off. Apparently, Carla was more suitable to carry the offspring of his loins.
    That hurt.
    Schultz had gone through major changes, too. His separation after thirty years of marriage had come as a shock to him, and was followed by divorce and his wife’s remarriage within a couple of months—nowhere near Steven’s record, but still a blow. And then the biggest blow of all, the murder of his only son.
    PJ felt they needed time to work through those life-altering things on their own. From years of experience as a psychologist, she knew that decisions made right now might be rebound ones, to be regretted later. Schultz didn’t worry about that. He just wanted to move on to happier times together.
    She loved him. She loved his dedication, his caring for the victims and their families, his search for justice, his desire for her. Schultz