Free Finding Sky (A Nicki Valentine Mystery Book 1) by Susan O'Brien Page A

know what I’m doing.”

      
    After leaving the pool, I made another call to order a large pizza, half plain (for Jack), half veggie (for Sophie and me). The kids narrated the walk home past friends’ and strangers’ houses.
    “Hi Jeremy!” Sophie called to a preschool buddy chasing a basketball down his driveway. She blocked it with her foot and kicked it back. “Ouch!” she said with a giggle. “I need sneakers on.”
    “Stop hitting me with the noodle, please,” Jack told her a few feet ahead when she started bopping his head. She ignored him. “Stop!” he demanded.
    “Eww. Is that a dead worm?” She was distracted by a curl of flat, dried gunk on the sidewalk, a new target for her noodle. At this rate, we’d miss the pizza guy.
    “Come on guys. Let’s hustle. Pizza’s coming.”
    I surveyed the street, considering who else might be available to babysit. All the parents would be home putting their kids to bed—surely desperate to hit the sack themselves. Birch Lane looked like a too-good-to-be-true movie scene: late model cars, fresh paint, landscaped lawns, smooth, dark asphalt, sprinklers spritzing. I was about to envy it all when I realized maybe everyone was struggling to survive just like me, putting on a good face.
    The long, looping road met on each end with a major artery, Berkley Ave. There were several cul-de-sacs off Birch, safe havens for street play, unlike our lot on the main stretch.
    As we approached our house a brainstorm hit me. Irene. It would be another breach of playgroup etiquette, since parent socializing was usually confined to playtime. You didn’t ring up other moms to discuss current events. You gabbed for an hour or two at playgroup, and then you waited until the next one for an update. And you never asked for babysitting. Everyone knew how worn out the others were.
    But calling Irene felt right. She’d been there when Kenna called, and she knew I had some kind of emergency going on. Also, her husband worked from home, so he might be around to fill in for her, and she’d already seen my house a mess. I’d be embarrassed, not mortified, for her to see its natural state.
    In case she was available, I took more care than usual in instructing the kids as we walked inside. “Put your bathing suits in the hamper. And put your toys in the basement instead of the front hall. Oh, and don’t leave your flip flops in the middle of the floor please.”
    “Why are we being so clean? Is someone coming over?” Jack asked with the uncensored curiosity of a child.
    “Well, being neat is always a good idea,” I said. “But yes , someone might be coming over. I have an errand to do.” Errand covered almost anything I ever had to do, and the kids equated it with “boredom,” so they rarely asked to come along.
    “Who? Grandma? Auntie Kenna?” Sophie asked.
    “Nope. Grandma’s visiting Aunt Liz. And Kenna’s probably too tired today.”
    “Then who?” she pressed.
    “I don’t know. I’m figuring it out.” I didn’t think she’d like that answer, so I changed the subject. “But guess what, the pizza’s going to be here any minute. So you better get dressed!” I chased them up the steps to their rooms, all of us laughing the whole way. Moments like these were treasures to savor without reservation, reasons to hope.

      
    Irene arrived half an hour after the pizza. There was one slice left, and I offered it to her.
    “No thanks,” she said. “I just had mac ‘n’ cheese and tater tots.”
    I laughed. “I heard mothers’ health gets worse when the kids are little. It’s got to be the diet,” I said.
    “Or the lack of sleep,” she countered.
    “Or the intense stress.” We could have gone on forever, but I had to get going.
    It was eight o’clock, and I’d spent every spare minute reading teen profiles online while the kids watched TV. I was beyond thrilled that many of Beth’s friends had mentioned a field party that night as the place to be, but